LITMIR.BIZ

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into the grandmother part of her life made her uncomfortable.

      “Things still going well with you two?” Clarissa asked.

      “I think so. The whole dating thing still seems weird to me. I’m too old to date, you know?”

      “Hell no,” Jane said. “Don’t get me wrong…I love my husband, my kids, and my life in general. But I’d give anything to be back on that dating scene for just a while, you know? I miss it. Meeting new people, sharing firsts…”

      “Yeah, I guess that is pretty nice,” Kate conceded. “Allen finds the idea of dating strange, too. We have fun together but it’s…it gets sort of weird when things start leaning towards the romantic end of things.”

      “Blah blah,” Clarissa said. “But do you think of him as your boyfriend?”

      “Are we really having this conversation?” Kate asked, starting to feel herself blushing a bit.

      “Yes,” Clarissa said. “Us old married ladies need to live vicariously through you.”

      “And that also goes for your sort-of job,” Jane said. “How’s that going?”

      “No calls for about two weeks, and the last one was just to help with some research. Sorry, girls…it’s not as adventurous as you’re hoping it is.”

      “So are you back to being retired?” Clarissa asked.

      “Basically. It’s complicated.”

      That comment ended the questioning as they delved back into local topics—upcoming movies, a music festival in town, construction on the interstate, and so on. But Kate’s mind had gotten snagged on the topic of work. It was comforting to know that the bureau was still considering her as a resource but she had been hoping for a more active role after she had tied things up with the last case. But so far, she’d only heard from Deputy Director Duran a single time, and that was to get a performance review on DeMarco.

      She knew how strange it seemed to her friends that she was still technically an active agent while also leaning into her role as a grandmother. Hell, it was strange to her as well. Throw in a slowly blossoming relationship with Allen and she supposed her life was quite interesting to them.

      Honestly, she counted herself lucky. She’d be fifty-six years old at the end of the month and she knew that many women her age would be envious of the life she lived. She always told herself this when she felt the pressing need to be more active at work. And some days, it worked.

      And as it just so happened, with her granddaughter coming to visit for the first time since her birth, today was one of those days.

***

      One thing that made it difficult to balance her new role as grandmother with her desire to get her hands deep into another case was trying to think like a grandmother. That afternoon, she left her house and walked down to some of the thrifty little shops in the Carytown district of Richmond. She felt like she had to get Michelle a gift to celebrate her first overnight stay at Grandma’s house.

      It was hard to push sidearms and suspects aside to focus on stuffed animals and onesies instead. But as she checked out a few shops, it became somewhat easier. She found that she actually enjoyed shopping for her granddaughter, even though she wasn’t even two months old yet and would, honestly, not care about any gift she got. She found it hard not to snatch up every cute thing she found and buy it. After all, wasn’t it the responsibility of a grandmother to spoil her grandchildren?

      As she paid for her purchases at the third shop she visited, she received a text. She wasted no time in checking it. Over the last few weeks, she’d had a small hope every time she got a call or a text, thinking it might Duran or someone else within the bureau. She mentally scolded herself when she was disappointed to find that it was not the bureau, but Allen. Once she got over the sting of not being called upon by the bureau again, she realized that she was happy to hear from him—was always happy to hear from him, in fact.

      “Allen, you have to help me,” she joked as she answered the phone. “I’m shopping for Michelle and everything I see, I want to buy for her. Is that normal?”

      “I don’t know,” Allen said. “Neither of my sons have settled down and made me a grandpa yet.”

      “Take it from me. Start saving up.”

      Allen chuckled, a sound that Kate was growing to like quite a bit. “So tonight’s the big night, huh?”

      “It is. And I know I raised a kid already and I know what to expect, but I’m a little terrified.”

      “Ah, you’ll be great. You want to talk terrified…I’m going out with my boys for drinks tonight. And I haven’t had more than two drinks in a single sitting in about five years.”

      “Have fun with that.”

      “I was wondering if you might want to get together tomorrow for dinner. We can share our survival stories of tonight.”

      “I’d like that. You want to come by my place at seven or so?”

      “Sounds like a plan. You have fun tonight. Is little Michelle sleeping through the night yet?”

      “I don’t believe so.”

      “Ouch,” Allen said, and ended the call.

      Kate pocketed her phone, juggling her bags of purchases as she did. She smiled in spite of herself. She was standing in the sunshine in her favorite part of town, having just gone shopping for a two-month-old granddaughter, whom she was babysitting tonight. Given the way her day was going, did she really want the bureau to call at all?

      She was walking back to her home—a three-block walk from where she had taken Allen’s call—when she saw a little girl with a My Little Pony T-shirt. She was walking with her mother hand in hand, just a few feet ahead of her, traveling in their direction. She was five or six years old, her blonde hair up in a ponytail only a mother’s care could create. She had blue eyes and a sharp end to her nose that looked rather pixie-like. And it was that feature that sent a spike of despair through Kate’s heart.

      An image flashed through her mind, a little girl who looked almost identical to this one. But in this image, the little girl had dirt and grime on her face, and she was crying. The lights of police cars flashed behind her.

      The image was so strong that it caused Kate to stop walking for a moment. She tore her eyes away from the girl, not wanting to appear creepy or strange. She clung to that image in her head and did her best to find the memory associated with it. It came to her gradually and when it did, it unrolled itself slowly, as if she were reading the case report.

      Five-year-old girl, found three days after reported missing. Stored in a fishing cabin in Arkansas with the dead bodies of her parents. The parents were the fifth and sixth victims of a serial killer that had terrorized Arkansas for the better part of four months…a killer Kate had eventually taken down, but only after he had claimed a total of nine people.

      Kate was aware that she was suddenly standing as still as a statue on the street but couldn’t seem to move. That case had haunted her for a while. So many dead ends, so many false leads. She had been running around in circles, unable to find the killer while he continued to add to his body count. God only knew what he had planned for that little girl.

      But you saved her, she told herself. In the end, you saved her.

      Kate slowly started to walk again. It was not the first time a random image from her past work had slammed itself across her mind and caused her to zone out. Sometimes they came casually, albeit out of nowhere. But there were other times when they came on strong and fast, like a post-traumatic stress flashback.

      The image of the girl from Arkansas was somewhere in between. And Kate was thankful for that. That particular case had nearly caused her to step down as an agent back in 2009. It had been soul-shattering, enough for Kate to request two weeks off from work. And all of a sudden, for just a split second while walking back home with gifts for her granddaughter in her hand, Kate felt like she had been pushed back in time.

      Nearly ten

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