Page 11 of Vanishing Point
“I wish I knew.” Too many dead ends in the case, and Thomas knew he couldn’t blame the lawyers. They needed evidence, a case. They couldn’t go on his word and his gut.
But Thomasknewthat guy had killed his wife and staged it as a suicide. There was too much history of assault there. Too many inconsistencies in how the body had been found.
And there just wasn’t anything he could do, unless they found some real damning evidence somewhere along the line.
It was time to take off for the day, and he had to get over to Wilde for yet another party. Copeland walked outside with him, neither of them saying anything.
But once outside, with radios and cameras turned off and put away in their cars, Thomas and Copeland faced each other.
“I got the name of a bar he frequents over in Fairmont,” Copeland said, squinting into the sunset. “Might find myself there tonight.”
They couldn’t both go. It was too obvious. Still, Thomas found himself conflicted. “I’ve got an engagement party to go to.”
“You’ve sure got a lot of parties to attend for a single guy.”
“You try never moving out of your hometown. Look, we can’t take risks here. The prosecutor is already being too careful. One wrong move, and he won’t look atanythingwe find.”
“I’m just going out for a drink, Hart,” Copeland said with a grin. “What could possibly go wrong?”
But Thomas knew. Copeland could push too far and screw the case. Still, for all his big-city brashness, Copeland wasn’t the type to botch a case. So Thomas just rolled his eyes. They parted ways, and Thomas got into his car.
The drive over to Wilde wasn’t too long. And he’d just make a quick appearance. Say hi to his cousins, his friends. Congratulate Dunne and Quinn. Then he’d go home and…
What? Wallow?
No. He’d just…go over the case again. So what if it’d be the hundredth time? That was the job. Tedious going over things until you found the one thing that led you to the next thing and so on.
He wasn’t giving up on this, not yet. Even if the prosecutor wouldn’t take it, that didn’t mean he had to stop investigating.
The party was being held out at the Thompson Ranch—a place that had once belonged to his no-good uncle, where his cousins had grown up. Amberleigh had passed away, but Zara and Hazeleigh still lived on the property with their husbands.
Cars littered the yard in front of the ranch house. Even with the cold temperatures, the front door was open. Thomas stepped inside. Chatter buzzed, people were packed into corners, and a makeshift bar was set up on the kitchen counter.
He could use a drink, he decided. Justonesince he was driving home, but before he could greet people, wind his way through the crowd, he stopped short.
Standing there, hiding a bit in the corner, was Vi Reynolds. She was watching Rosalie, who was in the kitchen pouring shots, with a slight smile on her face. Her hair was down around hershoulders. It was dry, so it looked redder than when he’d seen her out at the Young Ranch. It looked like she had on the tiniest bit of makeup, which reminded him of the first time he’d danced with her.
Homecoming. Ninth grade. She’d smelled like strawberries and smiled at him like she had all the answers to every secret in the universe.
“Hey, you made it.”
Thomas had to drag his gaze away from Vi and look at his cousin. “Hey, Zara.” He chatted with Zara for a minute, then tried to move away with the excuse of going to get a drink.
But he wanted to get to Vi. Old habits and memories from fifteen years ago apparently died very hard.
As he moved for the bar, he didn’t see her anymore. He frowned, scanning the room. He ended up having to congratulate Quinn and Dunne, answer Sarabeth’s—a teen he’d once saved from a burning building—determined questions for a gruesome story she was writing for school.
Once he got free of people, he surveyed the room again and still didn’t see Vi, but Rosalie hadn’t left yet, so—
He turned, just as someone was coming in from the hallway where the bathroom was.
And then they simply stood face-to-face.
“Oh,” she said on an exhale. “Hi.”
Her eyes had always reminded him of those bright cold days in the middle of winter. A piercing kind of blue. And he wanted to laugh. Everything that had happened to him in his fifteen years of being a cop could fade away in that color. He could stand here, an adult man with a hell of a lot of experience under his belt, and still find himself tongue-tied over his high school girlfriend.
“Hi.”
