wanting and yet not wanting to know. “What?” I asked when Tess didn’t say anything else, because I was human. “What did you find?”
“I’m just looking,” Tess said, and then: “Oh.”
I opened my eyes. “What is it?”
“Oh,” Tess said again, sounding stricken. She handed me her phone. “You should see this.”
It sounded bad, whatever it was. Maybe Holden had an ex-wife and kids after all.
Whatever it was, I had to face it. I took Tess’s phone from her and looked at the screen.
It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. When I did, my breath froze. It wasn’t an ex-wife, and it wasn’t kids.
It was an obituary dated four years ago. For Caleb Whittaker.
Holden’s big brother was dead.
Sixteen
Holden
Some night shifts are quiet, and others are a nonstop lineup of the weirdest cases you’ve ever seen. Like cops, a lot of EMT’s believe in the power of the full moon to make people temporarily crazy. I wasn’t sure I believed that myself, but I had definitely seen my share of weird nights on my rotation.
Tonight was one of the quiet ones. Daniela was asleep on one of the bunk beds in the sleeping room at headquarters, and though I’d normally be in there too, catching a nap between calls—I had the talent of power napping like a champion—tonight I couldn’t sleep. I watched TV with the volume low for a little while, but I couldn’t concentrate. I turned it off and leaned back on the battered sofa in the headquarters living room, exhaustedly rubbing my eyes.
I loved my job, but sometimes I wondered what it was like to live a normal life, where you were asleep at two o’clock in the morning. Two hours ago Daniela and I had transported a car accident victim to the ER. The man had been pronounced dead right after we unloaded him. We’d had to clean his blood out of the ambulance afterward.
What was it like to live a life where you didn’t have to face that as a part of your job? I couldn’t remember.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, surprising me. Who was calling me at this hour? I pulled it out and saw that it was Mina.
“Hey,” I said as I answered it, torn between apprehension that something was wrong and happiness at hearing her voice.
“Hi,” she said. “Are you in the middle of something?”
“No, just sitting here waiting for a call. Why are you calling at this crazy hour?”
“Because you’re on night shift, and I want to talk to you,” she said.
She knew what shift I was on because we talked regularly since she’d decided we were friends, though we hadn’t seen each other since we’d met in Central Park. I missed her. I realized that I’d have to turn down hours somewhere and make time for Mina, or she’d never be my girl. I’d miss my chance.
I really, really didn’t want to miss my chance. Again.
“You should be asleep,” I said to her.
“I’m not asleep,” she replied. “Your headquarters is at the corner of Welmer and Slope, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I’m standing in front of it. I just got out of a cab.”
That made me sit upright. It was two thirty in the morning, and Mina was outside on the street, alone? “I’ll be right out.”
I hung up and hurried through the dark, quiet building and out the front door. Sure enough, a cab was pulling away and Mina was standing on the dark sidewalk. She was wearing jeans and a flowered top with a dark hoodie zipped up over it, her hair tied loosely up near the top of her head, wayward strands framing her face. She didn’t have any makeup on and she looked like she’d rather be in bed. I felt a rush of joy just looking at her, mixed with a pulse of lust that reminded me I didn’t want to just be her friend. I wanted to kiss her. I also wanted to get my hands up under that sweatshirt. I reminded myself to keep my cool.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, my voice rough. “You shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night.”
She sighed. She looked worried, though her gaze went up and down me the way it always did, taking in every line of me. If nothing else, Mina always liked to look at me, and I didn’t even think she knew she was doing it. “I wasn’t going to bother you,” she said. “I’ve been trying