Page 41 of Outsider

“Youth and hormones can be a potent mix.”

“And I think that’s the end of this particular conversation,” I say, keeping my voice amicable.

“Okay.” When she speaks again, her voice is wistful. “We never talked about what happened. I mean, between us. When you left. We should have. I’ve always regretted that we didn’t.”

“I don’t think our discussing it would have changed anything,” I tell her. “Once you started down the wrong road, there was no stopping you.”

“You knew and yet you never told anyone. Why is that?”

You were my best friend. I loved you like a sister. I didn’t want to ruin your life. I don’t say the words aloud, but at the time all of them were true.

I study her face, the steady gaze and set mouth, and I wonder how honest she’s been with me. In the weeks before I left Columbus, I’d been faced with the biggest decision of my career. I spent months trying to move on, trying to forget about what she’d done, what I knew about her, and how I handled it. To this day I’m not certain I made the right choice.

It was the one and only time I looked the other way in the face of police wrongdoing. I kept what I knew—what I’d seen—to myself, and I didn’t tell a soul. Not because I approved, but because I’d known the truth would destroy her. It’s one of the reasons I left the Columbus Division of Police.

“I never thanked you for that,” she says.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

She nods. “If it’s any consolation, Kate, the circumstances weren’t exactly black-and-white.”

“Do not try to convince me that what you did was all right,” I say. “It wasn’t. Not then. Not now.”

The words hover in the air between us. A thousand more clog my throat, but I don’t dare say them aloud.

She breaks eye contact, then forces her gaze back to mine. “I didn’t realize what I was getting into. The depth of it. The wrongness. I didn’t know there would be no going back.”

It had been the beginning of the end of our relationship. A friendship that had been genuine and deep and untainted.

When I say nothing, she looks away, but not before I see the shame peek out from beneath the attitude and bravado. “If I could go back and change it, I would,” she whispers.

“Too late,” I say. “For a lot of things, the least of which is regret.”

“I fucked up my career. My life. Just about every relationship I’ve ever had. I’m sorry.”

I stare at her, trying to gauge her sincerity, wanting to believe her. Wanting to see just a glimpse of the woman I used to admire. The idealistic cop I’d spent so much time trying to emulate. It hurts knowing that part of her was quashed by something overbearing and dark, that it may no longer exist. That it may never have existed at all.

“You’d better get some sleep,” I tell her.

“Yeah.” Pulling the blanket more closely about her shoulders, she rises and leaves the room.

CHAPTER 12

I’m standing in the kitchen, nursing my first cup of coffee, and trying not to ponder the possibility of being stranded on this farm for a second day. It’s not quite daylight outside. The snow has slowed, but the wind continues to batter the house and surrounding trees. The three Lengacher children are sitting at the table, chattering and eating sausage and toast, when the rat-tat-tat-tat of gunshots sounds outside. Four of them in quick succession. Nearby. Too close for comfort.

Gina rushes into the kitchen, her eyes darting to the window, to me, back to the window. “Did you hear that? Where did it come from?”

“The woods along the creek probably,” I say.

“Hunters?” She can’t seem to stop looking toward the window. “Sounded close.”

I get to my feet. “Deer season ended two weeks ago.”

I take in her agitation and it occurs to me she doesn’t realize that shooting in the woods isn’t all that unusual in rural areas. She’s a city girl, after all. Not a nervous Nellie—and she’s sure as hell not afraid of guns—but in light of the circumstances and her having recently sustained a gunshot wound, a certain level of jumpiness is understandable. That someone would be out shooting in such extreme weather gives me pause.

Gina strides to the window, parts the curtains, and peers outside. Unbeknownst to her, the window doesn’t face Painters Creek. “Maybe we ought to check it out.”

I’m aware that the children have stopped eating, forks suspended in midair, and they’re watching their English visitor with a mix of curiosity and uneasy amusement. I understand the source of Gina’s fear; she’s afraid someone from Columbus has come looking for her. The thought puts a prickly sensation on the back of my neck.