Snowblind(34)

"The higher-ups want us to move on already, but I intend to find that kid," Keenan said. "Alive."

Torres slammed the door to Keenan's car, then leaned on the roof. For all his deference before, his expression had turned defiant.

"I only ask because of the bang-up job you're doing so far," Torres said, biting off the words. "Your track record of bringing missing kids home alive kind of sucks."

Keenan snapped, all rational thought driven out of him. He circled around the front of the car, keys gripped in his right fist, anger boiling in his head and heart.

"You son of a bitch," he sneered. "How fucking dare you?"

He issued no threats. Threats were for people who still saw a path other than violence. In his mind's eye he could see Torres's nose broken and bleeding, jaw swollen and teeth missing.

Torres made no apology. Instead, he scowled and stood there waiting, his own hands curled into fists. Younger and probably faster, the rookie looked formidable. Keenan faked a punch, grabbed his wrist when he tried to block, then head-butted the prick with enough force to make his head ring.

The rookie reeled away from him, staggered, and went down on one knee. Keenan watched Torres's gun. He didn't know the guy, had no idea how far he'd go. Keenan leaned in toward him, still flexing his hands, wanting to do more damage.

"You don't know a damn thing about that night."

Ready for a fight, knowing the disciplinary action he would face and not caring, Keenan braced himself. But when Torres looked up at him, Keenan saw the one thing for which he wasn't prepared. The last thing he would have expected.

Tears.

"You might be surprised," Torres said through gritted teeth.

Keenan took a step back. Before he could figure out how to react, he heard a vehicle approaching and looked up to see a patrol car rolling down the street toward them.

Torres stood, quickly wiping at his eyes, and it was as if the tears had never been there at all.

"What do you mean by that?" Keenan asked, as the cruiser pulled to a stop.

Torres opened the passenger door, turning back to face Keenan.

"Sorry, Detective," the rookie said. "My ride's here."

He slumped into the seat and slammed the door. Keenan stood and watched the car pull away, his skull still ringing, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Everyone in Coventry started acting hinky when a big storm was on the way and the one due Wednesday was a monster. How else could he explain the way Torres had talked to him and the violence of his own reprisal? He'd never been a brawler, even when somebody pushed his buttons the way Torres had.

Maybe Torres had lost someone he loved in what they called the Big One. The killer storm, he thought. The upside was that now he knew there was at least one person as convinced as he was that Zachary Stroud could be found.

If the kid was out there, even if someone had snatched him up, Detective Keenan would find him.

Before the next storm rolled in.





Ella pulled into the driveway and killed the engine quickly, dousing the headlights, surprised to find her heart racing. She smiled to herself in the darkness inside her car, a strange excitement building. It seemed a pitiful thing that this many years into her marriage she ought to feel the sort of uncertainty that gripped her, the exhilaration that came with a moment of daring, a breathtaking venture out on a narrow limb.

Maybe that's what's wrong with us, she thought. Not enough time spent out on a limb. She and TJ had become expert at hiding their emotions instead of laying them bare, and Ella knew that was wrong. Love meant risking your heart, and she had spent too much time over the past few years swathing hers in layers of dissatisfaction and indifference that had more to do with herself than with her husband.

Ella stepped out of the car and closed the door softly, pressing the button on her key fob to lock it. A wave of reluctance swept over her-what if she made a fool of herself? Her face burned at the mere thought of it. After all the arguments and the nights they'd spent with their backs to each other in their marriage bed-the space between them taking on a weight of its own and growing heavier by the week-the wrong word or the wrong glance could end it. The past day or so, she had felt the ice beginning to thaw between them, but she knew it was a tenuous thing. One more ugly moment might kill the life they'd made together.

She took a deep breath, then went and unlocked the door. Slipping quietly inside, she paused in the foyer and breathed in the scent of something delicious in the oven. With a curious frown she went through the sitting room and stood in the open kitchen doorway, watching her husband stirring something in a small pot on the stove. Scruffy as ever, he wore a thick green cotton sweater, threadbare blue jeans, and socks with no shoes. In that moment it felt as if ten years had been erased from the calendar and they existed in a simpler time. Nostalgia stabbed her in the heart.

"Hey," she said, her voice cracking.

TJ spun around, startled, and put a hand to his chest. "Jeez!" he said. "What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"

She smiled. "What are you cooking?"

"That phyllo-wrapped chicken thing with the scallions and the red-pepper sauce. It won't be ready for a while, though. I didn't … "

"Didn't expect me for at least a couple of hours," she said. "Were you making this just for yourself?"

His brow knitted. "Of course not. You haven't been eating at the restaurant lately and I figured when you came home, you might … " He shook his head. "You know what? Never mind."

Ella sighed. "I didn't mean it like that, sweetie. I swear to God. I just thought maybe somebody had called and tipped you off that I was coming home early."

He looked like he might want to continue being angry, to fuel the argument, but instead he turned his back to her and stirred his sauce.

"What brings you home so early anyway?"

Heart pounding, she realized her palms were a little damp and chuckled softly at herself. Fortunately, TJ didn't hear-the last thing they needed was for him to think she'd been laughing at him.

She crossed the kitchen and stepped up behind him, hands resting tentatively on his hips before she slid them around to his belly, embracing him and laying her cheek against his back.

"Us," she said.

TJ stiffened but she did not back away, just held on to him and held her breath. After a moment he began to turn and she had to release him so that he could face her.

"What's going on, Ella?" he asked, studying her carefully.

"I left early. Gary's closing for me. I just … " She dropped her gaze. "I wanted to come home."

She hated how fragile she sounded, hated the way she had just exposed herself to him. She knew how easy it was to be injured in a vulnerable moment; she had done it to him often enough.

TJ said nothing. Long seconds passed until at last she lifted her eyes and found him staring at her with a sadness so profound that it seemed to open a chasm in the floor beneath her.
     
 

     

"Should I not have come?" she asked, thinking about love and risk again, but not favorably this time. She spun away. "Jesus, should I go back?"

Tears came to her eyes and she angrily swiped at them. They weren't born of sadness or even embarrassment, but surrender.

TJ touched her on the arm. "Honey, listen-"

She pulled away. "No, it's okay. I know problems don't vanish just because we pretend they're gone. I just thought-"

"Ella."

He spoke her name with a quiet fragility of his own that froze her in place and made her forget whatever words she had intended to speak next.

"I'm glad you're home," he said in that same voice. She did not turn to face him, afraid that the walls between them that had somehow fallen might reappear. "I'm always happy to see you, but I'm much happier when you want to see me. I want to have dinner together, have a glass of wine, talk about how bad business was today. I want desperately to pretend our problems are gone and hope they'll vanish if we wish hard enough."

Ella felt so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of things not going their way. She slumped back against him, letting him take the weight of her bones and her worries. His arms encircled her and he kissed her head and then her temple and then she slid around to face him and TJ kissed her mouth with what felt like a kind of surrender all its own.

"Is it so impossible?" she whispered into the space between them. "I mean, if we try to stop thinking of them as problems, can't they go away?"

TJ exhaled, holding her hands tightly, and she felt one of the walls going back up between them.

"It's not that simple," he said.

"I know I can be a bitch. I know it's unfair."

TJ frowned. "It's not that. We're both at fault. But no matter how happy I am that you came home and how much I've wished we could talk to each other without all the tension and bullshit … "

He glanced past her at the open kitchen doorway, looking wary and troubled. Ella turned to see if they were being watched, if Grace had come in, but they were still alone.

"But?" she asked.

"I think there's a problem we can't wish away."

TJ looked over at the doorway again and suddenly she understood.

"Grace?" she said quietly. "What are you talking about?"

He stepped away from her, ran a hand over his face, glancing around as if the words he sought might appear in the air. Whatever they were, he seemed to find them.