Now, she rinsed the suds from the carafe, then set it, along with its mate, onto the hot plate of the coffee machine and slapped the premeasured coffee into the baskets before hitting the Brew button and waiting for the first cup, always the hottest and strongest.
Hearing footsteps approach, she caught a glimpse of Connors as he adjusted his pants to rest just below his belly. “Hey, you get promoted?” he asked. Always the funny guy.
“That’s right,” she said as the coffee drizzled loudly into the carafes. “I’m in charge of the lunchroom now.”
“Good. I could use an elk burger!”
“Old news, Connors. Time to come up with some new material.” She suspected he’d been the one who had left a ziplock package of meat on her desk earlier in the week. On one side was a crude drawing of an elk, on the other side, a crow.
Yeah, it had been a real laugh.
It would have served the big lug right if she actually had let that meat rot in her desk drawer, then grind some up and drop the meal into his oversized mug when he wasn’t looking.
“Kinda boring around here,” he said, rocking back on his heels and eyeing the lunch area as he, too, waited for the coffee to fill the pot. The silence between them stretched to the breaking point. “No decorations. No big cases.”
“No Christmas cookies,” Pescoli reminded him. The hell with it. Even if her caseload had slowed, she didn’t have time to sit around and shoot the breeze with Connors. After yanking the partially filled pot of “regular,” she poured herself half a cup, replaced the pot with a little more force than necessary, and headed out of the lounge area.
God, she was cranky, and as she sipped from her cup and walked down the hallway, she didn’t get that same hit from her first sip that she usually did.
She had to face it, she wasn’t happy here. Slowing at Brewster’s office, she peered through the glass door. The room was locked these days, Brewster not even trusting his own staff. It bothered her. She’d visited Grayson twice in the last week, even felt foolish when she’d touched his hand and told him that they’d nailed his assailant. His condition hadn’t changed, and the doctors she’d overheard had been cautiously optimistic, whatever that meant. There was no longer a guard stationed near the doors to ICU, as there was no longer a threat to the sheriff, but that had only made the hospital seem emptier, more sterile, more . . . hopeless.
Pausing at the glass window of Brewster’s new office, what she inwardly had dubbed his “throne room,” she felt hollow inside over the change in leadership. Brewster had taken to the role of sheriff as quickly as a duck to water, and there were no traces that this space had ever been occupied by Dan Grayson and his trusty b
lack Lab, Sturgis, who, thankfully, Cisco had finally accepted.
Who knew how much longer the dog would be staying with Pescoli and her kids. And Santana, she reminded herself. They would all be one big, hopefully happy, family soon. Without even realizing it, she crossed the fingers of her free hand.
“Coffee’s done,” Connors said as he came up from behind her and, as if he’d realized what an ass he’d been, added, “I mean, if you want a full cup.”
She saw his pale reflection in the windows of Brewster’s office. “Thanks.”
He hesitated, bit the side of his lip, and looked into the office. “Weird, huh?” When she didn’t respond, he added, “I mean . . . it’s . . . different.”
“Mmmm.”
In the glass she saw him start to say something, think better of it, then sip his coffee and mosey off.
She lingered a second and was turning away when she noticed the sword. A twin of the one Vincent Samuels had given Winston Piquard, identical to the long-bladed weapon that had graced the wall of the judge’s den, her husband, Georges’s, bit of war memorabilia and now Brewster’s.
She hadn’t seen it before, but she attributed its current placement to Cort’s wife as right before the press conference about Verdago she’d heard Brewster say to Darla Vale, “Yeah, I finally had to admit that Bess was right, so I’ve started cleaning out the basement. Found some things I’d forgotten about.” Brewster had then gone in front of the cameras and expounded long and loudly about how the citizens of Grizzly Falls would have nothing to fear now that the “reign of terror” caused by Maurice Verdago and his accomplice, Carnival Tibalt, was over.
It seemed a little off somehow, but lately everything did. She’d never quite got her energy level back to where it had been, and the night terrors . . . they still haunted her. Being chased down by Verdago, caught squarely in the sight of his rifle, had only exacerbated her fears.
The truth of the matter was that her confidence was shaken, and she didn’t know if she had the edge she’d once honed so carefully. She was more cautious, fearful, and the fact that she still thought she might be being followed, that her paranoia hadn’t disappeared with Verdago’s death, only confirmed how stressed she was.
Thank God for Brewster’s dead-eye aim. He, too, had been a sharpshooter in the military.
And he’d saved her life.
Back in her office, she reminded herself of that very fact as she scooted her chair into her desk and thought that Brewster might be right, she could very well be more of a liability than an asset to the department.
It was time to start a new life with Santana and relieve herself of all the responsibilities, fears, and stress of being a detective with the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department.
Downing the rest of her coffee, she rotated her bad shoulder to loosen it, then started to compose her resignation letter.
Alvarez was bugged.
All of Brewster’s preening didn’t sit well with her. Grayson was still alive. That was a fact. And though she was glad the case was closed, there were some loose ends that bothered her.