Stockholm

Chapter 9

Mike smacks his lips together, a loud overdone motion as I pull away from the coffee shop we stopped at. We're almost through our shift and both of us can feel the haziness of long hours answering calls and driving the city streets.

He plucks the photograph from Henry Ozak from the visor, I brought it just in case he might recognize the little girl. And I watch from the corner of my eye as he thumbs the edge of the photo.

"Too bad it's so blurry." He comments.

"Yeah." I mutter, that's what you get from 90's disposable cameras though.

"What're you going to do with it?"

I can feel him stare at me as I flick my blinker on and wait at a red light. All I can do is shrug. It's not that I don't trust Mike, I do obviously, or I wouldn't be showing him the picture. But I'm also less inclined to tell him everything. Paul has tried to warn me off this case plenty of times. Always in a fatherly way, don't get yourself lost too, let the detectives on the case handle it, they're seasoned, but even with those warnings I know digging around behind his back isn't the smartest thing and I'm not going to drag Mike into it with me.

So I don't tell him that an email rolled in from my former academy friend. Acquaintance maybe moreso. I haven't had a second to read it and my palms itch. The second my thoughts switch over I can feel my heart tick up in rhythm, anxious anticipation building inside me until all I can think about is the contents of her email. Does she recognize her? Does she have information? A tip? Anything?

Mike puts my photograph back, taking a drink of his coffee. "You know, there's a good chance that girls got nothing to do with it right?"

"Yeah." My answer comes instantly, on a breath, weighted down with desperation and sadness because I need her to. I need some sort of lead.

He doesn't let me linger in my thoughts, flipping the script just as easily as he tossed us into it and asks "fun plans for the weekend?"

It's a staple in our end shift conversations especially when our work week slides into a weekend off. My usual response of "not really" dies in my throat as Wyatt's birthday BBQ for Sadie fills my thoughts. I already know it's going to be half highschool reunion, the other half full of mid-thirty problems like pregnancies and divorce.

"BBQ actually." I tell Mike.

His eyebrows crawl their way up his forehead as he smiles his approval. "That girl of yours making you socialize? Good. It's good for you."

"It's for my buddy's fiancé. Her birthday." I feel the need to point out that it's my friend, that I'm not completely isolated.

He chuckles, a jovial sound, one unbothered by my need for clarification. "Either way, you need more fun in your life Kyle. You take it way too seriously."

———————

I waited until I was in Wyatt's sedan before I checked the email. And then I waited until I was home to read it again. She had come through, my former academy, almost friend Aubrey, had a potential lead. She had a contact, a girl by the name of Sky. I contemplated trying to find Sky that night but the moment I let my thoughts actually work through that scenario I thought better of it. So I painstakingly went through the motions of my life until the following morning. The BBQ is at three which means I have a few hours to myself before I pick up Lorna.

"Stay close." I tell Bud as he slinks between my feet and through the door.

He trots straight toward the neighbors house, disappearing into a bush. I've probably put more thought into what he might spend his days doing, the things he sees, than I should. I've even thought about putting a tracker on him, mostly out of curiosity, but I can't bring myself to force him into a collar.