Page 4 of The Grave Between Us
“Not me,” Jacob said. “I’d have gone headfirst into one of those bean silos, just to make it stop.”
The clench in Cole’s chest relaxed, and he managed a laugh. “I like your risk levels to be about as dangerous as paper cuts.”
“Tedium will get me long before I bleed out from a paper cut.” Noah stretched as he stood. “Ready to dive back into soybeans, Jacob?”
“Lead the way, boss.”
Jacob detoured to his cubicle to grab his padfolio and files as Cole walked Noah back to his office. They lingered briefly in the doorway. They kept things PDA-free at the office, for the most part, but anyone who took a long look at them together could read their body language, Cole thought.
“We’ll probably grab dinner at the mall,” Cole said. “Do you want me to bring you something?”
“No, take your time. Katie’s been looking forward to this. I think she wants some one-on-one time with you, and I don’t want you guys to have to rush home. I’ll pick up drive-through on my way out of here.”
“All right. I’ll text you on our way home.”
Noah nodded. “Don’t forget my goodbye kiss later.”
Cole tugged on the end of Noah’s tie, grinning. “Wouldn’t dream of it, lover.”
* * *
“Oh my God.”Katie’s voice rose behind the curtain. Cole’s eyebrows arched. He stilled, pocketing his phone as his toes bounced to the beat of the hip-hop blasting over the store’s speakers. He and Katie were the only ones in the changing room area, which he was thankful for. The attendant had given him a long look as Katie led him to the back, their arms laden down with dresses.
“Wait there,” Katie had told him, pointing to a chair. “I’ll model for you.”
The attendant seemed ready to set up post and keep an eagle eye on Cole, as if he were planning dastardly deeds in the changing alcove. He’d sat down, casually letting his jacket catch behind his FBI shield, at the same time Katie said, loudly, “It’s okay if my stepdad waits here for me, right?”
They were left alone after that.
He’d waited through four rounds of gowns so far. Long, to-the-floor slinky things, sequined puffballs, glittery trumpets. Each one had been too something. Too much, too little, too over the top, according to Katie. He’d followed her lead, patiently agreeing with each of her assessments. Nothing had been quite right yet. Nothing had felt like Katie.
She sounded excited about this one, though.
Katie flung the curtain back and struck a pose, beaming. A strapless, thigh-high, glittery dress hugged her body, clinging like a second skin. The jaw-dropping look was marred by her messy bun and freshly scrubbed face, as well as her slouched gray socks, still on her feet after she’d kicked off her combat boots and jeans. Those incongruous details were reminders that Katie was only sixteen. Too young, in Cole’s mind, to wear that kind of dress.
But Katie clearly loved it. She spun, arms over her head. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“It’s a bold dress.” His chest ached. He hadn’t even been in Katie’s life for a full year, and he was already feeling nostalgic for the summer, when she’d been just a tad bit younger. “But if we go home with that dress, Noah will fall over and die of a heart attack. And then he’ll come back from the dead to lock you in your room and murder me.”
Katie laughed. “It looks that good, huh?”
He nodded. “I guarantee you, your dad is not ready to see you in that.”
She grinned again, running her hands down her hips. Her shoulders twisted as she gazed at her reflection in the changing room’s mirror. “Okay, but that’s Dad. What doyouthink?”
Cole rose, leaving his cell phone behind on the chair, and stood behind her. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Here’s what I think,” he said softly. “You’re a beautiful girl, Katie, and you’re going to be a beautiful woman. Nothing you wear will ever change that.”
Katie bit her lip. One foot rose, curling around the calf of her other leg and pushing on the gray sock.
“A dress like this commands attention. I would personally rather see you wear something like this when you’re older. It takes a little bit of life experience to learn how to deal with that kind of attention.”
Katie was still gnawing on her lip. Her gaze had turned questioning, and she peered at Cole for a long moment. “You were on that murder case with the teenagers killed after prom, right?”
Katie, thanks to Google, knew about his work with the BAU. Or, at least, the cases that had been made public. That was only a fraction of what he’d done. The very tip of the iceberg.
“Two couples, after prom. They weren’t murdered because of what they were wearing, though. They were murdered because they intersected with the path of a killer.”
He still remembered the crime scene photos. Long brunette hair splayed out in the surf, the high tide’s foamy reach playing peekaboo with the two girls’ disheveled curls. Sand clung to their faces where they’d been held down and smothered. Red fingernails dug furrows around their bodies, formed by their desperate scratches to escape. The boys had been killed first, and their tuxedo-clad bodies were still rolling in the waves when the police arrived, tumbling up and down like driftwood. The killer had taken his time with the two girls. Pieces of their dresses were scattered around them, glitter and sequins and satin flitting across the gray beach.
