Page 74 of Deadly Secrets
Loudly.
Brooke slid off his lap. “After breakfast. Your pancakes are getting cold and you need to keep up your strength. I expect a repeat performance tonight.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. “Anything you want.”
The latest batch of pancakes in the skillet were starting to get too brown. She rushed over, rescued them, and piled a few on her plate.
“So what’s on the agenda today?” she asked, sitting next to him a moment later.
He handed her his butter knife and scooted the syrup her way. “I spoke to the team and Polly’s reviewing the parking lot footage, Shane hasn’t heard from Emit Petit yet, Nadia’s running a background check on Pastor Rogers, and Win’s scoping for jewelry stores who carry that particular type of cross pendant. He also brought me up to speed on the gang bangers he and Thomas spoke to yesterday. So far, nothing’s popped up, but we’ll keep on it.”
She ate a bite of pancake. Even a little too brown, it was delicious and she’d worked up quite the appetite overnight.
“While we’re waiting to see if Petit’s program can tag the parking lot guy,” Roman continued, “I’ve got Shane running through all the nearby state and county police databases for any reports on violence against undocumented immigrants, especially any with ties to religion. Just because we don’t have any specific matches to the mass suicide-murders that have been happening here, it doesn’t mean that The Reverend and his crew haven’t been practicing in other areas.”
“You’re running with the idea that The Reverend is the same man who killed the Dunkirks, and maybe the reason he seems to have disappeared and quit his hate crime killings for twenty years, is because he was on the move?”
Discussing a serial killer didn’t seem to dampen his appetite at all. He finished his pancakes in two more bites. “A person like that can’t stay in one place, there’s too much heat.”
The food in her stomach turned sour. “And the undocumented aren’t a high priority for law enforcement.”
“Patterns aren’t always easy to pick up on, either. Small town departments oftentimes can’t keep up with the normal stuff happening in their backyards, much less anything unusual. Budgets are slim, cops are burned out, support staff are constantly turning over and supervisors are under pressure from the bureaucrats to solve high profile cases. Even when they flag something unusual and send it up the line, it can get lost in the shuffle. At the state level, there are so many unsolved cases coming in, details never get entered into the larger FBI databases or only do years after the crimes were committed.”
Brooke played with her food. “So what are you and I tackling?”
Roman’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He checked it. “It’s Harris.”
He read the text and smiled. “Well, looks like the first thing we’re going to do is order balloons to welcome Baby Harris into the world.”
The look in his eyes of happiness and the smile plastered over his face made Brooke smile back. “Blue or pink?”
“Pink. The bastard had a baby girl.”
She thought of Emma and her impending birth. How happy she was talking about the baby. Usually, Brooke avoided anything to do with marriage ceremonies or births, but something in her now felt a warm bubble of fun and joy.
It’s Roman.
He looked delighted, overjoyed for Cooper and his fiancee, Celina, as he typed back a congrats text.
He loves the idea of family.Of babies and happily ever after.
Suddenly, Brooke loved it too.
What was it like to have a real family? To feel loved, appreciated, and welcomed?
The whole morning had been so different than her usual start to the day. Change was coming—had already started. She saw things differently than she had only 24 hours ago.
Nations and civilizations rose and fell constantly. People were born and they died. Life was an ever-moving, ever-changing flow in the wheel of time. That’s why she loved anthropology. To her, it was as relevant to study the past as it was the present.
All her life, she’d been focused on studying survival—her own and that of past cultures. Maybe now, at least for the time being, it was time to focus on not just surviving butliving. Being present in this moment, right here with Roman, welcoming the birth of a new life.
Contemplating that, she picked up her fork and started eating again. Roman wasn’t the only one who needed his strength for later.
Two days later, Roman was working the toughest case of his life.
Not involving The Reverend or any other DTT case. He was trying to convince Brooke to go to his parents’ anniversary party with him.
“Just for an hour,” he pleaded. “Two tops.”
