Chapter Seventeen
Parker
By ten after five, I give up waiting for the alarm to go off. It’s almost light out. Getting up feels…acceptable.
Unlike the dozen other times I checked the clock overnight.
The stitches are wrapped well enough, they don’t pull when I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The dull ache in my thigh is manageable. The pit in my stomach? Not so much. Especially if I have to face Eliot this morning.
Three texts. Zero response.
I get through my shower before I’m tempted to check my phone.
But I always wait until I make coffee to pick it up in the morning.
If I grab it now, I’ll be admitting defeat.
I got up twice in the middle of the night and made it all the way out to the kitchen before turning around and going back to bed.
What the hell is wrong with me? Pining after a guy I’ve only known for a few days? Letting his silence affect my entire night and morning?
If Grace, Emi, or Isabel were spiraling over a man before the very first date, I’d tell them to stop borrowing trouble. Yet here I am, making a big fat withdrawal.
Hair wrapped in a towel, I stand in front of my closet for a full ten minutes, debating the merits of a red bolero tie or a hunter green silk number that tucks into my shirt above my first button.
For a Wednesday. At the office. When I’m on desk duty.
Putting that debate aside for the moment, I decide to be even more ridiculous by french braiding my hair.
In my defense, I can’t go for a run. Not until the stitches come out. What else am I going to do with my morning? Obsess over the unread text messages?
The coffee maker gurgles as I stare at my phone charging at the other end of the counter. He asked me out. So why go dark on me?
Did I make one too many jokes about the neon yarn? Was I too direct? Telling him something might happen after dinner? What if he’s the kind of guy who likes to take things slow?
He blurted out, “Have dinner with me,” in the middle of an arson investigation. That doesn’t feel very “take it slow.”
I run my index finger over the rim of my coffee cup and replay every minute of yesterday afternoon’s conversation. Maybe my “what may—or may not—come after” was too much. Or maybe I’m overanalyzing everything because I haven’t had an actual relationship since before my mom got sick.
After the second cup of coffee, I feel marginally human. And brave enough to pick up my phone.
One unread message.
I’ll be at the station first thing, with donuts and a dinner reservation.
I lean back against the counter, my hands shaking, and look at the time stamp. Three hours after my last text.
The story I’d built tossing and turning suddenly feels less like fact and more like exhaustion-fueled insecurity.
But it was still three hours.
God, I’m pathetic.
I grab my keys, sling my bag over my shoulder, and make my way down the three flights of stairs. The stitches pull with every step, but the pain’s manageable.
Siren Coffee is only ten minutes from my apartment, yet I blow right past the exit and drive half an hour out of my way to Alabaster’s Coffee Kiosk.
I’m not sure why I feel the need to show up with hemp milk lattes.
Except Eliot and Nate had a five-minute discussion on how hemp was superior to all other milks, and I want this man to know I heard him.
Somewhere between Alabaster’s and the station, I start getting annoyed with myself.
Eliot asked me to dinner. Not vaguely. Not in a way that required interpretation. He asked. I said yes.
Then he disappeared for three hours, and I spent half the night trying to figure out why. Built a whole case file out of silence, complete with motives, conclusions, and zero supporting evidence.
I stop behind a pickup truck at a red light, and take a second to rest my head on the steering wheel.
Eliot taking three hours to text back wasn’t the issue. The issue was realizing three hours was enough time for me to miss him.
The usual chatter in the bullpen falls silent the second I step through the double doors with the cardboard drink holder. My gaze finds Eliot immediately, standing next to the conference room with two boxes of donuts in his hands.
I’m not prepared for the sudden explosion of butterflies in my stomach. Or the way my lips curve into a smile. Or the warmth building in my chest.
I didn’t know how much I needed to see him. Or how much I needed him to see me.
The realization stops me in my tracks. The floor might as well be wet cement for as hard as it is to take another step.
But then Eliot smiles. His brown eyes soften, the tension in his body melting away.
I force my legs to move until I’m right in front of him. Close enough to notice his cologne. Subtle. Vanilla, maybe cinnamon. Clove.
“Hi,” I say softly.
Hi? Really? That’s all you’ve got?
“Donuts. I didn’t know what you liked, so I bought…well…” Color floods his cheeks.
My brows lift at the two large boxes in his hands. “The entire shop?”
“Only half of it.”
His laugh is so warm, I join in, until Nate’s voice carries from behind the conference room door.
“Will you two stop being all cutesy and awkward and get in here? We’ve got work to do.”
Nate’s at the head of the table, all five highlighters lined up neatly in front of him and a cup of station coffee at his elbow. His eyes narrow at the drink holder in my hand. “You went to Alabaster’s?”
“It was on the way.” I shrug, set his coffee down first, then place my iced quad shot Americano and Eliot’s hemp milk latte side by side before either of us takes a seat.
“It was not on the way,” Nate mutters. “Three years, and you’ve never driven across town for my coffee order.”
“No, but when you had your appendix out, I drove all over Hell’s half acre for fresh, cold-pressed wheatgrass juice. I spilled a single drop going over the hospital speed bumps, and my car still remembers what it smelled like.”
Nate chuckles, while Eliot watches the two of us with an expression I can’t quite read. “That was good juice.”
Five minutes later, we’ve all picked our favorites from the two pink boxes—a lemon jelly donut for Eliot, glazed with chocolate icing for me, a maple bar for Nate—and settled into seats around the table.
Eliot picks up his latte, takes a sip, and his eyelids flutter briefly. “Damn,” he says. “Forgot how good Alabaster’s is.”
His knee brushes mine under the table. It could be an accident. It’s probably an accident. But a small kernel of warmth settles in my core.
“So,” Nate says, tapping a few keys on his laptop, “here’s where we left off last night.
The inspector who did the original walkthrough on the Round Rock facility—Jayson Granville—moved out of state a few years ago.
Got a job in Maine. Three messages, and nothing. I’m starting to take it personally.”
“They have moose in Maine, don’t they? If you had the choice between seeing a moose and talkin’ to a Ranger about somethin’ you did ten years ago…?”
“I’d pick the moose every time,” Nate mutters.
Flipping through one of the stacks we left in the center of the table last night, Eliot frowns. “Buildings go through up to two dozen inspections when they’re sold or go through a retrofit. I’ve got five names with two different companies.”
“Is that unusual? Wouldn’t one inspector handle the whole building?” I ask.
Eliot shakes his head. “That ain’t how the certifications work.
I can inspect a suppression system in a pinch.
I’m trained for it. Firewall assemblies too.
But I don’t know shit about plumbing or electrical.
” He pulls his laptop closer and logs into his office’s internal system.
“I’ll see if I can get a handle on how many of the faulty systems were looked at by the same idjits. Keep goin’, Nate.”
My partner clicks the remote, and starts entering inspector license numbers into the city database. One clears. He’s retired and drawing a pension. The second is still working in Austin.
“You could pay him a visit.” I offer Nate my sweetest smile. “Since I’m on desk duty…”
“You clearly have no issue driving to Alabaster’s. This guy’s office is ten minutes from here.” He gives me a pointed stare. “I’m filing a protest.”
“System’s slow,” Eliot says, returning his focus to the paperwork in front of him. “But the signature on this first report is illegible. It looks like someone dragged a pen across the page and called it a day. Ain’t no one gonna be able to match this to an actual name.”
I lean closer, my arm brushing his. He doesn’t pull away. “They weren’t even trying to form letters.”
“You ran the license number?” Eliot asks. He still hasn’t moved, and the heat of him seeps through my dress shirt.
Nate huffs. “Doesn’t exist. Mr.—or Ms.—Scribble is a ghost. Or a figment of someone’s imagination.”
Before it becomes very obvious that Eliot and I are closer than we should be in the middle of an arson investigation, I scoot my chair away a few inches and bring him up to date on my search for the inspector who signed off on the retrofit—Roger Haight.
No current address, an expired driver’s license, and nothing in LexisNexis.
“Parker?” Nate drags his fingers through his shaggy black hair. “What about searching for John Does? Dead John Does.”
I polish off the last bite of donut and lick a bit of chocolate glaze from my fingers. Eliot makes a small, almost choked sound, and quickly turns back to his laptop.
Shit. Watch yourself, Parker. Or Nate will never let you hear the end of it.
I can feel my partner’s stare across the table, but refuse to look up. “Austin and surrounding counties. Male, mid-to-late fifties, medium build. The last vital records hit on Haight was eighteen months ago, and his driver’s license expired five months later.”
Twenty-six results. More—and less—than I expected.
The conference room settles into a reassuring quiet.
Nate and Eliot are working the inspection angle, while I page through case after case APD closed without a name attached.
Outside the door, the dull hum of voices is nearly constant.
Occasionally, someone laughs—usually the new guy, Vintner.
The man has exactly two volume settings: whisper quiet and shatter your eardrums loud.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve seen more gunshot wounds and overdoses than anyone should have to look at. On the thirteenth file, I stop.
“Nate.”
He lifts his gaze from his laptop, pen bouncing back and forth between two fingers fast enough it’s practically a blur.
“Male. Age: Forty-five to fifty-three. Brown hair, stubble. Found at the base of an exterior stairwell at a warehouse on Burnet Road. No ID. Blood alcohol: Point-one-four. Cause of death: Impact after a fall. Ruled accidental.” I pull up Haight’s last driver’s license photo and put it next to the very broken face of the John Doe. “What do you think?”
“The fall did some damage. But look at the hairline.” Nate taps his temple just above his right eye. “The scar. It’s old.”
“Shit. That’s him.” A few more clicks and I find the original detective assigned to the case. “Phil Mallon. APD. I don’t know him, but AJ’s mentioned him a time or two. He was one of the guys on Grace’s kidnapping case.”
“What’s in the medical examiner’s report?” Nate asks.
I read it through twice before I understand what Mallon missed. “Nothing good.” The words are raspy, and Eliot shifts closer, his hand resting on my right thigh under the table for a beat before he pulls it away.
“Bruising to the soft palate. And along his jaw. Chipped front tooth. His stomach was mostly empty. He hadn’t eaten in at least eight hours.
The ME noted some sticky residue on his forearms and his socks.
Fibers under his nails that came back as wool, yet he was wearing jeans and a polyester shirt. ”
“Goddammit. And Mallon closed the case?” Nate slams his pen down so hard on the table, the ice in his coffee cup rattles.
I nod, the horror of what Roger Haight went through settling in my chest.
Eliot leans forward, looking from Nate to me. “Explain it to the fire guy?”
“Duct tape,” I say. “That’s the residue. The broken tooth and bruising to the top of his mouth were probably from someone forcing the alcohol down his throat. And the fibers…”
“He fought back. Against someone wearing wool.” Nate pushes to his feet. “I need a break. Touch grass for five minutes so I don’t drive over to APD right now and rearrange Mallon’s anatomy in a way that isn’t conducive to life.”
He stalks out of the room, and I close the autopsy report before reaching for my coffee. But my hand shakes too much to trust my own grip.
“Hey.” Eliot turns my chair toward him and scoots forward so our knees touch. “You just gave Roger a chance at justice.”
He’s right. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about Jerry Hollis. About his last minutes trying desperately to escape a utility room he thought was a stairwell. And how the only man who might have known about it was murdered.
Eliot’s phone buzzes on the table. “Shit. That’s my boss.”
“Take it. I’m goin’ to my office to call that asshole, Mallon.” Shoving my chair back from the table, I stalk out of the room.