Read Home Before Midnight for Free Online Page A
Authors: Virginia Kantra
one-on-one.
Finding a Rosa replacement in D.C. had proved impossible. Even reducing his hours and juggling shifts, Steve was aware of too many missed dinners, too many late-night calls. They stuck it out until the end of the school year. And then, over Gabrielle’s tearful protests and despite his own regrets, Steve put the Georgetown brown-stone on the market and brought his daughter home.
“Just the two of us,” he promised.
He loaded his plate into the dishwasher before heading upstairs to shave and change his shirt, taking his coffee with him. Gabby was on her knees on the floor of the living room, hunched over the newspaper, as he headed out the door.
SUNLIGHT thick as honey poured from the blue bowl of the sky. Heat beat on the black roof of the truck and shimmered from patched roads and dusty sidewalks. Steve’s headache pulsed as he drove.
Twenty-four years ago he’d ridden this same route to Perry Middle School, sitting with the acknowledged jocks in the back of the bus, his sneakers stuck out in the aisle. This morning, the familiar streets looked as rundown and worn out as he felt. The shoe store was boarded up. The white steeple of the Baptist church needed a fresh coat of paint. The flyers in the barbershop window were curled and faded.
But like Steve himself, Stokesville was hanging on. The low property values attracted commuters working in larger towns and the research park nearby. The newcomers’ wealth seeped in, replacing old tobacco money, nourishing new business: a local coffee house, a natural foods market, an independent bookseller. Attempts had been made to spruce up Main Street with a new bench in front of the hardware store, new flower beds around the memorial to the town’s war dead, even fancy new streetlights.
Steve thought the lights, a pet project of the mayor’s, made the downtown look like freaking Busch Gardens. The money would have been better spent resurfacing the roads or buying camcorders for the town’s four police cruisers. But he’d been hired too late to argue the point, and he wasn’t spoiling for a fight any more than he was looking for a challenge.
He just wanted to get through the days, and the nights, alone.
He bumped into the municipal lot that connected the squat brick police building with the town hall and the library. Somebody had taken his parking spot again.
Wonderful.
No point in getting pissed off. This wasn’t his regular shift. Maybe the cop who had swiped his spot expected—hoped—he’d just stay home.
Maybe he should have.
He parked at the end of the lane by the dumpster, careful not to block the black-and-white waiting at the curb or the unmarked, four-door blue sedan. Inside the police entrance, the air-conditioning labored, recycling a compound of sweat, floor polish, and stale coffee.
Nodding to the desk sergeant, Steve strolled through the empty briefing room toward the office he shared with the other two detectives. Second shift wouldn’t start for another couple of hours. Plenty of time to write up a progress report. Let the chief decide whether to continue the investigation into Helen Ellis’s death or turn a potential public relations nightmare over to the big boys at SBI.
He was conscious of a small, indigestible lump under his ribs, like heartburn or discontent. He didn’t mind letting the State Bureau boys handle the labwork. Stokesville didn’t have their resources. But Steve had the training, he had the experience, he had the instincts to run this case.
It wasn’t his call, he reminded himself.
He couldn’t let it become his problem.
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant Burke?”
Sarah Creech, one of the department’s three civilian employees, rolled through the door. The woman was built like a Humvee, with a pinup’s face over full body armor. She ran the communications center like her personal command.
“Somebody to see you,” she
Finding a Rosa replacement in D.C. had proved impossible. Even reducing his hours and juggling shifts, Steve was aware of too many missed dinners, too many late-night calls. They stuck it out until the end of the school year. And then, over Gabrielle’s tearful protests and despite his own regrets, Steve put the Georgetown brown-stone on the market and brought his daughter home.
“Just the two of us,” he promised.
He loaded his plate into the dishwasher before heading upstairs to shave and change his shirt, taking his coffee with him. Gabby was on her knees on the floor of the living room, hunched over the newspaper, as he headed out the door.
SUNLIGHT thick as honey poured from the blue bowl of the sky. Heat beat on the black roof of the truck and shimmered from patched roads and dusty sidewalks. Steve’s headache pulsed as he drove.
Twenty-four years ago he’d ridden this same route to Perry Middle School, sitting with the acknowledged jocks in the back of the bus, his sneakers stuck out in the aisle. This morning, the familiar streets looked as rundown and worn out as he felt. The shoe store was boarded up. The white steeple of the Baptist church needed a fresh coat of paint. The flyers in the barbershop window were curled and faded.
But like Steve himself, Stokesville was hanging on. The low property values attracted commuters working in larger towns and the research park nearby. The newcomers’ wealth seeped in, replacing old tobacco money, nourishing new business: a local coffee house, a natural foods market, an independent bookseller. Attempts had been made to spruce up Main Street with a new bench in front of the hardware store, new flower beds around the memorial to the town’s war dead, even fancy new streetlights.
Steve thought the lights, a pet project of the mayor’s, made the downtown look like freaking Busch Gardens. The money would have been better spent resurfacing the roads or buying camcorders for the town’s four police cruisers. But he’d been hired too late to argue the point, and he wasn’t spoiling for a fight any more than he was looking for a challenge.
He just wanted to get through the days, and the nights, alone.
He bumped into the municipal lot that connected the squat brick police building with the town hall and the library. Somebody had taken his parking spot again.
Wonderful.
No point in getting pissed off. This wasn’t his regular shift. Maybe the cop who had swiped his spot expected—hoped—he’d just stay home.
Maybe he should have.
He parked at the end of the lane by the dumpster, careful not to block the black-and-white waiting at the curb or the unmarked, four-door blue sedan. Inside the police entrance, the air-conditioning labored, recycling a compound of sweat, floor polish, and stale coffee.
Nodding to the desk sergeant, Steve strolled through the empty briefing room toward the office he shared with the other two detectives. Second shift wouldn’t start for another couple of hours. Plenty of time to write up a progress report. Let the chief decide whether to continue the investigation into Helen Ellis’s death or turn a potential public relations nightmare over to the big boys at SBI.
He was conscious of a small, indigestible lump under his ribs, like heartburn or discontent. He didn’t mind letting the State Bureau boys handle the labwork. Stokesville didn’t have their resources. But Steve had the training, he had the experience, he had the instincts to run this case.
It wasn’t his call, he reminded himself.
He couldn’t let it become his problem.
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant Burke?”
Sarah Creech, one of the department’s three civilian employees, rolled through the door. The woman was built like a Humvee, with a pinup’s face over full body armor. She ran the communications center like her personal command.
“Somebody to see you,” she
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