She sat down and spent the next hour on social media, and then finally she got a cup of coffee and sat down beside Rodney. “So, what else have we got?”
He looked over at her and winced. “Sorry.”
“Has to be something more,” she moaned. “I’ve been racking my brain on what else I can do, but I’m out of ideas.”
“Well, we’ve got two people dead from last night, where a vehicle ran into a crowd and ran them down.”
“Targeted?”
“I don’t think so. He just had broken up with his wife. Apparently she had asked for a divorce.”
“Sounds pretty open-and-shut.”
“It does, and you know what? In some ways that’s a good thing. We just have to cross all theTs.”
“Good, give me a bunch of the names or whatever you have, and I’ll do some research on them.” She sat back down at her desk and ran through as much as she could. It really did appear to be open-and-shut.
In a mad rage the guy had flown out of the restaurant, got into his vehicle, and used it as a weapon against a group of young people standing around outside, laughing and joking, just enjoying being together. Two of them died, and four of them were injured. The driver took off, leaving his vehicle, and ran, but that made absolutely no difference because he left the vehicle behind. So the local authorities had the registration, license plate, insurance, and all. The cops had already picked him up at home, and he was even now waiting in an interview room. She thought about going in with Rodney, or at least watching from the observation room, but decided against it.
When her phone rang, and it was Simon, she looked down and smiled.
He asked, “Do I make plans for tomorrow?”
“I hadn’t realized it was almost four,” she noted, “but absolutely. Yes.”
He asked, “You’ll be off?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Unfortunately that means I have absolutely nothing to go on with my runners’ case.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes life is like that.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” she murmured. “I’ll go to the dojo and work out tonight, catch an early night. I was actually thinking about maybe going for a run in the morning.”
“I can go with you,” he offered.
“Nah, I don’t even know if I’m really all that dedicated to the idea.”
“Well, why don’t you come here after work,” he suggested, “and we’ll see if I can get you dedicated to something else.”
She burst out laughing at that. “You do know that that’s a really cheesy line?” she asked. “Yet it sounds fun.”
“Hey, I aim to please. I’ll see you here in a couple hours.”
“And you’ll have dinner?” she asked, with interest.
“With you, always,” he declared. “It’s one way to your heart.”
“Wow, that sounds terrible,” she replied.
“Nope, I just know that it’s a necessity, and one that you tend to slide on.” Without saying anything else, he hung up.
As she turned, Rodney stared at her. “You two are really getting into this, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “It’s nice for a while.”
“For a while?” he repeated. “Does this guy Simon know it’s onlyfor a while?”
She glared at him. “Hey, I’m not rushing into anything. You know as well as I do that it only leads to chaos and dashed hopes.”