in the police department next month.”
She stopped walking and looked up at him. “You? Leave Hanover County?”
He said, “We talked about it. Maybe picking up and starting over some place new.”
“Yeah, but… I thought you meant Fiji or Belize or some deserted Pacific island somewhere.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, well, baby steps. Your folks are up that way,” he added, watching her, “and it would be good to work together again. That is, if you’d be interested…”
She bumped his arm gently with her shoulder. “Dope. I’m making twelve fifty an hour walking patrol around the hospital parking lot and living in a furnished studio apartment. Anything is a step up from that. But you’ve lived in Hansonville all your life. All your friends are there. Everybody knows you… You’d win the election, you know. Who would run against you? And more importantly, who would be better at the job?”
He replied simply, “I’ll never be another Roe Bleckley. Maybe it’s time I made my own place in the world.”
He walked her to her car and waited while she unlocked the door. She had parked next to a streetlight, its base protected by a florescent yellow concrete bumper. Buck stared at the bumper, frowning a little. “Say, Wyn,” he said, “you’ve been to the Cash-n-Carry, right?”
She glanced up at him as she slid into the driver’s seat of her car, her face illuminated by the glow of the courtesy lights. “Sure. I stop there to fill up every time I leave your place.”
“You remember what color the pylons are at the pumps?”
She was thoughtful for a minute. “I want to say yellow. Maybe that’s just because most of them are. Safety yellow.”
“Yeah,” said Buck. “Most of them are. I wonder if there was ever a time when they were painted green?”
“And if not,” said Wyn, catching on immediately, “how did green paint get on Berman’s truck?”
“And why didn’t his lawyer follow up on that?”
Wyn smiled at him, recognizing the signs of a mind that had already left her, worrying at the knots of a tangled problem. “Let me know what you find out, okay?”
“Sure thing.” He bent to kiss her, but his tone was absent, his caress routine. “You drive carefully now.”
She laughed as she put the car in gear. “You, too, officer.”
~*~
NINE
Nineteen hours before the shooting
Miles and I had had issues before over my habit of forgetting to turn on my phone and refusing to return texts when I was annoyed with him, and I had almost paid the price for it last winter when Cisco and I had been stranded in a blizzard and one lucky phone call had saved our lives. Since then he’d made me promise not to be out of touch, which, given that my lifestyle occasionally—and through no fault of my own—had put me in harm’s way, was not an unreasonable request. Because I always keep my promises, even when I don’t want to, I texted Miles as soon as I returned to the room. On my way to dinner. Turning off phone.
But before I could do that, the incoming message chime sounded. Call me.
Going to bed early. Long day.
How early?
Don’t be needy.
The message came back with the speed of light: Excuse me?
I turned off my phone and pretended I didn’t receive it.
I took a quick shower, changed into clean jeans and a tee shirt without a slogan on it (which is dress-up in the world of dogs) and patted makeup over the red-blue bruise across the bridge of my nose. I always travel with sheets from home to cover the hotel furniture, and I spread one of them over the small sofa in the sitting area and another across the bed, although Cisco really, really knew better than to get on the bed while I was away. I left him with a chew bone and the television tuned to Animal Planet, along with a promise to bring him back a treat from dinner. When dogs win blue ribbons, they get treats from dinner, no matter how many subsequent courses they blow. That’s the rule.
The dining room smelled of fried chicken, broccoli, and steam tables and was already beginning to fill up, even though it wasn’t quite six o’clock. Ginny and Aggie waved to me from a big booth, and I’d barely gotten settled before Sarah joined us.
“You won’t believe what happened to me when I was taking Brinkley back in after our walk,” she said. She was a red-haired woman with troubled brown eyes and a