Karen Rose - Count to Ten

He sneaked around the corner and peeked. All he could see were legs. A pair of shoes and a pair of boots. Smaller. But he could hear them. The lady sounded… nice.

"Is that the man I saw on TV?" his mother asked, her voice small and scared.

"Yes. ma'am," the lady detective said. "Have you seen him?"

"No. I'm sorry. We haven't."

"Well, if you see him, could you please call this number? And don't open your door to him. He's very dangerous."

I know he's dangerous. I know. Please, Mom. Please tell them.

But his mother nodded and took the flyer the detective offered. "If I see him, I'll call," she said and shut the door. She stood for a minute, still except for her fist that crumpled the paper into a ball. Then she went to the sofa, crumpled herself into a ball and cried.

He went to his room, closed the door, and did the same.

Mia leaned against her car, her eyes on the tidy little house.

Murphy leaned beside her. "She knows something," he said. "Yes, she does. And she's terrified. She's got a kid."

"I know. I saw him, peeking around the corner."

"I did, too." She blew out a breath. " He could be in there, right now."

"Looked like the dinner table was only set for two. If he's there, he's hiding. She's a pet store employee, so technically she wouldn't have had access to the vet's office. Just a terrified face probably isn't enough to get us a warrant to search her place."

"Let's check the houses on this street. Maybe somebody saw him. If so, that could be enough for a warrant." She pushed away from the car, when a movement caught her eye.

"Murphy, look up at the window." Little fingers were pulling at the blinds.

"The kid's watching us."

Mia smiled warmly and waved. Immediately the little fingers disappeared and the blinds went flat. Her smile faded. "I want to talk to that kid."

"Then we need to get inside the house. Let's start knockin' on doors."

Friday, December 1, 7:30 P.M.

"Well?" Murphy asked. "I got bubkes"

"Nobody's seen him. Nobody even knew her. One person remembers seeing the kid riding his bike to school. You know, when I was a kid, everybody knew everybody else. You were afraid to do anything bad, scared it would get back to your parents." Mia jangled her car keys in her pocket. "Okay, now what?"

"Now you go home, sleep. I'll stay here and watch. I"ll call you if anything pops."

"I shouldn't let you do that, but I'm too tired to argue with you."

"Which says a lot," Murphy said mildly. "Mia, are you okay?"

They'd been friends a long time. "Not really." To her mortification, tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away. "I must be more tired than I thought."

He caught her arm. "If you need me, you know where to find me."

Her lips quirked up. "Yeah, here, freezing your fool ass off all night. Thanks, Murphy." Murphy was a good friend. Tonight, she wanted more than a friend. Tonight she wanted… more. Strings , the voice in her mind taunted. Go ahead and admit it .

Fine. She wanted strings. But God knew she didn't get everything she wanted.

Friday, December 1, 8:15 p.m.

Mia recognized the car waiting on the curb and wanted to groan. Hell, she wasn't up for a heart-to-heart with little sister tonight. Olivia met her on the sidewalk in front of Solli-day's duplex, holding a pizza box. "So you found me."

"I pulled a few strings, got your partner's address. Hope you don't mind."

Yes, I mind , she wanted to scream. Come back when things… settle down . But they wouldn't settle down and Olivia had to go home soon. And Bobby's other child needed to know the truth. Or some of it anyway.

"No, I don't mind. Come on in." Lauren's place was quiet and dark, but next door she could hear the TV and music. Reed was there. But she'd get through this first.

Reed heard her come in. He'd been sitting in front of the TV, watching something that meant nothing, just waiting for the slam of the door on the other side. Beth was sulking in her room. Lauren was studying. He was alone. And, he admitted, lonely. But Mia was there, on the other side of the wall and even if it was watching her eat leftover meatloaf, he wouldn't be alone when he was with her.

He grabbed the glass bowl from the oven with mitts and slipped out the back door. Cradling the warm bowl under one arm like a football, he reached for the door knob and stopped. She wasn't alone. The other voice belonged to Olivia Sutherland.

He should go home. Give her privacy. But he remembered her eyes as she'd bared her secrets in the night. And how she'd rolled away from him. Alone.

They were two people, wandering through life alone. And he wondered why two intelligent people would insist on making that choice.

Mia led Olivia to the kitchen and took the pizza. "It's stone cold."

"I waited awhile."

Mia sighed. "I'm sorry. This case…"

"I know." Olivia unzipped her jacket and slipped the scarf from her head, looking a little like an old movie actress. Elegant and a little unsure. And so young.

And unspoiled. A shaft of resentment poked her heart and Mia was ashamed. It wasn't Olivia's fault she'd escaped Bobby Mitchell. She slid the pizza onto a pan and into the oven. "So… Minneapolis PD. You're a detective, too."

"I earned my shield last year," she said. "You've been doing this longer."

Mia sat down and nudged the other chair with her foot. "I'm considerably older."

Olivia sat down, her movements graceful. "You're not even thirty-four."

"I feel like seventy today."

"It's a bad case, then."

Ten faces flashed through her mind. "Yeah. But if you don't mind, I don't want to think about it for a while." She looked at Olivia's hand. "You're not married."

"Not yet." She smiled. "Trying to build my career first."

"Hmm. Don't wait too long, okay?"

"Sisterly advice?"

Mia blew out a breath. "Hardly. I did a pretty lousy job of it the first time around."

"You mean Kelsey."

Something in Olivia's eyes made Mia's hackles go up. "You know about her."

"I know she's in prison. Armed robbery." Her tone was mildly judgmental.

Mia clenched her teeth. "She's paying her debt."

"All right."

But it wasn't. It wasn't all right. Nothing was all right today.

"You, on the other hand," Olivia continued, "are a decorated cop and were engaged to a hunky hockey player."

Mia blinked "You've been watching me?"

"Not until recently. I didn't even know about you until recently."

"But you said you hated me all your life."

"I did. But I didn't have a name or face to go with you until he died."

"What did your mother tell you?"

"For years, nothing. We didn't talk about my father and I kept dreaming he was out there, that he'd come for me. When I was eight, Mama told me the truth, or most of it."

There was pain there. Mia wondered just how the truth had come out. "Which was?"

"My mother was nineteen when I was born. She met my father in the bar where she waited tables in Chicago. She said that my father was a good man, a policeman. They started talking and one thing led to another. She thought she was in love, then found out she was pregnant. When she told him, he told her he was married. She hadn't known."

"I believe that," Mia said quietly and watched Olivia's shoulders sag. "You didn't."

"I wanted to. I didn't want to believe my mother would play around with a married man. But knowingly or not, that's what she did. He said he'd leave his wife, marry her."

"But he didn't."

"No. She said after I was born, he came to her and said he couldn't leave his wife and daughters. That he was sorry."

Bobby was sorry she'd been born Olivia and not Oliver , Mia thought, but nodded. "And that's when your mother took you to Minnesota."