Fated (12 page)

“When’s your next evening off?”

“Friday.”

“Dinner it is, then. Now get out before I do screw you senseless.”

T
HE
NEXT
morning Hart took care to meticulously shave off the rough stubble on his face. It wouldn’t do to show up at the funeral on Sunday with a rash because he’d been walking around with scruff all week. It wasn’t the most pleasant of shaves due to the raw skin on his left cheek, but he felt better, steadier on his feet than he had since the explosion. Not that last night had helped. He’d slept restlessly, partly because of the nap on the couch, partly because he kept replaying that damn kiss in his mind.

For a second he contemplated putting some product in his scruffy ash-brown hair, but in the end, he left it as it was. A few more premature grays had appeared at his temples, and Hart felt the light mood of that morning drain away along with the soap from his shave.

Will be at the station in thirty,
he texted Freddie. Her answer,
I’m already here
, arrived as he got in the car. The drive into town went smoothly. No black vans popped up in the rearview mirror. By the time he’d parked the borrowed police car, Freddie was coming down the steps, two cups of coffee in her hands.

“I saw you pull in from the kitchen. Is that stubble burn on your face?” She handed over one of the coffees. “Let’s take my car. Less obvious.”

“Good morning to you too. And thanks.” Hart grabbed his suit jacket from the backseat, locked the car, and followed her to the—yet again—illegally parked Camry.

“Well?” Freddie asked as she clicked her seat belt in place. Hart put his coffee in the mug holder and raised an eyebrow at her. She made a swirly motion in front of his face. “Stubble burn?”

“Handicapped spot? Really?”

“Don’t change the subject, Hart. Hit a nerve, did I? Hot date last night?”

“No, I just hadn’t shaved in a few days.”

“I’d noticed
that
.” Freddie narrowed her eyes at him but apparently decided to drop it, and she reversed the car onto the road. “Nice suit, by the way.”

Hart looked down at his royal blue pants and white shirt. He’d picked the burgundy tie to go with it and wondered if it was too much. “I already managed to spill coffee on the other one,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat as he remembered the circumstances.

Freddie gave a noncommittal hum and turned her attention to the road. She wore a sleek and shiny black suit, with a sort of ruffled flesh-tone shirt underneath. He wondered how she didn’t melt from the warmth, but her hair and makeup looked flawless.

The Camry’s soft hum made the burn on his side itch, and he shifted in his seat. “So.” He opened the file in his lap and flicked to the page on Drake’s ex-girlfriend. “Her name is Kathy Cochran, twenty-nine years old, works as a nurse at Brightly General. Now, that’s interesting.”

“Pediatrics, so she’s on the same floor as Ben. But forget about that for now.” Freddie’s eyes twinkled as she checked her rearview mirror and then side-eyed Hart. “You gonna invite Toby to do your wounds again tonight?”

“I can probably manage them myself now.” He looked down at the papers again. “She lives on the other side of town, both parents still alive, two younger sisters and one older brother. How long did she date Mr. Drake?”

“Four years. He’s a good-looking guy, isn’t he?”

He stared at her, confounded. “Drake?”

“No.” Freddie rolled her eyes. “Toby.”

“I—Yeah, I guess. So if they were together for four years, then wh
—
”

“Oh come
on
, Lieutenant.” Freddie slapped the wheel and grinned as she switched on the indicator to overtake a delivery truck. “You’ve gotta give me
something
.”

Hart considered pretending he had no idea what Freddie meant. Instead he sighed, closed the file, and watched Shadow Mountain recede in the side-view mirror. “What do you want? Yeah, he’s a good-looking guy. Yes, I like him. But he’s also a part of this case. And even if he wasn’t—” Toby’s stubble catching on his, mouth hungry and tasting of chocolate, that grip on the back of his head…. Hart dug his fingers into his thighs. “I’m here to bury my dad. I don’t have space in my head for anything else right now.” Not to mention the brevity of his stay, the mountain range between them, and the strange intensity about Toby that somewhere deep down rubbed him the wrong way.

Freddie hesitated, and Hart wondered if he’d been too harsh, when she said, “Tell me about him.”

“What? About Toby? You know more about him than—”

“Tell me about your dad,” Freddie clarified. “I don’t know much. All Supe’s told me is that you guys kind of parted on bad terms, and that’s why you haven’t been back to Brightly in years.” The road ahead of them was clear, and Freddie settled back in her seat, one hand on the wheel, the other on the armrest.

“It wasn’t… bad, really.” He considered whether or not he wanted to talk about this, but it wouldn’t do any harm. Even if it made him rethink certain things, like did his father really resent him for his choices? The notes in the books seemed to prove otherwise, but facing up to the ten-year gap between them being all his own fault wasn’t something he could do right now. “It’s not as if he kicked me out of the house.”

“No? So what happened, then?”

“He just wanted me to follow in his footsteps, I think. He was a professor at Brightly University, a brilliant man. I think he sometimes got annoyed with the rest of humanity because it couldn’t keep up with him. The older he got, the more quiet he became, as if all the conversation he needed was taking place in his own mind. But then if he bothered to open his mouth, you’d be left with a gem to think about. Or you’d have no idea what he’d said because it could’ve been in Latin or Greek. He was disappointed I became a cop, I guess. It didn’t fit what he had in mind for his son.” Or so he’d always assumed.

“So he cut you off?”

“Not at all. He paid for the academy and everything. We just… grew apart.” And a painful process it had been, like pulling a dull knife excruciatingly slowly from a wound. “We stayed in touch for the first few years, but the thought of disappointing him with just being who I wanted to be…. It was—” Like bleeding dry. Hart fell silent.

“I understand,” Freddie said, her wide, expressive mouth unusually tight. She probably did. Growing up with a mother who made money conversing with ghosts wouldn’t have been playing at perfect family either.

A vaguely familiar tune came through the radio, and for a while Hart witnessed the green valley of Brightly—the original town name was Bright Valley—stretching out before them as they left downtown behind.

This was where the university grounds began. According to his father, the buildings had been designed to mirror Britain’s Oxford University, and while Hart felt pretty sure it didn’t live up to the real City of Dreaming Spires, it was still a lovely place. As a kid he’d often spent time with his father here, playing on the lawns reserved for students only as his father corrected papers late into the evening. When he was very little, his father’s students used to sneak him jelly beans and soda, and Jonathan would pretend not to see.

Once past the university center, Brightly quickly grew unapologetic in its wildness. The valley Hart and Freddie drove through seemed calm and harmless, stretching into soft green woods once the edge of town lay behind them, but people had died on the Mountain surrounding the valley like a half moon. Exposed to the elements, or just wandering until they starved, they’d left their bones to the earth, sometimes never to be found.

Undiluted nature at its purest: this was the reason Jonathan Hart never accepted those offers from bigger, better, brighter universities.

As far as I’m concerned, my boy, this is as close to living with nature as I can get without giving up my favorite armchair.

“So why date someone for four years and not live together?” Freddie slowed the car to take a right turn, and Hart blinked himself back to the present and the file in his lap.

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

“Well.” Freddie pulled up in front of the last house in a new-looking suburb and killed the engine. “Let’s go find out.”

Hart recognized Kathy as the pony-scrubs woman from the hospital. She was pretty in a mousy way. Her features were small and sharp, her hair a dull shade of black. The best thing going for her, Hart supposed, was a pair of startlingly blue eyes and the sharp intelligence that shone in them.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up,” she said, not even sparing a second glance at their badges before she stepped aside to let them in. “Kitchen’s straight ahead. You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m preparing my dinner since I have a night shift tonight.”

“See,” Freddie mock-whispered as they pushed through into the narrow hallway. “Told you the clothes make the cop.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hart mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

Kathy’s kitchen, in contrast to the narrow hallway, looked bright and spacious. Large French windows opening to a patio let in the sharp morning sunlight, widening up to a view of the green valley beyond. Soon the trees and shrubs would shift to various reds, yellows, and browns, and Hart thought it must give the impression of a valley on fire.

“Lovely isn’t it?” Kathy said, coming up behind him. “The view won’t be mine for long, though. Next year they’ll be building more houses around here.”

Hart shifted a little so the sun didn’t quite shine right into his eyes. “Didn’t I see you during a morning shift a few days ago?”

Kathy narrowed her eyes. “I thought I recognized you. Didn’t look much like a cop that day, did you?” Freddie had her back to them as she studied some photographs along a white wall, but Hart heard her snort. “But yes, my schedule’s a bit all over the place these days. We’re short-staffed.”

“You live here alone?”

“Yes.” Kathy crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “I always have. It’s what everyone wants to know, isn’t it? How a silly little girl like me can afford a place like this on my own. I’ll tell you how. I’m smart with my money, and I work hard, that’s how.”

“I’m sorry,” Hart said, a little taken aback. Behind Kathy, Freddie leaned against the counter with a cat-got-the-canary grin on her face. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“No, I know.” Kathy smiled a bit sheepishly. “Sorry, automatic reaction. I got a lot of those sort of comments after I broke up with Ben. Telling me we should’ve moved in together a long time ago, that no man likes an independent woman, that sort of misogynistic shit.” Kathy scoffed and shook her head. It looked like she’d say more but changed her mind. “You want coffee or tea?”

“No, I’m all right, thanks.” They both looked at Freddie.

“No, thanks. Can I sit, though?”

“Sure.” Kathy indicated a kitchen chair, and Freddie sank down.

“Why did you break up?” Freddie asked.

“He changed.” Kathy went to stir something on the stove, and Hart sat down kitty-corner from Freddie so he could keep an eye on both of them. Everything in the kitchen appeared new, but not so the table. It was a heavy, solid wooden piece with years of history marking its top. “It was pretty gradual at first. His ALS got worse, and he withdrew a bit, which is normal. I gave him space while still trying to be there for him, you know? For four years we had an equal relationship. We didn’t want to marry, live together, or have children. We had our careers, and we had each other, and that was enough.”

“Did he change his mind?” Freddie picked up a round green coaster and started to play with it. “Did he suddenly want all those things after all?”

Kathy turned to face them, her arms crossed again, but this time it looked like she was hugging herself rather than keeping the world at bay. “I didn’t think so at the time but… maybe. I don’t know. Then from one day to the next he did a one-eighty. Suddenly he was walking better, the muscle spasms and pain eased, the… uh….” Kathy blushed a bit. “The sexual appetite returned. For a little while anyway.”

“That should be impossible, shouldn’t it?” Freddie asked. “With ALS I mean.”

Kathy shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my profession that should be impossible. But yes, it was unusual.”

“Was there someone else? Another reason why you broke up?” Hart watched Kathy avert her eyes, jaw tensing like she was biting something back. There was a lot of anger there, still, and Hart suspected it hid a lot of hurt.

“I didn’t think so, but like I said, I don’t know any more.”

“Go on.”

Kathy pushed away from the counter but then fell back again, her shoulders slumping. “He completely pulled away from me. First he went on a weekend trip without telling me, or asking me along. Then he stopped answering my calls. Didn’t even have the decency to break up with me face to face. He left me to just figure it out. And then he started spending money. He did a bit of web design from home, not that he needed to, but the stupid stuff he started buying….” Kathy shook her head.

“Like what?” Freddie asked. Hart watched her frown for a moment and then turned his attention back to Kathy.

“He got a motorcycle. One of those big flashy ones, yellow and loud. I didn’t even know he could ride one, isn’t that funny? You think you know someone after four years but….” She sighed. “Years of angsting about ending up in a wheelchair, and then suddenly he’s on a bike.” Kathy shook her head and abruptly turned away to stir something that Hart thought was rice. The stirring stilled, and the sound of bubbling food filled the kitchen. Hart watched Freddie frown, her eyes flicking back and forth like she was thinking hard.

Kathy lowered the heat on her pans, flicked on the exhaust fan, and sat down opposite Freddie. She carefully folded her arms on the table.

There was defiance in her eyes, as if she’d been lectured on her decisions before. “So I bit the bullet and broke up with him. As long as he had the wheelchair hanging over his head, a nurse would’ve been a pretty good investment, right?” Kathy laughed softly, the sound dry as dust. “How could I have been so stupid?”