17
Dillon returned to the station in midafternoon. He spent half an hour with Maud, going through queries from the state auditor, helping her with the proper wording and correct numbers. Most of it was make-work, demands for more detail from a man who would have preferred to give them nothing. Maud finally rose from her desk and told him to sit and do it himself, which was what he had been after all along. Another two hours and the forms were completed, the questions answered, the petty demands met. Dillon showered and dressed in clean but severely wrinkled clothes, and was standing outside when Porter emerged from his office. “You seen Olivia?”
“I thought she was with you.”
“She left a while back for Gleason’s.” He adjusted his hat, said, “I’ve got to get on home. If you see the lady, tell her however the pictures turn out, she’s already done us a world of good.”
“Will do.”
Five minutes after the chief departed, Olivia entered the front lot.
She was smiling.
It was not like she had cast aside her shadows. They were stained deep in her being, they still fractured her gaze. All there for anyone who knew her well enough to peer beneath the surface. Just the same, her smile was a thing of beauty. Dillon said, “You remind me of a girl I once knew. I always thought her smile was meant for someone twice her size.”
“I’ve been doing some very good work.”
“I’m glad. Really, really glad. Porter basically said the same.”
“He hasn’t seen the photographs yet.”
“It sounded like just having the session with you was important.” He took a long moment, studying her in their narrow shelter from the rain, glad in a strange way they were here. Together. In this moment. “I have a date.”
“Whoa, Dillon. Who put the tiger in your tank?”
“That would be Bailey.”
“Bailey, as in Griff’s . . .”
“Ex. Right. Her.”
She turned and studied the dimming light. Dillon was suddenly fearful he had done a bad thing. Stolen away the woman’s momentary happiness. Then she said, “In our hardest moments, when I was far enough from you and us to think outside the cage, I wondered.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about you calling what we had a cage.”
“Two people fighting, no holds barred,” she said, addressing the gentle mist. “What would you call it?”
He decided that was a good moment to stay silent. “I wondered,” she repeated. “Maybe Bailey was a better fit.”
“I never thought that,” he said.
“No?”
“Not for a single solitary instant.”
“But here you are.” She looked at him, the smile still there, but filled with the wisdom of ages. And the sorrow. “Dressed in your finest duds.”
“Hoping the wrinkles will fall out before she shows up.”
“Too late.” Olivia pointed to the car pulling through the main gates. “Here she comes now.”
“So you’re okay with this.”
“Better than okay.” She surprised him anew, reaching up and encircling her arms around his neck. A quick embrace, a wave to the lady driving the SUV, then she reached for the door and said, “Have a wonderful time.”
When Dillon slipped into the car, Bailey greeted him with, “What was that I just saw?”
He watched Olivia step through the rain-swept doors. “Just being friends.”
