She scoffed. “You think I care about that?”

His eyes looked away, answering: no, of course not. His comment had been a reflexive jab.

“Michael, I can’t give the case up. Simple as that.”

“Why not?”

Because she couldn’t.

He persisted. “Tonight, at the Goldschmidt house, you weren’t even supposed to be canvassing. You were supposed to stay at the scene.”

“‘Supposed to’?” she whispered harshly.

“And I find out you’re down near Junipero Manor, with the perps? You should’ve called me first. If they’d stayed around, they might have had something else in mind—nailing the law that’s after them, for instance. Some neo-Nazi assholes, who cart around Glock forties?”

O’Neil continued, “Or in Tustin today, if the unsub had turned right coming out of Prescott’s apartment, after shooting the deputy, not left, he would’ve run right up on you.”

“We didn’t know he was there. We were going to talk to a witness.”

“We never know what direction a case’ll take.”

“You want me to sit in a room and talk my suspects into confessing on Skype? It doesn’t work that way, Michael.”

“Remember your kids.”

“Don’t bring my children into this,” she snapped.

“Somebody has to,” he muttered in his infuriatingly calm, though ominous, tone. “Nailing the Solitude Creek unsub, Kathryn? It doesn’t have to be you.” He dropped into the front seat of the car, fired it up.

O’Neil didn’t skid angrily out of the driveway—he wasn’t that way. On the other hand, neither did he stop, reverse and return to apologize.

She watched the taillights until they disappeared in the fog.

It doesn’t have to be you…

Except, Michael, yes, it does.

Chapter 53

Wes was in bed, texting, when she went in to say good night.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” he replied.

“Got home late, I heard.”

“Yeah. Flat tire. Had to leave my bike at Donnie’s.”

“You didn’t call for a ride? Jon could’ve picked you up.”

“Yeah, well. I was bummed about Karen. The dance. She’s going with Randy.”

True, not true? It seemed deceptive. But after this impossible day, her kinesic skills weren’t firing on all cylinders. Besides, it would exhaust and alarm you to analyze everything children said.

She didn’t push. “When you say you’ll be home in fifteen, you’ll be home in fifteen. There’ll be consequences if this happens again.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Helmets?”

“Yeah, Mom. Helmets.”

“’Night.” She kissed him.

Into the next bedroom.

“Mags?”

Maggie was asleep. Dance tucked the blankets around her and latched her window. Kissed her on the head.

At close to midnight she and Boling walked upstairs to her bedroom. He had here a set of clothes in a gym bag, which represented a tentative escalation in their relationship. This was fine with her: some clothes, not wardrobes’ worth.

No rush…

She showered and dressed in PJs and crawled into bed next to him. They lay thigh to thigh, and she sensed he was ready to talk about her day if she wished but wasn’t going to push it. Thank you, she thought silently, and squeezed his hand as a gesture of the thought, which she knew he understood. She wondered if he’d heard the argument between her and O’Neil.