Free Sarah Armstrong - 01 - Singularity by Kathryn Casey Page A

Bill and I got to know each other a bit. We talked about you, Sarah,” David continued. “He said that there wasn’t a string of clues you couldn’t crack.”
    “Bill was one of a kind,” I said.
    “What’s it been now?” Garrity asked. I didn’t need to ask what he meant.
    “Bill died a year ago last month,” I said.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Must be rough.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
    “Write This Down” came on the jukebox, Strait crooning to a heavy country beat, reminding his lover of the place she holds in his heart. It was a favorite of Bill’s, and one we danced to often. I used the music as an excuse to close my eyes. Before long I was swaying a little in time with the song, and when I opened my eyes, Garrity was smiling at me. It was beginning to appear that he found me a continuing source of amusement. Embarrassed, I waved at the waitress. In no time, she’d slapped down a second bottle of beer.
    “Kind of nice that we’re off duty,” Garrity said.
    “As off duty as two cops on a case ever get,” I said.
    “That’s true, but, well, I was thinking,” he said, with a soft, nervous chuckle. “There are things I need to learn if I’m going to live down here. I mean, I hear things are different.”
    I stifled an urge to laugh. Nearly every Yankee I’d ever met had a preconceived notion about Texas that included cowboys, oil wells, and characters out of that old movie
Deliverance
. The truth is, they were partially right; we have some of all three, especially the oil wells. Still… “Well, you have entered a foreign country,” I replied in my best Texas drawl, deciding to play along. “We Texans are pretty particular. You don’t fit in; we may not let you stay. Some of us aren’t too partial to foreigners. We’d rather all of you packed up and went home.”
    “I’ve heard that,” Garrity said, laughing softly, this time without the uneasiness, and I laughed along with him. The beer was going down smooth, and it felt good to unwind after a long day.
    “Well then,” he ventured. “Under those circumstances, I’d say it’s your responsibility to teach me to fit in. You don’t want your partner, even a temporary one, standing out like a dairy cow in a field of longhorn steers.”
    “What’ve you got in mind?” I asked. When he didn’t answer right away, I suggested, “You know, I could teach you the UT fight song?”
    Personally, I thought I was highly entertaining, but this time,Garrity didn’t laugh. Instead he reached across the table and covered my hand with his—thick, solid, and warm.
    “Let’s dance,” he said, standing up and trying to nudge me to my feet beside him.
    This was something I hadn’t expected. I hadn’t danced since Bill died. Drawing my hand away, I said, “You know, there’s no dance floor, and I don’t think…”
    “We’ll just get a couple of these tables out of the way,” he said, doing just that, the table legs making a chalk-on-a-blackboard screech as he pushed them across the wood floor. The place smelled of beer, cooking grease, and decades of cigarette smoke.
    “Now I know how to dance, but I hear you do it differently down here,” he said, again slipping his hand over mine, gently pulling me toward him. “Come on. Help an old Yank out.”
    He was watching me, and I felt my face grow warm.
    “I don’t need any sympathy dances,” I said, shaking my head.
    “Sympathy dance?” He sighed. “Lieutenant, I’d consider this a personal favor. What if I have to work undercover in a Texas dance hall? How will I fit in if I can’t two-step?”
    I thought for a minute, listening to Strait’s crooning fill the darkened room. “Why not?”
    I stood up and put Garrity’s right hand on my waist, then wrapped my left arm under and behind him. He took my right palm in his outstretched hand. I waited a minute, and then eased into the strong beat of the music with a quick step forward with my right foot, following it with my