As I stepped out of the wood line, I saw a black SUV parked behind the Range Rover. The SUV bore the familiar—and now dreaded—red and white insignia of Little Copenhagen Police Department.
My heart stopped.
I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m allowed to be here.
Before panic—and rage—could take over, I recognized the tall, dark-haired figure peering through the driver’s window of my vehicle. No uniform. A plainclothes officer. My heart kickstarted back into life, began to pound in a painful mix of anger and hatred—made even more painful by my recognition that even now, my instinctive reaction to seeing Raleigh was…delight.
Because I had loved him all my life. And as much as I hated him now, the conditioned reflex of my blood and bones to the surprise of seeing him was…
Stupid.
Raleigh must have caught my approach out of the corner of his eye because he straightened up, turned. He didn’t look surprised, but then he’d have recognized the car.
The snow made a squeaky-creak sound as the ice crystals shifted beneath my boots. It seemed to take a very long time to cross that clearing. Raleigh didn’t move. He was too far away for me to read his face, but then it was always hard to read his face.
I kept walking toward him, not saying anything, just looking at him without any expression. You learn fast to hide your feelings in County. You learn fast not to have feelings.
Raleigh stared gravely back—his eyes were the color of the shadows on the snow. Maybe he was waiting for me to get closer than shouting distance or maybe he was waiting for me to speak first. If so, he was going to wait a long time.
I was never willingly going to speak to him again.
Even as that thought formed, it was washed aside by the fury now always bubbling beneath the surface.
“Problem, Officer?” I sounded clipped because I was out of breath. It’s funny how anger winds you.
Raleigh gave a short shake of his head. “Hi, Casper. Just making sure everything’s okay.” He dipped his head, drew a sharp breath. “Actually, I’m glad I—”
“Oh yeah,” I cut in. “Everything’s fantastic.”
His light gaze flickered.
“But you’re a detective now. You probably could tell that just from the way I parked.” I made a commiserating face. “Then again, you’re a pretty shitty detective, so maybe not.”
Raleigh’s expression changed, grew stony.
Funny—crazy—that I had kissed that straight line of a mouth. That he had kissed me too. Not once, not twice, not by accident, not because we’d been drinking. Many times. Many kisses. I regretted every single one.
Raleigh didn’t sound stony, though, as he stumbled through his disjointed whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Explanation? It sure as hell wasn’t an apology. “Look, Casper. I was doing my job. You know I didn’t—you think it was easy for me?”
“Oh, my God,” My parka crinkled in the chilly air as I put a hand to my chest. “It must have been terrible for you. What am I thinking? All those months you had to go on with your life and suffer through getting a big fat promotion you knew fucking well you didn’t deserve. How can I be so selfish?”
“I thought you were guilty!”
It seemed to bounce off the distant snowy hills.
And just like that I was calm again. Ice cold. “So you said at the time.”
Both times. The night he arrested me. And the day he came to see me in jail to explain why, friends or no friends, he couldn’t overlook my committing murder.
Raleigh was calmer, too. Quieter. “Casper.”
“But like you said, nothing personal.”
“I never said it wasn’t personal. Of course, it was personal. I—” He gave a disarming swallow in the middle of it. “I cared for you. You know that.”
“No doubt there.”
“But if you were capable of murder—”
“Except I wasn’t.”
He sounded sincere and kind, like the old once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-prince Raleigh. “I know that now. We all know that now. And I’m glad you’ve been exonerated. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened.”
I smiled. “Worried about the lawsuit?”
He stared.
There wasn’t any lawsuit. Not yet, anyway. My lawyer had broached the idea; I figured he was disappointed he hadn’t been able to make mincemeat of LCPD in court.
I laughed.
It wasn’t much of a laugh. It sounded like icicles falling.
I think one of those icicles must have found its target, because Raleigh seemed frozen. He continued to stare at me and then he snapped out of it.
His face was cold, his voice hard as he said, “Do your worst, Caz. In the meantime, what are you doing parked out here in the middle of nowhere?”
I opened my mouth—the old Casper would have snapped back with a smartass answer. But I was eleven months older and, if not wiser, much more careful. It took a lot to make Raleigh angry, but he was angry now. I didn’t want to push my luck. The idea of being arrested, jailed—for even five minutes—was enough to fill me with panic.
I understood how very fragile freedom was.
