Free Skin Heat by Ava Gray Page B

Get out of the field and start a new chapter in life. But right now, he felt like that’d be turning his back on everything he’d accomplished with his partner, and maybe just a hint of running scared. He’d never know if he had the stones to do the job if he didn’t try.
    “I don’t want to work the desk,” he said. “Ask me again in ten years.”
    Birch grinned. “In ten years, I’ll be fishing off a boat in Cabo. But maybe I’ll make you take my job when I’m ready to go.”
    “I may be fine with it by then.”
    “And Emil . . .” That told him something serious was coming. Birch never used his first name. “I’m really sorry.”
    Me, too.
    He’d missed her funeral, hadn’t been there to say good-bye. I wasn’t there when she died. The one time we split up to chase down separate leads . . .
    Well, there was no point going down that road. In the early days after his discharge from the hospital, he’d spent some time fondling his gun and chasing pain meds with cheap whiskey. But in the end, it was unworthy of her. He could almost hear Rina saying, Man the fuck up, Hebert. You gonna cry in your beer forever?
    And remembering her made him smile. That smile gave him the strength to pour the liquor down the drain, ease off on the medications, and start climbing out of that dark hole. People had lost their best friends before. They went on. So could he.
    “It was just a bad break,” he said then, and was surprised at how rough his own voice sounded.
    “I’m glad you know it wasn’t your fault. Sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do, and it doesn’t matter that you did everything right.” By the man’s tone, he’d suffered a loss, too, but one just didn’t ask Hal Birch to talk about his feelings.
    “Well, they played us. Divide and conquer. I should’ve known better.”
    “You had no reason to think they were working together. They hate each other. I catch you talking guilt again, and I’m sending you back to Marlow.”
    He winced. Spending another month of appointments talking about how he was dealing with Rina’s loss sounded like a special circle of hell. “Got it.”
    “I expect you back at work on Monday. You’ll spend the first week on the desk, getting back into the groove. Once you’re sure you’re good, I’ll have the others shuffle some cases your way. I know they’re buried.”
    With Rina . . . gone and him out on sick leave, it wasn’t surprising. The workload must be staggering. “I’m ready to get back to it.”
    “Not today. Go home, Hebert. Take one more weekend. This is probably the last peaceful Friday you’ll see for a while.”
    He couldn’t argue, though he wanted to. Quiet wasn’t the same as peaceful. In his silent apartment, he had no choice but to turn things over in his mind. Weigh what he could’ve done differently and wonder whether it would’ve mattered. If there was any confluence of events in which he could save her.
    Because she hadn’t just been his best friend. Though he’d never told her—and Rina had been happily married for fifteen years—he’d loved her. Desperate, unspoken, and hopeless, it had always been. He’d known that, and would never have acted on it. She’d adored her husband and their two children.
    Hebert didn’t like thinking of Preston, who had the real right to fall into a dark hole over her. Instead, he seemed to be coping better than Emil, maybe because of the kids. He didn’t have the luxury of falling apart; he had to keep it together for them. When he’d first gotten out of the hospital, he’d paid his respects to their family.
    He wouldn’t be doing it again. Envy ate him up inside because Preston had had fifteen years with her, partner in every way. He’d been the one she was eager to get home to, and it hurt him to see mementoes of their life—the life he’d wanted with her—all over that house.
    Once he left the ABI, he didn’t go home. Only emptiness and a hidden bottle of booze waited for