Chapter Twenty-Two

 

The reprimand was, frankly, letting him off easy. There had been a long moment where Josh Meadows was afraid that they were going to fire him. Indefinite suspension, at the very least.

Instead, he'd been put on leave for a week or so, and then he'd return to duty. As long as he was willing to make an apology and avoid Mitch Queen. The first, he could hold his nose and manage.

The second would be easy. If he never lived another day, Josh Meadows never wanted to see that slug again. If they crossed paths at the pearly gates, then it would be too soon.

The detective relaxes in his seat for a long time. He should be heading home. He's not really supposed to stay here. Something in the back of his mind tells him that he's forgetting something, and he can't leave until he's figured out what the hell it is, no matter how much he'd like to.

There's no open cases right now. He was only working lead on the kidnapping, and now it's been handed off. The Feds are involved. Real experts. People who actually said to themselves, one day, 'I want to deal with kidnappers for a living.'

That's what they probably should have done from day one. He'd gotten a pretty good deal out of the whole thing, meeting Anna and everything, but it's not hard to see how he might have screwed everything up pretty damn good.

Maybe if they'd had a real pro on the job, they'd have been able to do something about Al Queen in the first place. Maybe they'd have known exactly how to deal with all of it. Use that famous F.B.I. playbook of theirs, and just go through the steps.

Well, the Detective didn't have a playbook, and he didn't have a hell of a lot of time to figure one out. So if he'd made any mistakes, then that was on his shoulders, but it wasn't because he hadn't been trying.

The desk didn't have any special mementos. He didn't have anything to remember. Nothing he wanted to remember, anyways. The things that he had weren't the sort of things that were remembered fondly.

But no matter how many times he went through, disqualifying things in his head one by one, he couldn't shake it. That nagging feeling that there was something he was missing. Something he'd regret not having. Something he'd regret big.

Something that he'd regret not having, and he'd regret it for every one of the several days he'd be gone. Something he'd regret big time. What the fuck could that even be?

He sits forward again. It wasn't the coffee. The stuff at his house was a hundred times better than the crap they made here, but at least it was brown and it was caffeinated and it tasted kind of like the right stuff, more or less.

It wasn't anything on top of his desk. Half of it didn't belong to him anyways, it belonged to the department. It wasn't anything inside the main tray. A few pens, a half-dozen paperclips, and a crappy rubber eraser. Nothing worth losing his mind over. He had several identical pens, since he bought them by the pack-of-twelve. No reason to miss those ones.

He opens the leg drawer. Several dozen file folders greet him, just like he knew they would. What the hell importance would any of these have? Half of them, he was just consulting on them. Reading through the paperwork to see if anything stood out.

Nothing had. There wasn't anything to suggest that he should know anything about a couple of jewelry store thefts. Nothing stood out about the murder of an old woman in her home. It was grisly and gruesome and as cruel as it was to say, it wasn't Meadows' problem.

Sure, the woman hadn't had an enemy in the world. But that didn't mean anything. Every person who came through that front door with a case for them, every person who came in the back door, every body that they had to look at.

It was all sad. But it didn't mean that he was responsible for solving all of it. Not all by himself.

No, this was something else. Something that he'd miss. Something he'd regret not having when he was out of the office. His phone buzzes in his pocket. For an instant he almost reaches for it. It doesn't buzz a second time.

If it's just an alert or a text he'll get it later. If he just keeps this train of thought going, one day soon, it will have to pull into the station, like it or not. And that's what he's going to do.

Keep riding this son of a bitch to the end of the line. He pulls out the third drawer.

A bunch of nothing. Knick-knacs. A bunch of garbage that he's had to accumulate over the years. A bag of straws. A stapler. A few pieces of paper trash that still haven't found their way to the garbage can.

And then, as if it were a message straight from heaven, he sees it, and the thought hits him like a ton of bricks. So hard that he says it out loud. "Jesus, I'm an idiot. Okay."

His notes. His tape recorder. He was off-duty, but someone had to compile all those reports when he got back. It wasn't hard to figure out who would be responsible for it.

He might as well get a head-start on it while he was away. He'd have plenty of time. There were other things that he might be able to occupy his time with, of course. One other thing in particular, or perhaps more accurately two other people.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't have more than enough time to deal with the paperwork. By itself, that alone would save him plenty of heartache in the end.

He pulls out the Steno pad and slips it into the oversized pockets on his jacket. It barely fits, pulling at the pocket seams, but it does fit nonetheless. The recorder goes into his pants pocket.

The weight lifts off his chest. Thank Christ. Okay. No problem. He's got it all settled. It's almost an afterthought when he pulls the phone out of his pocket to see what had tried to draw his attention away.

A message from Anna. She should be putting Ava down for the night, if the little girl was cooperating. She probably wasn't. He'd been planning to call her after he left, but the distraction had kept him from doing it until now—after all, he hadn't left yet.

He taps to open the message up, and his stomach does a flip in his gut.

'They took Ava.'

He takes a deep breath. Types his response back carefully. Careful not to make any screw-ups. He has to be careful, because his hands are shaking a little.

'Who took her?'

'CPS. They said I was an unfit mother and that I was going to lose custody.'

Josh swears under his breath. There's no question where that notion came from. More specifically, who it came from. Someone that he'd have to give an apology to in a day or two. Someone that would be right there on the stage with him.

Someone who'd busted Meadows's knuckles open with his teeth. He swears again, as the whole situation seems to intensify itself in his head all at once.

'Where are you? I'll be there ASAP.'

He's already in the car, the ignition going, when he gets the return message. It's only a few miles from the station. If he hurries, five minutes. He'll be there in four.