Chapter 14 #2
"I lived with her for twelve years. I know how she gets. I'm not trying to alarm you. I just think it's fair you go in with your eyes open."
I'd seen this move before. The calm explanation. The helpful insider. The favor of being told what kind of woman she really was. Come in.
I didn't answer.
He changed his face.
"You've had an impressive career. Lieutenant at thirty-four. Station 33 has a good reputation."
He said it easily—the way a man said things he had learned recently and wanted you to know he had learned. I let him finish.
"Thank you," I said. Flat.
He nodded and smiled a small, satisfied smile.
The monitor opened the door at the back of the lobby. "Mr. St. George?"
"Coming."
He turned to follow her, took two steps, and stopped halfway across the lobby, looking back at me over his shoulder. Easy. Casual.
"How's the house coming? The one over on Ashford Street?"
I held still.
"Drove past it the other day. Good bones. You have an eye for that."
He didn't wait for an answer. The door shut behind him.
I walked over to the chairs against the wall and sat down. Hands on my knees.
I counted. Eleven beige tiles. Three steps across the lobby. Half a second of recalculation.
I'd had fifteen minutes of him. She'd lived with him for twelve years.
I understood now why she had run.
He had been watching us. The house was just the part he wanted me to know about. I didn't know what else he had. I didn't know how long he'd been looking. I didn't know what to do about any of it.
I breathed in through my nose, held it, let it out. I couldn't call Tessa—not with the visitation still going on, not with Nicholas in the building. I had four hours. I sat in the chair. Same hands. Same face.
Nothing had happened. Everything had happened.
The door at the back of the lobby opened. Noah came through.
He saw me and walked. Then half-walked, half-ran. He came to the chair where I was sitting and put his hand in mine.
He didn't say anything. He just held on.
His fingers were tight. The kind of tight a kid's fingers got when they'd decided on the walk down the hallway to make sure I felt them.
I closed my hand around his.
The visit-room door opened again. Nicholas came through behind the monitor. He saw us. He was pleasant again—the way he had been on the way in.
"I'll see you both in two weeks, Lieutenant."
I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.
He nodded back. Turned. Walked across the lobby and out the front door without stopping at the receptionist.
I waited until the door closed behind him. Until the lobby was just the radiator and the receptionist's keyboard.
Then I stood and ruffled Noah's hair.
"Ready to go home, bud?"
He nodded.
I held his hand all the way out to the truck.
Noah was quiet on the drive. He didn't ask for music. He didn't open his book. He just looked out the window.
By the time I parked outside the apartment, the light was almost gone. We went up.
Tessa was at the kitchen counter, a towel over her shoulder. The smell of something warm and sweet was in the air. A small plate of pastries sat on the prep board, dusted with sugar.
Noah dropped his bag and went straight to her, wrapping his arms around her middle and holding on.
She put her hand on the back of his head. "Hi, baby. How was your day?"
He pulled back and started telling her about Sean's shop. The radiator. The supply list. The tile spacers and the trowel. Sean coming around the counter. Sean letting him help round up the order from the back. He didn't say anything about the visit. He didn't say anything about his father.
She let him talk. She nodded at the right places. She kept her hand on his back the whole time.
When he ran out of steam about of the shop, he said, "I'm going to the bathroom."
He padded down the hall.
The apartment got quiet.
She turned to me. The brightness she'd held for Noah was gone.
"How was it?"
I leaned against the counter. Looked at her.
"Noah was fine. He was—he was good."
"Cole."
"He knows about the house, Tessa. He told me he'd driven past it. He's been looking into me."
She exhaled. Looked at the counter, not at me. Her thumb went to the edge of the prep board.
"That's what he's like."
The way she said it told me everything. The flat, tired knowing. The not-surprise. The if-it-isn't-this-it's-something-else.
And underneath it, the guilt. She wasn't looking at me because she didn't want me to see it.
"Tessa."
She looked up.
I hadn't figured out what to say. I said it anyway.
"We're going to be fine."
She held my eyes for a second longer than she usually did. Then she let out the breath she'd been holding.
"I hope so."
She turned to the counter. Picked up the plate. Set it on the prep board between us.
"I made these for you."
"Tessa—"
"I wanted to say thank you. For—all of it. The visitation. The pullout. Picking him up from school."
I looked at the plate. I had not eaten anything since six that morning. The plate looked like food. The plate also looked like a hand someone had reached out across a table I had not been ready to sit at.
"I don't eat sweets."
The words came out before I had decided to say them. They were the wrong words.
I watched her face. She kept the smile up. Most of it.
"Oh. That's—okay. Maybe Noah will—"
"Tessa."
"It's fine, Cole. You don't have to."
I picked one up. The pastry was warm; sugar came off on my fingers. I took a bite.
The first thing was butter. The second was cinnamon. The third was something I didn't recognize. It tasted like the kind of thing a woman who had been baking for years made for someone she wanted to do something nice for.
I chewed. Swallowed. "It's not bad."
She looked at me. "Not bad?"
"Yeah."
"Cole. Is that really the best you can do?"
"It's bad or not bad. You take it or leave it."
She looked at me a second longer.
"I'm taking it!"
She smiled and turned back to the stove.
I watched her. The corner of my mouth moved. I let it.