as I would have loved to help, I knew I’d already stepped way over the line. When Ruiz heard, I expected consequences. I honestly didn’t see any way around what I did, though. It needed to be done. We could have sent a patrol unit to pick Kayla up, but in all likelihood we would have lost the man who was following her, who we soon found out was named Avram Novak. Lauren could have gone with the patrol unit, but she had even less experience than the other officers who wound up at the scene. There was also the ticking clock that had left me no time to bring anyone else up to speed. And the fact that Kayla had my number and might have been hesitant to talk to anyone else.
I didn’t have a choice. I had to respond.
And the road to hell is paved with extenuating circumstances.
“Why can’t I just talk to you?” Kayla asked when I told her that Patrick would need to interview her.
“Because it’s not my case.”
“Then why did Ryan’s neighbor have your card?”
“I was investigating something else.”
“What?”
“His landlord was killed.”
“Oh, no. Ryan really likes him.” In her expression I could see the realization as it happened. “Do you think that’s why Ryan disappeared? Does it have something to do with that?”
“It might.”
“Do you think something happened to Ryan?” The worry was creasing the skin around her eyes and making her look older.
The lie I needed to tell her was too much to handle at the moment, so I withheld as much as I could. “Maybe,” I said. Before she could ask anything else, I said, “Let me check with the detective who needs to talk to you, all right?”
She nodded and I went back into the squad room. I called Patrick. He told me he was southbound on the 710 and he’d be there soon. Jen was still in court, so I left her another voice mail.
The familiar twinge of anticipation and excitement that always came with a break in a case was humming through me. My mind was racing with the possibilities, the questions I wanted to ask, the connections I wanted to make, the new threads I wanted to pull. But I forced myself to stop, to try to let go.
Kayla was still in the conference room. It was getting a lot of use this week. “He’ll be here in just a few minutes. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, water, iced tea?”
“Just water?”
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
Lauren was in the break room with a cup of coffee and a toasted bagel. “I missed lunch,” she said. “What do we do now?”
“Wait,” I said. “Patrick should be here any minute.” Usually, I was good at waiting. It comes with the job. This was different. I wasn’t waiting for my chance at the big play and my opportunity to score. No, this was waiting to hand off a ball I shouldn’t even have had in my hands. Holding it, I discovered, and fighting every impulse that told me I should run for the goal, was worse than not being there at all.
Kayla was all right when I gave her a bottle of water, so I headed back to my desk. As I passed the lieutenant’s office, Ruiz called my name.
“The girl’s okay?” he said as I stood in his doorway.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
I waited for him to tell me to sit down so he could rake me over the coals, but he didn’t. When he realized I was still standing there, he said, “We’ll talk about it later.”
While I was relieved he decided to let me off the hook, at least temporarily, a small part of me almost wished he hadn’t. Then at least I would have felt like I was still involved. The feeling reminded me of my days in uniform. I’d wanted to be a detective even before I joined the force, even before I’d taken my first criminal-justice course at CSULB. My father’s job as a deputy sheriff, and his death when I was so young, left me with a fascination for both police work and homicide. I didn’t understand until I spent a good amount of time with a therapist after Megan’s death that I’d spent my whole life trying to fill the void he’d left in my life when he was killed. There was no mystery to his case, it was literally open and shut. The people who killed him were convicted and served their time. Justice