Page 30 of What We May Be

“Just don’t tell anyone I cracked.”

That got him a half smirk. “Pretty sure Mags will tell everyone.”

He hung his head back and groaned, drawing a fuller smile from Charlie. She only wore it as far as the hallway, though, as Jaylen came rushing up the stairs, alarm written all over his face. He careened to a halt in front of them, and Sean clasped Charlie’s shoulder, preparing for another hit. She didn’t shrug him off; she sensed it too. “What is it?” she asked the officer.

“Abel called. Trevor’s in the wind.”

Curveball.

* * *

Done with his records search on Diego’s borrowed computer, Sean perched on the corner of the officer’s desk, taking advantage of the bird’s-eye view into Charlie’s office. Jacket and heels gone, she made another circuit around her desk as she tapped the screen of her phone. At the rate she was circling, she was going to wear a hole in the floor. He’d still be wearing his own in the conference room floor if he hadn’t needed a break from the gruesome crime scene photos. Unfortunately, his searches had proved fruitless, and with mounting frustration came mounting worry for the person who no doubt had Charlie worried too.

Following the report that Trevor was missing, he and Charlie had left Jaylen and Diego to brief the other officers while they’d sped through the streets of Hanover Oaks. Julian’s refurbished house was at the center of the subdivision. Trevor’s house was among the smaller, well-kept homes toward the back of the neighborhood, an addition built five years ago. According to Charlie, Trevor had bought the house as a wedding gift for Tracy.

Sean’s sympathy for the other woman had waned. He still hated that she’d come home to that awful sight, but he’d hate that for anyone. Tracy, though, from what he’d gathered, had practically rubbed her affair with Julian in Trevor’s face. No wonder Trevor had wanted to move on. The move to DC, the job at Georgetown, suddenly made a whole hell of a lot more sense.

What didn’t make sense was the state of Trevor’s house that morning. The bulk of it had been packed up, similar to the beach house a month ago, but in the kitchen, a half pot of cold coffee and damp coffee grounds left a bitter smell in the air, and upstairs, in Trevor’s bedroom, a set of luggage was thrown open on the unmade bed, the smallest size missing. Several drawers were open, clothes rummaged through, and his travel kit, like the middle suitcase, was nowhere to be found, even though his toothbrush was still in its holder. He’d left in a hurry sometime early that morning, and all calls—from them, from HPD, from HU when he didn’t show up for class—were going straight to voicemail. He’d either switched off his phone or had no service wherever he’d taken off to.

Or been taken to.

Sean didn’t want to consider either possibility and mentally mounted evidence against each. If Trevor had been taken, if he were the killer’s next victim, why would he pack a suitcase? If Trevor had taken off, if he were the killer, why would he get sloppy all of a sudden? He knew enough about police work to cover his tracks like at the crime scenes. Why leave that morning in a way that made him look guilty? Not to mention Sean hadn’t detected any guilt the other night in his hotel room when Trevor had first glimpsed the crime scene photos. Only surprise. And he fucking knew Trevor. Yes, he’d been gone a while, but there was no way someone that empathetic, with that big a heart, could commit cold-blooded murder. All that said, Trevor’s connections to the case couldn’t be dismissed—Jeff was stalling his tenure; Julian was fucking his wife; and the murders were fitting—poetic, even—for an English lit professor.

Trevor was involved, whether he knew it or not, and every second he was gone was a second he was potentially in danger, and fuck if Sean would let anything happen to him, selfishly and for Charlie’s sake. Even if he couldn’t be with them, he owed them that much, their chance at a new life in DC, one Sean was coming to realize how much they both needed.

“Can’t take your eyes off her, can you?” Abel’s deep voice and the acrid scent of station sludge jostled Sean out of his thoughts. The older man handed him a mug, then sank into Diego’s chair with a cup of his own.

“Of course I can’t.” Sean took a swig of the bitter brew. “She’s the girl—the woman—who held half my heart.”

“Past tense?” Disbelief colored Abel’s voice. “According to Maggie, it didn’t look past tense at the crime scene today. It sure doesn’t with you sitting on the corner of this desk, watching Charlotte pace around her office.”

Sean sipped his coffee. “Any hits on the APB?”

“Nothing yet.”

“I know I’ve been gone a while and a lot has happened, but I don’t see Trevor as a murder suspect.”

“Neither can I nor can Charlie.” Abel took a long swallow from his mug. “She’s worried more than anything. We all are. Somethin’s not right here.” Sean couldn’t agree more, but before they could talk it out further, a commotion at the reception desk drew their attention, and Abel cursed. “Ah, hell.”

Petite, blond Rachel was arguing with a bruiser of a man in an ill-fitting suit, looming over her in a clear attempt to intimidate. Add to that the air of self-importance, and Sean immediately clocked him as a politician. “Mayor Rowan?” he asked Abel as the visitor bullied his way through the waist-high swinging reception door.

“The one and only.” Abel lowered his mug, stood, and stepped into Craig’s path.

Sean remained on the desk corner, not wanting to draw attention to himself yet. He also wanted to get a measure of the windbag. He’d heard stories, never the full one, but so far Craig Rowan was living up to every bad word Sean had ever heard about him, directly and indirectly.

“What kind of circus are you running here?” Craig lobbed at Abel.

“Now, Craig, if you’ll calm down,” Abel said, always the mediator. “I’ll get Charlie, and she’ll brief you on the case.”

The mayor wasn’t interested in rational conversation. Just more ranting. “I’ve got two dead professors and a campus crawling with press. My phone is ringing off the hook with calls from the media, university officials, and concerned parents, and I’ve got a line of constituents out the door at my office.”

Constituents.

Sean wondered if there was a word in the English language he hated more. Every politician he’d ever known, personally and professionally, used that word as an excuse for being a coward or a jackass. Or both. When Marie and Saul had backed, and matched, his decision to donate his inheritance to LGBTQ shelters in their hometown of Kansas City, constituents had blocked them at every turn. There was a reason they and Paxton Industries were headquartered in DC now, and it wasn’t only because Saul’s doctors were there. And when his legat office had lobbied for more cross-agency cooperation, constituents had blocked the funding. He’d lost a colleague, a friend, in a terrorist attack the next year that might have been averted with better local training and cooperation. Craig Rowan, if Sean had to guess, was a bit of both—jackass and coward—and he had no qualms about using his constituents to get what he wanted. Judging by Charlie’s determined stride out of her office, she was about to make sure that didn’t happen today.

“You idiots over here are sitting on your hands doing nothing,” Craig continued to rant, oblivious to the fury closing in. “I want to see everything you have on this case, and I want to see it right now.”

“That’s enough, Craig,” Charlie snapped.

---