Page 19 of Anchor Point

It sucked that she was so cold about our time together when I’d thought of her so often over the years. Asking for discretion like it had meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

My footsteps echoed in the cavernous stairwell as I trudged up the flight to the chief’s office, the sound pinging around the concrete walls and glass windows like my thoughts bouncing around in my head.

Why was it that in the last two years, I’d managed to avoid coming down to headquarters, yet this was my second visit in a week?

My gut rolled with anticipation, or maybe it was nerves.

Fuck that. I didn’t get nervous about seeing the chief. I hadn’t in over a decade, and I wouldn’t now.

I paused at the doorway to the administrative offices, taking a moment to steel myself. It was just a meeting with the chief. How bad could it be?

“Hey, Cathy,” I greeted the clerk sitting behind the desk, a mass of reports spread in front of her. Photos of her musician husband playing the guitar and her towheaded little boy sat off to a corner.

“Hey, Captain Collins. How’s it goin’?” She glanced at me in greeting and then frowned at her computer screen and mumbled, “That’s not right.”

“Anything I can help you with?” I offered, willing to do anything to stall this face-to-face with Li—Chief Hawkins.

“Eh. I just can’t get this inventory to balance. My numbers must be off somewhere.” Cathy clicked her mouse and then turned to me with a smile. “Are you here to see the chief, or is there something I can help you with?”

I’d always liked Cathy. She’d been our administrative assistant for a decade and called herself the chaos coordinator. She handled our timesheets, our invoices, any certification records, and basically made sure we were taken care of.

“I’ve gotta meet with the chief on this arson case.”

Cathy’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You get some news?”

I grunted in response, because I had news, but it wasn’t good.

“You can head in. She’s free for an hour or so.”

I paused at the open doorway, an odd, fluttery sensation filling my belly, making me regret skipping lunch when I’d had the chance to stop. Low blood sugar was a real thing. That’s all it was. Definitely not nerves.

She stood facing the file cabinets along the back wall, her back to me, that glorious ass cupped in another of her skirts. I swallowed, hard.

Quit looking at her ass. She’s your boss, dummy.

Rapping a knuckle on the doorframe to get her attention, I tried not to stare as she turned.

“Hello, Captain Collins,” she greeted as she turned, surprise flittering across her features for a half second before returning to the ice princess.

But that voice. It did things to me.

“Hey, Chief, you got a minute? I’ve got news about the arson case.”

She approached her desk, motioning for me to sit. I glanced behind her, waiting, as she lowered to her chair. Much like Cathy, she, too, had photos lining her desk. A teenage girl smiled from a frame.

“That your daughter?” I asked as I lowered to the chair across from her. What a stupid question. Why else would the chief have a photo of a girl in her office? I blamed it on how strangely drawn I was to the image of that girl. Her hair was different in the photo, but seeing it still reminded me of that stupid social media post of Kylie’s.

“Your news?” she stated, voice sharp, cutting to the point. So she didn’t want to discuss her daughter. Noted. But at some point, I was going to have my questions answered.

“After months of them hedging, I finally got the truth out of the deputy that was on guard the night Loren Watkins went missing.”

She didn’t need to know that I’d cornered the officer, or how effective a forearm to the throat was.

“This is our arsonist? Suspected arsonist?” she corrected.

I nodded and opened the file I’d brought with me, found the report I was looking for, and flipped it around, placing it on her desk.

“Loren Watkins. This is what we know about him, in summary. He set multiple fires, some of which had catastrophic results, then made it personal and laid a trap. Thoren almost died. We had the bastard caught when he got injured in the same fire Thoren got hurt in. Talked to a buddy of mine at the PD, and they are doing their own investigation, but it boils down to this… The guy they had guarding Watkins got distracted and left his post.”

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