Page 27 of To Have and to Hold

“And?” I countered. “This guy could know something!”

I shoved at Knox, who took my push without expression. It felt so good I did it again.

“React, Knox,” I said, but I was speaking to stone. “React.”

This time I shoved him against the wall, papers skewing and his jacket squeaking against the whiteboard.

“What the fuck?” I said, my face twisting. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You need to pursue any leads, all leads, instead of fingering your asshole hoping something’s going to fall out!”

“We’re—”

“Every second we waste in this goddamned office, she could be—she is—there’s no fucking time!”

“You’ve been through this before, Spence. You know how disappearances are investigated—”

“I’m trying to remember everything that mattered, the parts of her that wouldn’t’ve changed—”

“Calm down.”

“Oh, yeah? Is that how you would be if someone important to your life were taken? Would you be calm if your sister was kidnapped?”

Pause. “I’m not saying this to patronize you.”

“No, you’re talking to me like you would any other person considered collateral damage in your investigation.”

“Don’t insult me. You have to accept that Emme has someone else.”

I palmed his chest. “Fuck you. I’m not here to win her back! She’s been kidnapped!”

“And she’s got other people in her life now, Spence.”

“What the—what is it you think I’m doing?”

“You’re thinking you can solve this case with what you know, and you can’t.”

I got right up into his face—roaring. “I am fucking good at what I do. I don’t lose.”

“Punch me, man. Go on and hit me, but you’ve never had to work on a case this close to you.”

My chest heaved, a concaved sound in the stretch of silence between us. I let it speak for itself.

“Fuck.” Knox’s shoulder’s sloped. “I should’ve remembered. Those girls…in that home you were in.”

I gritted out, “I wasn’t an attorney then.”

“No, you were a kid.” Knox dared to glance down at my stomach. “See, I know how good you are. How solving fucked-up shit is in your DNA. But I also know how blinding it can be when someone you care about is in danger. It’s not that I’m scared you’ll make a mistake. I’m terrified you’ll realize it’s too little. That it will be too late and you couldn’t do enough.”

I reared. “You don’t think that kills me? The only contribution I can make is recalling who this girl was more than two fucking years ago!”

The stars were unexpected.

I stumbled, hand to my face and covering my eyeball, thinking I just had a rage stroke, until the room cleared and Knox came back into focus and I realized my friend just punched me in the face.

“Collect yourself,” he said, and was very close to screaming it. “You have permission to take your entire wrath out on me; in fact, I’ll happily meet you at a time and place and face off with you in a damned boxing ring, but you do not get to lose it and break down in your apartment and scare the shit out of your girlfriend.”

Still in a daze, I noticed Noelle in the room with her hands out like she’d just screamed STOP!

Thinking back, I figured maybe she did.

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