Nineteen

“Am I correct in assuming Matt Kingston witnessed the guy—I think the newspaper said his name was Simon Pink—get shot?” Pete Dye lifted his glass of Bud Light and sipped.

The glass was chilled, and Peyton watched a bead of condensation drip to the table.

They were in Keddy’s, as planned, at 7 p.m. Friday. Pete had just arrived, and unlike Peyton, apparently wasn’t ready to compartmentalize. She had no problem leaving work at the office this day. In fact, the last thing she wanted to talk about with Pete was the Simon Pink murder. Mostly because she couldn’t.

“My mother’s staying with Tommy,” Peyton said. “She’s had a long day. Arrived at my house this morning at seven, and she’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.”

“Babysitting?”

“She calls it ‘grandmothering,’” she said and smiled at him, relieved he was letting go of their previous discussion regarding Matt Kingston. She smiled a lot when she looked at Pete Dye. That crooked smile. Too cute for his own good. Or maybe for her own good.

She sipped her beer and made sure her phone was set to vibrate. No calls or texts from Lois.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Did Matty see the guy get shot?”

The one question she hoped he wouldn’t ask.

The one she couldn’t answer.

They’d begun the day on a different (but equally-as-difficult) topic: sex and commitment. She was holding out, and she knew it was killing him, but she needed to be sure. Now she had to withhold something else, something that to one not employed in a criminal-justice field, might seem inconsequential.

“Pete, I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

She waited and watched. Would he be insulted? He wanted to be part of her life, but she wasn’t letting him in—not in her bed (yet) and not in this aspect of her professional life.

A live band played in the adjoining bar. A loud, low rumble, was punctuated occasionally by a voice that sounded like porcelain shattering.

“Besides,” she went on, “if Matt Kingston witnessed a homicide, you’re better off not knowing about it.”

He set his beer down. “You can’t tell me because I might be in danger if you do?”

“It’s more than that.”

She met lots of people who found her job interesting. What’s it like? Do you get scared chasing people at night all alone in the desert? And the one only a handful have the guts to ask: Have you ever shot anyone?

“It’s just that”—she tried to read his expression; was he angry or desperate?—“you need to understand I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. That’s protocol.”

“When you were married, did you tell Jeff about your work?”

“No.”

“That bother him?”

“At the start. Then he grew disinterested in things that he wasn’t at the center of.”

“I can understand that,” he said and smiled, “on both fronts.”

“Does it bother you?” she said.

“Yes.”

The waitress appeared. He ordered a steak, rare, a salad, and a baked potato. She asked for the cobb salad.

“What are your plans for the weekend?” he said, when his salad arrived.

“Nothing much,” she said. “Tommy’s soccer season just ended, so we’ll probably lay low.”

“I’ve been wanting to have you to my place for dinner,” he said. He set his salad fork down and looked thoughtfully at her, choosing his words carefully, suddenly a shy seventeen-year-old asking a girl to the prom. “You’ve cooked for me several times,” he said, “and you’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I’m actually an excellent cook. How’s tomorrow sound?”

“Love to,” she said, “and I’m not surprised that you can cook, Pete. But my mother committed me to dinner with her friends.”

“I don’t understand. She promised her friend you’d be there?”

“That’s my mom.” She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh was forced, and she knew he picked up on her tension immediately. For one who made her living with her poker face, she found social situations—especially those with men—different. It wasn’t easy to be evasive to one she cared about.

“I’m confused.” He pushed his salad away.

“My mother does a lot for me, Pete. I’m trying to appease her.”

“She wants you to meet someone, is that it?”

“Her friend’s son is coming to see his mother. My mother invited them for dinner. My mom watches Tommy every day after school and is sleeping in my guest room tonight so I can be here with you.”

“So you’re going on a blind date?”

“No. I’m not looking at it like that. A nice elderly woman offered to cook a meal with my mother. Her son is also in town. That’s the long and the short of it, Pete.”

But she knew it wasn’t. Both her mother and Rhonda Gibson viewed the dinner exactly the way Pete Dye did.

“My mom likes you a lot. You know that, right?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Look, I’m appeasing my mother because she helps me out so much. That’s all.”

He nodded. But when the main course arrived, he spoke little, ate quickly, and spent most of his time avoiding eye contact, staring, almost longingly, she thought, at the bead curtain behind which was the bar and the live music.

When the bill came, she offered to split it.

And he let her.