Those concerns fled from her mind the moment Kent walked into the restaurant. She had changed into black pants and a wine-colored sweater, and she looked surprisingly slim without her wool uniform and bulletproof vest. She draped a damp black jacket over the back of her chair and sat down.

  “So, Libby was behind the front desk with Larson when I was leaving,” she said. “Behind the desk. I think my officers are planning to adopt her. You look beautiful, by the way, multi-colored bruises and all.”

  Tig laughed, no longer worried about the potential issues with conversation now that Kent was here with her. They were going to be just fine. “I was thinking the same about you, but I don’t look any different than I did this afternoon.”

  Kent shrugged. “I know, but I couldn’t say anything before, with Clare hanging about. It was very rude of her to tag along with us today, just because she’s my partner and we’re supposed to be handling this investigation together.”

  “Third wheel,” Tig said with a shake of her head. “She has no shame.”

  They paused to order their food, and then talk turned to the basic getting-to-know-you questions they had bypassed given the way they had met.

  “Do you live near campus?”

  Tig gestured vaguely in the direction behind her. “Just across the freeway. Wallingford.”

  “I’m in Fremont,” Kent said, naming the adjacent neighborhood. “We’re close.”

  For now. Tig hated that she heard those words ghosting after Kent’s comment. She wondered if Kent sensed them, too.

  “I’d describe my house to you,” she continued, wanting to get her mind off the sad prospect of leaving Seattle. “All I need to say, though, is that it looks like my office, but slightly larger, and you can form a good picture of it. Books, replicas of busts and statues, papers everywhere.” She paused and laughed. “And now you’ve gotten the description of every room and every house I’ve ever lived in. Most people go through stages, I suppose, with rooms decorated with ponies when they’re little, then maybe all black when they’re a Goth teenager, and so on. Not me. It’s like I live in this bubble filled with pictures of the Acropolis and stacks of Greek and Latin grammars, and it’s followed me my whole life. It’s just the world outside it that changes now and again.”

  She sighed. She needed to stop making references to moving. She wasn’t doing it intentionally, but it was weighing on her mind and affected everything else.

  “Your parents must have been proud that you followed in their footsteps,” Kent said, diverting the conversation slightly. She seemed to either sense Tig’s worry about the future or she was feeling it herself. “Did they encourage that, or was it mostly your choice?”

  Tig remembered when she had first started looking at colleges, judging each by the merits of their Classical Studies programs. Her parents had treated this as something unexpected, which seemed odd to Tig since she felt she had always known the direction her future would take. “They were proud,” she said, slightly glossing over how excited her parents had been. “But they were really surprised that both of us became classics professors, too. Ismene teaches at Reed, in Portland. They said they figured we’d be likely to choose something in academia, but they never pushed us in that direction, or any other. Apparently, neither of us went through one of those rebellious stages where we wanted to do anything as long as it was completely different from what our parents did.”

  She paused and took a drink of her now-cool tea. Even her memories seemed wrapped in a haze of Mediterranean blues and whites. “Our childhood was very immersive in ancient cultures, especially Greek, so it shouldn’t have been a shock that we absorbed it like we did. Myths were our bedtime stories, and our vacations were spent in Greece or touring museums or visiting universities where my parents could do research while the two of us wandered around.”

  She shrugged, unable to remember a time when her world hadn’t been enmeshed in ancient cultures. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you come from a long line of cops? I thought it was common for it to be a generational sort of career. Is this what you always wanted to do?”

  Kent waited as their food was set on the table, then she answered. “I’m the only cop in my family. Two of my brothers were military. Both Navy, one career and the other is now a civilian contractor in the Middle East. My oldest brother is a football coach and PE teacher in a high school. My parents own a construction company.” She paused and took a bite of caramelized shrimp before continuing.

  “My brothers are six, nine, and ten years older than I am, and they pretty much raised me since Mom and Dad were busy with the company. My dad was a carpenter, and my mom was a housewife until Jimmy, my youngest brother, started school. Then they bought the company my dad worked for and had to figure out how to manage it. It was a lot of work, so they didn’t have much spare time, but my brothers took care of me.”

  She hesitated again, adjusting the jacket behind her and adding some sauce to her rice. Tig watched her quietly, learning as much about her from her behavior in between sentences as by the words themselves. Where Tig was more than happy to spend as much time as her listeners would allow chatting about family trips to Delphi, or the time they got to go into the staff-only areas at the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu, Kent seemed far more reticent about her past. Tig guessed that her hesitating delivery was due more to her being out of the habit of sharing personal details than that she was harboring some childhood pain, but Tig wasn’t sure. All she knew for certain was that it meant a lot to be hearing these details from Kent. She had no doubt that they weren’t offered to everyone Kent met.

  “Were you lonely?” she prompted when Kent fell silent again.

  “No,” Kent said slowly. “It’s just not easy to talk about…with you. You and I had such different experiences growing up. It was a long time before I realized that my life was unusual, and that most kids had parents who were more involved in their lives. And siblings who didn’t want them around, not ones that did. My brothers took me everywhere with them. I got very good at playing video games, at having serious discussions about the plays called during football games, and at entertaining myself with cards and books when my brothers had friends over. I even went on the occasional date with one of them if the others were busy and couldn’t watch me.” She laughed. “Talk about an awkward third wheel. But to me, it was normal life.”

  She shrugged and took a sip of water. “I was kind of small for my age, and some of the kids at school tried to take advantage of that. I was getting bullied, and my teacher called the house and told Justin, my middle brother. She probably thought my mom and dad would come and have a nice chat with the principal and the other parents, but instead my brothers showed up on the playground the next day.” She grinned at Tig. “Don’t look so worried. They didn’t beat up a bunch of first graders. They just let it be known very clearly that I had back-up, and that anyone who messed with me was going to have to take them on, too. Word must have spread, because I never had a single problem with bullies from then on. If I’d been a different sort of kid and had taken advantage of the situation, I could have made a fortune collecting lunch money. I probably would have retired by now on my savings alone.”

  “But instead of doing that, you chose a life path that would give you a chance to protect other people like they did for you.” Tig had let her food sit, unnoticed, while Kent was talking, marveling at the thought of little Kent, small and weak, being protected by her brothers. She was right that her childhood had been about as different from Tig’s homeschooled early years as it could get, but that childhood had produced this strong, fierce woman who defended others. That made it seem as magical as Tig’s had been. She took advantage of another of Kent’s long pauses and picked up a spring roll, taking a bite and enjoying the crunch of spicy, fried tofu combined with mango and cool cucumber. “Trade?” she suggested.

  Kent nodded and spooned some of her rice and shrimp onto Tig’s plate before taking a segment of spring roll. “Oh, that’s very good,” she said after trying the roll. “Mine’s better, though.”

  Tig sampled the crispy shrimp and sighed. “You’re right. Not by much, though.”

  “It started with me simply wanting to be physically strong like they were,” Kent said, continuing her story and responding to Tig’s comment. “When my family noticed my interest in developing myself that way, my parents signed me up for Tae Kwon Do and karate, and my brothers started coaching me at the gym instead of having me sit and read while they were working out. I couldn’t do much with weights because I was still so young, but they taught me technique and form. At some point in there, my goal became less about wanting to protect myself and more about taking care of other people. I saw cops who were regulars at the gym and added them to the list with my brothers as people to admire and model myself after. Eventually police work started to feel like a natural fit, career-wise.”

  Tig was starting to get a picture of Kent as a child and teenager. Intense, reserved, determined. All traits she would continue to develop as a woman and a sergeant. She also recognized the values Kent had internalized from a young age. To be self-sufficient and self-contained when necessary, and to protect others with no hesitation. She personally thought Kent carried it a little too far now that she was a sergeant, falling into the habit of holding herself back and remaining aloof partly because it was necessary when her co-workers were often off-limits as friends or potential dates, but also because it was the easy path to take. Tig would do her best to bring as much friendship and companionship as she could into Kent’s life—not trying to pull her out from behind the barriers she’d been building for years, but going behind them herself. And even if she wasn’t able to stay long-term, she knew Libby and the others would continue in her place.

  “What do your parents think of your job?” Tig asked carefully, assuming they would have been as indifferent about it as they seemed to have been for the rest of Kent’s life.

  “Strangely enough, it brought us closer,” Kent said. She looked up from her plate at Tig and smiled. “I can see you weren’t expecting that, and neither was I. I felt like sort of an afterthought to them most of the time when I was a child, but when they saw how dedicated I was to my martial arts training and my desire to become a police officer, they seemed to develop more respect for me, I guess. Those were their values—to work hard and drive themselves toward a goal. We’ve grown closer over the years, but it’s a slow process, and I’ll always think of my brothers as my real parents.”

  Tig handed her empty plate to her server, and they ordered sweetened iced coffees for dessert even though it was long past summer. When they arrived, she stirred hers and watched Kent thoughtfully, finally voicing a question that had been on her mind.

  “Your brothers sound great, and I’d love to meet them sometime, but I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to come out to them,” she said. Now that their plates were out of the way, she gave in to the temptation to touch Kent and reached across the table, resting her hand over Kent’s. “How uncomfortable was that conversation?”

  Kent gave a snort of laughter as she turned her hand in Tig’s and laced their fingers together. “Are you kidding? I was raised by three teen and young adult aged males. They were so relieved when I told them I wasn’t interested in dating men that they immediately started planning what to wear at the next Pride Parade.” She shook her head. “You’re laughing like you think that’s a joke, but it isn’t. We had to wear these horrible matching rainbow sweaters Kyle picked out. I felt very loved and very humiliated at the same time.” She winked at Tig. “I met my first girlfriend there, though. She thought the outfits were cute, so I got over the humiliation real quick. So, what about you? Was this another surprise for your parents?”

  Tig shook her head. “Hardly. My sister and I were reading texts like Ovid’s Art of Love and Sappho’s poetry before we hit puberty. The rule was, we could borrow anything from our parents’ bookshelves as long as we discussed what we were reading. I must have made my preferences very clear in this case, and I’m sure there were other signs along the way, too. As you may have noticed, I’m not exactly a closed book when it comes to my feelings.” Kent grinned and squeezed her hand gently in acknowledgment. “A few years later I approached my mom and told her I was attracted to girls, thinking I was unleashing some majorly dramatic news. She just said Yes, dear, we know. Can you hand me that translation of The Iliad?”

  Kent laughed along with her. “What did you do then?”

  “I handed her the book and walked out of the room. I was sort of in a daze after anticipating this confrontation for weeks just to have it be so casual, but then life went on exactly the same as it had been. In time, I’ve come to realize just how fortunate I was to have been so wholly accepted by my family. I’m glad to know that you had that kind of experience, too.”

  “It should be the norm, and not the exception,” Kent said with a nod. “What about your sister?”

  “Married to a man and has three kids. Mary, John, and Bob, if you can believe it. She never fully appreciated having such a unique name.”

  “I imagine that being called Meany by you didn’t help much.”

  Tig sighed. “I know, I was awful. I still call her that, of course, but I try to be a really amazing aunt to make it up to the kids since it’s mostly my fault that they have such ordinary names.”

  Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket, and she reluctantly disengaged her hand from Kent’s to reach for it. “I’m sorry about that,” she said as she pulled it out. “I would have turned it off while we were together, but I’m waiting for Lukas to call back. I thought you’d want to hear what he has to say right away.” She looked at the screen and frowned. “Oh, it’s Kam.”

  She looked up at Kent, uncertain what to do. She didn’t recall him ever calling her before. If he wanted to talk, he’d catch her during office hours.

  “Is this normal?” Kent asked quickly.

  She shook her head, and Kent told her to answer.

  “Hello? Kam?”

  His first, whispered words were unintelligible, and she pressed the cell tightly to her ear, straining to hear him.

  “…being followed. I was running…fell, and I needed to stop the bleeding…shouldn’t have come here alone. Help me, Tig, please.”

  “Where are you, Kam?” she asked, then realized how much her voice had risen above its normal tone. Kent was already on her feet, tossing some cash on the table and reaching to take Tig’s hand. She let Kent guide her out of the restaurant, ignoring the curious stares of the other diners and concentrating on her conversation.

  “Can you get away from there?” she asked. “Get somewhere safe. Scream. Do something. I’ll stay on the line.”

  She heard a grunt and what sounded like his phone hitting the ground and then the connection went dead.

  Well, that couldn’t be good.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kent could feel Tig’s hand trembling in hers as she pulled her out of the restaurant and into a small alcove in the building next door that served as the entrance to some upper-level businesses. Luckily, they were closed at this time of night, giving them some privacy.

  She had a fleeting thought that it would have been nice to have had a normal date, when she would have led Tig into this darkened space for a very different reason…

  She shoved that notion roughly to one side. Tig was still holding the phone to her ear, but she was no longer saying anything.

  “Is he still on the line?” she asked softly. Tig shook her head, and Kent pried the cell from her stiff hand. She double-checked to make sure the call had ended.

  “What happened, Tig?” she asked. “What did he say?”

  “He sounded scared,” Tig said, looking over her shoulder. “I need to find him. Do you think he’s okay?”

  The answer was obviously no, but Kent didn’t say that. She put her hand under Tig’s chin and turned her head to get Tig to look at her.

  “We’ll help him, but first I need to know what happened. You looked at your screen. You thought it would be Lukas, but you saw Kam’s name. What did he say?”

  Tig nodded and took a deep, shaky breath, as if Kent’s words had settled her somehow. She recounted the short conversation, then Kent asked her to repeat it while she took quick notes.

  “Think, Tig,” she said, deliberately keeping her voice calm. She wanted to immediately start searching, too, but start where? He could be anywhere on campus or in Seattle. Hell, he could be anywhere within driving distance from the time Tig had last seen him, if he’d been scared enough to start running then. She was frustrated by her inability to help, and she didn’t want that to seep into her tone while talking to Tig. “Where could he be? He said he was bleeding, so maybe he’s near the medical center?”

  “No, he said he was alone. It would still be busy there, even in the dark,” she said. “Besides, he hates doctors. He said…” She paused, and then her expression brightened. “Oh, the Medicinal Herb Garden! He’s into naturopathy, and he likes to brag about how he can get what he needs from the garden at night without needing to go to a pharmacy. What was it that stops bleeding? Maybe yarrow?”

  “You’re brilliant, sweetheart,” Kent said, handing Tig back her phone and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. She got her own cell and speed-dialed Clare. When she answered, Kent heard a murmur of sound in the background, most likely from whichever restaurant she and her friends were at this evening.

  Kent told her where they were and about the phone call, including Tig’s theory about where Kam was. Somewhere toward the beginning of the tale, she heard Clare whisper Gotta go, probably to Libby, and then the sounds of her running while Kent continued to talk.