food cheesecake would have been an answer to prayer right then, but I only found a burger and fries.
I entered the condo hot, tired and discouraged. My dog, Shadow, raced around, happy to see me. I petted him until he calmed down then I dropped my pack by the front door and went upstairs to shower. The warm water went a long way toward perking me up, but I still needed a warm hug, a slice of New York cheesecake with something gooey on top, and a good report about Angie to make me feel like my old self again. I put on a tank top and shorts and stretched out on the big, soft bed and was out like a light.
I didn’t sleep long before I felt the bed move and an arm came around me. My hug had arrived. I really needed that hug. I turned over and put my arms around Rusty’s broad shoulders.
“I missed you,” he said, “Why didn’t you call?”
“I rode in with the helicopter.”
“I know, Strict told me. He was as puzzled as I was about why you weren’t at the hospital, though.”
“I’m sorry, I was discouraged and I thought a long walk would help so I just walked home from the hospital.”
“You spent two days hiking those rugged mountains and you still needed a walk? What could have you that discouraged?”
I got a big lump in my throat. I really needed that hug so I snuggled closer.
“Oh, Babe,” he said pulling me close, “okay, we’ll talk later.”
“Would you call for a report for me, later? I know she’ll be okay. I just can’t shake the sight of her. But I think she’ll be okay.”
“Sure.”
Now that I was home, had my hug, and Rusty was there I relaxed enough to think about other things. My mind wandered to other questions. Questions that had popped up from time to time but had never been answered.
“Rusty?”
“Yeah?”
“This seems like kind of late to be asking but, with a wedding to plan, do you have a family? It seems kind of strange to think we’re getting married and I don’t even know if you have a family.”
“Of course I have a family. I have two brothers and a sister. My parents live in San Diego.”
“Do you ever visit them? Can I meet them? Do they know about me?”
Rusty pushed himself up onto one elbow and looked down at me, eyes smiling.
“You really want to meet them?”
“Of course! I’d love to. Do they all live in California?”
“One brother lives in New York, the rest live in the San Diego area. Why so many questions all of a sudden?”
“All of a sudden? I’ve been wondering these things for months.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“I am.”
His eyes smiled again. He lay back down and started telling me about his family. He was the oldest of four kids. I could have guessed that he was the oldest. He just acted like an older brother. His dad was a cop and his mom was a dispatcher. They were retired. The next younger brother worked for a big sports magazine based in New York City. He had a long-standing Yankees/Dodgers rivalry going with his brother. His sister was close to my age. She designed store displays for a big department store. The youngest brother would finish college this semester and liked the beach more than work. Rusty spoke of them with detached fondness.
“Did your dad inspire you to go into police work?”
“Not exactly. It kind of ran in the family. It was the talk at the dinner table so as I grew up it was all familiar to me and I just followed what I knew. The other kids were more creative, I guess. They did their own thing.”
“Do you think they will come to the wedding?”
“They’ll try. If it doesn’t work out, though, there will be no hard feelings one way or the other.”
“Do they know about me?”
“A little. They know I met someone I love very much and I’ve never been happier. That’s enough for them.”
“You didn’t warn them about me being a trouble magnet?”
“Cass, no one is a trouble magnet. You’ve put yourself in some sticky situations, but trouble doesn’t go looking for you. You could avoid getting into trouble if you didn’t go looking for it.”
“I don’t go looking for it. I didn’t ask to be carjacked. I didn’t ask to be hunted by drug dealers.”
“Poking around drug labs hidden in the mountains is asking to be hunted. Going after Patrick when Peccati took him was asking to be hunted. Driving around in a marked car was like asking Trent to kidnap you. I know you don’t do these things on purpose. But you do them accidentally with frightening regularity.”
“The search went okay,” I said, changing the subject to something safer. “I wish I’d known how hard it was going to be from the beginning… I was looking for a fourteen year old girl. Her parents thought she’d be close to camp. They thought she ran off to sulk and ran into trouble. Instead, she’d tried to walk home not knowing how far it was, not taking anything with her. We had two rainstorms in the search and every time it rained the trail got harder to follow. When we found her she’d collapsed. She was unconscious and she’d lain out in the open for close to a day. When I found her I saw what could have happened to me so many times and no one would have known to look for me. No one even knew I was out there or where I’d gone. It could have happened a dozen times but I always managed to come home again.” I paused, waiting for the lump in my throat to go away. “I felt guilty that I took so long to find her… And her family thanked me for it. How could they thank me for leaving their daughter out in the wilderness while I patiently followed a bunch of tracks? I couldn’t understand it. So what if I found her, I almost found her too late. I still hope I wasn’t too late. Can you find out for me later?”
“You know I will. But you can’t blame yourself for any of this. You did what you could. You have to remember that, no matter what the outcome of your search. You can only do so much. The outcome is not in your hands.”
“I keep telling myself that I could have tracked faster. I could have gotten there sooner…”
“Shhh, don’t do that to yourself. You did what you could and you probably saved a life. Who went with you?”
“Victor.”
“And could Victor have followed the trail?”
“No. He tried. He watched the trail for a while but I kept leaving him behind so he had to quit.”
“There, you see, no one could have gotten there any sooner than you did.”
I snuggled up close, still worried.
“I need a cheesecake fix. I’ve been craving cheesecake. Victor brought sweet rolls on this search and it was all I could do
