I realized belatedly that I was wearing a rather smug grin. “Had to be done,” I told him. “I mean, I’m so sick of hearing all their excuses for not talking to each other. They’re worse than a soap opera.”
“They’ll figure it out.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Dutch tossed the kitchen towel he was using to dry the dishes over his shoulder and lifted my chin with two fingers. “Because we did,” he said, and kissed me gently on the lips.
“I’m thinking we shouldn’t wait up for them,” I said, turning off the water and snuggling into his arms.
“I’m thinking you’re right,” he agreed.
The next day was fairly routine; Candice had left a copy of the church list on the dining room table along with a note thanking us for dinner and asking me to take a look at the names over the weekend to see if anyone jumped out at me. Skimming through the pages, I guessed there were close to fifty names on the list. “Yikes,” I muttered. The church obviously catered to a large blue-collar base, but fifty names were a lot for my radar to deal with, and I mentally made a note to ask her to narrow it for me if she could.
Brice was still with us that morning, but he assured us over coffee that he would be out of our hair by Saturday. “I’m thinking of checking into a hotel,” he said.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Dutch subtly squeezed my arm and said, “Whatever is most comfortable for you, sir.”
Brice nodded. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he added. “But I really think it’s time for me to find my own accommodations and let you two have your house back.”
On the way to work, I got a call from the doctor’s office to confirm my appointment for the staple removal. I’d scheduled it over lunch, and it was close enough to Candice’s that I could pop over there and take a quick shower.
When we got to the office, we checked in with Todd, Cox and Rueben about the murdered young men, and I was surprised when Cox said he thought he might have something. “I found a connection,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Facebook.”
I blinked. That was so
not
what I thought he was going to say. “Say what, now?”
“All three guys had accounts on Facebook,” he said.
“Uh,” I said, wondering how he could possibly think that was a lead. “Isn’t the whole world on Facebook?”
“I’m not,” Cox said stubbornly.
I bit my tongue and asked, “Did they friend each other, then, or something?”
“No, but Avril and Felix were both fans of Jay-Z.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s on their profile page,” Cox told me, pointing to his computer screen like he’d just cracked the case wide open.
“Ah,” I said, and eyed Dutch skeptically. “Keep digging,” he told the agents before motioning me to follow him to his office.
“What’s up?” I asked when he pointed me to a chair.
“You’re squinting again.”
I took a seat and rubbed my temples. “I can’t seem to get rid of this headache,” I confessed.
“Are you coming down with something?”
I shook my head. “No, this usually happens when I overwork the radar.”
“Can I get you some Tylenol or something?”
“I’ve been popping Excedrin since yesterday and it hasn’t even made a dent.”
“Did you want to go back home?”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. “I’ll be fine. Really. I just need to push through it.”
Dutch looked unsure, so I got up and forced an even bigger smile. “Work on Agent Cox, would you? That Facebook thing isn’t even close to a lead.”
“Is there anything else you can suggest that might help us narrow where to look for this list that these guys are on?”
I rubbed my temples again but stopped the moment I saw Dutch’s face. “All I can tell you is what I saw in my mind’s eye, Dutch.”
“What was that exactly?” he asked.
“It may sound weird, but the image I had was Santa reviewing his naughty list, and Felix, Jason, and Avril were on it.”
Dutch considered me for a long moment. “You’re right. That does sound weird.”
I threw my hands up. “It’s all I’ve got.”
“Okay, Abs. I’ll keep working it with Cox, Rueben, and Todd. Now go get some coffee and take it a little easy today, will you?”
He didn’t have to tell me twice, especially since the moment I began auditing files, my head was throbbing like a souped-up bass.
At eleven thirty I reminded Katie that I was taking a long lunch and hurried to my doctor’s appointment. The process to remove the ten staples in my scalp was remarkably quick, and I could barely contain my excitement afterward when I showed up at Candice’s door with shower supplies in hand. I rapped loudly on her door, but no one came to answer it. “Crap,” I said, and knocked again. “Come on, Cassidy! Sundance needs a shower.”
A few more seconds passed and the door was opened abruptly. I took a huge step back when I came face-to-face with a rumpled-looking Brice Harrison wearing Candice’s silk robe and several smeared lipstick stains on his face. “Abby!” he said, clearly flustered when he saw me standing there all slack-jawed.
“Uh . . . ,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat.
“Errr . . . ,” he said, his own face turning red.
And then no one said anything more. I simply turned on my heel and hurried away, wishing that once I got outside, a freak solar flare would burn away my retinas and I’d never have to see
anything
like that again.
I dashed back to the office, stopping to pick up a sub on the way, and when I got there, I grabbed several Bankers Boxes and told Katie I’d be working on them in the conference room. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to avoid seeing Brice after that encounter, but I was hoping it would be at least for the rest of the day.
I got my wish, as I was left to work undisturbed for the afternoon, and it wasn’t until four thirty that the door opened and Dutch poked his head in. “Hey,” he said when he saw me.
I sat back in the chair and squinted at him. “Hey, yourself.”
“How’d it go at the doctor?”
“I’m no longer the bride of Frankenstein,” I said, dipping my head so he could see my scalp.
“Didn’t have time for that shower at Candice’s after all, huh?” he said, coming into the room.
I felt my cheeks heat again. “Nope.” And I left it at that.
“You look beat.”
“I am beat. And this headache is now like a raging bull.”
“Too much intuiting?”
“Definitely.”
“Harrison said we could knock off early.”
“He won’t get any argument from me,” I said, shoving the folders back into their boxes.
As we walked out, I asked, “Any luck tracking that connection to Avril, Felix, and Jason?”
“Not yet. But I keep thinking back to your vision. There’s something obvious that we’re missing.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed.
We arrived at Dutch’s car then and I handed him his keys. “Mind driving?”
Dutch unlocked the doors, and while I was getting in, my phone beeped. After digging it out of my purse, I noticed that there were three missed calls and three voice mails, all from Candice. “Uh-oh,” I said.
“What?”
“Candice called.”
“Why is that an uh-oh?”
I tore my eyes away from the phone display and quickly decided against telling Dutch about the encounter with Brice earlier that afternoon. “I didn’t have a chance to look at the list of contractors and handymen from the church,” I said quickly.
“She’ll understand. Call her up and tell her you’ll get to it later this weekend.” I didn’t say anything and Dutch must have interpreted that to mean I was still feeling guilty over it. “Really, dollface, you should think about taking it easy for a day or two. You look a little pale.”
“I think I’m getting a migraine,” I admitted, realizing the constant throbbing headache I’d had all day was starting to intensify.
“Now, that’s an uh-oh,” Dutch said.
And he wasn’t kidding. Over the course of the next day and a half, all I did was lie in bed with a cold compress on my forehead as the most god-awful headache took hold and refused to abate.
It was so bad I had to lie in bed with all the blinds closed and the lights off. I couldn’t even tolerate the light from the television.
Dutch came in to check on me about every hour. He tried to get me to eat something too, but I was just too miserable.
Finally, by Sunday morning I began to feel better and eventually made it out of bed long enough to tolerate a nice long shower.
When I headed downstairs, I found Candice in my living room holding her car keys and looking terribly worried. She and Dutch were whispering and they stopped abruptly when I appeared. “Abs!” Dutch said, getting to his feet to come over to me as I moved slowly down the stairs. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I’m a little better,” I said. “And I think I’m hungry.”
Dutch grinned. “Well, then, I know you’re better. The time I worry is when you’re not eating.”
He then went off to make me a sandwich and I sat down with Candice on the couch. “I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well,” she said to me.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “This happens when I overdo it with the radar.”
“How many cases are you focusing on at the bureau?”
I sighed tiredly. “Not sure. Maybe . . . fifty a day.”
Candice looked at me like I’d just said something crazy. “
Why
would you think you could handle that kind of volume?”
I attempted a smile. “That’s part of the job description.” And even as I heard the words come out of my mouth, I knew that pace would be the death of me.
Candice was shaking her head back and forth. “Abby,” she said gently. “You’re not built to do that. You can’t even read more than six clients a day!”
My eyes welled with tears. I knew she was right, but to admit it meant admitting I’d failed. “What can I do?” I asked.
“You can quit,” came a deep baritone voice behind me.
I jumped a little. I hadn’t realized Dutch had come back into the room. He set my sandwich on the coffee table and sat down on the couch next to me. “I can’t quit,” I told him, and more tears leaked out of my eyes.
Dutch and Candice exchanged a knowing look, and my sweetheart tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Of course you can,” he said. “And we can rehire you as a consultant. You could work for us part-time. Just a few hours a week, whatever you think you can handle.”
“I’ve already talked to Brice,” Candice said. “He’s good with it if you are, although he really wants you to continue teaching the classes for the agents. He says that’s the most important element you bring to the table.”
“Even more than the audits?” I asked.
Dutch snaked an arm over my shoulder and pulled me backward into him. Kissing the top of my now squeaky clean hair, he said, “We can do our own audits. Once you teach us how to differentiate the viable files from the dead ones, we should be off and running.”
I glanced up at him. “You’re sure?”
He grinned. “Miss Cooper, as your supervisor, allow me to inform you that you’ve been officially let go from full-time status with the CCS. We’d like to offer you a consulting position instead. And we’re willing to pay you at your former hourly rate.”
My eyebrows arched. “You realize that even working part-time I’d be making more money than before when I was on salary.”
“Yes,” Dutch said. “But you’d be responsible for your own benefits like health insurance, etc.”
“I’ve paid for that before.”
“You and I can get a group rate,” Candice assured me. “Especially when you come to work for me!”
I laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever changed jobs so fast in all my life.”
“Civilian profiler one minute, private investigator the next,” she sang.
“We always did make a good team,” I told her.
Candice grinned. “And just think about how well we’ll do when Milo joins us.”
Dutch leaned forward. “Milo’s agreed to move to Texas?”
“He says he’ll be down in the fall, right before the new school year. He doesn’t want to take his son away from his friends too early. He wants to give him the summer to say good-bye.”
“That
is
good news!” I sang, and just like that, I felt much better.
A little later I walked Candice out to her car. “So, after I heard that you were having a migraine from overusing your radar, I called Mrs. Dixon about Genevieve’s list. I’m headed back to the church tomorrow morning to meet with her and Genevieve. Hopefully Mrs. Dixon will recognize a name or two, and if not, I thought maybe Genevieve could help narrow the scope.”
“Can I come?”
Candice smiled. “Of course! But only if you think you’ll feel up to it.”
“I’ll be okay,” I assured her.
Candice nodded. Then, out of the blue, she said, “I’m really sorry about Friday. Brice told me it was you at the door.”
I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Please don’t mention it,” I said. “Like, ever again.”
Candice laughed. “Agreed.”
“You two are back together again?” I couldn’t help it; I had to know.
Candice blushed. “Um . . . yeah,” she said, and then she took something out of her pocket and put it on her left ring finger before waggling her hand at me. “You could say that we’re permanently back together now.”
I swear I did the Wile E. Coyote
baaaarruuuugah!
eyes. “You’re
engaged
?!” I shouted, and then I believe I launched myself right into her and hugged her until she protested that she couldn’t breathe.
I made Candice tell me all the details—well, not
all
the details—I was pretty sure I had a feel for what happened immediately after she’d accepted the ring, but the part leading up to it was what I was most interested in.
“I wish I could take credit for telling Brice that I was crazy about him and didn’t want him to move out, but the truth is that he came over Friday for lunch, and while I was fixing us some salad, he got down on bended knee and offered me the black box with this beautiful ring inside. He told me that he’d never been so in love and he couldn’t imagine life without me, and if I wanted to say no again, I could, but he wasn’t going to stop asking until I eventually said yes.”