Chapter 3
The bell above the door chimed the way it had chimed for thirty years, and Anna looked up from the crossword she wasn't really doing.
Jake crossed to the counter. Same walk he always had, that unhurried confidence that made people think he had nowhere else to be even when he had a dozen places. He sat onto the stool at the end, the one he'd claimed when he was seventeen and hadn't given up since.
"Dos Equis," he said.
"It's one in the afternoon."
"It's been a morning."
Anna studied him. She'd been watching Jake Walsh since Ray Crawford dragged him through that door two decades ago, a hungry kid with angry eyes and no one waiting for him at home.
She'd watched him ship out and come back, ship out and come back, until the day he came back and stayed.
She knew the difference between Jake on a regular Monday and Jake on a Monday that had left a mark.
This Monday had left a mark.
She pulled the Dos Equis from the cooler, popped the cap, set it in front of him. Then she leaned against the counter and waited.
Jake took a long drink. Set the bottle down. Rotated it a quarter turn the way he did when he was organizing his thoughts.
"You going to make me ask?" Anna said.
"Ask what?"
"Whatever put that look on your face."
Jake's hand went to his face, like he could feel the expression from the outside. "What look?"
"That one. The one you can't turn off." Anna crossed her arms. "I've known you since before you could legally drink that beer. Out with it."
He laughed. The real one, not the polished version he used on people he was working. Anna had always been able to tell the difference.
"Okay," she said. "What did you actually come here for today? Spill it, Jake."
He met her eyes. That look she'd seen maybe three times in twenty years, the one that said the ground had moved and he was still finding his footing.
"I met a girl this morning."
Anna's eyebrows rose. "A girl."
"A woman. A prosecutor. Ray's prosecutor. Emily Callahan."
"The one he's been talking about for a year? The one he recruited from Nashville?"
"That's her."
Anna waited. Jake took another drink, buying time, and she let him have it. Some things needed room to surface.
"She walked into Ray's office," Jake said, "and my brain just... stopped. For about ten seconds I couldn't put a sentence together. Me. I've talked my way out of checkpoints in three languages and I couldn't find a noun."
"You."
"Me."
"Jake Walsh, who could sell sand in a desert."
"Couldn't get a word out. She's got these eyes, Anna. Sharp. Evaluating. Like everything you say is evidence and she's already building the case." He shook his head. "She looked at me like she was trying to decide if I was useful or just another complication."
"And you liked that."
"I did." He set the bottle down. "I really did."
Anna went still.
"But you recovered," she said.
"I recovered."
"And?"
Jake's mouth curved. That smile he couldn't quite control, the one that gave him away every time. "I asked her to come to The Anchor tonight. Her and Claire, her friend. Gator's doing a thing."
Anna stared at him. Then she started laughing. Not polite laughter, the real kind that made her set down the rag she'd been holding and put a hand on the counter to balance herself.
"You asked her out," Anna said. "In the meeting. In Ray's office. With Ray sitting right there."
"It wasn't asking her out. It was a professional invitation to a team gathering."
"Jake."
"What?"
"You asked a federal prosecutor on a date in front of your boss. Who is also your best friend. During a case briefing." Anna was still laughing, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "That's the most Jake Walsh thing I've ever heard."
"It wasn't a date."
"What did Ray do?"
Jake picked at the label on his beer. "He gave me a look."
"I bet he did." Anna's laughter subsided into a warm grin. "And what did she say? This prosecutor who was deciding if you were useful?"
"She said she'd think about it." Jake looked up. "But the way she said it. Like she'd already decided and was making me wait because she could."
"Smart woman."
"Scary smart. She spent twenty minutes in that briefing asking questions I hadn't thought of.
Building a picture of the case that I couldn't see until she assembled it.
And she did it without making anyone feel stupid, without grandstanding, just..
. methodically taking things apart and putting them back together better. "
Anna tilted her head. "That's not what's got you sitting here drinking at one in the afternoon."
"No."
"So what is it?"
The restaurant was empty except for them, the lunch rush cleared out, the afternoon settling into that weighted silence before dinner prep started. He could hear the ice machine cycling in the back. A car passing on the street outside. His own thoughts, louder than either.
"I sat in my car for ten minutes after the meeting," he said. "Couldn't drive. Just sat there trying to figure out what happened. Three hours, Anna. I've known her for three hours and I'm here talking to you about her like she's..." He stopped. Started again. "I don't do this."
"I know you don't."
"I've dated. You know I've dated."
"I know you've gone through the motions with women who were perfectly nice and never made you sit in parking lots."
Jake looked at her. Anna looked back, patient, with the authority of someone who'd earned the right to say hard things.
"What do you want me to tell you?" she asked.
"I don't know. That I'm being ridiculous. That three hours doesn't mean anything. That I should focus on the case and stop acting like a teenager who just discovered girls exist."
"Is that what you want to hear?"
"It's what makes sense."
Anna came around the counter. She pulled out the chair at the small table by the window, the one she kept for conversations that mattered, and sat down. Jake picked up his beer and joined her.
"You know how long it took me to know about George?" she said.
Jake shook his head. He'd heard about George, Anna's husband, dead fifteen years now. Heart attack at fifty-two, gone before the ambulance arrived. He'd seen the photos on the wall behind the register. But he'd never heard this part.
"Four hours," Anna said. "We met at a dance at the Greek Orthodox church. My mother dragged me there because she was convinced I was going to die alone if I didn't start meeting nice Greek boys. George asked me to dance and four hours later I told my mother I was going to marry him."
"What did she say?"
"She said I was being dramatic." Anna smiled at the memory.
"I said I'd never been less dramatic in my life.
I married him eight months later. Thirty-one years, until the day he died.
" She reached across the table and put her hand over Jake's.
"Sometimes you know. It doesn't make sense and you can't explain it and everyone tells you you're being crazy. But you know."
Jake turned his hand over, held hers. The bones felt fragile under papery skin, but her grip was strong.
"What if I'm wrong?"
"Then you're wrong and you move on. You've survived worse.
" Anna squeezed his hand once and let go.
"But I've watched you keep people at arm's length for fifteen years.
Nice women. Good women. Women who would have been fine.
And you never once came to my restaurant at one in the afternoon to tell me about any of them. "
She stood, collected his empty bottle.
"Bring her here," she said.
"What?"
"This prosecutor. Emily." Anna turned around. "Bring her here. Tomorrow, next week, whenever. I want to see her."
"You want to meet her."
"I want to see her. How she moves, how she talks, how she looks at you when she thinks nobody's watching." Anna leaned on the counter. "I've been feeding you for twenty years. I think I've earned the right to inspect."
Jake laughed. "Inspect."
"That's what I said."
"She might not come. She might decide I'm exactly the complication she thought I was."
"She might." Anna shrugged. "But she won't. A woman like that, one who makes you sit in parking lots and forget your words? She's not running. She's trying to figure out if it's worth the trouble."
"And if it's not?"
"Then you'll know. And you'll move on." Anna fixed him with a look. "But Jake. If it is worth the trouble. If she's what I think she might be. Don't do that thing you do."
"What thing?"
"That thing where you let people leave because you think you're respecting their choice." Anna's voice had gone firm. "You've spent your whole life being so concerned about people's autonomy that you forget to fight for the ones worth keeping. If she's worth keeping, don't just let her walk."
Jake sat with that. Let it settle where he usually didn't let things reach.
"I don't even know if she's coming to The Anchor tonight," he said.
"She's coming."
"You don't know that."
"I know you. And I know the kind of woman who'd make Jake Walsh sit in a parking lot for ten minutes." Anna smiled. "She's coming. And when she does, you're going to show her who you are. Not the charming version. The real one."
She picked up her crossword and pencil, settling back onto her stool. Conversation over.
Jake stood. Reached for his wallet.
"Don't insult me," Anna said without looking up.
"Anna."
"Go home. Take Ranger for a walk. And try not to overthink this into a disaster before it even starts."
He walked to the door. Stopped with his hand on the frame.
"Anna."
"Hmm."
"Love you, ma."
She didn't look up from the crossword. But her hand stilled on the paper, and when she spoke her voice was rough at the edges.
"Go take care of that dog."
Jake smiled and pushed through the door into the Tampa afternoon. The sun was high and the humidity wrapped around him like a second skin. Somewhere across the city, Emily Callahan was at her desk, probably reviewing case files, probably not thinking about him at all.
Or maybe she was. Maybe she was sitting in her office wondering why she'd said she'd think about The Anchor when she could have just said no.
His phone buzzed. Text from Ray.
She asked about you.
Jake stared at the screen. Typed back: And?
I told her you were trouble.
What did she say?
Three dots. A pause. Then: She said she figured.
Jake grinned. Pocketed the phone. Got in the Range Rover and pulled out of the spot Anna kept clear for him even though the sign said customer parking only.
Emily Callahan figured he was trouble, and she was still thinking about coming tonight.
That was enough. For now, that was more than enough.