Yet when he handed the phone to her, he had a sour expression on his face. She took the phone, he took Michael from her, and she looked to the display as she answered the call.
It was Duran.
Kate and Allen locked eyes for a moment and she understood his strain.
Her heart racing, Kate answered the call.
Allen walked into the kitchen; the shadow of that falling boulder may as well have been growing larger and larger, covering him completely.
CHAPTER TWO
Sandra Peterson woke up fifteen minutes before her alarm was set to go off. She had been waking up to that same alarm, at 6:30 every morning, for the last two years or so. She’d always been a good sleeper, managing seven to nine hours every night and never waking before the alarm. But this morning, she was stirred awake by excitement. Kayla was home from college and they were going to spend the entire day together.
It would be the first time they’d spent more than half a day together since Kayla started college last year. She was home because one of her childhood friends was getting married. Kayla had been raised in Harper Hills, North Carolina, a small rural town about twenty miles outside of Charlotte, and had opted to enroll in an out-of-state college as early as she could. Going to school at Florida State meant their times together were few and far between. They’d last seen each other at Christmas, and that had been almost a year ago for only a period of ten hours before Kayla had left to visit her father in Tennessee.
Kayla had always handled the divorce well. Sandra and her husband had split when Kayla was eleven and she never really even seemed to care. Sandra supposed it was one of the reasons Kayla had never played favorites. When she visited one parent, she made a point to visit the other. And because of that torturous trip—from Tallahassee, to Harper Hills, to Nashville—Kayla didn’t visit very often.
Sandra shuffled out of the bedroom in her pajamas and bedroom slippers. She walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, passing by Kayla’s room. She didn’t expect her daughter to wake up any time before eight, and that was fine. Sandra figured she could put some coffee on and prepare a nice breakfast for when she was awake.
She did just that, scrambling up some eggs, frying some bacon, and making a dozen silver dollar pancakes. The kitchen was smelling amazing by seven o’clock, and Sandra was surprised the smells hadn’t stirred Kayla awake yet. It had worked when Kayla had been at home, especially when the high school years had come about. But now the smells of her home cooking apparently did not have the same effect on her daughter.
Anyway, Kayla had been out with friends last night—some friends she hadn’t seen since high school graduation. Sandra hadn’t felt right sticking with her daughter’s old curfew now that she was in college, so Sandra had simply left it at: Come home in one piece and preferably sober.
As the morning crept on toward eight and Kayla had still not come out of her room, Sandra started to worry. Rather than knock on the bedroom door and potentially wake her up, though, Sandra looked out the living room window. She saw Kayla’s car in the driveway, parked right behind her own car.
Relieved, Sandra went back to making breakfast. When all of the food was ready, it was 7:55. Sandra hated to wake her daughter (she was sure it would be seen as rude and uncool), but she simply couldn’t help it. Maybe after breakfast, Kayla would take a nap and rest up before they started their day of shopping and a late lunch in Charlotte. Besides…the eggs were going to get cold and Kayla had always made a point to mention how gross cold eggs were.
Sandra walked down the hall to Kayla’s room. It felt surreal and comforting at the same time. How many times had she knocked on this door in her adult life? Thousands, for sure. To be doing it again made her heart warm.
She knocked, paused a moment, and then added a sweet-sounding: “Kayla, honey? Breakfast is ready.”
There was no response from inside. Sandra frowned. She was not naïve enough to think that Kayla and her friends had not been drinking last night. She had never seen her daughter drunk or enduring a hangover and did not want to see it at all if she could help it. She wondered if Kayla was simply hungover and not ready to face her mother.
“There’s coffee,” Sandra added, hoping it might help.
Still no response. She knocked one more time, louder this time, and opened the door.
The bed was still perfectly made. There was no sign of Kayla.
But that makes no sense, Sandra thought. Her car is out front.
She then recalled a particularly ungraceful moment from her own teenage years where she had driven home drunk out of her mind. She’d managed to make it home but had passed out in her car, in the driveway. She found it hard to imagine Kayla behaving in such a way but there were only so many other possibilities to consider.
As Sandra closed Kayla’s bedroom door and walked back through the kitchen, a little ball of worry bounced around in her stomach. Maybe Kayla had been hiding some drinking or drug problems from her. Maybe they’d spend their day talking through such things rather than their planned day of fun.
Sandra steeled up her courage to have such a conversation as she opened the front door. Just as she stepped out onto the porch, she froze. Her left leg literally paused in the air, refusing to set down.
Because if she set her foot down, she was stepping into a new world—a world where what she saw on her front porch was going to have to be faced and accepted.
Kayla was lying on the porch. She was on her back and staring up with unblinking eyes. There were red abrasions around her throat. She was not moving.
Sandra finally brought that other foot down. When she did, the rest of her body followed it. She fell into a crumpled ball by her dead daughter, thoughts of breakfast and shopping completely forgotten.
CHAPTER THREE
It never got any easier to step into a meeting with Director Duran. He had always been fair with Kate and she even considered him a good friend. But the nature of the call and the way the last few months of her life had gone made Kate think that this was going to be a tense meeting—perhaps a meeting that would put an end to her briefly resurrected career as an FBI agent.
When she stepped into his office, he greeted her with the no-nonsense smile she had come to know and appreciate ever since he had taken over for the director who had overseen the first half of her career. She and Duran were roughly the same age (she had never bothered to ask how old he was because it seemed rude) and had a mutual appreciation for one another.
“Hey, Kate, have a seat.”
She was immediately alarmed that he had used her first name. It was very informal, something he had only ever done in after-hours situations or when conversations had gotten heated.
“Kate, huh?” she asked. She was beyond the point of being nervous around him. She made the comment in jest, as if basically painting the situation for what it was and placing it neatly on the desk between them.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re still on your extended maternity leave,” he said. “Seemed silly to call you agent. However, as you might have imagined, all of that is sort of why I wanted to speak with you.” He let out a deep breath here and looked her straight in the eyes. “How are you, Kate?”
“Good. Confused, I guess.”
“Feeling like the Miracle Mom?”
“I suppose I do fit right in with the celebrity circles, don’t I?” she joked. “I need to hurry this up, by the way. I have a lunch scheduled with Ryan Seacrest right after this.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Kate shrugged. Humor had never really been a part of their relationship anyway.
“I won’t lie,” Duran said. “It was sort of cool around here. People quick to say they knew you. Sharing links and articles about the Miracle Mom.”
“You know, I only did two interviews. How that turned into more than forty articles, I’ll never know.”
“That’s social media for you. It was nuts. Anyway…tell me, Kate. Has your newfound fame made you think twice about returning to the bureau?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “No. If anything is going to keep me from coming back, it would not be my brush with fame.”
“But something could stop you?”
“Maybe. My baby, for one. My age for another.”
“You’ve been out for three months now,” he said. “A little more, actually. I suppose I don’t need to point out that you’re not getting younger. Still…your body of work post-retirement is pretty impressive.”
“Forgive me for being so blunt and to the point,” Kate said. “But what do you want? Do you want me back?”
“In a perfect world, yes. But there have been meetings here and there. All of those articles not only highlight that you gave birth at fifty-seven, but that you are also still an active FBI agent. You go back out there, I don’t know what that’s going to be like in terms of media attention.”
Kate reclined back in her seat. She hadn’t even thought of that.
“Let’s be real for a minute,” Duran went on. “Yes, I want you back. But that’s being selfish. You’re a great asset and, if I’m being very real, it would do wonders for the bureau. The media loves you right now. You’re like some weird C-list celebrity, right up there with those kids that react to new music on YouTube. But I’m not going to try to sway you. If you want out, you can have out and I think everyone would understand.”
“I miss it, though,” Kate said. She hadn’t even fully realized it until it was out of her mouth.
“I figured you did. So what I can do—for the next few months, anyway—is set you on some low-risk cases. Just some things to keep your mind busy and your focus sharp. That is, if you feel that you’ve had enough time to rest and you’re ready to head back out.”
“I am,” she said. The idea of placing Michael into daycare hurt her heart, but she knew it would be good for him…as well as for her and Allen. Though, if she were being honest, she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for it yet. Before she could get dragged down by those thoughts, she carried on with the conversation. “How has DeMarco been doing? I’ve only spoken to her three times since I’ve been out and every time I asked her about work, she was quick to change the subject.”
“That might be because she’s been quite busy. I’m allowed to tell you because she’s technically still listed as your partner…but she has been involved in two high-profile cases. Three weeks ago, she arrested two men who had been getting heroin out on the streets. A week before that, she single-handedly brought in a guy who killed three people in West Virginia and was on the run, passing through Maryland.”
“Seems she has been busy.”
“And now that you mention DeMarco, she’s just been given a briefing on a case in North Carolina. Seems like a cut-and-dry stalker-type case. Two dead young women, college-aged. DeMarco is on a roll and I’m sure she’d love to have you back. If this one is as simple as it seems on paper, it could be a great fit for both of you, in your different situations.”
“And what is my situation?”
“You know what I meant, Kate. If you want to try to get back into the swing of things, this might be a good case to do it. It is, of course, one hundred percent up to you.”
“It sounds nice, but I don’t want to get in her way if she’s doing well for herself.”
“I’m sure she’d love to have you. And, again sticking with honesty, if we don’t know how much longer you’re going to work, I think it makes more sense to have you paired with someone you know well.”
“Makes sense.”
Duran considered things for a moment before getting to his feet. “She’s due to leave tomorrow morning. Does that give you and your husband enough time to sort things out? If you don’t mind my asking, has it even been a conversation?”
“It has,” she said. “Maybe an unspoken one, but it’s been on our minds. I think he knows I’m not done, but…”
“But what?”
“But that it’s close. That my time with the bureau is coming to an end.”
There was another question on Duran’s mind. She could see him debating whether or not to ask it. But she knew what it was and she was grateful he kept it quiet.
Is this your last case?
She was glad he left it unspoken because she had no idea how to answer it.
***
It was the sole topic of conversation at dinner. Allen took it well, mainly because he’d known it was coming. The moment Duran had called earlier in the day, he had known. The conversation had gone surprisingly well, though there was an underlying tension hovering over the dining room table.
“Here’s the thing,” Allen said, shoving his now-empty plate to the side. He’d made teriyaki chicken for dinner and it had been amazing. It was another of those small ways he treated her well. “There’s a very large part of me that is thrilled you’re going back. The last month or so, it’s been almost painful to watch you stalking around the place, looking like you lost your keys and had no idea where to look for them. I know you miss it and in terms of this case, I’m happy to agree to it. But it raises some questions.”
“A lot of questions,” Kate agreed. “Let’s tackle them.”
“Great. While I am pretty much retired at this point, I will still have to take calls and attend meetings here and there for the next year or so to wrap up those last-minute deals. So I’ll ask that your job not automatically overrule mine. That being said, we need to go ahead and pull the trigger on lining up daycare for Michael.”
“Agreed. Now, for this case, are you open for the next week or so?”
“I am. I have nothing on the calendar for another three weeks, actually.”
“And would you mind being a single father for several days if I take this case?”
“Sure thing. Boy time will be fun.”
“What other questions do you have?”
“I’m thinking of the safety factor. I know you can hold your own and it’s one of the reasons I love you. But I also don’t like the idea of my fifty-seven-year-old wife out there chasing after men half her age that have no problem killing her. It’s not like you’re one of these agents that sit behind a desk or parked in a car.”
“Duran and I talked about that. This case in particular should be a pretty simple one. He’s also aware of the age factor, though he was a bit more pleasant about how he worded it.”
“One more.” Allen leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his wine. He looked over to the bouncy seat Michael had been snoozing in while they ate and smiled. “How long are you going to keep at it? Honestly? How much longer can you push it? I can’t imagine putting your body through the stress of having a child has made it any easier.”
“It’s a difficult question to answer,” she said. “This whole situation…I could have never dreamed it up. A baby at fifty-seven. A supervisor and a partner who still want me active. It’s more than I can honestly wrap my head around and…I just don’t know. I don’t think I will until I get back out there.”
She watched how he thought about it, how the right corner of his mouth ticked down into an almost-frown the way it often did when he was deep in thought.
“Then I think you need to get back out there,” he said. “For now. Maybe we revisit this in three months and see what it looks like. Does that seem fair?”
“It seems more than fair.”
She wanted to tell him how lovely and accommodating he had been through this entire relationship. But he already knew it, because she said it all the time. She knew that it appeared that she chose work over him the majority of the time; if she was honest with herself, that was exactly what she had done. But now they had a baby and the future all but beckoned a marriage. This was her life now, her new life, and she finally had a chance to not let work control it all. She’d done that once before and it had nearly caused a rift between her and Melissa.