Chapter 2 Still 5 Days Left
So much for fixing the thing between them.
But okay. They could both use a little time to cool down, and God knew there was plenty to deal with in the meantime. In fact, coming in today wasn’t such a bad idea, given how much Lucas had to do.
He was adept at compartmentalizing. Compartmentalization was a necessary skill in his position, and the ability to separate himself from most equations was part of what made him good at his job.
That’s what he’d heard in every performance review for the past four years: calm under pressure, operationally reliable, a steady hand and a cool head in volatile situations.
Not that there were so many volatile situations in Silver Pine.
All the same, operational assessments consistently identified Silver Pine RA as a model of field office efficiency and investigative productivity.
No one had ever had to call on Salt Lake to clean up a mess in Lucas’ region.
Lucas knew how to keep calm and carry on.
His middle name was Control. Well, no. It was Dexter.
Control would have been preferable. Or Contained. He was also very good at containment.
Anyway. Especially at this time of year, there was a lot to contain. A lot to compartmentalize, if you wanted to put it that way. Riley had put it that way once or twice. Not in criticism. Observation.
Or maybe it had been criticism. Lucas was starting to wonder if he understood Riley as well as he imagined.
Lucas sighed, lifted the file out of the top tray on his desk.
Never mind the end-of-year case management stuff: pushing his team for case closeouts, preparing final case summaries and reports for “The Temple” (as the Salt Lake FO was only half-jokingly referred to by its satellite offices), and signing off on inventory control, evidence chain-of-custody logs, and audit readiness.
That stuff Lucas could do in his sleep. He also still had performance evaluations to complete (including Riley’s—not that that would ever be an issue).
He had to finalize Q1 coverage, including the January training and travel, and—the big one looming over him—he had to complete his budget review and resource requests.
Nobody knew better than Riley how many balls Lucas had to keep in the air this time of year. Maybe that was part of what made Riley’s demands feel so frustrating and unfair.
And yet, despite Lucas’ best efforts, the recollection of Riley’s face—that flash of unfamiliar vulnerability—Lucas couldn’t shake it, couldn’t concentrate the way he needed to. Forty-five minutes of unproductive staring at columns of numbers that might as well have been cuneiform passed.
Abruptly, muttering words he would not have said in front of Baby Jesus, he pushed his chair back from his computer, and strode down the hall to Riley’s office.
Call me up
Tell me all the things you wanted me to say
Write ‘em down
In a letter send it to me in the bottle that we saved.
Hey, if Riley was so into the holidays, how about a little Christmas music? A little less not-so-subliminal messaging and a little more I’ll Be Home for Christmas?
Lucas came to a halt in Riley’s doorway. Riley, clicking away at his computer, stopped typing to greet him with a look of polite and professional inquiry.
Ruefully, Lucas said, “I don’t know what happened there. Earlier. I apologize.”
Riley shrugged. “No need.”
The fact that Riley was still polite and professional indicated that hell, yeah, there was need for an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m just…” Lucas drew a deep breath. “Stressed.” It was the truth, though not a legitimate excuse for being an asshole. “You know what the end of the year is like.”
“I know.” Still polite. Still professional.
“Can we—let me take you out for a nice dinner tonight and we can—” The word stuck to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth. “Talk.”
To his alarm, Riley hesitated.
“My treat,” Lucas added quickly.
It was usually his treat, but that wasn’t quite as generous as it sounded because Riley was still paying rent for an apartment he’d barely stepped inside since March.
And that was because, although the Bureau did not have a non-fraternization policy, Lucas could not—would not— tolerate the idea that the minute the scope of his relationship with Riley was common knowledge, members of his team might, almost certainly would, start speculating and second-guessing his every action, every decision regarding Special Agent Christopher.
So, although they were basically living together, Riley was still maintaining the polite fiction of a separate residence. Which, given the fact that they worked in an office full of FBI agents, probably fooled exactly no one.
Riley took another second to reply, “Sure.”
There was the tiniest shade of weariness in his tone, and Lucas felt another of those unfamiliar flashes of alarm.
He said with determined heartiness, “The Alpine Chop House? You like that place.”
The Alpine Chop House was Silver Pine’s swankiest restaurant.
It wasn’t all swank, though. In fact, the food was so good, the Chop House was as popular with residents as it was with vacationers.
The décor was elegant in its simplicity: dark wood paneling, steel-framed Ansel Adams photographs, and breathtaking mountain views.
The leather booths were deep enough to require rappelling ropes.
Well, nearly. And the wine list had more pages than your average NY Times bestseller.
The steaks were dry-aged and, like everything else on the menu, so outrageously overpriced they made even tourists blink.
The last time they’d dined there had been Riley’s birthday.
That had been in April, after the accident, and Riley had just returned to work after two weeks of sick leave.
It had been a great night, and every time Lucas met Riley’s smiling gaze in the golden candlelight, his heart felt as though it expanded with happiness and relief.
“I do like that place,” Riley agreed.
Lucas knew enough to quit while he was ahead. He said lightly, “Okay, it’s a date,” and retreated to his office.
Unsurprisingly, Saturday night, little more than a week before Christmas, the Alpine Chop House was packed. But one of the perks of being head of the local FBI office was Lucas could always get a table at any place in town.
Not that he’d trade on it, usually, but that night was an exception. Even so, he and Riley had to wait, which they did outside in the very cold December night because the reception area was crammed with loud and boisterous holidaymakers.
Even if there’d been room indoors, the noise level—all those buoyant voices, all that elevated laughter bouncing off the polished pine walls and floors—was a real mood killer.
The whole restaurant was as loud and rowdy as a frat party.
The only things missing were feedback on loudspeakers and puddles of spilled beer.
Lucas and Riley walked a little way from the wooden porch, boots crunching on packed snow, the cold nipping at their noses.
From discreet speakers mounted under the eaves, the familiar strains of It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year drifted, schmaltzy sentiment meandering through ancient sentinel trees—soft, tinny, and cheerfully at odds with the sharp whisper of wind coming off the ridge.
Stars glittered like ice chips overhead.
Riley had said nothing since they’d left the restaurant.
He was always quiet, but this was a different kind of quiet.
Lucas recognized that, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
He considered and discarded several topics of conversation.
He didn’t want to set Riley off again. He’d have liked to say something light and charming to break the ice, but the fact was, he was not a light and charming guy.
Anyway, the silence between them was not icy. It was just…
Solid.
Heavy.
The distant aroma of seared steak and unearned money faded into the honed scents of woodsmoke and pine trees. Behind them, the warm glow of the Alpine Chop House windows spilled across the icy path, casting golden shadow squares on the snow.
A few yards beyond the valet station, breath clouding in the frigid dark, Lucas asked a little desperately, “Find anything interesting in those old case files?”
He happened to be studying Riley’s profile, so he caught the faint curve of Riley’s cheek. That small private smile was another jolt in a long day of unpleasant realizations. Clearly, he was fulfilling somebody’s worst expectations.
But Riley sounded like always as he replied, “I don’t think I’m going to turn up anything that cracks the Lewis-Clark Valley case, but there are a couple of loose ends I’d like to follow up on in the in the Hayley Corbin disappearance.”
Lucas nodded automatically. The notorious Lewis-Clark Valley case was a series of unresolved killings around the Lewiston-Clarkston area that had occurred between 1979 and 1982.
The chances of solving a nearly-half-century-old cold case were pretty slim.
But the 2005 disappearance of 17-year-old high school senior Hayley Corbin from Silver Pine continued to haunt the village to that day.
Lucas had reviewed the file himself when he first took over the RA.
Ultimately, he’d concluded there weren’t really any angles left to explore.
They continued to walk, the surrounding mountains swallowing the sound of boots crushing snow, the icy bite of silence between them.
Lucas was grimly aware he’d got this—dinner at the Alpine Chop House—wrong, too.
He should have picked another night, made a reservation, made an evening of it.
Made it a genuine date. But no, he’d sprung the idea on Riley, timed it so they had to come straight from the office, even driving separately.
He hadn’t given Riley so much as time to take a shower.
Nor had he left himself time to comb his hair, put a tie on, treat it like a special occasion.