“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
“Is that your work?” Émeric asked from the backseat.
“Yeah. Give me a minute, and I’ll take you in to see your mom.”
Kobe answered quietly, worry stamped across his forehead as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. Twice, he pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Yeah. Okay. No need. I know where I’m going,” he mumbled before hanging up.
Kobe blew out his cheeks and tipped his head against the headrest.
I arched a brow, and he hit me with an expression I knew all too well—resignation at its finest. The day and the fun were over.
“Is someone dead?” Émeric asked, poking his head between the seats, all too astute for a nine-year-old.
“Grab your stuff,” Kobe said, ignoring the question. “I see your mom at the door waiting. Let’s go.”
Émeric grumbled but got out of the car, following Kobe to the townhouse. The pair bumped fists and shared a brief hug before Émeric went inside. Kobe had a quick word with Delphine.
Upon returning to the vehicle, he glanced in the backseat. Cosette had fallen asleep, so he lowered his voice. “We’ve got another one. I have to take off once we get back to the house.”
“Another one? Same as before?”
“That’s what I’m told. The call came in an hour ago. Sarge couldn’t get a hold of Rue, so I need to get to the scene pronto.”
Without thinking, I took my phone out and connected a call to the on-call pathologist.
“What are you doing?” Kobe asked.
“Switch places with me and drive while I try to find a babysitter.”
“Dom, it’s Boxing Day. A holiday.”
“Yes, and all my high school girls are probably at home and bored out of their minds. This is as much my case as it is yours, Kobe. I’m going with you.”
He didn’t argue, and we swapped places. As Kobe drove, I found a girl to watch Cosette and informed the on-call pathologist that I was taking this particular case.
Kobe looked as uncomfortable as I felt. His pinched expression and the sudden loss of his good humor spoke volumes. What was he thinking? When the boyishly charming Kobe vanished and Cop Kobe returned, he was hard to read.
“I wanted it to be over,” he said after I’d transferred a sleeping Cosette from the car to her bed and shut the door. We stood in the upstairs hallway, Kobe leaning against the wall. His sullenness cleaved me in half. He bit into his lower lip, shaking his head. “I wanted this fucking person’s agenda to have been completed. I didn’t want more dead bodies.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I groped for something positive. “You shared that you had a severe lack of evidence. Perhaps this will change things.” I studied him meticulously, curious how he’d respond. Did he want to solve the case, or was he content to let it be?
“Maybe.” The idea didn’t seem to please him, and I wondered again if he’d decided that he didn’t want to find this killer.
He met my gaze and offered a wan smile. “I’ve got to run home and change, then see if I can locate my partner. I’ll meet you at the scene.”
“I won’t be long.”
I watched from the front window as he drove off, the bright winter sun gleaming off the roof of the car as he vanished around a corner. The forecasted storm was meant to last all day. The meteorologist had predicted double the accumulation, but they’d gotten it wrong.
I stared at the unnaturally blue sky as a twist of turmoil knotted my insides. Without these killings, without the constant worry that my boyfriend might or might not have a darker side, I was happy. For the first time in years, the past didn’t consume me. Fragile hope lingered just beyond the tips of my fingers, and I sometimes believed I could reach out and grab it.
The babysitter arrived before I could fret too much over Kobe and the decisions he faced. The phone call about the new victim had seemed to disappoint him, and I couldn’t decide if it was because of the loss of our time together or the discovery that his unsub’s mission was not complete and he would be forced to continue to investigate.
Had Kobe been satisfied with the lack of evidence in the cases because it meant that they might not find the person responsible? Had he concluded that the victims deserved their fate?
I felt sick, knowing what I was walking into, wondering again and again who the man I took to my bed truly was at his core. It felt easy when we were together, sharing a drink on the sofa, listening to music, or watching a movie. I trusted Kobe implicitly with Cosette, not flinching when leaving them together on Christmas morning.
But in his absence, in the face of another death, my doubts returned.
