But Not For Lust by BJ Bourg (comprehension books .txt) 📕

I told her I’d let her know and was about to exit my Tahoe when she continued speaking.

“I’m having fun working with you again. It feels like old times.” She smiled. “Do you remember how much fun we had before you got your very own detective and I became too busy being chief of police?”

“I do remember—and I do miss it.” I smiled and leaned across the console to kiss her. It did feel good to work with her again—even if she was acting more like a mother than a partner.

Once we were inside the building, she went her way and I went mine. I found the box of brownies undisturbed in my office and I grabbed another one. While I ate it, I scanned the prints I’d recovered from Betty’s car. Once I was happy with the quality of the scanned images, I emailed them to Tracy at the crime lab.

A minute later, I called to tell her to be on the lookout for them. “If everyone’s being honest, the palm prints from the hood of the car should match up to Ty’s prints, but I’m not sure about the individual fingerprints I found on the car. She’s got a lover, and one of the prints might belong to him.”

“I’ll make sure the fingerprint section takes care of these right away,” she said. “I saw the stuff you sent over last night. Now, since it’s Friday, it might not be until Monday before you hear back from the fingerprint analyst. We’re running a skeleton crew because most of our people are working parades this weekend. We’ve got one every night.”

I groaned. I hated Mardi Gras.

Tracy asked about the case, so I explained everything new that had developed since we’d last talked. She cursed.

“It sounds like you’ve got your hands full. I’ll try to get someone on this today.”

“Thanks. I knew this was gonna be a long week.” I shook my head and stared at the unknown prints still displayed on my computer screen, trying to see through the patterns and all the way to the person who had left them. I was about to thank Tracy and hang up when loud cries and hollering erupted from the radio room. I dropped my phone and rushed out the door.

  CHAPTER 44

Lindsey was jumping up and down when I entered the dispatcher’s station. She was screeching like she’d just won the lottery. Susan was whooping it up, too, and I quickly glanced toward the window that revealed the lobby. I gasped out loud as I saw Amy making her way toward the door that led to the radio room. Baylor was behind her, but he wasn’t helping. She was walking slowly, but completely unassisted.

I could see Amy biting back her emotions as we cheered her on. Hell, we were all trying not to cry. This was a stark difference from the Amy we had seen a few months ago, lying in a hospital bed and barely clinging to life. She had been pale and gaunt, looking nothing like her lively self. Today, though, it was the old Amy walking through the door. True, her steps were not as sure as they used to be, but I knew it was only a matter of time before those boots would be pounding the pavement with the same level of dogged determination that had pulled her back from an almost certain death.

Amy reached the door and opened it to the cheers of the small crowd inside the dispatcher’s station.

“Damn, you’d swear I just found a cure for mosquitoes,” she said with a smirk. “I didn’t do anything all of y’all haven’t done a dozen times today—I simply walked across the floor without falling.”

We all laughed and took turns hugging her. Although Amy was a little thinner than she was before the ambush, she had definitely gotten her color back, and the scar on her neck was barely visible beneath her collar.

“Do you want a donut?” Lindsey offered. She seemed eager to make Amy happy and comfortable.

“Damn, I haven’t been back a minute and you’re already making cop jokes.” Amy tapped her flat stomach. “Does it look like I need to be fattened up a little? Because it sure feels like it.”

Lindsey laughed and shook her head. “No, you look great!”

Amy smiled her thanks and said that she would take a donut. “Make that two,” she called after Lindsey, who had already rushed off to the break room.

Once everyone had calmed down and Baylor had returned to his shift, I followed Amy to her office. She moaned when she sat in her chair. “It feels so good to be back in this chair.”

I smiled and sat across from her. “You miss work that much, eh?”

“No,” she said flatly. “I miss the chair—it’s a really good one. My chairs at home are hard and unforgiving and not ergonomically designed like this one.”

I laughed like I hadn’t laughed in a while. It was good to hear her cracking jokes. I didn’t ask about her therapy sessions—and I would never—but I had to imagine they were doing some good.

“Okay,” she said suddenly in her no-nonsense tone. “Tell me everything about the case.”

“Let me get my file.” I hurried out of her office and returned a few seconds later carrying the file that contained my notes and other documents relating to the death of Carol Richardson and the murder of her son. We still weren’t sure if Carol’s case was a homicide, but I was certainly leaning in that direction now.

Amy listened intently as I talked.

“Have you run the names of the Watts characters?”

“Not yet,” I said, flipping to a page that displayed a long list of names. “We just learned their names this morning. I did run a criminal history check