“No. A tad premature, maybe.”
“Right. It’s not over yet.”
“I brought some things so I could spend the night. I left that bag at the door.”
“Oh, so that wasn’t dessert.”
“Depends on your definition.”
She laughed. “Then by all means, stay the night.”
They finished dinner and the cleanup without another mention of Jay Carpenter. Ramsey asked about the OD and learned there were actually two. One survived because a friend was looking out for him. The other was found in his bedroom by his mother when she got home from work. He’d been dead for hours. At first his mother thought he’d been overcome by paint fumes, but when she couldn’t rouse him, shaking him revealed the drug paraphernalia. He’d been to rehab twice. It was as depressing a story as it was familiar. Sullivan and another member of the drug task force had collected the evidence. The lot number on the paint can matched one of those that Ramsey had given him. They ended that discussion there.
Sullivan also owned up to making a couple of routine traffic stops, which Ramsey believed weren’t so routine any longer, considering the number of officers nationwide who had been shot doing the same thing. Hearing about it, she managed to suppress a shiver.
“Buddy pulled the gig at the elementary school, talking to kids about bicycle safety. I was supposed to go with him and hand out helmets, but I had the lightbulb run.”
“Seems like an odd time of the year to talk to kids about bikes,” she said, curling up beside him on the couch. “Halloween’s just a week away. The Ridge is putting up Christmas immediately after.”
“So you blow past Thanksgiving?”
“More like we overwhelm it.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that. The helmets that we raised money for in the spring only arrived a couple of weeks ago. No place to store them long term, so Buddy got the nod and tried to take me along.”
“I think Buddy pulled the better assignment.”
“I thought the same thing until you found me. That was nice.”
“Your presence in uniform was making Paul nervous, so I volunteered to do a little reconnaissance and discover your secret mission.”
“He knows about the lightbulb emergency?”
“In excruciating detail.” She grinned, remembering, and savored the moment. “I was still talking lumens and watts when he ordered me back on the floor.”
“You enjoy torturing him, don’t you?”
“Usually, yes.
Sullivan put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You’re a little warped, you know that?”
“Do you mind?”
“Nope. I like it.”
Ramsey glanced up at him. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”
Believing him, Ramsey nodded faintly and dropped her head back on his shoulder. “I want to tell you something, and I don’t know if you’ll want to hear it, but I’ve thought about it and I want to say it anyway.”
“All right,” he said cautiously.
“I’m not looking at you. That’s on purpose. Are you frowning?”
“Um, no. Not exactly. I’m wearing my curious face.”
“That’s okay. Curious means you’re interested, not afraid.”
