Sarah Varland - Cold Case Witness

Instead, he just nodded.

“Then, I don’t want to,” she shot back.

“I guess I can see why you’d feel that way. I’m making coffee. Want some?”

His calm seemed to knock the fight out of her. Gemma nodded, felt her shoulders drop again. Coffee was always good.

The familiar sounds of coffee being ground—so he was a coffee snob, too; who would have thought the two of them would have anything in common—relaxed her somewhat. By the time he was pouring French pressed coffee for them in his straight out of Southern Living kitchen, she was downright comfortable. The tension had left her almost entirely and she was beginning to regret her outburst. Why did she have to be so forceful when she felt strongly about something? She had to learn to hold on to some of those emotions. It would pay off in the long run, especially while she was living this small-town life. Small towns tended to like sweet women. Not spunky ones with opinions.

She watched Matt as he worked, and found herself more fascinated with him than she should be. Everything about him was a contradiction, from the way he handled the French press so carefully while his arm muscles showed very well defined out of the bottom of his T-shirt sleeves, to the way he’d met her every argument and then let it go all in five minutes.

It made her want to trust him, something that made her stomach do flips—and not the cute kind you read about in novels. These were terrifying, anxious flips.

If the coffee didn’t smell so good, she’d leave. The stress of the night, the overwhelming aroma of French roast coffee... It had gotten her to let her guard down, something she never did. No good could come from that.

Gemma stood to leave, good coffee or not. “I have to go,” she announced abruptly as Matt entered the room, two mugs in his hands.

He just nodded slowly and reached to set the coffee down on the counter. “I’ll follow you back to your sister’s.”

No questions, no anger that she’d ruined what should have been a nice gesture, making the coffee.

Gemma hesitated, giving Matt just long enough to approach her. “Hey.” He spoke softly.

Her face lifted to his, their eyes meeting. He hadn’t touched her at all, but he may as well have from the way the air seemed practically charged with electricity. After just a second or two of silence that stretched out, he spoke. “You don’t have to tell me anything. This isn’t an interrogation, you aren’t a suspect. Technically we have no links between this case and the one you were involved in, so you’re not even a witness.”

“Then, you wanted to question me because...?” she asked, even though she suspected the answer.

He met her eyes with an honesty she wasn’t used to seeing, especially from people in her hometown. It seemed as if people preferred to keep their true feelings to themselves. But she saw no pretense in his eyes. Just full, clear blue.

“You know why. You of all people know why.”

She did. Closure. Curiosity. That nagging, haunting feeling that never fully let her rest, not even in sleep.

Gemma wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Not until she nodded slowly, admitted he was right. “Yeah, I know. But you also know why I want to leave the past alone. Let it go.”

“It doesn’t always stay there, you know.”

As though she didn’t. As though she hadn’t had to fight for a job she was overqualified for because of the stigma of being involved in a criminal trial. “Listen, Matt...thanks for the coffee. But I don’t want to talk about it. And if I’m not legally obligated, I won’t. Not tonight.”

“That’s fine.”

She hadn’t expected him to agree immediately, with no fight at all.

“Stay anyway. Have coffee.”

She studied him. Searched his eyes to see if he meant it.

Then Gemma sat back down.

* * *

Over a decade ago, he’d have given almost anything to have quiet Gemma Phillips give him half a minute’s notice. Now here he was once again, unexplainably attracted to whatever it was he saw in her dark brown eyes.

She was the one to break the silence. “We never talked in high school. Why are you being so nice to me now? When I...”

“What?” Matt asked, already knowing the answer. “You think I’d blame you for my dad going to jail?”

The look in her eyes confirmed he’d been right on. Matt shook his head. “He sent himself there. You didn’t commit any crime, Gemma. You testified against one. There’s a difference.”

“Not to Treasure Point.”

“Yeah, well, small towns.” He shrugged. “But you don’t really believe that you did anything wrong, do you?”

“Everyone treats me as if I may as well have been guilty. As if I’m a criminal by association.”

Yeah, he knew that feeling.

“You don’t believe that’s who you are, do you?” Matt asked Gemma, feeling as though one day he was going to have to answer that same question for himself.

“Of course not.”

“Okay, then, tell me about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What have you done since you left town?”

She eyed him suspiciously for a minute, as if she was trying to figure out his ulterior motive. He didn’t have one, so he watched her back with a small amount of amusement until she’d apparently studied him long enough to decide he didn’t have any particular reason for asking.

“I moved to Atlanta.”

He laughed. “I knew that part. What happened between then and today?” He took a sip of coffee, looking as if he was waiting for her answer.

“Not a lot. I went to college in Atlanta, then started working at a company, doing marketing for them. They had to make cuts and let me go...but I know it’ll work out.”

“But you aren’t happy to be here.”

Gemma shrugged. Matt didn’t miss the way she shifted in her seat, too. “I liked the city.”

“Don’t you like Treasure Point?”

“My family loves it and they’re here. Family’s important.”

He saw her wince after that comment. Yeah, he was used to that, too. So he had no family, really, unless you counted his father in prison, which he didn’t really anymore. Matt shook his head, tiring already of the conversational dance she was doing.

“Why won’t you answer my questions?”

She looked in his eyes then, straight in. Something sparked in them that made him want to lean closer.

“I don’t know why you want to know.” Her voice was softer on the edges. Honest and unguarded.

“Because I want to get to know you.”

Gemma looked away, shrugged. “There’s not much to know, really.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She wouldn’t look back at him. Seconds went by, maybe minutes. He heard her phone beep as a message came in, but she didn’t reach for it and he didn’t say anything.

More silence.

Finally Gemma looked back at him. “So tell me about you. Is this your first big case?”

Back to business. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. “It’s my first case like this, yes.” He spoke the words to answer her question and also to remind himself. Putting aside a long list of other reasons he shouldn’t be noticing now attractive she was. He needed to focus on work right now. Matt had wanted to be a police officer since the first day he remembered meeting one. He’d been five, maybe six, and an officer on patrol had found him up in a tree and bought him a Happy Meal when Matt had told him he didn’t know where his parents were right then.

That was the day he’d decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life; the day he’d decided what he needed to do to really matter. To be somebody.

“I saw more officers with you at the crime scene today.”

So she’d noticed them as he’d seen her running away earlier in the day. Matt nodded.