Know if he has a next of kin? Hathaway questioned.
Dylan blew out a breath, and tried to blow back memories he didnt want crowding him. It didnt work. A sister. Last I remember, he was staying at her place. Always did when he was down on his luck.
Hathaway shook his head. Looks like he got even more down.
Looks like. Dammit, Ritchie, why werent you more careful with your life? Dylan wondered.
Disgusted at the waste, bright shining moments shimmering in his minds eye, Dylan let the photograph drop back amid the others. He fought a brief tug-of-war between his conscience and his need for self-preservation. It wasnt much of a contest.
He looked at Alexander. Look, I know its your case, and Im not trying to horn in here, but if you need someone to break it to his sister
Alexander looked relieved beyond words. Hey, be my guest. I wouldnt know where to begin. Belatedly, he looked at Hathaway. Okay with you?
Collecting the photographs, Hathaway carefully tucked them away again. More than okay. If you want to take down her statement
Dylan nodded. Lucy wouldnt have had anything to do with whatever it was that had brought Ritchie to this miserable juncture. But to say so might arouse further curiosity, and the two other men were already looking at him as if hed just bared his soul to them. Though partnered, Dylan kept to himself most of the time, and he made a point of never saying any more than he had to. It gave the other guy too much ammunition that way.
He glanced at his watch, but he knew what time it was even without checking. He was on his own time right now. Hed come in early to finish up the expense report, but that would have to wait until he got off later. Im not due for my shift until another couple of hours. The sisters statement probably wont be much to take down.
As Dylan began to leave, Hathaway rose to block his path. Dylan saw the questions beginning to form in the other detectives eyes. Maybe Dylan shouldnt have said anything, but to leave this kind of news for a stranger to break to Lucy just didnt seem right.
Where do you know him from? Hathaway asked.
Dylan sidestepped the older man. We shared a couple of classes. It was far more than that, but he didnt want to get into it. Into the friendship they
had enjoyed and what had come after.
Surprised, Alexander called after him. You mean hes from around here?
Born and raised was all Dylan said as he walked out the door.
He knew the way to Lucys place by heart.
Lucy would probably say he didnt have a heart. Not that he could blame her. But hed done what hed done more for her than for him. Someday, shed appreciate that.
Or not, he amended. Eventually, it would all be one and the same. Time would see to that. Maybe it already had, he mused. Over the last nine months, hed purposely lost track of her, purposely stayed away from all the old haunts where he thought he might run into her.
The only place he couldnt escape her was in his mind. But he would. Eventually.
Hed known Ritchie a number of years before he ever met the sister that Ritchie was so fond of. There had been something different about Lucy from the first moment Dylan saw her, but hed tried not to notice, tried not to pay any more attention to her than he would any one of a number of beautiful women who passed through his life. But shed been more, right from the start. And for a while, for eight precious months, hed deluded himself that he could have a normal life, the kind hed only heard about.
Part of him figured he had to be crazy, seeking Lucy out after nine months of a self-imposed moratorium. Dylan knew he wasnt in a place where he could say he was over her. He doubted that he would ever really be over Lucinda Alvarez, but at least it had gotten to the point where she didnt start and end each day, lingering in the perimeter of his thoughts like the deep scent of roses. Hed managed to get through whole chunks of the day without so much as thinking of her.
Or what they could have had.
If he had been someone else.
But another part of him knew he had to do this. Owed it to her for the history they had. She didnt deserve to hear about Ritchie from either Alexander or Hathaway, good men both, but not exactly sensitive when it came to something like this.
Yeah, right, like he was Mr. Sensitivity, he silently mocked himself as he waited for the traffic light to change.
She didnt deserve to hear the words at all, he thought impatiently, but that was life and he hadnt written it. All he could do was try to change some of the footnotes.
Dylan realized that he was gripping the steering wheel as if he were engaged in a life-and-death struggle and loosened his fingers. He wished he could change this particular footnote. Ritchie had been a good guy. Just incredibly unlucky.
Werent they all? he thought.
Im sorry, Lucy, he whispered under his breath as he turned down her street and saw the neat dove-gray-and-blue-trimmed stucco house.
So where was Ritchie, already?
Impatient, Lucy Alvarez glanced at her wristwatch, the one with the band she had yet to replace. But she was still stupidly sentimental about the watch. It had been a gift. The first gift. When there had been promise in the air.