Her eyes turn to me and I can tell the smile she throws me is taking an effort.
“No, but we haven’t had a proper visit in weeks. Maybe I’ll give her a call later.”
She pulls out her phone and checks her messages when I start the truck and pull out of the parking lot.
“Do you mind if we make a quick stop on the way? Janey just sent me a message; I need to pick up a laptop downtown.”
“Sure.”
She gives me directions to a small storefront with the blinds down and only the word ‘computers’ on the window.
“Is it even open?”
“According to Janey it is. She just talked to Nick. He’s our IT guy and hooked us up with a refurbished laptop for the lab,” she explains, turning to face me as she unbuckles. “Janey says he finished installing all the programs we need on there, which means I can use it to access our files and start looking into similar cases.”
“Gotcha.” I eye the rather dilapidated storefront and grab for my door handle. “But you’re not going in alone.”
Nick turns out to be a young kid, maybe mid-twenties, with social skills more lacking than mine. He barely even looks either of us in the eye. He seems harmless, though, and does appear to know his stuff as he gives Meredith a quick tutorial on the new machine.
“It’s a bit early, but maybe we should pick something up for dinner while we’re in town,” I suggest when we get back in the truck.
“Actually, I was thinking maybe you can drop me off at home so I can grab my car. I’ll swing by to pick up the critters and get out of your hair.” I notice she’s not looking at me and wonder if there’s something I missed.
“If that’s what you want.”
I hear the hint of disappointment in my own voice and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Meredith either. She twists her body in her seat so she’s facing me and places a hand on my arm.
“What I want has little to do with it, but I’m gonna have to feed the furkids soon and their food is at my place. I’d like to check in with Autumn, see if anything is going on. Plus, tomorrow morning I’ll likely have a pile of work waiting for me at the office, and I’d really like a chance to look into those older cases Agent Gomez asked about before the briefing tomorrow afternoon.”
Reasonable enough, I guess, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s as if now that I have finally gotten close to her, I can’t stand to let her out of my sight. Hell, I’d like to get her packed up and moved in with me today, if it were up to me.
Jesus, I’m a head case. You can’t even call that borderline obsession anymore.
I manage to convince her it makes more sense for me to drive to my place, load up the animals and drop all of them off at her house. But when she leans over the center console for a kiss goodbye and I watch her disappear inside with Beau on her heels, I can’t shake the feeling there’s something she’s not telling me.
Meredith
I watch from the small window in the front door until I can no longer see the truck. Then I head straight for the kitchen where Beau is scratching at the cupboard I store his food in.
“Yes, buddy, give me a second.”
I put a few scoops of kibble in his bowl and barely get a chance to set it down on the ground before he shoves his nose in. Then I focus on Belle, who somehow managed to get onto the counter unassisted.
Unless… I glance at Beau who barely stops to breathe as he wolfs down his dinner.
Apparently tired of waiting politely, the kitten meows to get my attention. More of a squeak actually.
“Hold your horses, missy,” I mutter, as I fill her bowl and put it, along with the cat, on the floor.
The animals taken care of, I grab a glass of water, the new laptop, and sit down on the couch. I tuck my feet under me and pull a quilt over my lap to ward off the chill that’s been spreading through my body. It has nothing to do with the temperature and everything with the realization earlier I may have missed something crucial, costing someone his life.
If what Gomez suggested is true, and I’ve had other overdoses on my table all coming from this same batch, that would not be good. It would mean at the very least I haven’t been as thorough as I should’ve been. I scoff at myself, always so preoccupied with being taken seriously as a woman in this field, and yet it might be my own actions—or lack thereof—that could have me lose all credibility.
I sign in to the server and start scrolling through the files labelled with names of the deceased to see if any of them look familiar. I wish I had Paul’s recollection for names. It’s all he needs to be able to rattle off the details of any given autopsy.
Setting the laptop down beside me, I get to my feet to grab my phone from my purse in the kitchen. It’s almost dinnertime on Sunday, surely Paul is back from his fishing excursion by now. Beau almost trips me on my way back to the couch and I make a detour to unlock the sliding door for him.
He answers on the second ring.
“I was about to call you.”
“You were?”
“I just had a visit from Durango’s finest. Detective Ramirez? I’m so sorry, I should’ve waited for you Friday night. Are you okay?”
He sounds genuinely contrite and I rush to reassure him.
“Yes, I’m absolutely fine.”
“Oh good.” His relief is obvious. “When you suggested fishing, well…I just parked my trailer up at McPhee Reservoir for the summer last weekend and planned to drive straight there from the morgue so I could fish at dawn. I was in a hurry to leave. Normally I wait for the garage door to come down all the way. I wish I’d—”
“Not your fault, Paul. Let it go,” I stop his self-recriminations. “Did the detective give you a hard time?”
“He just wanted to know where I’d been and if I saw anything suspicious when I left Friday night. He also asked if I’d noticed anything out of the ordinary in the past few weeks. I don’t think I was much help.”
I’m relieved to hear they seem to have moved away from Paul being at the top of their list, otherwise I’m sure the questioning would’ve entailed a little more than that.
“Well, you can be of help now. Do you remember how many overdoses we’ve had in the past twelve months?”
“Seven,” he says without hesitation. “That’s not counting the two from this past week. We’re still waiting on the labs for those to confirm, unless Pat sent something over the weekend?”
“Not on those, no. What about names, can you recall any?”
He starts off with Dennis Heath and is able to remember four others. I click on the file names right away, opening a separate window for each. That leaves me with only two more to dig up.
“Any particular reason?”
It’s a logical question, but I can’t bring myself to tell him. Not yet anyway. I want to see what I can find myself first. Who knows, maybe I’m worrying for nothing.
“Just double-checking on a few things. Look, I’d better get going, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Looks like we’ll have our hands full.”
I end the call, let the dog back in, and start flipping through the files.