When he was finished, he turned around and gave her his FBI face.
She held out a warning hand. “Don’t do that, don’t do that. I’m immune to FBI face.”
He ignored the hand and took her elbow in a position that was starting to seem very familiar, walking in the direction of the restaurant. The wind was still lively, snapping her hair around, but there was as yet only a light drizzle covering everything.
“You want to tell me what that little bit of craziness was about?” He pitched his voice to be heard over the wind, walking quickly with her across the circle to the warm-looking haven of the Alcove. Chris stepped closer to him, letting his taller, broader frame block most of the wind.
She pretended to consider. “Not really.”
“Why don’t you do it anyway?”
She sighed dramatically, shoving her hands in her coat pockets. “I’m afraid of alarms. They freak me out.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. It’s a completely irrational fear.”
“Okay.” He half laughed, tugging her into the shelter of the restaurant doorway. They stood close together: he in his civilian gear, FBI jacket, and hat, and she in her UGG boots. He seemed thoughtful as he looked down at her, but not annoyed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re strange?”
“Probably my most common identifier,” she admitted with no small amount of pride.
He gave her a hooded look from behind his glasses. “I don’t think that’s the most common adjective used to describe you.”
“No? You have a better one?”
“Several,” he noted shortly before shaking his head and pulling the door open. He addressed the hostess, a high school girl named Carly who sometimes brought her dog, Biscuit, to be groomed. “Two, please,” he requested.
The girl’s eyes were huge as she took in the handsome face and the glasses and the overall size of the man.
“Sure.” She turned to Chris, and her eyes widened even further. Chris could see the wheels turning in her head and knew that it would take less than an hour for the whole town to know she was eating dinner with a large FBI agent.
Carly seated them in one of the booths, which had old-fashioned Tiffany lamps overhead and brown leather seats. She thought about warning him that the restaurant, while cute and ostensibly Italian, was owned by very distinctly Southern cooks and served breakfast as well, so the menu was a mix, to say the least.
The menus were laminated cards, front and back. He looked briefly at both sides and set it down, folding his hands, his elbows on the table. His ring caught her eye; it was hard to miss the big gold bauble.
“What’s with the ring, Goldfinger?” She gestured to it.
He rubbed it with one of his fingers, and she tried not to think about what those fingers would feel like on her body, touching her face, lips, and other parts.
“It’s my Aggie ring.”
“Your Aggie ring. Your class ring? So you always wear it?”
“That’s right.” He leaned back, propping one elbow up on top of the bench seat. “It’s a school tradition.”
“Uh-huh.” Chris perused her own menu. “It sounds like one of those crazy schools that indoctrinates through some sort of hazing ritual.”
He shrugged. “Some people think so. Why didn’t you stay in school?”
“Ahh, well—” Thankfully the waitress showed up to take their drink orders. Chris didn’t recognize her, but they were always hiring students from the college.
Unfortunately, he didn’t seem inclined to let the conversation go. “So, school? Why not complete your degree?”
“You know, I don’t like that you get to do a background check on me while I have to pry things out of you.”
As soon as she said it, she realized she was tiptoeing onto shaky ground. He was on a case and she was deeply entrenched in it—he had not agreed to a social contract that would require him to answer personal questions. He was there to keep her safe or keep an eye on her or something. She had to put any attraction she felt between them in that context—he was off-limits.
Their drinks arrived—white wine for her, sweet tea for him—and their waitress whipped out her notepad to take their order immediately, never mind that Chris had barely glanced at the menu. She knew it by heart anyway.
“I’ll have the angel hair pasta with salmon.” Her usual, but this kid wouldn’t know that.
Helmer ordered a steak with wilted spinach and mashed potatoes. Not a bad choice, though she was tempted to warn him that the chef had overcooked the steak on the rare occasions when she’d ordered it—like when Tavey was buying.
She took a big sip of her wine and answered his question. “I took a few criminology classes, a computer course here and there. Sometimes I’ll take a class online, but nothing really seems to interest me long-term.”
“Except searching for the missing.”
Chris nodded. “Except that.”
He twisted his ring on his finger, a frown gathering between his eyes. “Have you ever considered a career, a family of your own? You’re almost thirty-five, right?”
She narrowed her eyes and considered throwing one of the plastic-wrapped breadsticks at his head. “What’s your point, Helmer? You going to ask me to marry you so I don’t go stale?”
He had the grace to look a little embarrassed, but he seemed to shrug that off. “I’m just saying that you put this search ahead of everything else in your life. Is that the plan forever?”
Now, that was an interesting question, but thoughts of Summer, of maybe finding Summer, had those pesky crows of grief pecking at her head again, so she waved off the question.
“I don’t think about that too much,” she said, trying to sound cavalier.
He seemed to accept that, or at least he wasn’t going to press her any more about it tonight, probably because she looked like she was about to cry.
“What about you; itching to move up in the ranks of the FBI?”
He seemed to think about it, but unlike her, he was constantly scanning the room, taking in everything—and everyone. She wondered if maybe he had an ulterior motive for joining her this evening.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” he replied, which she knew was a brush-off, but she let him get away with it for the moment. “Do you know everyone here?”
Chris stopped trying to resist and opened one of the packages of crispy, sesame-covered breadsticks. “Mostly. I don’t know our waitress, but she’s probably one of the college students. I know the hostess, the bartender, and the owner, though he’s not here right now. Most of the patrons look familiar. Crap—” She hunched down, breadstick in hand. “See those ladies over there in the corner behind the bar?”
He leaned a little to the right and looked over the bar to where the Ladies of the Apocalypse were having their Wednesday-night Scrabble tournament at a booth. They drank Amaretto sours and talked about their husbands as if they were children.
“I see them.”
“Ugh. Are they looking over here?”
He nodded. “They are.”
“Great.” She took an overzealous bite of her breadstick and sent crumbs flying. She chewed, brushing off herself and the table.
“They’re in my yoga class. Tuesday and Thursday,” she managed after chewing for several minutes and taking a big sip of wine.
“I take it you don’t like them.”
Chris thought about that. Not like them? She supposed she’d never thought about that. They were just—who they were. Part of the town. Part of the fabric of her life. She didn’t not like them, any more than she didn’t like taking a shower in the morning. They weren’t her favorite part of the day, but she didn’t wish them ill.
“They’re just a little critical,” she finally concluded, only to catch him examining her with a half smile on his face.
�
��What?” She touched her lips to check for crumbs.
“Most people don’t think so much about how they feel about someone.”
“They don’t?”
“Not in my experience.”
“Do you think that working for the FBI has made you think better or worse about people?”
He touched the tabletop, tracing a water ring left by his iced tea—the waitress should have given him a napkin. “That’s a really good question. I’ve seen some horrible things, some things that I wish I could unsee, but I’ve worked with and met some extraordinary people as well, selfless people who do nothing but work the job as best they can.”
“Yeah. That’s what Raquel says, though I think the job has been getting to her lately. She seemed pretty down last time I saw her.”
“She’s the cop in Atlanta? The one coming over tonight?”
“Yeah. If I’m in trouble, Tavey and Raquel are the first people by my side.”
“With brothers, they’re the first people by your side, but they’re also the first people to kick your ass.”
Chris grinned. “I don’t know, it sounds kinda nice. I think I’d have liked brothers. Maybe I’d get along with men better if I’d had to live with a few.”
He leaned back against the wooden booth, his thin, well-defined lips quirking a little bit as his eyes rested on her. “Men aren’t that difficult to figure out.”
Chris supposed that was true, but then she thought about her father. He was charming and handsome and wouldn’t know the truth if he was handcuffed to it. “Some men are, some aren’t.” She waved a hand at him, pleased but uncomfortable under the weight of his stare. “Take you, for instance.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What about me?”
“Well, when did you decide I’m not so bad?”
He tilted his head. “Who says I did?”
He was teasing; she could tell he was teasing, but she couldn’t put her finger on when his attitude toward her had changed. Just this morning he’d been glaring at her; everything she’d done had seemed to set his teeth on edge.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Seriously, what gives?”
His gaze dropped, just for a moment, to the cleavage she revealed before bouncing back to her face.
Chris bit her lip just a little, and a devil made her wonder what else she could do to get his attention.
“I still don’t approve of your methods, or of involving you in the case . . .”
“But?” She unconsciously leaned forward.
He leaned forward as well, putting his elbows on the table and linking his fingers together. “But you did help. And, spending time with you today, I understand a little more why you do what you do.”
“And that’s the only reason?” Chris wasn’t sure why she was digging so hard; she just wanted him to admit that he felt this strange unfurling attraction as well.
“No,” he drawled slowly, leaning back again, “it’s not the only reason.”
“Well . . .” Chris wanted to smack him with something. “What else?”
“If you have to ask, you really don’t know men all that well.”
Chris grinned. “Actually, I do okay. Everyone believes the men I create online.”
And just like that his face changed; he sat up straighter and his face tightened at the corners of his mouth.
“Wow.” She sat back as well, wishing she hadn’t said anything. “You really hate that I create online personas, don’t you?”
“I just don’t get it; don’t understand why you’d be a part of it.”
“It’s a job,” she argued, wishing they could go back to flirting. The flirting had been fun.
“It’s deceptive.”
“I’m not deceiving anyone.”
“You help people deceive.”
And that, Chris supposed, was the crux of it. He searched for the truth, and she blatantly flouted it; didn’t even see it as that important in the scheme of things.
“Most of the time, all my work does is give people a break,” she explained. “I don’t know if it’s right—probably not, but it’s mostly harmless.”
“You don’t know that.”
Chris started to argue with him, but then she paused. She didn’t actually know that.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes before Ryan sighed and leaned forward again.
He touched her hand. “Sorry. I take things too seriously sometimes.”
Chris swallowed, absurdly touched that he’d apologized. In her limited experience with men, they rarely apologized, especially when they thought they were in the right. He removed his hand immediately; it had been brief contact, but her skin tingled as if he’d touched it with an ice cube.
“It’s cool.” She shrugged. “I guess I’ve never thought about it like that. I just wanted a way to make money online, and . . . I’m good at it, I guess.” She laughed a little and shoved her hair out of her face. “I never really thought about whether I should do the things I do.”
He smiled at her. “You probably shouldn’t listen to me. I’m tainted. My ex had a bad habit of making things up.”
Now, this was a topic Chris wanted to know more about. “When did you break up?”
He looked reluctant; apparently the conversational waters had gone from tepid to shark-infested. “Almost two years ago.”
“I’m guessing it was bad?” Chris felt her face scrunch up in sympathy.
He nodded.
Chris took in his broad shoulders, serious face, and long-fingered, elegant hands. “If it makes a difference, I think she was an idiot.”
That surprised a laugh out of him.
She grinned, pleased with herself, and added, “Raquel would say that it’s for the best; that everything happens for a reason. I don’t know about that. I see too much that seems completely meaningless and unnecessary, I guess.”
“You don’t sound much like a girl from a town called Fate.”
Chris half smiled. “Nice. Usually the Fate jokes start much earlier.”
“That’s too bad. I was hoping to stand out as an original.”
Chris tilted her head. “You are.” She paused. “And you’re not. No one is, really. We’re all—how did you say it—partly cobbled together from the pieces of others . . . most of us doing the best we can to find our way in the world.”
“So you really don’t believe in fate?” He sounded surprised.
“I do. Did it sound like I didn’t?”
He nodded. “It did, yeah.”
Chris thought of Summer, of the fall afternoon when she disappeared.
“Well, then let me just add . . . sometimes we have no control over what happens to us at all.”
21
SHE KNELT IN FRONT of him, her hair pulled into a tidy ponytail, the blue T-shirt she wore for her new job clean and neatly tucked into her jeans.
“Are you sure?” he asked her, lifting her chin so she was meeting his eyes. Hers were wide and a little unfocused, like a woman experiencing an epiphany, her fast, shallow breath blowing over his wrist.
She nodded.
He was surprised, really, how easy it had been to change her, so fascinating to watch the strings of her world slowly fade, until there was only one left, black and thick and connected to him like a leash. He tugged it, very gently, and her mouth opened, breath shivering out.
He never felt anything like it; it was beautiful, so beautiful. He wanted the Creator to surrender to him in such a way.
“You’ll do it for me, then?”
“I’ll do anything for you,” she replied obediently.
“That’s good, then.” He stroked her hair. “That’s very good. Go over to the table.”
There was a dog tethered there, a Chihuahua mix; it was shivering, its tail tucked between i
ts legs.
She walked over to it, her body tensing as she approached the animal, which looked at her with liquid brown eyes and wagged its tail. Joe could see the deep pink string that connected the dog to the woman even though the woman’s had faded to black on her end. The dog still loved her, didn’t understand why she didn’t pet him, love him, take him home.
She tensed. “Badger.” That was all she said, but the little dog’s tail tucked even farther between his legs. He looked uncertain now, like maybe he didn’t know her.
“He remembers me,” she said quietly, her voice shaking.
“You know what you have to do,” he told her, and turned away, only vaguely curious as to whether she would go through with it. If she didn’t, he would take her strings.
He turned to his computers; his Creator had yet to return to her computers for that day. She’d been busy with the FBI, he thought, though he wasn’t certain. He hadn’t followed her after she left the cemetery that morning. Instead he’d gone to see what had fascinated her so much in the old graveyard.
On Sunday, it hadn’t occurred to him to check the cemetery when the women had visited there after church; he’d assumed they were visiting a grave, but this morning he’d been curious about what had held her attention, what kept her so still in front of the tree, almost as if she were in a trance.
He’d seen the little cross with the frayed, faded ribbons, and the name Summer Haven. Her friend—the one they searched for. He thought maybe that was the key to forcing his Creator’s surrender and decided to find out more about the missing girl.
The task had taken him most of the afternoon and several visits to the Fate library, where a helpful librarian—with a few faded, raggedy strings and one deep red one that looked cut in half—had helped him locate microfiche from 1986. He’d scrolled through the tiny black-and-white newsprint images from the local paper, the Fate Times, finding the articles on the missing eight-year-old girl Summer Haven.
Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) Page 13
