Page 34 of Burning Truth

Addie nodded, thinking it through. “We’ll have to get Ron’s approval. I can’t just call in and take a day off.”

“Can you call him now?”

Addie dug for her phone in her purse and sent off a text. She got a response almost immediately and frowned. She had to recap everything that had happened over the weekend the why of it, but he eventually conceded.

“Grudgingly, he says okay.”

So, that was the plan they came up with. She would stay home from work and they would wait to see what he would do. Again, they were waiting for him to react, and it was beginning to piss her off.

“In the meantime,” Severn said, giving Gabbie a hard look. “You need to go home and get some rest. We have some wiggle room, and you need fresh eyes when the shit hits the fan.”

“I do need rest,” she conceded tiredly. “Message me when you need me.”

“Will do,” he said, standing.

“Thank you very much, Gabbie,” Addie said, standing with him. “I know you probably have other work you should be concentrating on.”

Gabbie waved a hand. “Meh. I can do more that one impossible thing before breakfast.”

Then she gave Addie a bodacious wink. Addie laughed, both at the humor and the slaughtering of the famous quote from Alice in Wonderland.

“I’m sure you can,” she laughed, and followed Severn out of the office.

Well, she thought he’d gone this way. Where the heck was he? She found him off to the left, at the opposite end of the hallway from the stairs. He was sitting behind a broad wooden desk, tapping on a keyboard.

“Do you mind if I check on a few things,” he asked, barely looking up. “The detective has been after me for a report, and I want to send her some of those stills.”

“Not at all,” she murmured, wandering around the office. It was fairly plain, although there were a few things of interest. His State of Ohio PI license was mounted on the wall. “Where did your parents come up with the name Severn? It’s interesting.”

His tapping on the keyboard slowed. “My mother is English. She comes from a little town near the River Severn. She always loved the name.”

“And are you a local boy?”

He snorted. “Hardly. My parents live in California, though they’re in England right now, seeing family. I was born in California.”

Hm. That was interesting. She’d never been out there herself. Moving on, she studied the bookshelf near the door. There were a bunch of police procedural books, as well as some crime novels. She glanced at Severn. “Learn a lot from Sherlock, have you?”

He gave her a smirk. “My mother is a fan. She gets a kick out of the idea that I’m a detective now, so she inundates me with these books.”

Addie snorted. “Sounds like she’s proud of you.”

“I suppose.”

He continued working on the keyboard. She found a framed picture and picked it up to look at more closely. It was similar to the one she’d found when she’d been researching him, but this one had about half the amount of men in it. They were wearing weird, oversized silvery protective suits, she assumed to protect them from explosions. The men’s faces were all grimy and dirt streaked, but there was a camaraderie to them that was palpable.

The noise from the keyboard behind her had stopped, and when she glanced up, Severn stood beside her, his face devoid of everything as he stared down at the picture.

“Your pain,” she murmured, and his eyes flickered.

“Yes,” he said, voice barely more than a breath.

“I’m sorry.” She moved to put the picture back, but he took it from her.

“It’s all right. The hit just catches me off-guard sometimes.”

He stared at the picture for a long minute before he set the frame back exactly where it had been. She realized he could look up and see it at eye level from here, when he was sitting at his desk.

“It looks like they were amazing friends,” she said, trying to find something not so painful to talk about.

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