“What are you talking about?”
I moved my oversized shirt enough for her to glimpse the badge at my waistband. I picked up the dropped flowers and put them in her hands. “Please, Miranda, I have to go, but I want you safe.”
She nodded. “I’ll go save us a table,” she said, trying for normal.
“Get under the table when it starts.”
“When what starts?” she asked.
I glanced back and saw the man reaching for the door of the jewelry store just like I’d known he would. I didn’t know how, but I knew that was Mark Cookson if he’d hit the gym and put muscle on his thin frame, with better clothes, a better haircut. It was like a demonic makeover. I prayed that he would try to seduce Shelby away from her boyfriend, because that would give me more time to think of something.
“I have to go.”
She handed me a Kleenex. “Clean off the lipstick or the other cops will make fun of you.”
I had to smile. I realized that her face was smeared with it too. We both started cleaning our faces.
I started hurrying toward the jewelry store, just another guy looking for an engagement ring for the woman he’d just seen me kissing. I prayed that Mark Cookson would pretend to be normal while I pretended to look for rings.
Mark Cookson paused and looked at the window just like Shelby and her boyfriend had done. I hit Charleston on speed dial as I walked toward Cookson. “Subject is inside Newton’s Jewelry Store, ninety percent certain our suspect is about to walk inside and confront her and the boyfriend.”
“Uniforms should be on the street five minutes, ten tops. We have security footage that shows a man that matches Cookson’s height and general coloring coming out of crime scene covered in blood.”
“New clothes and haircut,” I whispered, and then was too close to the man, so I switched to a normal voice and said, “Looking for a ring to pop the question.”
“Does he recognize you?”
“No, Dad, I don’t need you to help me get the ring.”
“Be careful, Havoc.”
“Of course,” I said, smiling and happy, doing my best to show only that as I paused at the door and asked, “Are you about to go in? Don’t want to cut in line.”
The man turned and looked at me; the moment I saw his eyes I knew it was Cookson. Once I was sure, I could see that the bone structure of the face was the same; the demon had just given him the body he’d have had if he took better care of it. Like all demons, it could only give the person what they could have accomplished on their own with hard work or steal it from somewhere else.
His lip curled up in an expression I’d seen at the hospital, and I held my breath thinking he’d recognized me. “No, Chad, you go ahead, I’m still deciding.”
“Um, I’m not Chad, my name’s Hank,” I said, because I couldn’t remember if Miranda had called me Havoc within his hearing, and Hank was the closest soundalike I could think of in the moment. I couldn’t risk him hearing Havoc and remembering who I really was.
The disdain on his face took the handsome face and curled it back into the ugly one he’d had at the hospital. “Hank, Chad, you’re all the same.”
I frowned at him as if I didn’t understand what he meant, because he’d basically called me a dudebro jock. “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t think too hard about it, Hank.”
“Okay,” I said, being puzzled and being Hank. I opened the door, keeping my attention half on him as I went through, but as a confused college-age Hank, not as police officer Havoc who didn’t want to turn his back on the bad guy.
A sound like an electronic doorbell sounded as the door opened and then closed behind me. The air conditioning was on so high that all my exposed skin ran in goose bumps.
I spotted Shelby Jackson and her boyfriend at the far end of the room in front of a glass-covered jewelry display that ran around the room in a U shape. There was an elderly man helping them look at rings. The glass display at the back of the room was only partially filled and next to what looked like an area with equipment where maybe you could watch the jeweler actually create some of the sparkly things in the displays. There was one door beside the work area that was closed and marked Private. It probably led to the offices and private restrooms, maybe a break area. There was an entrance near the door that let you walk back behind the display area so the salespeople could go back and forth and another larger opening in front of the far door and the workstation.
The older man looked up at me and said in a soothing voice with just a trace of accent, “We will be right with you, please feel free to look around and see if anything catches your fancy.”
I thanked him and pretended to look at the jewelry, but I was really keeping an eye on Mark Cookson, who was still standing there, staring through the window. He wasn’t looking at the jewelry in the window display either. He was staring at Shelby and her boyfriend. He didn’t look angry, or even upset, he looked thoughtful. Was he going to wait until they were somewhere less public? I would have. He looked so completely different from in the hospital and in all his pictures that he could start a new life somewhere else. He could have a true do-over if he was patient and willing to wait on taking Shelby. The fact that he was hesitating this much let me know that he didn’t realize there was security film of him coming out of one of today’s crime scenes in this new body.
I wanted him to wait until I had more backup, but I didn’t want him to disappear. We needed to catch him before he hurt anyone else.
A younger woman came out of the door in the back of the shop. She had long dark hair and glasses. She moved past the older man and walked toward me on the other side of the display cases.
“How can we help you today?” she said with a smile that was pleasant and professional.
“I’m wanting to buy an engagement ring.”
She glanced down and I realized too late I was still wearing my wedding band. I’d been too worried about Cookson to think my cover story through.
I smiled at her and put everything I had into the smile, so that she put her hand to her throat and her breathing changed. Okay, tone down the smile, I thought, we aren’t flirting, we’re just undercover while we guard Shelby.
“I couldn’t afford to give her an engagement ring when we married, but for our anniversary I want to surprise her with one.”
The saleswoman liked the story, because her smile filled her eyes, as she said, “What a great idea, I’m sure your wife will be thrilled.”
I smiled back. “I think she will be.”
“What were you thinking about spending?”
I hadn’t thought that far, so I said, “I’m not sure, I know the kind of ring I want. Can we go backward from there?”
She smiled. “Of course,” she said, though her eyes were a little less sure than her smile. She probably had a lot of people come in here without a budget in mind and then freak out about the prices.
“Promise I won’t freak out about the prices, but since my wife waited so long for an engagement ring, I want it to be special.”
Her eyes matched her smile again. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find the perfect ring for you.”
I nodded as if I believed that, and half watched Cookson at the window as the saleswoman started to point out different styles of engagement rings.