Love Remains (41 page)

Even though it wasn’t a public, walk-of-shame-in-handcuffs kind of arrest, none had ever been so satisfying to Bobby. He now faced an even greater mountain of paperwork, but rather than a chore, it would be a joy, knowing the release he now had.

Though there were hours yet to go today, as soon as he got back to his office, he closed the door and pulled out his cell phone. He
scrolled through the address book until he found the entry he wanted and pushed the C
ALL
button.

His insides twanged like a bowstring at the female voice that answered. “Hello?”

“Flannery, it’s Bobby. I need your help.”

Chapter 30

S
o much to do, so little time.

Bobby glanced at the clock. Not quite midnight. He looked at his desk. Reports and follow-ups, mostly finished, yet still a daunting amount to be accomplished. And until it was all done…

After the arrests and searches on Tuesday, his team had dived into sorting through all the seized information while he wrote the reports and briefs—those usually required after arrests were made, plus a few extra pieces necessary due to the involvement of Director Vaughan.

Today—wait, was today still Wednesday?—all four of the local news broadcasts had led with the breaking news of the “major sting operation” that had brought down a local judge and the director of one of the major law enforcement agencies in the state.

“Don’t answer any questions from anyone—not even people you know. Once the reporters find out that you’re the agent in charge of the investigation, they’ll try to get information from anyone connected with you.”

Bobby forced his gaze back to the unit’s public affairs officer. He’d brought down CEOs of major corporations out in California and never had to be briefed on how to act and what not to say.

The spin manager slid a memo across the desk toward him. “Here
are the approved talking points. Everyone has a copy of these. But I suggest screening your phone calls carefully—both here and at home as long as this case is making news. Since you’re going to be at the courthouse tomorrow, which is likely to be a circus, make sure you’re very familiar with these before you get there.”

Bobby hoped his raised eyebrows gave the appearance of interest. After getting only three hours of sleep yesterday, tonight wasn’t shaping up to look much better. But if he and his team could plow through everything in the next few days, they might all actually get to spend Thanksgiving with their families next week.

“You’ll review this with your team? I’ve e-mailed the memo to everyone but just wanted to review those points with you, as the team leader.”

He nodded his heavy head. “I’ll go over it with them tomorrow morning.”

She yawned. “I think that’s all I needed to tell you, then.”

“Thanks.” He turned back toward his computer, anxious to finish his paperwork so he could go home and get back to the personal projects he wanted to get finished before next Thursday.

At two o’clock in the morning, he e-mailed the last report to Captain Carroll—who’d gone home hours ago—and shut everything down for the night. He wished he could take a few hours of comp time in the morning and sleep in. But he had to be at the DA’s office at nine to be briefed before heading over to the courthouse for the preliminary hearings in General Sessions Court—something that could last all day, depending on when the case was called.

At the condo complex, he pulled his car into the garage—and almost nodded off as soon as he cut the engine off. He forced himself to take the stairs up to the fourth floor instead of the elevator; he had to get some kind of physical activity in today.

After twice trying to unlock the door to the condo with the remote for the car, he finally made it inside. The keys slipped out of his hand and landed with a
thunk
on the wood floor. He left them there—and
dropped his briefcase beside them so he wouldn’t have to search for them in the morning. By the time he got to the bedroom, he had his coat and tie off and his shirt unbuttoned. He kicked off his shoes, and his belt whipped from the loops of the waistband of his pants when he yanked it off.

He dropped face-first across the bed and would have stayed there for the next several hours—but remembered something he had to do tonight.

Groaning, he pushed himself up and shuffled to the spare bedroom where he’d moved the boxes he hadn’t yet unpacked.

A stubbed toe and a pile of frustration later, he found the box he needed—at the bottom of a stack in the back of the closet, naturally. Rather than take the time to go get a pair of scissors or a knife to cut the tape, he ripped the cardboard. Digging below his yearbooks, the scrapbook his mother kept for him through his high school football career, and a box containing photos from most of his overseas postings, he found what he was looking for. He wedged the shoe box out, opened it to make sure it was the right one, then carried it to the front hall, where he set it on the floor beside his briefcase and keys.

He returned to the bedroom and changed into pajama bottoms before climbing into bed. He barely lifted his head when he reached over to make sure his alarm clock was set. His last coherent thought was to pray the case came up early on the docket and that the judge could see enough probable cause in all three arrests to bind them over for trial.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Dr. Mitchell.”

Zarah looked up from the computer to find all four of her interns crowded in the doorway of her office. She waved them in. “I’m pretty sure I remember that Friday was your last day. So what are you guys doing here the day before Thanksgiving?”

Amberleigh rolled her eyes as she perched on the edge of one of
the chairs. “Dr. M, it’s ‘y’all’ not ‘you guys.’ You’ve lived here long enough to know that by now.”

Zarah laughed, though a memory twinged. She’d always teased Bobby about saying
y’all
when everyone in New Mexico said
you guys
. “I’ll try to remember that and adapt accordingly.”

“We just wanted to come by and tell you how much we enjoyed working here this semester.” Felicity perched on the wooden arm of Amberleigh’s chair. “This was my third internship, and I’ve never learned as much anywhere else as I learned here.”

Amberleigh, Adam, and Jonah nodded.

“So we wanted to give you this.” Felicity turned and Adam drew from behind his back a large gift bag, which he handed to Zarah.

She took it, surprised at the weight. “You guys—
y’all
didn’t have to give me anything.”

“We would have done it last week before we left, but we needed to wait until after you turned in our evaluations, just so nothing looked fishy,” Jonah said.

Zarah let out a rueful laugh. “Yeah, we’ve had enough fishiness around here recently.”

“Go on, open it!” Amberleigh bounced in her seat.

“Okay.” Zarah set the tall purple and black abstract-design gift bag on the floor and lifted out something flat and heavy wrapped in lavender tissue paper. The paper fell away under her hands to reveal…the back of a wood-framed stretched art canvas. She turned it over. “Oh, my…”

The oil-painted portrait of Zander and Madeleine Breitinger’s wedding picture trembled in her hands. Madeleine’s blue eyes danced; Zander’s dark blond hair shone as if kissed by the sun. Emotion clogged Zarah’s throat.

“We know how much the story of your ancestors means to you,” Adam said in a low voice. “You’ve worked so hard to make sure we learned everything we could this semester, so we wanted to make sure we gave something that would reflect how much your mentorship meant to each one of us.”

She had to blink back pools of moisture before she looked up at them. “How in the world did you do this?”

“Jonah’s mother is an artist. She came in and took some pictures of the enlarged photo downstairs and painted it from that.” Felicity beamed.

Zarah stood and hugged each one of them. “You’ll never know how much this means to me. Thank you.”

“My mom attached one of her cards to the back. She said for you to contact her before you frame it. She can hook you up with a friend of hers who does framing.”

Long after the students left, Zarah stared at the portrait, standing up against the wall at the back of her desk.

She owed her existence to Zander and Madeleine. She owed her belief in the power of love to hold strong over years of separation to them, too. She just hoped God wouldn’t make it as difficult for her and Bobby to find their happy ending as it was for her great-great-great-grandparents.

She glanced around the office, the joyful interruption the first high point in a week. Since Glenn Vaughan’s arrest last Tuesday, everything and everyone at the commission had been discombobulated. And when the news of Bobby’s case broke—leading each of the local news broadcasts Wednesday and filling much of the front page of Thursday’s paper with the splashy news that the director of the Tennessee Criminal Investigations Unit had been arrested by one of his own agents, along with the judge who’d handled all of the commission’s cases for the past three years—she’d been nearly as shocked as everyone else in Nashville.

Bobby had looked good on TV—at least, the fleeting glimpse she’d seen of him as he entered the courthouse Thursday morning for the arraignment hearings.

Dennis had been closeted with the Metro Council or senate committee for most of last week, and everyone had looked to Zarah for guidance—and information. The guidance she could give. The information…she was still a little sketchy on the details herself.

She sighed and turned back to the new information on Zander’s regiment the archivist from the state library had sent over a few days ago. Losing herself in more research into her great-great-great-grandparents’ lives had been the only distraction she’d found to keep her from thinking about Bobby constantly in her spare time.

Her phone rang. Her heart leaped, then plummeted at the familiar number on the caller ID screen. She reached for it and tucked the handset between her shoulder and ear.

“Hi, Caylor.”

“Hey, Zare. How are you holding up?”

She leaned back in her chair. “As well as can be expected.”

“Have you heard from him yet?”

“No. I imagine he’s hardly left the office in the past week.”

“And you’ve been patiently waiting?”

“As patiently as possible.” Zarah pushed her heavy curls back from her face. Every time the phone rang, every time someone knocked on her office door, her hope soared only to come crashing down when it wasn’t Bobby. “I only hope he can clear it up before Thursday.”

“I hope so, too. Of course, I’m not sure how I feel about having dinner at your grandparents’ house and having to watch the two of you be all lovey-dovey with each other.”

They discussed Thanksgiving—for which her grandparents always included Lindy and Greeley Patterson along with Sassy and Caylor. “Could you have imagined last year that Bobby would not only be back in your life this year but that you’d be anxiously awaiting the day when the two of you can officially start dating?”

“Nope. I figured it would be like the previous years—eating too much food on Thursday at Pops and Kiki’s house and then playing card games the rest of the afternoon. Then on Friday, watching movies and eating desserts all day with you and Flannery.”

“And what’s to say we can’t still do that? Just bring your man with you—if he can come. If not, Flan and I will try to get your mind off him and on to Cary Grant and Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum
and Dana Andrews and maybe, if Flan leaves the room, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and a little
High Society.”

“Yes, listening to you and Flan bicker about whether we’re going to watch film noir or musicals is definitely one of the highlights of my Thanksgiving weekend.” Zarah checked e-mail one last time—nothing that couldn’t wait until after the holiday. She turned off the computer.

She stood and crossed to the window to check if it was still raining. “I hate that it’s dark so early this time of year.”

“Hmm…? Oh yeah.”

“Are you even listening to me?” She transferred her phone from hand to hand, ear to ear, to get her jacket on.