No Darker Place. Debra Webb

historic downtown district into the most happening scene in the city. Tonight was a perfect example. The foot traffic was heavy, even for a Friday night. Unlike her, most people had social plans at the end of the workweek.

      Guilt nagged at her. Interrupting Newt’s evening was wrong. So damned wrong. She pushed away from the wall with the intention of leaving. Desperate or not, she shouldn’t have come here like this. Her partner was too good to her. She had no business taking advantage of him this way. Tonight was a special time for his family.

      “Whoa, where you going, girlie?”

      Bobbie’s chest tightened at the sound of his voice. She stopped and turned to face the man who was more like a father to her than a partner, even if she had tried a dozen ways to distance herself from him these past months. Her family was gone. She refused to hold anyone else that close anymore.

      The risk for pain was too great. Coward.

      However hard she tried, she couldn’t quite deny or ignore the deep attachment she felt for the man. The tension clamped around her ribs eased a fraction. The charcoal double-breasted suit Newt wore had probably set him back a full month’s pay. The red tie provided a nice contrast to the light gray shirt. He’d had a fresh haircut, maintaining his vintage salt-and-pepper flattop. He looked good. He looked happy. A little more of her tension melted away.

      “Is my tie crooked or something?” Howard Newton adjusted the silk accessory.

      She hadn’t realized she’d been staring for so long until he spoke. “Sorry. I got distracted for a minute.” Her lips twitched with the unexpected need to smile. It had been so long since she’d wanted to smile she’d forgotten how. “You look great, Newt. Really great.”

      Grinning, he strolled over to where she stood. “I try.” He pulled her into a hug. “I love it when you smile, even just a little bit.” He drew back and searched her face. “It reminds me that the real you is still in there.”

      She looked away. “This is the real me, partner.” Forcing her gaze back to his, she added, “The girl you used to know isn’t coming back.”

      As usual when they hit this particular wall, he changed the subject. “Why don’t you come inside and have a drink with me. Have you had dinner?” One eyebrow reared up his forehead. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten all day.”

      He’d win that bet. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Really, I shouldn’t have interrupted your evening.”

      He made a scoffing sound. “Trust me—I was ready for a break. They’re just drinking and chatting in there now. Besides, if you’ll recall, you were invited, but you said you couldn’t come.” He patted his pockets and grimaced.

      Bobbie scowled at him. “I thought you quit smoking for good this time.” They had been partners since she’d made detective. He’d quit three times during those seven years.

      “I did—I swear,” he promised. “I need a stick of gum or a mint.”

      Bobbie shifted her purse around and dug for the Tic Tacs she carried. “The chief put me on administrative leave.”

      Her partner accepted the box of mints and shook out a couple. “Yeah, he called me.” He popped the mints into his mouth.

      The urge to kick something came and went, thankfully without her acting on the impulse. To occupy her hands, she stuffed the box of mints back into her bag, and then clutched the leather straps. “It’s my case, Newt. Miller had no right running off at the mouth—”

      “Bobbie,” he said gently, “we both know this isn’t about your pissing contest with Miller. This is about Perry.”

      She turned away from him, watched the couples and families strolling along the sidewalk. Her surveillance detail idled in a no-parking zone on the opposite side of the street. She wanted to scream. “There’s no proof the Storyteller is involved. For all we know, this could be a copycat looking to grab the headlines.”

      “Who do you think you’re talking to, Bobbie Sue?”

      Frustration knotted tighter. She should have known better than to take that approach with Newt. Foolishly she’d hoped to keep him and the whole damned department out of her private war. “Go back to your party. I should go home.”

      “Hold on a minute.”

      Reluctantly, she turned to him once more. He wore his stern face—the one her father used to wear when she’d gotten into trouble at school. Nothing too serious, just the occasional playground or lunchroom scrape. Even as a kid she was never able to tolerate a bully. Didn’t matter how big he or she was, Bobbie refused to accept the role of bystander. She had to get involved, had to stand up for the tormented and the intimidated. More often than not as a teenager, her blackened eyes had nothing to do with makeup trends.

      But you couldn’t be a hero when it counted most. The fist crushing into her chest prevented a decent breath.

      “Peterson and I were there,” Newt reminded her, “in that cabin in the woods where that bastard held you.”

      She stared at the cobblestone sidewalk, unable to look at the hurt in his eyes—the same hurt that coiled like barbed wire inside her, ripping wider the wounds that would never completely heal.

      “We took turns sitting next to your bed every day and night for weeks in that hospital,” Newt went on, despite the knowledge that she did not want to hear the words. “First waiting for you to wake up, and then for you to be well enough to come home.”

      Bobbie squeezed her eyes shut. He was also the one who gave her the news that devastated her as nothing else in this world could have.

      Jamie’s gone, Bobbie. He died three days after you were abducted. I’m so sorry. We kept it out of the news to protect you.

      Her baby was dead, and that, too, was her fault. She forced the haunting memories away.

      “I’m the one who moved in with you after you tried—”

      “You made your point.” His words were like salt grinding into those old, festered wounds. Bobbie cleared her throat of the emotion wedged there. Keeping the truth from Newt was the hardest. He deserved better from her. “Maybe the Storyteller has resurfaced.”

      “I’d say that’s a given. Peterson is worried sick.” Newt sighed and tugged his tie away from his throat. “And, frankly, so am I.”

      “You think I’m not.” She shook her head. Her partner and the chief wanted to treat her as if she were incapable of handling the pressure, much less any potential threat. If the bastard had Gwen, Bobbie had to do all in her power to find him before it was too late. “No matter how terrifying the idea is, I can’t sit on the sidelines. I need to work this case—it’s my case.”

      “What you need, girlie,” he countered, “is to be extra careful.”

      She gestured to the cruiser across the street. “I’m reasonably confident careful isn’t going to be a problem.”

      “Just promise me you’ll take every precaution until we figure this out.”

      “We?”

      “Owens assigned the case to Bauer and me. Tomorrow, as soon as my daughter and her new husband are carted off to the airport in that two-hundred-dollar-an-hour limo, we’re meeting at the office. He’ll bring me up to speed.”

      Ridiculous! She should be on this case, damn it. Newt was her partner, not Bauer’s. “How’s your wife going to take you ditching her as she watches your youngest offspring drive off into the sunset? Don’t you think maybe she’ll need your shoulder tomorrow evening?”

      “Trust me, if this wedding goes off without a glitch, she’ll take a couple of Xanax and go to bed for the rest of the weekend.”

      Bobbie rolled her eyes and heaved a big breath. “This sucks—you know that, right?” She had walked out of that hospital