Jennifer Morey - A Wanted Man

He went to his corner office next to the conference room where he’d just conducted the interview. He had a view of a side street from here. That was where he stood until he heard Lott enter. Then he turned as his friend’s booted feet creaked over the old wood floor and he stopped at the office door with a smile.

“Nice,” Lott said. A tall, charming jet-setter with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair cut short, he wasn’t married but always had a girlfriend. They never lasted more than a few months. Kadin had attracted women like that before he married his one and only love. Maybe he still did now that he was single again and just didn’t notice. Lack of interest did that. He had too much to do, anyway.

“What brings you to town?” Kadin asked.

His pal stepped into the office, checking out the barren walls. “How’s business?”

The diversion tactic told him enough. Lott had come to talk unpleasant things. “I’ve got three cases.”

“All cold?”

“Cold enough.”

Lott stopped at his desk. “I saw a girl leave here in tears. Are you interviewing again?”

“She was crying?”

“You have a way of doing that. I can’t figure out if all your murder investigations have desensitized you, or if you’ve just installed a switch to shut off your emotions.” He gestured with his hand toward the bare walls. “Are you ever going to decorate this place?”

Kadin grimaced. He cared about how he made people feel, and truly hadn’t meant to hurt the girl. It was an interview, for God’s sake, not the budding of a new romance. As for decorating, he’d only furnished one conference room and his office. “I haven’t had time to do more.”

“You could make time.”

“Why are you here, Lott? Talking to my parents again?”

His friend grinned but not with genuine humor. He was caught. “Your mother is worried about you. She called again.” Kadin blinked and turned toward the view. A man walked by in the afternoon, late-summer heat, a dry heat in this western town.

“I’ll call her.”

“She asked me to check in on you. I don’t think they understand why you moved back here.”

His parents had wanted him to stay out East. He’d grown up in Massachusetts.

“I lived here for ten years.”

Lott nodded. “That’s what I told her. She thinks you’re obsessing over their deaths.”

“And that by moving here I don’t put it behind me?” Kadin looked back at his friend, who cocked his head in a yeah-I-know gesture. “There are some things I don’t want to forget. And that’s everything I had when we lived here. Them. Before...”

“I get it, Kadin. You should call your mom and tell her. Then maybe she’ll stop using me as a messenger.”

Lott was like a second son to his parents. They had been around a lot more than Lott’s had. In some ways, Kadin thought his pal had learned how to live from them, and his healthy attitude about money was one indicator. He didn’t take it for granted and he valued being productive.

“Sorry you had to come all this way,” Kadin said.

Lott stared at him, somber. “It’s okay to be different after what happened to you, Kadin. All the people close to you want is for you to heal. Start a new life. Not forget them, just...move on.”

Kadin just nodded, waiting for him to stop.

After a bit, Lott grinned. “I didn’t just come to give you another lecture. I’m going down to the Green River to do some fishing.”

Lott had frequently come to visit him and his wife and daughter on that excuse. He hadn’t just come to see them, he’d come to fish. But Kadin wasn’t fooled. His mother wasn’t the one who’d put him up to this visit. He’d been talking to his parents ever since Arielle had overdosed, checking in without Kadin knowing.

“Okay.”

“So.” Lott perched on the corner of his desk. “Business is good, huh? How is it that you already got some cases?”

Kadin moved to stand before him. “They called.”

“You’ve gotten a lot of media coverage.”

Kadin recognized the congratulations. His daughter’s disappearance and murder had attracted a lot of attention. When news broke that he was venturing off on his own to fight similar crimes, the media had swarmed him. But that only masked what was really going on.

“I’m fine, Lott.”

“Are you?”

He really hated talking about this. A thousand knife stabs might as well pierce his chest. Then that heavy weight came next, along with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. “Yes.” Just thinking his wife’s name brought that terrible day back. Finding her already dead. After enduring so much tragedy already. He’d nearly gone insane. The only thing that saved him was moving to Rock Springs, Wyoming, a quiet, wildly beautiful place that asked nothing of him other than to breathe.

“I mean it, Kadin. You have to move on, not close yourself off to the world and immerse yourself in cold case murders.”

“I am moving on.” As much as he could. The only way he knew how.

“Shut off from everyone who cares about you. I don’t mean to sound like a sap, but I miss my friend. He disappeared the day his daughter did.”

Kadin didn’t know how to say he’d never be the same man he once was. He just knew. And that man hadn’t gone until the moment he learned Annabelle’s body had been found.

Body...

Her twelve-year-old body. Not Annabelle. Her body . Such powerful, unfathomable grief had racked him, for days, for months, a slicing machete going to work on his insides. Trapped in his lost and desolate mind with no way out, he hadn’t noticed how far Arielle had slipped into oblivion. Then the day had come when he’d found her. All of that emotion had imploded on him. He’d felt it bleed out of him until only empty darkness remained. Everything had become mechanical after that. Until he’d stumbled across some photographs of Annabelle when they’d lived in Wyoming.

“I was a cop before my daughter went missing,” Kadin said. “I’m doing what I’m meant to do.” His talent was being put to good use. And if he could use it to help others who were going through the same thing he had experienced, then that had to be good. That was his only joy. Every time he caught a murderer, he avenged his wife and daughter.

“You’re alone here,” Lott reminded him.

“No, I’m not. I know practically everyone in town. Besides, I’m hardly ever home. Not every cold case is in Sweetwater County.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to bury yourself in these investigations, Kadin. When is it going to be enough?”

Lott, like everyone else, didn’t understand. Home and family had different meanings to him now. Warm and full of optimistic love before the tragedy, starkly realistic after. That was why he’d opened this agency. This agency was for the people who knew life’s darkest reality. People like him.

“Look,” Lott said in his silence. “I know you hate talking about this. I’m worried about you. Your parents worry about you. I stop in every once in a while to check on you. I’ve done my duty. Now, since I’m staying through the weekend, how about we camp and fish this Friday and Saturday?”

“You’re staying that long?” Lott didn’t usually stay longer than a day or two.

“Yeah, I met a girl the last time I was here. You might be seeing me more often.”

Figured, a woman had drawn him here. Women drew him everywhere he went.

“Are you free this weekend?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Lott angled his head, a quiet demand for more information.

“I might take on another case.” He didn’t feel like explaining the Sara Wolfe case.

The front door jingled. He’d left the old bells there so that he’d know when someone arrived. Whoever had entered couldn’t have chosen better timing.