Page 51 of To Have and to Hold

“Is Knox in?” I asked the officer at the desk of the 1st Precinct. For the fifth time.

The first time, I aimed for the least intrusion possible, as the officer was busy with a sobbing woman stooped over his desk, her hot pink dress bunched around her thighs and mascara running down her cheeks. Her arms flailed with her description of an attack, obvious bruises and track marks scoring her limbs. Her hair was tangled and dangling past her shoulders in the corkscrewed way of a clip-on weave coming loose.

“Knox?” I asked the beleaguered officer once more.

The officer pointed without so much as a chair swivel. He was a regular and had seen me often. “Got someone in interrogation. You can wait at his desk, though.”

My eye twitched at the news. I headed back, pondering the possibilities of who Knox could be talking to. Becca stayed back on this one, with strict instructions to be glued to someone she knew for the better part of this week. Her safety needed to be ensured, too. And while it was one thing to be behind the scenes asking my own questions, it’d be another to flaunt it in front of Knox’s face, and Becca strutting beside me in the precinct would really get his nuts in a twist. But while I was here, sans Becca, I was not about to idly curl up in a chair while Knox circled in on suspects, so I instead chose the path better traveled.

As expected, I was sidelined.

“Spence, good to see ya.” Knox’s partner, Adam Levi, swooped in front of me. He was slightly older by two years and had the body of a swim team captain. I knew this because a few times in the past he’d convinced Knox and me to join him for laps at four in the morning every other Wednesday. I put the kibosh on that as soon as Levi told me I couldn’t have coffee before swimming. Yet Levi persevered, swimming two to three times per week. Knox certainly approved because it meant for the most part it was Levi chasing down and landing on top of perps, since he was clearly the one who could endure the sprints.

“Knox is held up but’ll be done soon,” Levi said, his hand in that automatic halt type of gesture. His blonde hair was strangely unkempt and there was some purple swelling underneath his brown eyes. Maybe Knox punched him, too, I thought wryly. “You can—”

“I know what I should be doing, Levi, but that doesn’t actually correlate to what I want to be doing.”

Levi’s hand dropped to his side. “Look, I know what’s going on, and I’m sorry you can’t be more involved, but you know why.”

“Uh-huh, and if it were someone who you loved that went missing, you’d curl your tail between your legs and go sit by an empty desk and wait for nonexistent updates, too, right?”

“It’s fucked up,” Levi admitted, moving to the side. But he palmed my chest as soon as I took a step forward. “Even you gotta admit that a missing person’s ex-lover can’t be going into an interrogation room with someone of interest,” he said carefully. “Hold it together a while longer.”

“Who’s in there?” I asked, distancing. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, knowing that Levi sensed the weakness within my exterior.

Levi said after half a beat, “Just wait for Knox, all right?”

“Who does he have, Levi?”

Levi stared with the flat-eyed look of resolve. “You know how this works.”

“I don’t care how it fucking works. Tell me who he has.”

“Don’t make me do this, man.” Levi gripped my bicep, but I shook him off. “I don’t want to get you dragged out of here.”

“I’m not causing a problem, I’m asking you who Knox is talking to.” I got close to Levi’s face. His overgrown scruff nearly matched mine. “Because if it’s someone important—I don’t need a damned name—then I won’t ask you to interrupt him.” I shoved my hand into my jacket pocket, holding out my cell. “Otherwise, I have the kidnapper on my phone so when Knox gets a minute how about you tell him he should listen to this call.”

Levi’s mouth dropped at the same time the door to Interrogation #2 opened, and we both swiveled to see Knox stepping out behind a guy I’d never seen before.

Knox hadn’t yet realized we were there. He spoke to the man, about my age with thick black hair and features that spoke of a Middle Eastern heritage and shook his hand. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Hamid. I appreciate everything you’ve given me.”

Mr. Hamid—my thoughts toiled at the name, clanking along until it hit me—clasped Knox’s hand in a slow, heavy shake. “I’m sorry I don’t have more of her passwords. I’ll keep thinking on it, but I always assumed she used the same one for everything.”

“Don’t stress too hard,” Knox said. “You’ve given us a lot to work with.”

“I thought I knew her better than this,” Mr. Hamid—Dave Hamid—said. A funnel of sound had fallen over me, so much so that the clatters of a work night, ringing phones, shuffling papers, rushing feet, were like offshoots of another person’s life.

Dave laughed dully. “I can’t even tell you what she was wearing the morning she left. We had such a routine going. She’d work late nights, I’d get up early mornings—I didn’t even see her. I think I kissed her while she was still sleeping. No, I know I did. But I didn’t say good-bye. I didn’t tell her I loved her. I should’ve.” Dave shook his head.

His words were standard, the kinds said by all those who’d lost a loved one, but it was the ache behind them that punched. The pure, hollow sound escaping from his throat that no one knows they’re capable of making until they have a special someone ripped away from them.

At the same time Dave turned to leave, Knox realized where I was standing, his features shadowing with ominous warning. Levi put a restraining hand on my forearm.

Dave brushed by me with a quick glance, then stared at me again. He didn’t seem to connect any dots, despite probably seeing me on Emme’s social media accounts. He kept walking without a look back.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Knox said, his tone rumbling once Dave was out of earshot.

“Why does everybody think I’m going to blow a fucking gasket whenever I’m around anything to do with Emme’s case?”

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