car door. Boldt stayed where he was.
“It’s none of my business,” Boldt said. “How do I say this? Your father . . . when we talked . . .”
“My father can be a real asshole.”
“He took a kind of holier-than-thou attitude, not with me, but about you. Like I could teach you something by coming over here. As I said, it’s none of my business.”
“I apologize.”
“My point being, he was wrong. Dead wrong. I could give him a call, as a follow-up, let him know how it went over here. Wouldn’t want to do that without your permission. Wouldn’t want to tread where I shouldn’t.”
The pit in Walt’s stomach told him more about himself than he wanted to acknowledge.
“Tread wherever you’d like,” he said, feeling the warmth of sweet satisfaction flooding him. “Kind of wish I had a wire in place for that phone call.”
Boldt barked out a laugh. When he climbed into the Jeep, the vehicle sagged to his side and then leveled. Boldt clipped into the seat belt, let out a sigh, and said, “I’m going to miss this place.”
24
“This is a pleasant surprise,” Walt told Fiona as he entered his office to find her waiting for him.
“I told Nancy it had to do with photographs,” she said, hoisting her camera case. “I lied.”
“A social visit?” He kissed her on the cheek. The return kiss was tepid at best. He moved around to behind his desk, thinking of little else.
“I wish. No. It’s . . . I need a favor, and I’m not sure it’s fair to ask. I don’t want to take advantage of our . . . you know . . . the other night, but at the same time, I need something.”
He stood and eased his office door shut and returned to the chair next to her, forgoing the seat behind the desk.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I . . . the thing is . . .” She met his eyes and then looked quickly away.
“We’re both adults here.”
“It isn’t that,” she said. “It’s . . . We don’t really know each other,” she said. “Not all that well.”
He felt it in the center of his chest, not like a knife but more like a medical procedure where all the blood, all the life, was being drawn out of him into a syringe, while he sat there watching it.
“That’s what we do. Right? From here on out. Get to know each other better. Share the stuff you never share. It’s what makes the bond unique. Worth so much. I want to know you. I want to know all about you.”
Her eyes welled. “You might be surprised.”
“Try me. I like surprise.”
For an instant he saw in her a hope or dream, but something passed like a shadow between them and then that look was gone, replaced by something more protective and even suspicious. He’d had similar moments in interrogations when the suspect seemed ready to download, only to clamp down and turn inward. He’d lost her. Rather than push, or fish, which was his nature, he sat back and tried to appear the model of patience.
“I called the company. The one that can trace the pickup. Michael and Leslie’s pickup.”
He kept his mouth shut, measuring her fragility in her sideways looks and the whispering quality of her voice.
“They said I have to file a police report. Report it as a stolen vehicle. Without that they won’t trace it.”
“Pretty common with these companies,” he said. “They want it to be for real. It’s not a service to track down your missing teenager.”
“But that’s just it: that’s what I need. To track down Kira.”
“Meaning?”
“I haven’t seen her in a couple of days, Walt. That happens sometimes. We can go most of a week without overlapping. But the pickup truck being gone. That’s not good. She knows the rules. The last thing I want is for her to get into trouble with Michael and Leslie and maybe lose the house-sitting thing. But if I want to track her down, I have to report it as stolen, and if I report it as stolen—”
“The Engletons find out about it.”
“Exactly.”
“But if I were to make the call . . . ?”
“Something like that. Yes.”
“No problem.”
“What? Really?” He watched the load come off her: her head raised, her shoulders seemed higher, straighter.
“Not a big deal,” he said. “I can have Nancy make the call.”
“But does it . . . I don’t know. Could you get into trouble?”
“I can’t imagine how. We make these