one who caught that art thief,” Jerry answered, speaking up.
The desk sergeant, Sergeant Nolan according to the name plate on his desk, scowled just a tad less as he nodded. “You wanna talk to Benteen,” he told them.
The moment Nolan said the name, it all but echoed inside her head.
It couldn’t be, Ellie thought. Breathe, Ellie, breathe!
“Excuse me,” she said out loud, feeling like someone in the middle of a trance. “Did you say Benteen?”
“Yeah. Detective Colin Benteen,” the desk sergeant confirmed, acting as if each word he uttered had come from some private collection he was loath to share with invasive civilians. Nolan turned to look at a patrolman on his right. “Mallory, tell Benteen to come down here. There’re some people here who want to talk to him.”
Having sent the patrolman on his errand, the sergeant turned his attention to the people from the news station. “You two wait over there,” he growled, pointing to an area by the front window that was empty. “And don’t get in the way,” he warned.
“Friendly man,” Jerry commented, moving to the space that the sergeant had indicated. When he turned around to glance at Ellie, he saw that she’d suddenly gone very pale. A measure of concern entered his eyes. “You feeling all right, Ellie?”
“Yes,” she responded. Her voice sounded hollow to her ears.
It was an automatic response, but the thing was that she wasn’t all right. She’d recognized the name of the detective, and for a moment, everything had frozen within her. She tried to tell herself it was just an odd coincidence. Maybe it was just a relative. After all, Benteen wasn’t that uncommon a name.
It had been a patrolman with that last name who had come to the scene of the robbery that had stolen Brett from her. This was a detective they were waiting for.
Because of the circumstances that had been involved and the fact that she had removed herself from the scene, Ellie had never actually met the policeman who had arrived shortly after Brett had foiled the robbery. The patrolman, she was later told, who’d tried—and failed—to save Brett’s life.
But she knew his name and at the time had promised herself that as soon as she was up to it, she would seek out this Officer Benteen and thank him for what he had tried to do—even if he had ultimately failed.
But a day had turned into a week and a week had turned into a month.
After several of those had passed, she gave up the notion of finding the policeman to thank him for his efforts.
After a while, the thought of talking to the man who had watched Brett’s life ebb away only brought back the scene to her in vivid colors. A scene she was still trying, even at this point, to come to grips with. She honestly didn’t think that she was up to it. So eventually she avoided pursuing the man altogether.
Jerry was watching her with concern. “You don’t look fine. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you look like you’re about to break into a cold sweat.”
“Jerry, I already have a mother,” she told him, an annoyed edge in her voice—she didn’t like being read so easily. “I said I’m fine.”
He was not convinced and was about to say as much when she turned away from him and toward the man she saw walking toward them. The expression on her face had Jerry turning, as well. If anything, she appeared even paler than she had a moment ago.
“You look like you’re seeing a ghost,” he remarked uneasily.
The universe was sending her a message, she thought. It was time to tie up this loose end.
“Not a ghost,” she answered. “Just someone I never got to thank properly.”
The moment she said that, Jerry knew. The name the desk sergeant had said had been nagging at him. He knew it from somewhere...
“Oh God, you mean that’s him?” Jerry cried. “The policeman who...?”
She waved the cameraman into silence, her attention fully focused on the tall, athletic-looking man in the navy jacket, gray shirt and jeans who was walking toward them.
He had a confident walk, she noted, like someone who felt he had the angels on his side. Maybe he did, she thought.
Ellie unconsciously squared her shoulders as the detective drew closer.
It was time to make up for her omission. The only thing that was left to decide was whether she would do it before they began the interview so she could get it out of the way or wait until after the interview was over so that it wouldn’t make the man feel awkward or uncomfortable. Viewers were always quick to pick up on awkwardness and she didn’t want to cause the detective any undue discomfort. It didn’t make for a good segment, and after all, wasn’t that why she was here?
Ellie made up her mind. The information as to who they were to one another could wait until after she finished talking to him, for the benefit of the home audience.
It took a great deal of effort for her, but by now she was used to playing a part.
Ellie forced a welcoming smile to her face and put out her hand to the detective as he came forward. Her entire attention was now on making the hero of the moment feel comfortable.
“Hi,” she greeted him. “I’m Ellie and this is Jerry, and we’d like to ask you a few questions about those paintings you uncovered.”
The woman standing by the front window next to the pleasant-faced hulk with the unruly hair was cute.
Beyond cute, Colin amended. There was something appealing about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. As best as he could analyze it, he sensed an intriguing combination of sadness mixed with an undercurrent of energy radiating from her.
And, more startling and thus far more important, he realized that for the first time in months, he found himself both attracted and interested.
There’d been a time when his older brother, Ryan, had called him a ladies’ man, a “babe magnet” and a number of less flattering but equally descriptive terms. And at the time, they had all been rather accurate.
But all that had been before life had abruptly changed for him. Before his brother and sister-in-law, Jennifer, had been involved in that freak skiing accident that had resulted in their being swallowed up by an avalanche. Who could have predicted this outcome when Ryan and Jennifer had gone on a last-minute spur-of-the-moment vacation because a late-season unexpected snowfall had occurred and they were both avid skiers?
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, he suddenly found himself the only family that their only daughter, Heather, had left.
His personality, not to mention his priorities, had changed overnight. He hadn’t been on so much as a date since he’d had to fly to Aspen to identify Ryan and Jennifer’s bodies and to pick up his niece. Heather had been in bed asleep when it had all happened. Her parents had opted to sneak in a quick
