Page 14 of Between the Lies

The woman pulled out her phone. ‘In that case, you need something stronger than beer.’

‘Only if you join me.’

Five minutes later, they had toasted Anne with ten-year-old Glenfiddich single malt, neat.

‘To lost dreams,’ he said and drained his glass. The liquid stung his throat, and he grimaced. When he set his glass down, he realised hers was empty too.

She chuckled. ‘Should’ve gone with the tequila, eh?’

Robert leaned in again, looking into her eyes and studying those hazel flecks. This time he was sure they glinted just for him. ‘What dreams did you lose?’

She scoffed. ‘My job. And it was me who detonated it – that’s the worst part. After everything I’ve done for it in my life, I went and took it off life support and watched it die.’

That was a harsh way of putting it. ‘Why was it on life support?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘You heard me regale you with my luck in love. I want to know why you’d drink with a sorry arse like me instead of, I don’t know, doing something much more fun?’

She reached over and placed her hand on his. Shocks zinged through him at her touch.Oh God! No, no, Robert. Hold yourself together.

But his hand turned, and he joined their palms together, caressing the soft skin on the inside of her wrist.

‘I can’t think of anything more fun that talking to a stranger about my life detonating. People should do this more often. There’s no judgement here, is there?’ She bit her lip, taking a second before she spoke again. ‘As you might’ve guessed, I’m not from here. I moved here to pursue what I really wanted from my life. That’s an entire story in itself that I just don’t want to talk about. The short of it is, me moving here meant I wouldn’t see my friends or family anymore. That’s the price I paid for the career I wanted. It might seem… far-fetched or even stupid. I’ve had people say that to me in job interviews, but it was what it was… And still is.’

Robert showed his solidarity by continuing the light strokes over her jumping pulse, and they just sat there for a moment, hands linked, taking the company of the other person in.

‘In your late thirties, you have enough of a life to look back on and judge that the dreams you had didn’t come true,’ he whispered.

She picked up his train of thought. ‘And even if someone might say you have enough time to make those dreams come true…’

Robert nodded. ‘The time for a few of them has long since lapsed.’

She wrapped her other hand over their conjoined ones on the table. Their eyes were still locked, as if each of them were reading the other person. What felt like an eternity later, they both smiled at each other.

A kinship blossomed inside him, even though it didn’t make any sense. He didn’t know anything about her. Hell, he didn’t even know her name. Yet if she told him everything she’d done in her life, he would understand, sympathise and… he’d support her, like he knew she would him. A partnership. How did you build a partnership with someone you didn’t know?

‘Another round?’ he asked.

She chuckled again, flashing him the grin that softened her features. Robert had the sudden urge to lean in and press his lips to hers.

Stop it!

‘I’d like that. But I need to go to the loo.’ Her hands left his, sending goosebumps up his arms – not from embarrassment but from the coldness of losing her warmth.

He watched her strut away, her posture confident and bold – sharp. What the hell was going on? It was just his body missing Anne. It had to be. How could you feel anything so intense for a stranger?

Robert willed his logical brain to take over, instead of the pink haze his heart had lulled him into. He was a cop, for God’s sakes.

She was a well-dressed woman, probably late thirties, or early forties. Single – hence the disastrous date with the pseudo forty-year-old – with soft hands, an athletic body and a sharp bob. And he’d found her in a back alley behind the burned building where Anne had died…

Finally, logic broke through and wrenched those rose-tinted glasses off.

Oh no – oh hell no! What was a well-dressed woman doing staring at a burned-down structure in a back alley? She hadn’t been drunk or high.

A journalist.

And journalists would go to any lengths to extract a story. As a cop, he’d stood outside enough victims’ houses to know those vultures had no morals. Cared about no one but their careers. And he’d waltzed straight into her trap.

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