about needing the silence first.
She was still thinking about that near shift’s end, and she positioned herself strategically to keep an eye out for Sophie as she pulled up near the school and Micah got out. He walked up the street, as if checking the cars parked along the curb.
Even with the cover of routine patrol and Micah checking cars for parking violations, he was still too visible, Connie thought. Still too visible to someone trying to avoid them. This wasn’t exactly the porous surveillance Nathan had recommended. Yet how far could she let the risk run?
Life was all about risk. She knew that. Complete safety existed only in a padded cell, and perhaps not even there. But while she could risk herself, she found it impossible to risk her daughter.
She scanned the street again and noted that Micah had vanished from sight. Like father, like son. Ghost men.
She let out the brake and resumed cruising, circling the general area where the kids would walk as they left school, but trying not to get too close. Micah was surely out there somewhere, watching, as was Ethan. She could afford to create the appearance of space.
She stopped at one point to put a warning on a car with a broken taillight. She waved to the crossing guards who began to appear on corners. She knew every one of them as a neighbor. That was the wonderful thing about Conard County. Even with the recent growth, she could still get to know nearly everyone.
It was also the reason she had always felt safe here. But all of that now lay shattered like a broken mirror, reflecting scattered, distorted images.
Had it ever been safe here? Or was that an illusion?
She watched the schoolchildren as they scattered toward their homes. As usual, she enjoyed watching them and their sheer exuberance. It reminded her of the days when getting out of school for the afternoon had been enough to fill her with elation.
Unfortunately, it seemed to take a lot more to excite her these days. It occurred to her that the human race would probably be a lot healthier if they could hang on to some of that joy, wonder and exuberance later in life.
Or maybe that was just a lousy perspective to take. Maybe adults crushed themselves.
Then, once again, her thoughts wandered to Ethan. They kept doing that. Her mind, she thought wryly, had a mind of its own. Here she was, prowling the streets looking for a potential criminal, and she was thinking of Ethan.
And her thoughts, heaven help her, reeked of sexual attraction and desire. Funny thing, that. It always sprang up when you least wanted it. And, as she’d learned, often for the wrong person. After her ex, she just plain didn’t trust her judgment of men that way. Now Ethan, a man she hardly knew, was turning the key in the locked box of her desires.
She’d tested the secure power of his arms, the hard muscles of his chest, in that single comforting embrace. But she hadn’t felt his skin, and she found herself wanting to know in the worst way what his skin felt like. Warm and smooth? Rough?
Damn!
At that moment, she spied Sophie coming around a corner from an unexpected direction. Worse, she was alone.
Connie’s heart accelerated along with her patrol car as she zoomed over to her daughter. Sophie looked over and smiled.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Where are Jody and your other friends?”
Sophie shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Climb in and I’ll take you home.”
Sophie did as she was told, climbing into the passenger seat, sitting with her book bag on her lap.
“Sweetie, you know you’re not supposed to walk home alone.”
“I guess I missed the others.”
“How come?”
“I dunno.”
When she paused at a stop sign, Connie looked over at Sophie. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Sophie’s lower lip stuck out. “Nothing.”
For the first time in a long time, Connie didn’t believe her daughter. “Honey, you know there’s nothing that makes me madder than a lie.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Okay.” Connie thought about that, admitting that I dunno was the kids’ equivalent of I don’t recall under oath. “You’re going to be a great lawyer someday.”
Sophie looked at her. “Huh?”
“Never mind. Look, there’s Micah. I need to stop for him, because we’re supposed to be working together today.”
“Okay.”
Micah stood on the sidewalk, watching her approach, and when she pulled up and rolled down her window, he bent to look in. “I see you found Little Miss Lost.”
“Lost?” Connie turned her head to look at Sophie. “Sophie, where did you go?”
“Nowhere,” Sophie said. “I told you. I dunno where the other kids went.”
Connie looked at Micah. “Later,” he said. “Take her on home. Ethan and I are going to stop for a coffee and a chat. Gage said for you to take the rest of the day.”
Connie nodded, her teeth clenched, sure Micah wasn’t telling her everything. One certainty leaped out at her, however: Gage hadn’t told them to take the rest of the day over nothing.
“Later,” Micah said again. “Ethan and I will be over shortly, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll put the coffee on.”
“Thanks.”
She met Micah’s obsidian gaze and saw reassurance there. Forcing herself to relax, she lifted her foot from the brake and drove toward her house.
* * *
Ethan and Micah met at Maude’s diner. Midafternoon, the place was quiet, with only Maude about to handle things. She poured their coffee, then disappeared into the back. The banging that carried through the kitchen door indicated that she might be involved in dinner preparation.
The two men, so alike yet so different, looked at one another across the table. The words, it seemed, still weren’t there.
Finally Ethan broke the silence. “This thing with Sophie Halloran... I don’t like it.”
“Me, neither.” Micah sipped his coffee. “Connie tell you about her marriage?”
“A bit. As if it were the distant past.”
Micah nodded. “Faith went through something similar. When I met her, she was running from her husband, and a couple of weeks after she got here, he found her and tried to kill her.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
Micah
