Page 4 of So Twisted

“About what?”

“The Boss called us in. Tell Chavez you’ll make it up to you.”

Faith was actually grateful for the chance to leave lunch. She wasn’t proud of being rude to Chavez, but she would have been irritable for the rest of the meal and Chavez had suffered enough of her grouchiness. “Sorry, Chavez. The Boss needs me for something.”

Chavez did a passable job of hiding her relief. “No worries. Catch you later.”

Faith left the sub shop and met Michael at the entrance to the field office.

. “Where’s Turk?” Michael asked.

“He’s with David at the animal hospital.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. He’s getting his semiannual checkup.”

“Ah. Well, that might be a problem.”

“It was the FBI’s idea to do these evaluations. Criminals tend not to follow our schedules.”

She was in the parking lot now, so she hung up her phone and closed the distance. Michael smiled at her, but his smile was awkward, as was the nod he gave her. Yet another thing in her life that was frustrating.

She had made the mistake of confessing to Michael that she was having feelings for him again. In hindsight, those feelings were a mixture of cold feet over the move with David, concern over the existence of this latest killer and the need to talk to someone who understood what it was like to hunt serial killers for a living.

But now things were awkward between them and probably would be for the rest of their lives. Michael was happily married, and his feet were nowhere near cold when it came to spending the rest of his life with his bride, Ellie. He was not happy to hear that his partner missed the one year they spent dating of the eleven and counting they had known each other.

It didn’t help that in one of Faith’s weaker moments, she had briefly suspected Ellie of being the Copycat Killer. By odd coincidence, she was actually not far off since the killer had turned out to be Ellie’s ex-husband Franklin West.

But yeah, that was her life right now. She was stringing along a man she wasn’t sure she wanted to live with but didn’t want to leave, she was boxed out of the case involving the latest serial killer who justneededto get under her skin, and her best friend didn’t want to look at her. Her next few therapy sessions were going to be fun.

“How soon can you get Turk?” Michael asked as they walked inside.

“Well, I hear they have a railroad to East Philly now, so if we hurry up here, we could make the afternoon train and get there by next Sunday.”

“Ha ha.”

“He’s at the animal hospital, Michael. It’s like twenty minutes away.”

He frowned at her. “Is there a reason you’re being pissy?”

Her jaw clenched. She hated when he said that. She hated even more when he had good reason to.

“I just had… well, sort of had lunch with Chavez.”

“And you asked about the Messenger, and she told you to back off.”

Faith sighed. “Yes.”

“And you’re upset because she’s not as terrified of you as you thought she was.”

“Oh, she’s afraid of me. She can just turn it off when it comes to protecting hers and Des’s case.”

“Des? Do people call him that?”

“Chavez does.”

Michael chuckled. “Poor kid. Rookie mistake falling in love with your partner like that.”

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