LITMIR.BIZ

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into the lab on the way to his office, Sean, father of seven, uncle of countless more, many of whom were on the Aurora police force, stopped by Suzie’s work area and set down a large covered cup of coffee he had picked up on his way in to work.

      “Good morning. What’s this?” she asked her superior, nodding at the container.

      He’d picked up a smaller container of black coffee for himself. Sean liked his coffee the way he preferred his cases: simple. Young people, he’d discovered, liked creative coffee.

      “I’m told it’s the latest in fad coffee,” he told her.

      “And you bought it for me?” Suzie asked uncertainly.

      Was he doing it in order to soften a blow? she couldn’t help wondering. She’d come to like Sean Cavanaugh a great deal, since taking this position at the crime lab, but she had paid a painful price to learn to take nothing—and no one—at face value.

      Sean nodded. “I knew you’d be here.” After removing the lid from his own coffee, he paused to take a sip of the black liquid, savoring the heat as it wound through his veins and kick-started his system. “You know, Suzie,” he went on, snapping the lid back on the container, “indentured servitude was abolished in this country about four centuries ago. People who get paid for what they do for a living get to keep regular hours—at least most of the time. That means—in most cases—they come in at a reasonable hour in the morning and then go home at a reasonable hour at night.”

      She smiled at him. It was a sunny smile that lit up a room and was meant to put whoever was speaking to her at ease. For the most part, it did, but every so often Sean had a feeling there was something behind the smile that no one was supposed to see. A secret that only Suzie was privy to.

      Since he was a firm believer in other people’s privacy, Sean made no effort to push through the barriers. He did, however, do what he could to make it clear to Suzie that if she ever needed to talk about anything—and that included subjects that had nothing whatsoever to do with work—she could always talk to him.

      “I know that,” she responded cheerfully. Reaching into the bottom drawer of her desk, she pulled out the small messenger bag she kept there. Taking out her wallet, she asked, “What do I owe you for the coffee?”

      “How about you go home early for a change and we’ll call it even?” Sean suggested.

      It wasn’t a deal Suzie felt she could honor. She shook her head, sending her straight hair swinging.

      “That’s okay. I don’t mind staying longer if the job calls for it,” she replied. “Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I left early.”

      She thought Sean would drop the subject there, but she thought wrong. He actually had a list of suggestions ready for her. “You could get a hobby, get a pet, catch a movie, enroll in a cooking class, learn to windsurf.” The smile on his lips was nothing if not encouraging as he paused before adding, “The possibilities are endless.”

      One by one Suzie addressed his points matter-of-factly. “My hobby is crime solving. With the hours I keep, I wouldn’t leave a pet alone all day—it wouldn’t be fair. There’s nothing currently playing in the movie theaters that I want to see. And FYI, I already know how to cook and windsurf,” she concluded. “Besides, I like my job, so why shouldn’t I put in some extra hours every now and then?”

      Sean bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that it was a lot more than “every now and then.” It seemed she put in extra hours every day.

      “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” he said with a laugh.

      Suzie was careful when she made her response. She didn’t want Sean thinking of her as being argumentative. “At least for the points you raised.”

      Sean looked at the young woman thoughtfully. The way Suzie had worded her reply made him think that there was something she didn’t have an answer to, something she wasn’t willing to talk about. He was tempted to ask if he was right, but again, that would be prying, and if she wanted him to know more than what she’d said, she would have told him.

      The woman was a puzzle, no doubt about it. But puzzles took time to solve. Time and patience. Fortunately, he had both.

      “Then I’ll leave you to those reports.” He started to leave, but then paused to add one more thing. “You do realize that you’re probably the only one of my people who willingly sits down to face reports without being hounded and threatened to do it.”

      That in itself had him wondering about her. Susannah Quinn was young, beautiful and smart. Surely she had to have a life beyond these four walls and the crime scenes she investigated.

      But from all indications, as far as he could see, she didn’t. There were no pictures on her desk, no mention of family or friends. There wasn’t even a next-of-kin or the name of someone to notify in case of an emergency on her work application.

      Why?

      Suzie turned his comparison over in her head. “Paperwork isn’t exactly something people really aspire to do.”

      “But you do it,” Sean pointed out.

      To her, paperwork was something to do to stave off going home and being alone with her thoughts. With her memories.

      But she couldn’t tell Sean this.

      So she shrugged. “It’s part of the job.”

      Sean laughed as he walked away. “I’m going to ask Brian if there’s any money to be found in the budget so I can have you cloned.”

      Brian Cavanaugh was his brother and Aurora’s chief of detectives. As such he was far more into the budget end of the police department than Sean was.

      “Until then, I’ll just work faster,” Suzie promised, getting back to the report again.

      Sean stopped just short of the doorway. “Don’t you dare. There’s such a thing as working yourself to death and you’ll do none of us any good—least of all yourself—if you do that. I’m serious, Suzie,” he told her, his voice dropping an octave. “I want you to go home at least at a regular time if not earlier today.”

      Suzie made a noise in response that told him she had heard his voice, but hadn’t heard the words or the gist of what he was saying.

      This wasn’t over, Sean promised himself. And then he laughed under his breath. He knew a lot of managers who would love being in his place, love having an employee who never seemed to get enough of work and always seemed to be tirelessly on the job.

      But as a father, he just didn’t think that kind of behavior was healthy. If nothing else, Suzie was too tunnel-visioned. Suzie Quinn needed to have balance in her life. She was far too young to be strictly all about work, especially since she gave him the impression that she wasn’t doing it to get ahead. If he had to make a guess, he would have said she was doing it for the sake of justice.

      It made him wonder if Suzie was hiding from something. Or more to the point, if there was something she was running from.

      If things continued this way, Sean told himself as he walked into his office, he would have to do a little digging.

      * * *

      Suzie listened for the sound of a door closing. When she heard it, she released the breath she’d been holding and relaxed a little. She knew that her boss meant well when he tried to urge her to go home early, but he just didn’t understand. There was no reason for her to do so because there was no one and nothing waiting for her. No anticipated mail in her mailbox, no long-awaited email on her computer, no texts or messages of any sort from anyone she wanted to hear from.

      Suzie heard from her brother, Lane, only on the occasional holiday—and not always then. Her mother was no longer among the living, but her father still was. However, she had absolutely no desire to hear from the senior member of her now defunct family. So there was nothing and no one to fill her off-hours.

      Oh,

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