one ferociously hot pull, then exhaled through her nose, feeling grumpy and frustrated. Here she was, a tough-ass bomb cop who had de-armed, defused, and defeated more than enough bombs to blow Cole's house right off the mountain, who had, herself, been blown apart in a goddamned trailer park, come back to tell about it, then gone on to beat and bury the most notorious serial bomber in U.S. history (that asshole, Mr. Red, who had blown up her house in the process, that prick!), and she couldn't work up the nut to bang on Cole's door. And then bang him.
It wasn't for lack of trying. Starkey had asked Cole out, flirted with him shamelessly, and pretty much done everything short of putting a gun to his head. But Cole, that idiot, had it bad for his lawyer, the Southern Belle.
Starkey scowled as if she had bitten a turd.
"Looo-ceee."
Every time she thought about Lucy Chenier, she pictured Lucille Ball, all that wild red hair, bulging eyes, and loony bullshit with Ethel Mertz. She could hear Ricky's voice.
"Looo-ceee, I hooaaannn!"
How could Cole say her name without laughing?
Starkey finished the cigarette, tossed it, then lit another. Starkey wasn't short on nerve, but her stupid shrink had suggested she wasn't so much afraid of Cole's rejection as she was of eventually losing him. Starkey hadn't had the best of luck when it came to men. Not so many years ago she was head over heels in solid with her sergeant-supervisor on the Bomb Squad, Sugar Boudreaux, who still left her shaking when she thought about him, but Sugar had been killed with her in the trailer park. Then there was Jack Pell, the ATF agent she met on the hunt for Mr. Red. Starkey had been hitting the booze pretty good back then, and she was coming off Sugar and the effed-up ripped-apart surgical nightmare that was her patched-together body. One third of her right breast-missing in action; one fourth of her stomach-gone; three feet of intestine-adios; her spleen-what spleen?; and the Big Casino-her uterus… and everything that went with it. Pell had been tender, and his passionate mercies had gone a long way toward helping her kick the booze, but after a while they both realized it wasn't The Love, Pell with his own uncertainties and Starkey with hers, both of them with so far yet to go.
"Love'm and lose'm."
And maybe that was her fear-if she had Cole then she would lose him, just as she lost Sugar and Pell-so it was safer to simply want him.
Psychobabble bullshit.
Starkey lit another cigarette, then slouched down in the seat, watching his house. She had liked Elvis Cole since they met on the night the little boy went missing. She liked his dopey sense of humor and the fierce way he tried to be normal even though he wasn't; she liked how he had given every part of himself to find that boy, and the loyalty she saw in his friends-
Starkey grinned.
– and it didn't hurt he had a hot ass, either.
Starkey's laughter faded, and the hole it left filled with sadness. Truth be told, she had a crush on him, she was fascinated by him, she dwelled on him, and she wanted him to want her as much as she wanted him.
Maybe he didn't like her.
Maybe she wasn't his type.
He was still in love with Lucy Chenier.
Starkey let smoke drift from her mouth, up and over her face like a cloud, hiding her. She hadn't taken a drink in ten months. She wouldn't start now.
All she had to do was go to his door and knock.
"Do it!"
Starkey pushed herself upright, flicked the cigarette away, then started her car as-
Thirty yards away in his carport, brake lights came on and the grungy yellow Corvette backed out.
Starkey said, "Shit!"
She ducked, praying to Christ he didn't see her as the Corvette's tail swung around. She wedged herself all the way down on the seat, damn near under the wheel, and when she finally looked up he was gone.
15
The Missing
"Father? Father, are you here?"
"I'm coming, dear."
Father Clarence Wills-called Father Willie by the patrons of Our Lady of Righteous Forgiveness Church-hoisted his creaky bones up from the floor of his closet and stepped into his office. Mrs. Hansen, who assisted him in his clerical duties, was waiting in the door with her purse and jacket.
He said, "I was just trying to get those papers away. Why is it all the empty file space is at the bottom of these