Free A Glimpse of Evil by Victoria Laurie Page B

home?”
    I eyed the clock. “But it’s only three thirty.”
    “Weren’t you here at six?”
    “Umm . . . more or less.”
    “That’s still a full day,” he said, moving a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Go. You look beat. I’ll be home by six and I’ll bring some dinner.”
    I glanced around at the empty room and its lack of prying eyes and ears and kissed him. “Have I told you lately that I rilly, rilly love you?”
    Dutch smiled. “No. You rilly haven’t.”
    “Well, then, consider your cute butt notified.”
    Someone cleared his throat from behind me again.
    “Oh, sheep!” I whispered. “We’ve been caught again, haven’t we?” I sneaked a look over my shoulder and Rodriguez was standing there with a disapproving look on his face. I knew he wouldn’t say anything directly to Dutch—who was his superior—but I could only imagine the earful Harrison was going to get the moment I left.
    “Good night, Ms. Cooper,” Dutch said formally as I backed quickly away. “Drive safe.”
     
    The next morning when I walked into the office, I found Harrison snoring on the small leather couch in his office. I knocked loudly on his door and he sat up with a start. “Morning,” I said as he blinked blearily.
    “Morning,” he said, his voice croaky. “What time is it?”
    “A little after seven. What time did you get here?” I figured he had come in really early, got tired, and was taking a catnap before the squad showed up.
    Harrison stood, stretched, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Midnight.”
    “Midnight? What brought you back here at midnight?”
    He gave me a crooked smile. “Your friend Candice.”
    “Huh?”
    “She kicked me out.”
    “She what ?”
    “She needs time,” he said dramatically.
    “Time for what?”
    “Time to think.” Harrison was now pacing his office and I could see that whatever had gone on between him and Candice the night before was still bugging him.
    I held up my hand. “Hold on a sec. Can we back up? What happened between you two?”
    Harrison sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh. “I took your advice, and it backfired.”
    I thought back through the advice I might have given him and remembered the conversation we’d had about the proposal. “So, you asked her to marry you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And she kicked you out?” None of this was making sense. Especially given how broken up Candice had been about the thought of Brice leaving her.
    “The kicking-out part came later.”
    I came all the way into Harrison’s office then and pulled a chair up to the couch. I then handed him my Starbucks coffee and ordered him to drink it. “Maybe after you wake up a little, you’ll start making sense.”
    He smiled ruefully, took the cup and a big swig of java. “When I got home last night, I found Candice crying on the balcony. At first she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, so I thought I’d just give her some space and go hang out in the bedroom. But then she accused me of walking away, so I went back to try and find out what was wrong. I finally managed to get it out of her that she thought I was having second thoughts and wanted out of our relationship.
    “I tried to tell her she was crazy, but somehow we got into an argument and I sort of shouted the proposal at her, only I realized that I’d left the stupid ring here. And of course she then accused me of only proposing to her because she was upset, which I vehemently denied and I swore to her that I’d been planning this for a while but forgot the ring at work. She didn’t believe me and kicked me out.”
    “Whoa,” I said when he took another sip of coffee. “What’re you gonna do?”
    Harrison looked at me in disbelief. “What am I gonna do? Are you serious?”
    My brow furrowed. “Uh . . . I thought I was.”
    He shook his head and handed me back the coffee. “I’m not doing anything, Abby. You need to talk to her.”
    That surprised me. “I do?”
    He nodded vigorously. “Yes. Tell her