Authors: Anne Frasier
CHAPTER 6
Y
ou no longer work for the department,” Uriah said, stating the obvious.
A few days had passed since Jude Fontaine stood him up at the hospital. Today she’d just appeared out of the blue, demanding to see him, with no apology, no explanation of her hospital disappearance. Given her situation, he cut her a lot of slack, didn’t blame her, wasn’t even angry. Annoyed, yes. But she’d walked out of the hospital on her own, apparently without fear. That took guts.
The two of them had spent the afternoon in a futile attempt to locate the house where she’d been held captive. An hour into the search Uriah realized cruising up and down streets in hopes of spotting something that looked familiar was a waste of time. She didn’t have a clue. And how could she? The darkness, combined with her physical and mental state . . . He wasn’t sure he would have taken note of his surroundings under those circumstances. Now she sat across from his desk expecting him to turn over the files on every case she’d been working at the time of her abduction.
Since he’d last seen her, the tangle of long white hair had been chopped off. That was the best way to describe it. As if she’d taken a pair of scissors and started cutting a few inches away from her scalp, just like Uriah had wanted to do that first day he’d visited her in the hospital. Now that he thought about it, that’s probably exactly what she’d done, but it looked like something someone else might have paid a lot of money for. Funny how that worked. She could almost pass for heroin chic.
“I want to see my old files,” she said. “I don’t know if my abduction had anything to do with a case, but going over the files is the obvious place to begin.”
“We’ve already done it. When you were abducted. Again yesterday. It’s ground that’s been covered numerous times. And,” he repeated, “you no longer work here.”
“I want to see them.” Her face was almost expressionless—except for her blue eyes, which were watching him with that unnerving intensity he was afraid might be permanent.
He stared back, but she won.
He supposed her single-minded focus had made her a good detective back in the day, but he was finding it a pain in the ass right now. It was apparent she wasn’t leaving until he either caved or was forced to toss her out. Maybe something in between would satisfy her.
“When you were abducted, you were working three major cases.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of folders, and dropped them on his desk. “All of them are right here. At my fingertips. A high-profile case you were working with Detective Vang was solved.” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed that file aside.
“Solved doesn’t necessarily rule out a connection.”
“I understand, but you’re going to have to trust me when I say we’ve gone over everything thoroughly.”
He stared at her and she stared back. Calm, defiant, waiting. She wasn’t leaving unless he produced something to assure her of his diligence.
He and the department had not only failed her; he’d basically taken her job and now he was telling her she couldn’t see her own files. All things considered, she was handling it pretty well. Coming to a decision, he pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Together they walked to the elevator. Once inside, he punched “B.”
“Everything in your desk ended up in the evidence room,” he said as their car descended and the numbers above the door decreased until the elevator came to a shuddering stop.
In the basement, they walked to the evidence room. She practically led the way, making it obvious she remembered the layout of the building and had made this trip many times before.
“I’m going to need to see the Fontaine evidence,” Uriah told the armed guard behind the counter.
Spotting Jude, the officer lit up. Over the years, he’d never so much as smiled at Uriah. “Hey, Detective Fontaine. Glad to see you’re back.”
“Thanks, Harold.” She gave him something that almost passed as a smile, but didn’t correct him about being back. Back could mean different things, like back in the world, but Harold obviously thought she was back at Homicide.
“We need to see the evidence pertaining to her abduction,” Uriah told him.
Eyes on the computer monitor, Harold clicked keys. “I see desk contents, computer and hard drive, clothing, and DNA.”
“Let’s go with the desk,” Uriah said.
While he and Jude waited on the other side of the counter, Harold vanished into the evidence shelves, returning a couple of minutes later holding a large brown box with cutout cardboard handles. Uriah signed the evidence out and carried the box to a private room. Under long tubes of fluorescent light, he and Jude sat across from each other at what was the equivalent of a lunchroom table.
“Everything taken from your desk after your abduction,” he said, removing the lid and setting it aside.
“How long was I gone before this was filed?”
It was a question he’d also asked. “Almost immediately, thanks to Chief Ortega.”
Jude looked at the chain-of-evidence tag attached to the box. “It’s been signed out several times over the years.”
“You can see that your case hasn’t been neglected.”
It had been strange going through the belongings of a missing officer, but it was doubly strange now with her sitting right across from him.
He removed the typical items found in a desk. Pens, pencils, notepads, notebooks. And more-personal things, like photos. A lot of photos. Some were of her, back when her hair was brown, back when her expression wasn’t intense and her smile was easy. Pictures of her and her boyfriend, someone Uriah had spoken with two days earlier, confirming what he’d suspected: the guy
and his girlfriend
had been home when Jude showed up expecting a warm welcome. But other than adding to the timeline, the boyfriend had no information to help piece together the puzzle of what had transpired the night of her escape.
Along with the boyfriend, there were photos of Jude with department officers—some he recognized, others he didn’t. Most were taken at those common after-duty wind-downs where they’d all leave work and head to a nearby bar. He’d done it a few times, but not often. Not his thing, plus he’d usually been anxious to get home.
Not anymore.
Uriah spread the photos on the table, turning them so they faced her. He was curious about the ones of her and Vang. In some they looked like a couple. But maybe the clinging was just the result of alcohol. Some people got affectionate when they drank.
“Anything in there you think merits a comment?” he asked.
She scanned the photos and shook her head.
“What about this one?” Not his business, nothing to do with anything, but he asked anyway, pointing to a snapshot in which Vang’s arm was around her waist. “Were you two dating? I never heard anything about that.”
She frowned, then shook her head. “We went out a few times.”
“Sleeping together?”
She looked up at him. “That has nothing to do with anything.”
“It might. I always thought it curious that Vang never mentioned having a relationship with you.”
“That’s because we didn’t
have
a relationship. It’s none of your business.”
Yep. Slept together.
Never a good idea in any work situation, but cops . . . Bad.
He continued pulling out items until the box was empty and everything was on the table. “The only thing that seemed a little odd was this.” He slid another photo across the table. “Remember anything about this girl?”
She picked up the small, square photo, examined it, and shook her head.
“Her name is Octavia Germaine. Not a homicide, a missing person. Not your case.”
“Sometimes a Missing Persons case can be a suspected homicide. I’m guessing someone asked me to look into it. Sorry.” She slid the photo back. “I don’t remember her. Was she ever found?”
“No.”
“What about the notebooks?”
“Nothing jumped out at me.” He passed the spirals to her. They were the kind kids used in school. Multicolored, wide ruled, almost every page filled with notes and scribbles. It would take hours for someone to read them word for word—maybe days if you really wanted to do a decent job. He’d read them. Not thoroughly, but he’d read them.
She riffled through the pages of one notebook, then another, apparently coming to the same conclusion about the time involved. “If I could take these with me . . .”
“Out of the question. You know that.”
“But if I were back in Homicide?”
“Nothing to even consider, because it’s not gonna happen.”
“Really? And why not? Because of what I’ve gone through? Because I wasn’t smart enough to keep from getting captured?”
“None of those things.”
“Because I’m too damaged?”
She watched him in that unnerving way of hers, and he knew the moment her conclusions settled into place. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she said. “I can see it in your face.”
He stacked the notebooks and put them back in the box, then gathered up the photos, all the while feeling her eyes on him. “Homicide probably isn’t the place for you,” he said.
Don’t look,
he told himself.
“What
is
the place for me? Where do you see me in a month, Detective Ashby? In six months? Two years? Working at Starbucks? Or behind the counter at a Kwik Trip?”
A new tone in her voice broke his resolve. He looked. She was mad. Maybe that was good, because it replaced her spooky lack of emotion. “Not here,” he said quietly and firmly.
“Really? Because I don’t see myself anywhere but here.” She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “Where do you see me? I want to know.”
“Enjoying life. Going to movies. Reading. Take up a hobby. If that stuff seems too self-indulgent, then help out at a women’s shelter or a food shelter. An animal shelter. I dunno.” He sorted through the photos, finally finding the image he was looking for—one of her with a teasing smile on her face. Holding the image with two fingers, he turned it around so she could see it. “While you’re at it, why not try to find this girl?”
She barely gave the photo a glance. “That girl no longer exists.”
“She might.”
“She doesn’t.”
“Sounds like you hate her.”
“Maybe I do.” She raised her eyebrows, seeming surprised by her own words. “And you’re right to call her girl and not woman.”
“You need to give yourself a break.”
“I resent her for leaving me there for three years.” She nodded her chin at the photo he still held. “You know, I used to be funny,” she said. “Really funny. I was always making people laugh.”
“I’ve heard that about you.” He paused, considering his next words. “You can be funny again.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think I can be the old me again.”
“She might come back. Maybe a little, anyway.” He looked her in the eye—something he was getting better at. “Do you want her to?” he asked. “Come back?”
“Kind of. Maybe. I don’t know.” She hesitated. “The old Jude was weak.”
“She couldn’t have been that weak. She survived.”
“That’s true.”
“I wonder why we always feel disdain for our old selves,” Uriah said. “We should feel thankful. We should appreciate the people we used to be rather than being ashamed of them.”
After he returned everything to the box, he replaced the lid and got to his feet, chair scraping the cement floor. “I’ll sign this back in, then escort you upstairs.” Not his intention, but the word
escort
seemed to drive home the reminder that she was a guest and he’d done her a favor by allowing her to look at the box of evidence.
She let out a sound of disgust and stood up. “You’re wrong about me.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do think you’re kind of scary.” He’d question the appropriateness of the word
scary
a little later. “Look, Jude.” He rested the box against his stomach. “You need time to readjust. It probably feels like weeks to you, but you’ve only been outside for a few days.
A few days.
That’s nothing. You’re a soldier who’s come home from war. You’re in transition. You need counseling. You need to learn how to reenter society. That’s the kind of stuff you should be concentrating on right now. I brought you down here because I wanted you to see that I’ve got this.” He hoped his words brought her some small bit of reassurance. “Go home and take care of yourself.”
He waited.
And, Jesus. She was staring at him again.
“What kind of soap do you use?” she finally asked.
“What’s that?” At first he thought he’d misunderstood. “I don’t know. I just grab something off the shelf and hope it doesn’t stink.” He frowned. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”
“I’m detecting a bit of something sweet, maybe almond.”
It took him a few more beats to get it. “Ah, your senses are still in overdrive.”
She nodded. “It’s so strange.”
“If you don’t like any of my other suggestions, maybe you should consider going into the perfume business. A finely tuned sense of smell would be a big plus.” A joke, but he wasn’t sure she’d respond to his attempt at humor. After all, the reason for her sensitive nose was nothing to laugh about.
She shook her head—and she might have almost smiled. Hard to tell. But then, delivered in her deadpan way, she said something that killed him.
Killed
him.
“I’ve been in a box. Don’t put me back in one.”
He made a small strangling sound that might or might not have been a whimper.
“I’m not going to go home and take up knitting,” she told him. “I’m going to go to the firing range and work on my shooting skills. I’m going to take a refresher in self-defense. And”—pause—“I’m going to learn to drive a motorcycle.”
He was far from being sexist, but he realized that’s how he’d come across. Telling her to take up a
hobby
. “I didn’t mean to imply that you should go home and keep your mouth shut.”
“Really?” she asked. “Because that’s exactly what it seems like to me. But don’t worry. In a few months I’ll return. Not to bug you about the cases you might or might not be looking into, but to get my job back.”