Page 59 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

“I guess it’s just because there are so many people around looking for the magic of the season. I like it. Even if there are a few drawbacks. I bet you have big, hectic family Christmases.”

“That is putting it mildly.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t like Christmas?”

“It has its moments,” I relented.

“Wait, you mean you don’t just sit in your apartment, fuming over the townspeople singing and decorating?”

“Are you calling me The Grinch?”

“Minus the cute dog.”

The conversation continued nearly nonstop for the next several hours. Somehow, even though I was someone who had a strong appreciation for silence and generally loathed small talk, I was enjoying myself.

“Wait. So, is this the one who met his partner while pretending to volunteer at a children’s charity?”

“No, this was the one who got pickpocketed by his future partner.”

“Your family has the most interesting meet-cutes.”

Right then, completely unbidden, the strangest thought occurred to me.

Ours would be the best of the bunch.

The fuck?

Ours?

There was no our.

I wasn’t even the kind of man who wanted to be a part of an ‘our.’

“Oh, Chinese!”

“We’re having salads,” I reminded her.

“Okay. But there are no salad restaurants around here, and there is a Chinese food place.” She pouted at me. Actually fucking pouted. Lower lip out, eyes sad. “I’ll order steamed veggies. As a side.”

Like I could fucking say no to that face.

I pulled off into the lot.

We might have made good time, maybe even gotten to her father’s last known location, if we hadn’t needed to stop at two different bookstores we came upon. Though I wasn’t sure who was more intrigued by the outings—her or me. Especially when we learned one specialized in rare and used books. And out in the middle of nowhere as we were, it meant the selections hadn’t been picked through.

I snagged some locked-door thrillers I’d never even heard of before, written back in the nineties, which was, arguably, one of my favorite times for fiction.

Caitlin grabbed one fantasy novel she claimed she’d been meaning to read for years and a slim little noir featuring a woman sitting on the side of a bed in nothing but a bedsheet.

“My dad likes these. I’m going to put it aside as a present for when we find him.”

There was a stitch in my chest at that. Because every instinct of mine said this wasn’t some rescue mission. Her father, more than likely, was dead. And the best we could hope for was to find a body, to get her some closure.

But I didn’t say that as I bought the books. Nor as she started to read the noir to me by the light of her mirror as we drove.

“We need to crash,” I said as we sat on the side of a backroad, finishing the Chinese cartons—though I’d eaten the lion’s share of the steamed vegetables—under the glow of the moon. Something stirred in the woods behind us, making my hairs stand on end.

“Yeah, I’m not even driving and my eyes are tired.”