“Not that I’ve heard. He wasn’t LAPD though. Fake badge. Lot of reporters hanging around yesterday. Not sure if the FBI was able to keep Danielle’s name out of it after all.”

She nodded. “Didn’t think they could.”

“What do you think your suspension will be? A month?”

“Or two. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was six.”

“That totally sucks. You were right all along. There’s no way they would have caught the guy if Danielle was taken out of the equation.”

“And you were right. It could have ended very badly. Then what? If Dani had been injured…or worse, can you imagine the publicity this would be getting? Publicity. Lawsuits.” She shoved the coffee away. “Doesn’t matter. It’s over now. We move on.”

“Yeah. Back to normal.”

Normal? What was normal? She turned away from Reid, letting out a deep breath. What was normal? She didn’t even know anymore. Feeling this miserable? Was that normal? Yeah. For her…miserable was normal. She’d had a reprieve…for a week or so, she’d had a reprieve. Now? Back to normal. Only this normal seemed way worse than before. How was that even possible?

“Harper? My office.”

She nodded at Lieutenant Mize’s command. She pushed away from her desk with a quick glance at Reid. Her phone was in her pocket, and she heard the quiet ding of a text message. She ignored it…for a few steps. As she stood at Mize’s door, she pulled the phone from her pocket.

“I miss you, Scout. A lot. Do you miss me?”

Harper felt her heart jump into her throat, felt it try to choke the breath from her. With a click of a button, the text disappeared and she shoved her phone back into her pocket.

“Harper, come in. Sit down.”

She moved into one of his visitors’ chairs, sitting down with a sigh. Dani missed her. A lot. Did she miss Dani?

Yeah…a lot.

“Do we need to go over the particulars?”

Harper looked at Lieutenant Mize. Particulars? “I don’t think so.”

“It worked out, Detective. You got the bad guy. A cop killer. A stalker, a rapist…a cop killer.” He shook his head. “You were damn lucky.”

She said nothing. She didn’t feel so lucky.

I miss you. A lot.

“I had to talk like hell to get your suspension down to a few months.”

She shrugged. “Why? You don’t even like me much.”

He frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Your wife. You take it out on me.”