She’d have to keep her wits about her just in case. She needed to be able to trust her partner, and if Paige was lying, then she certainly couldn’t trust her. Grace shot a look over at Peter as he shoved a plate in the microwave, no doubt making a Hot Pocket again. He lived off those things, and she was pretty sure he was going to turn into one if she let him.

  “I’m sure I will be. Still, I want to finish this case before they get hold of me, or at least make some good headway on it. IAB interviews seriously slow me down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Grace froze. Maybe Paige didn’t know about her previous encounters with IAB. Rubbing the back of her neck, Grace tried to backtrack. “On my last couple years in uniform I had some interviews with them because of a case I kept running into. Quite a few interviews later and I now have a thorough understanding of how they function and how they try to peck away at an officer’s self-esteem, confidence, and trust in the job and the rules.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” Grace pursed her lips and shot Paige a look before glancing at Peter. “You going to wash your sheets any time soon? The stench is reaching my room.”

  “Whatever,” he muttered as he walked by them and turned the corner down the hall.

  “Not whatever! Wash them!”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  The whine in his tone actually gave her a surge of pleasure, along with the endearment he rarely ever called her. He’d meant it as a tease, but still, it felt damn good to have that title with him and that he felt comfortable enough to tease her in that way.

  “Are we eating dinner?”

  “What?” Grace turned to Paige sharply.

  “Well, the kid got food, and it reminded me I missed lunch. I’m starving.”

  “Fine. Order pizza, but you’re buying.”

  “Pizza?”

  Grace shrugged. “Order whatever, then. You’re still buying.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  Smirking, Grace chuckled. “Only half the time.”

  Paige pulled out her cell phone to order some food. Grace checked hers and realized she had missed a call from Amya in the midst of their conversation. Cursing, she set the phone on the arm of the chair in case Amya called again. She did not want to miss talking to her.

  As soon as their dinner was ordered, they settled into an easy conversation about work and Crystal—as much as Grace tried to avoid that topic. She hadn’t even dared ask Crystal yet if she wanted Paige to have her number. She was way too scared of the answer she might get and then the subsequent best friend dating her coworker drama and fall-out that would no doubt ensue.

  Grace could certainly do without that. Before their food arrived, she heard Peter’s door open one more time. Twisting around in her chair, she watched him walk—this time with pants on—to the hall closet where their washer and dryer were. He shoved his sheets into the washer before skittering back to his room. Grinning, Grace turned to Paige who had a look of astonishment on her face.

  “That never worked when I was a kid,” Paige commented.

  “Does it work now?” Grace asked, grabbing for her water again.

  “Ha! No. Not even now.”

  “Figures. He’s a good kid at heart. He’s just a little lost.”

  “Then I’d say he’s landed in a damn good place to be a little lost.”

  The compliment took her off-guard. Paige had been full of them lately, since she’d had her last break up. Grace wanted to narrow her gaze at Paige but resisted. She didn’t want it to come off as flirtatious, but she was definitely curious what was floating around Paige’s brain as to why those comments and compliments had been running rampant in their conversations as of late.

  “I suppose he has,” Grace muttered, ending the conversation when the doorbell rang with their food order. Saved by the bell had never had a more perfect ring to it.

  Second Denial

  The flight had been short, although Amya had to fly farther away from home to fly home, which never ceased to amaze her. It had felt like a long day and the end to an even longer week. While she always enjoyed religious events that were full of learning and camaraderie with other clergy and they rejuvenated her soul, she was left exhausted at the same time. It was an odd sensation.

  Amya stood at baggage claim, checking her phone every once in a while. Grace was still at work and hadn’t been able to sneak away to pick her up, which had left Peter or a cab. Since Peter was technically living off them for free, they’d told him it was part of his rent to pick up Amya. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with him, but ever since he’d officially told the school he would be taking a hiatus for at least a semester, he had spiraled down faster than she had expected.

  Amya grabbed her luggage and pulled out the handle to roll it behind her. She stepped outside to wait for Peter to show up and get her. She had enjoyed living there the past three and a half years, and it had been an excellent choice of a move for her to make after finishing up seminary. Ten years on the streets as a cop had been enough to wound her heart. She wasn’t sure how Grace or some of the other officers she talked with did it some days. Ten years had been plenty for her until she’d finished her master’s and applied to be a chaplain at several police departments.

  She bounced in her tennis shoes, wishing she had brought a warmer jacket. While winter was nearly over, March always brought with it a chill she struggled to get out of her bones. It wasn’t until well into summer that she felt completely comfortable leaving the house with a sweater or a jacket in hand. Grace teased her relentlessly for it.

  Turning her head side to side, she looked for her tiny car she’d bought at the end of the last year when they’d thought Kit was going to be staying quite a bit longer with them. She’d realized quickly with Peter and Kit in the house, or even one of them, they were going to need another car since they had sold Grace’s old Mazda for parts when she’d been issued a cruiser for work.

  She shivered slightly and checked her phone again. No messages from Grace, none from Peter, and whoever was supposed to pick her up—which was Peter, but who knew—was already twenty minutes late. She could call a cab, but that would dip into finances they hadn’t planned on. Not that they couldn’t move things around, but if there was one thing she had learned in the year of living with Grace, it was Grace was obsessive about her finances and kept a very tight leash on everything.

  Their finances were still mostly separate minus some of the house bills while Amya finished paying off all her schooling, but she hated relying on Grace when she didn’t have to. Groaning when there was still no sign of a vehicle, she grabbed her phone and called Peter. It rang and rang and rang until it went straight to voicemail.

  Scrunching her nose, Amya tried again with the same result. Next she called Grace just to double-check that Peter truly was the one picking her up because at that point he was hitting close to an hour late and it was way too cold for her to be standing outside in nothing other than slacks and a suit jacket.

  When Grace didn’t answer, she pulled up a search on her phone for an Uber. She was just about to hit pay when she saw her car coming toward her. Erratically. Amya watched. Everything happened in slow motion. The car swerved side to side, inching its way along the roadway to where she stood. Brakes were tapped. Multiple times.

  Peter finally pulled the car to a stop in front of her. Amya’s heart was in her throat. He didn’t get out. Amya took a deep breath, fear racing down her spine and her stomach twisting with anxiety. She had never anticipated needing to have this conversation with anyone again, nonetheless Peter. But she had been a cop. She’d done it before, she could do it again.

  She opened the back door, shoved her suitcase inside, and then instead of getting into the passenger seat, Amya walked around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s door and wrenched it open, the sickly sweet smell of alcohol flooding her nostrils. When she spoke, she made her voice low, deep, angry. She set her face in a look of disappointment. “Get out.”

  Peter reached for the seatbelt and pushed the button, depressing the release. Amya reached in and grabbed his arm to get him out faster. He was moving so slow, unlike anything Grace had ever told her when he’d been drunk before.

  Amya took him to the curb and stood him before her. It was probably comical, a barely over five foot brunette middle-aged woman with her hands on her hips and a glare in her eyes, yelling at this twenty-something six-foot kid in the middle of the sidewalk, but it needed to happen.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Peter shook his head, not saying anything.

  “Don’t! Don’t even think about avoiding this one. You’re done for.”

  “What?”

  Even his eyes told her he was beyond drunk. They were blood shot. The smell of alcohol churned her stomach the moment she had opened the back door. Standing in front of him this way was easier on her stomach, but she knew she’d have to get back in that car again.

  “Don’t what me. You’re drunk.”

  Peter shrugged.

  “No. You are an alcoholic. How long have you been drinking?”

  “Just today.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “You better not be lying to me. Where’d you get it?”

  “The store?”

  Snorting, Amya crossed her arms and tapped her shoe against the ground as she debated what to even say to him. He wasn’t her kid, and even if he was, he was an adult. She couldn’t force him to go to rehab or talk to a drug counselor, or take him to an AA meeting. She could call the cops on him for drunk driving, but she wasn’t sure that would get the results he needed either, since he’d already had a DWI which had landed him with them.

  “Get in the car.”

  “Huh?”

  “Get in the car.” When he started toward the driver’s side, Amya scolded him. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not driving anywhere.”

  She slid behind the wheel, rolled down all four windows and closed her eyes. She needed to talk to Grace about all of this. But it wouldn’t be soon enough, she knew that. Grace still had a full day of work ahead of her, which meant she wouldn’t be home for hours. For now, the weight of the responsibility was entirely on her shoulders.

  Shoving the car into drive, Amya headed for home. She remained stoically silent the entire time. As they pulled into the driveway, she turned and raised an eyebrow at Peter. “Go take a cold shower, get some water, and start sobering up.”

  “Okay.”

  When he moved without another complaint, she knew he was far gone. She watched him walk into the house, which he had also apparently forgotten to lock. Good thing she was the one coming home to find that and not Grace. She leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. It was going to be a long day, indeed.

  She didn’t wait much longer before she grabbed her suitcase and headed inside. She stashed it just inside the door to their bedroom and walked straight for Peter’s. He’d at least listened and was in the bathroom, which left the room to her. She didn’t wait as she tore it apart, looking for where he hid all the alcohol.

  She opened the closet, started on the upper shelves before she flipped the mattress up and looked under. All in all, she found nothing. No hidden bottles. Pursing her lips, she surveyed the room again before leaving it and walking to the guest room, repeating the process. She knew where Grace and her alcohol was, which was locked up in the bottom of the gun safe in their bedroom. They had talked for months about getting a second safe so guns and alcohol weren’t stored together, but hadn’t had the time to do it yet.

  Sighing, she put the guest room back in order and started on the living room about the time Peter left the bathroom. She heard him curse and ask what she thought she was doing. Amya ignored him and continued her search. It took her a total of three hours to finish her first not completely thorough search of the rest of the house. She and Grace would have to do a much more detailed one later because she’d found absolutely nothing.

  Collapsing onto the couch, Amya rubbed the bridge of her nose and her eyebrows and temples in an attempt to remove some of the tension that had built up there. Peter came out and grabbed a glass of water and some food, sitting at the kitchen table to eat.

  She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t know what to say. She worried if she did start that conversation right then and there the only thing out of her mouth would be accusations and screams. They had done so much for him that she felt heart broken. Like it hadn’t been enough, which Amya knew was her head telling her heart lies.

  She could not control another person. She could not make them do what she wanted them to do. Peter proved that endlessly, but this was a whole new level of proof. Curling into her couch, she pet the cat who came to settle on her feet and stared at the dogs who were finally calm enough to settle on the living room rug.

  Every answer she came up with didn’t seem like a good one. All she wanted to do was yell and scream, which she knew was going to get nowhere, especially with him in that state. Amya closed her eyes. She’d just wanted to come home, take a nap, start her laundry, and pray Grace was able to sneak away from work a few minutes early so they could spend some quality time together before they both had to go to bed. Instead, she was left with this mess.

  Unbeknownst to her, Peter moved around to stand in front of her and cleared his throat to get her attention. Amya opened her eyes to stare up into his dark eyes, eyes that reflected so much pain and self-hatred, stupidity, and drunkenness. She’d dealt with her fair share of addicts in her life, her younger brother to boot, but living with one was something she had never experienced before. Her heart went out for Lauren, her sister-in-law, in a whole new way.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter muttered. “I messed up.”

  “You did,” she whispered. She wasn’t going to sugar coat anything. He needed the reality check, and if he was going to initiate the conversation, she was going to give it to him. “You really did.”

  “So, I’m sorry.”

  Amya bit her lip before clenching her jaw. “Do you expect me to accept your apology?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know how many people you could have killed on your drive to the airport? The least you could have done was say you had something to do, and I would have found another ride, or hell, just told me you were shit-faced.”

  “I’m sorry, Amya.”

  Grunting, she shook her head. “No. I’m not doing apologies. If you’re really sorry, this won’t happen again.”

  Peter’s facial expressions barely changed as he turned and left the room. Amya didn’t have heart to follow him. He was lost, he was young and made mistakes, but more important than anything, he was an addict, and she had to remember that.

  ###

  Grace had been at her desk most of the day, going through cold case files and trying to put a name to the face she had of the kid stuck in the coma, but she was coming up with blanks. She’d checked her watch and phone a half-dozen times, waiting for Amya to text about being home and wanting her home, but there was nothing beyond the text that she’d landed and a missed call with no message.

  Grace stretched her back and had just popped a dried mango between her lips when Humbard shouted her name across the room. She turned to him, then he looked beyond her and called for another detective. Curious, Grace got up and followed the call to his office.

  As soon as she and Kline were inside, he shut the door. “I want you two to work together on this case.”

  “Sir?” Grace asked, being the more senior officer.

  “Just do it. I don’t want IAB down here looking for more issues.”

  “Sure.” Grace’s lips thinned. She liked Kline, at least what she knew of her. “What’s the case?”

  “Missing teen.” He handed a piece of paper over with an address scrawled across it. “That’s all I have, sorry. Uniform officers are there now.”

  “Then we’ll get going.”

  “You do that.”

  Grace sighed as she walked out of the office. She knew the neighborhood they were going to. She went for her desk, grabbed her stuff, and nodded her head at Kline. “I’m driving.”

  “Fine.”

  Grace turned to Paige who stared at her with wide eyes. Grace asked, “What are you doing that you couldn’t come today?”

  “Interview.”

  “Oh right! I forgot that was today.”

  “How could you forget? They interview you yet?”

  “Nope, but I expect it’ll happen soon enough.”

  Paige’s lips pursed. “Yeah.”

  Kline walked right up to the two of them. “Ready?”

  “Yeah.” Grace headed for the door, following Kline. She was a tall lanky woman with salt and pepper hair, except her pepper was clearly fading red. Her eyes were a baby blue, and while she looked to be mostly leg, Grace was sure she had a good amount of strength to her.

  When they got to her cruiser, Grace sighed and put the car in reverse. “Working in pairs ought to make cases interesting.”

  “It should.” Kline was clearly a woman of little words. Still, Grace could work with some words.

  “You have any kids?”

  “I have two, a daughter who lives in California and a son who is still here. Both are grown.”

  “Not bad. We have a twenty-one-year-old kid living with us for the time being.”

  Kline didn’t respond. Grace let out a breath. All right, maybe it was going to be harder than she’d originally thought. She pulled up to a stop sign and came to a complete stop before taking a left. “You liking Missing Persons so far? You transferred from…warrants, right?”

  “I did. Missing Persons is different.”

  Grace chuckled. “It is, but it’s worth it. Least I think so.”

  “This week has been interesting.”

  “Right?” Grace smiled. She’d finally found the topic that would open the ice queen up. “I’ve been a part of IAB investigations before, but never like this. This is something else.”