Page 25 of Go Under

The air had cooled noticeably between them as they pulled out of the parking lot of the medical examiner’s office. They weren’t arguing, and they weren’t so tense as they were during their last assignment when Marcus questioned nearly every decision Kate made, but it was clear that not every wound had healed between them.

She wondered if they ever would. Maybe they were both fated to carry scars from their last encounter with Elijah Cox.

Don’t give him that much credit. Those scars are all yours.

And with that depressing thought echoing in her head, Kate pointed them toward Wilmington and hopefully to an answer.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In Marcus's fantasy, he and Kate were laughing and joking like old pals. From time to time, maybe resting a hand on the other's lap or leaning in for a quick kiss to show that they weren't just pals. Elijah Cox was dead, an unavoidable circumstance during his arrest, where Marcus had no choice but to put one in between his eyes. With Cox gone, his disciples vanished. The Commandment Killings were over. Kate visited her father's grave once a month and didn't think about it otherwise. There was no need to obsess over what she couldn't control or dig for answers that just weren't there.

They were happy and successful. Marcus was up for promotion, but he wasn't sure he wanted it because it meant leaving the field. Kate was bugging him to take it for the baby's sake, laying a hand on her small second-trimester bump as she did.

“Marcus?”

Marcus blinked, and the fantasy burst with an almost audible pop. “Yeah?”

“Everything okay?”

Why was that always such a loaded question? “Fine. Sorry, I just spaced out for a moment.”

“I’m all right, you know.”

Marcus looked at her. Her big brown eyes looked up at him, triggering every single protective instinct that males of the species possessed, for better or for worse. Her freckles sparkled on her face, and Marcus had to suppress an urge to cup her chin and kiss her urgently, possessively.

It was that last word that broke through. He didn’t possess her, not in any sense of the word. She didn’t belong to him, and the brief attempt they’d made at belonging to each other crashed and burned spectacularly.

She wasn’t fine either, but he was tired of thinking about that. Every attempt he’d made to fix that failed just as spectacularly.

“I know,” he lied. Then, before she could realize he was lying and press him, he stepped out of the car.

Brandywine Village High School tried very hard to look like a quaint colonial schoolhouse. The maple trees planted in pairs in spacious rectangular planters in the parking lot were no doubt allowed to shed copious amounts of leaves that were never quite cleaned up. The buildings—brick-faced with steeply sloping shingled roofs—were set far back from the lot, allowing room for a large lawn and several tall elm trees. Oaks ruled the yard, providing ample shade for students looking to escape the summer heat or to sneak a make out session in between periods.

The illusion was somewhat ruined by the collection of old sports cars with colorful wraps, absurdly oversized wings, and exhaust that, try as hard as it might, could never make a four-cylinder sound like an eight-cylinder. The kids standing next to these cars—exclusively boys—did their best to look unconcerned with the wider world. Like the school, that illusion was ruined, in this case by the constant surreptitious looks to see if the girls noticed how cool they looked standing next to their modified Civics and Altimas.

Shocker of all shocks, none of them did.

“Good afternoon. Welcome to our school.”

The voice belonged to a middle-aged man with a horseshoe of gray surrounding a gleaming bald pate and a mustache that had the unfortunate effect of making him look even thinner than his gaunt frame suggested.

“Hey, Career Day was last week,” someone called over from the cars.

“Dude, cool it!” another cool guy said. “That chick’s hot. For an older woman.”

“You may feel free to leave the campus now, Mr. Wrobleski,” the middle-aged man called with the long-suffering air of a veteran of instructorship.

“Hey, you want a ride, baby?” Mr. Wrobleski called. “I’ll do it nice and smooth for you.”

The others giggled. Marcus turned to the boy and grinned. “Yeah? I’ll take a ride, handsome.”

The laughter silenced. Marcus took a step toward Wrobleski, and the youth opened his door and jumped inside faster than a groundhog diving into its burrow.

The car—in this case, an old WRX because Wrobleski was unique—burbled a long, drawn-out fart, then screamed so everyone could watch him pull a zero to twenty out of the parking lot.

“And this,” Kate said when the engine noise of the WRX and the half-dozen other pieces of crap faded away. “Is my overly sensitive partner, Special Agent Marcus Reid.”

Marcus rolled his eyes and extended his hand for the bemused school official to shake. “Jack Irving,” he told the agents. “I’m the principal.” He gestured toward the door with his head. “Come on. We’ll talk in my office.”