MATHERS FOLLOWED THEM out to the parking lot.
“Carla, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think he’d take that kind of line.”
Windermere kept walking, crossed the pavement toward her Chevelle, a cherry red ’69 that had belonged to her father. Beside her, Stevens typed something into his phone.
“It’s fine, Derek,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, well,” Mathers said, “I am worried, okay? This is way beyond me fucking up our relationship, or whatever you want to call it. This is serious. This is one of us transferring to Anchorage if we don’t work this out.”
Windermere didn’t reply. Glanced at Stevens, who’d had the good sense to fall back a step or two. “Look,” she told Mathers, “it’s not that bad.”
“Bull,” Mathers said. “You don’t trust me. That’s why you came back to Minneapolis. You figure I’ll blow up your investigation again if you’re not here to hold my hand.”
“Derek,” she said. “Not now, okay?”
“You know it’s true, though,” he said. “You put your whole case on hold just to come back and make sure I wasn’t screwing everything up.”
“I just—” She reached the Chevelle. Turned to face him. “This is a huge case, Derek. Every time I turn around, there’s another fuckup at home base. You think that makes it easy to go out and solve this thing?”
“This is the FBI you’re working with, Carla,” Mathers said. “This is me. You think I’m a meathead, that’s fine, but I know I’m a good cop, and you know it, too.” He set his jaw. “And you know I’m good for you, too.”
Windermere stared at him, a big hard-ass cop everywhere but those blue eyes. She realized she’d missed him, this whole case be damned. Realized she was sick of fighting with him, of not seeing his stupid smile in the morning.
He screwed up your case, her mind screamed. And now this, this whole awkwardness bullshit, what did you think would happen?
She’d known it was a bad idea to hook up with Mathers. Sooner or later, the romance would wear off, and somebody’s feelings would get hurt. Damn it, though, she still missed him.
But there were two teenage girls missing. Probably a hundred more in boxes, on ships or on trucks. This was no time to get moony.
Windermere squared her shoulders. Fixed Mathers with a long, hard look. “We’ll talk about this later,” she told him. “Just find Irina, okay? Don’t do a damn thing else until you find her.”
Then she climbed into the Chevelle, slammed the door, and instantly regretted not telling him good-bye.