“I’m fine.” I knew I sounded like a broken record.

“If I suspend you, do you know what that will look like?” Bazer continued. “Do you understand how that will look for you?”

I shifted in the chair, placing my hands on my thighs, willing them to stop shaking. “I am fine, Lieutenant.”

“I’m trying to help you, Joe.”

I didn’t want to keep repeating myself, so I didn’t say anything.

Bazer blinked several times and rubbed harder at his chin. “I saw you arguing with Elizabeth.”

The ticking clock on the wall suddenly intensified, sounding like a jackhammer. “What?”

“Two weeks before she disappeared,” he said, watching me. “At the beach. I was driving by. Early evening.”

I thought hard, mentally flipping through recent images of Elizabeth like there was a rolodex in my head. I stopped on one and the muscles in my stomach clenched.

She and I had gone down to the beach for a walk, waiting for Lauren to get home for dinner. Elizabeth had run ahead of me, a little further than normal, then detoured into the surf. I didn’t mind her stepping into the water, even in the colder months. Like me, she loved the water and had a high tolerance for low temperatures.

What I did mind was that she went out further than she was allowed and had been immediately taken off her feet by a strong rip current.

I sprinted down the beach, bounded into the water and fished her out before the current yanked her out into the bay. I carried her up the sand to the sidewalk. She was a shivering, crying mess and I should’ve waited to reprimand her. But seeing her go down in the water had scared the shit out of me. My adrenaline was up and I was mad at her for being so reckless.

I stood her up on the sidewalk and unloaded my anger, the water and her tears forming a puddle on the concrete.

One more moment that I wished I could have back.

I pulled myself back to the present. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Papers get hold of that,” he said slowly. “It’ll spin the focus toward you and the department and it’ll take the focus off of finding Elizabeth.”

My fingertips tingled and my body felt light, like I might float out of the chair. “What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want you to take some time off. It’ll be good for everyone.”

The ticking clock became a jet engine as I replayed our conversation in my head. Then, the lightbulb went off. “This isn’t about me, is it? It’s about the department.”

He hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did,” I said, nodding. “You don’t like the attention my daughter’s disappearance is bringing to your department.”

Bazer stayed quiet.

“And you tried to leverage me into stepping away by pointedly not clearing me as a suspect.” My gut rolled and my fingers dug into thighs. “And now you’re threatening me, not even fucking around. I don’t leave, you tell some reporter that ‘an anonymous’ source saw me having it out with Elizabeth shortly before she disappeared. Maybe spice it up a little, too? Maybe I hit her? Maybe throw that out there?”

If Bazer was moved by anything I’d said, he didn’t show it. Just knotted his hands on top of his desk. “I think a leave would be good for everyone.”

I unclipped the badge from my shirt and dropped it on the desk. I unbuckled my belt and let it and my weapon fall to the floor. “Fuck you, Lieutenant.”

I walked out of his office.

And the story about me screaming at my daughter before she vanished showed up in the next morning’s paper, anyway.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Bazer was right.

I probably had come to fight, the anger that I’d had toward him only building over the years since I’d dropped my badge and gun in his office. Seeing him in person was like adding gasoline to the fire.

But if I wanted to truly help Chuck, I needed to smother the flames.

“Chuck was jumped on the beach?”

Bazer nodded. “Far as we can tell.”

“You’re connecting it to the Jordan case?”

“Not yet. Keeping them separate as for right now.”

“They’re connected.”

Bazer shrugged. “We’ll see. We’ll do the legwork and we’ll see.”

Do the legwork. It was an expression he used often. He was methodical and he expected his department to be. It was something I learned from him. It was part of the reason I was a good cop and why I had become a good investigator.

But now the words sounded hollow and fake.

“Can I see your case files?” I asked, choking down my anger.

Bazer studied me for a long moment, his eyes hard and still. “Where are you staying?”

I told him.

“I’ll have both files sent over this afternoon.”

There was no reason he couldn’t just photocopy and give them to me right then, but he was letting me know he would control what came my way. And he could deny that he was paying me back in some minimal way for hanging me out to dry, but I knew better. There was absolutely zero chance he would’ve let me near those case files unless some part of him still felt guilty for what he’d done.

“Fine,” I said and stood.

“Stay out of the way, Joe,” Bazer warned. “I mean it. You aren’t a cop here anymore. Don’t try acting like one.”

A smile that nearly hurt curled my lips. “So I shouldn’t tell bullshit lies to reporters? Isn’t that what cops around here do?”

He stiffened but didn’t say anything.

“That was out of line,” I said, holding up a hand. “That’s not what cops around here do.” I stared at him, the smile falling away from my face. “That’s just what you do.”

TWENTY-NINE

I was back at the hotel, picking at lunch in a cafe downstairs and waiting for the case files to show up when two familiar faces approached my table.

Meg, wearing a purple T-shirt and a denim skirt, slid into the seat across from me. Matt, in a polo shirt and shorts long enough to be pants, loomed behind her, looking just as uncomfortable as he had when I’d caught him following me.

“Hi,” Meg said, smiling.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I asked, running a napkin across my mouth. I glanced at Matt. “Both of you?”

“We’re off this period,” Meg said. “It’s an open campus.”

“Right,” I said. “And you knew I was here how?”

She glanced at Matt.

He shrugged. “Word gets around.”

Apparently so. I just wondered who was spreading the word.

“What’s up?” I asked, leaning back in my chair.

“I think there’s something you should know,” Meg said.

I glanced at Matt, then back to her. “Okay.”

She twisted the silver bracelet circling her wrist, being careful not to look at me. “Things aren’t right with Meredith and her dad, okay?”

I looked at Matt again. He was staring down at Meg’s back.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She brought her gaze back to mine and sucked on her upper lip for a moment. “I think he might’ve been the one that hit her.”

Finally. Someone not afraid to call out Jon Jordan.

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Things she’s said to me.” She moved her hands to her hair and pulled it back. “He’s not a good guy.”

No kidding. “What has she said to you?”

She dropped her hands and her hair fanned out on her shoulders. “Just stuff.”

I shook my head. “That isn’t gonna get it done for me, Meg. You want me to believe you? I need more than that.”

She glanced up at Matt, who finally moved his eyes to me.

“He’s hit her before,” he said, his voice low, almost like he was tired. “I was there when it happened.”

“You were there?”

He gave a short nod. “Yeah. She goes out with my friend.”

“Derek?” I asked.

Surprise started to cross his face, but he put it together quickly. “Yeah. We were at her house. She and her dad were arguing out in the pool house. He came storming out, totally pissed off. Derek went in as soon as her dad left. They came out and Meredith’s face was totally swollen. He’d slapped the hell out of her.”