CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kate sat on the floor of Michael's room, her back against his toddler bed, watching him line up his toy cars.
He'd been at it for ten minutes, arranging and rearranging them in some pattern that made sense only to him.
Red car, blue car, yellow truck. Then he'd shake his head, dissatisfied, and start over as he made cute little engine sounds.
"Mama, look," he said, holding up the yellow truck.
"I see it, buddy. That's a good one."
Michael returned to his arrangement, and Kate's mind drifted back to the letter openers and the files she now held in her hands as she looked for any names or situations that stood out.
"Mama!"
Kate blinked. Michael was standing directly in front of her now, holding the yellow truck inches from her face.
"Sorry, what?"
"I said it two times," Michael informed her with the patient exasperation of a child who'd learned his mother sometimes needed reminders. "Where's the garage?"
"The garage?" Kate looked around the room, spotting the wooden parking garage in the corner. "Over there, behind your bookshelf."
Michael retrieved it and began the complicated process of parking each car in its designated spot.
Kate watched him, trying to stay present, trying to be here in this moment instead of three steps ahead in the investigation.
She'd been home for about half an hour and had spent most of that time mentally reviewing the case files.
This was the problem. This was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid when she'd accepted DeMarco’s request to mentor Sloane and to step in on third case.
After things with Diana Vance had ended, she'd promised herself she would be present for these years, these irreplaceable moments when Michael was small and Allen was healthy and they had the chance to be a real family.
But here she was, sitting on the floor of her son's room while her mind sorted through business plans and victim profiles…
sitting on the floor, with a stiff fifty-nine-year-old back, at that.
"All done!" Michael announced. Every car was now parked, though several were backwards or at odd angles.
"Good job. You want to read a book before dinner?"
Michael considered this seriously, then nodded.
He climbed onto Kate's lap, settling against her chest with the easy trust of a child who knew he was loved.
Kate reached for the stack of board books on the nightstand, letting Michael choose.
He picked the one about construction vehicles, the same book they'd read approximately four hundred times in the past month; it was just a phase he was going through.
Kate opened to the first page and started reading, but her voice was automatic.
The words came out while her mind continued working through the case.
She read as if she’d been programmed to do so, with no real intent or emotion.
"Mama, you skipped."
Kate looked down at the book, realizing she'd turned two pages at once. "You're right. Sorry."
“Don’t forget the page with all the digging!”
She backed up and read the missed page where a bulldozer and a dump truck met for the first time and talked at length about their different jobs.
She forced herself to focus on the words, on Michael's warm weight against her, on the feeling of his hair tickling her chin.
This was what mattered. Not business plans or murder weapons or suspects she hadn't identified yet. This moment, right here, with her son.
Somehow, she managed to get to the end without screwing up again.
"The end!" Michael said, turning the last page with satisfaction.
Kate hadn't consciously read any of it. She'd been speaking the words from memory while her brain worked the case. Michael didn't seem to notice, already sliding off her lap to return the book to its stack.
"Okay, buddy… let’s go get dinner started!" Kate asked.
Michael nodded enthusiastically. ‘Helping’ with dinner usually meant standing on a stool and making a mess, but he loved it.
Kate stood, her knees protesting slightly.
Almost sixty years old, sitting on the floor with her toddler.
Allen was right about the clock running out on this kind of fieldwork.
Another year, maybe two, and she'd be too old to work the long hours, to chase suspects, to keep up with agents half her age.
Which meant these cases mattered. Each one might be among her last, and she couldn't afford to work them halfheartedly. But she also couldn't afford to miss these moments with Michael, these ordinary evenings that would be gone before she knew it.
In the kitchen, Kate lifted Michael onto his step stool while she pulled ingredients from the refrigerator.
Allen was working late tonight in his home office, working with some client deadline that couldn't wait.
It would just be her and Michael for dinner.
Usually she enjoyed these evenings, the simple routine of cooking with her son.
But tonight her mind kept returning to the case, to the files waiting on her laptop, to the calls she should make and the leads she should follow.
Michael was chattering about something, his words running together in the way toddlers did.
Kate made listening noises while she chopped vegetables, her hands moving automatically.
The knife work was soothing, repetitive.
It freed her mind to think about the case without having to pretend she was fully present.
She caught herself mid-thought and stopped, the knife hovering over the cutting board.
This was exactly what she'd promised herself she wouldn't do.
Be physically here but mentally absent, going through the motions of parenting while her real attention was elsewhere.
Michael had stopped talking and was watching her, his expression uncertain.
"Sorry, buddy. What were you saying?"
"I said can I stir?"
"Yes. But carefully, okay? We don't want to spill."
She handed him a wooden spoon and let him stir the pot on the stove while she supervised, one hand ready to steady him if needed. Michael took the task seriously, his tongue poking out slightly as he concentrated.
Kate watched him and tried to memorize this moment.
The way he gripped the spoon with both hands.
The stern concentration on his face. The smell of dinner cooking and the warmth of the kitchen around them.
This was what mattered. This was what she'd been trying to protect by stepping away from full-time work…
and maybe within two or three years, all work.
But two people were dead. And somewhere out there, the killer was choosing their next victim while she helped her son stir.