Page 31 of So Dark

All in all, she thought she looked the same as she always did. If anything, the expression in her eyes was the only thing that indicated she wasn’t the fiery young field agent of five years ago. They were calmer and more mature than before. More tired as well. They had seen darkness enough times to realize that light was an illusion.

So she was getting old too.

“Feeling self-obsessed tonight?” Michael asked.

She looked away and returned his smile. “I don’t ever look at myself. I just thought maybe I should.”

He nodded. “I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that.”

She laughed, a genuine, full-bodied laugh. It felt good. As though a dam had been broken, the not-so-good feelings flooded out right after. She sighed and looked at Turk, who was calmly eating his dinner in a corner of the room. "I just hate that he's getting old."

Michael smiled sympathetically. "Yeah. I get that. I had a hard time when Rooster died." She met his eyes, and he quickly said, "Which won't happen to Turk for many more years. Look, retirement sneaks up on everyone, but it's not the end of his life. He's healthy and strong, and he has all of his faculties. I know that German Shepherds don't usually live past thirteen, but I've heard of a lot that make it past fifteen, and a couple who even make it to twenty."

She smiled at Turk. “Yeah. I know. I just… I got used to this. To us. You and me and Turk fighting crime together. I liked having a dog.”

“Told you so.”

“What?”

“I told you you’d like him. You remember? You said you didn’t want a dog, and I made you take him.”

“What? No, I… really?”

“Really. You even used curse words.”

She looked back at Turk. “Huh. I guess I forgot that part. I don’t really think about the whole hospital stay, but that’s where it all started. We both had to recover from Trammell, and we did that together.”

“You did. And he’ll be your dog whether he’s out fighting crime with you or chasing squirrels in your backyard. He did good. He had a good run. Now it’s time for him to rest. And hey, if you want to join him, there are ASAC jobs all over the country. You could even stay close to home. The Boss will never take an ASAC, but you could go to New York or Baltimore. That’s only a couple of hours away.”

“I’m not coming out of the field,” she said. “I can’t run a desk any more than the Boss can kiss Director Smythe’s ass.”

Michael chuckled at that. “Well, my point with Turk still stands. Besides, he’ll have David.”

“I don’t want to live with David,” she said.

Michael looked at her in shock. Faith didn’t need to look at her reflection to know that the same shock was written on her own face.

Michael broke the awkward silence that followed. “Again? I thought you dealt with your cold feet.”

“I thought so too,” Faith said, “but after everything that’s happened recently with West, this new killer, Turk’s retirement, my own possible forced retirement, therapy… it’s just a lot. It’s a lot of changes, and… thinking about all of them, the move is one that I really don’t want to make.”

“You don’t want to makeanychanges, Faith. I love you, but that’s not a strength of yours.”

Faith felt a jolt of emotion at those words. She knew he didn’t mean them the way they sounded, and she knew that they had their shot together and had missed. Still, she remembered when theydidmean something, and when she meant something back. She had felt that way about David once, but that was then and this was now, and there was so much going on, and she couldn’t talk to David about them, but she could talk to Michael, and—

She sighed. “He just doesn’t understand me the way you do.”

Michael stiffened at that. Faith frowned, not sure why he was reacting that way for a moment. Then she replayed what she’d said in her mind. Her eyes widened. “Oh God. Oh. No, I didn’t mean…”

Her phone buzzed. Grateful for the distraction, she picked it up. It was Wyatt.

“Hey, Wyatt,” she answered. “Um… glad you called.” Michael frowned at her, and she cleared her throat, then said in a far more professional voice, “What do you have for me?”

“We just got a call from a Mr. Robert Blackwood.”

Faith’s emotions faded in the face of the shock and fear that came to the surface. She put the phone on speaker and said, “What did Mr. Blackwood have to say?”

Michael immediately paid attention to the phone as well.

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