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Technicality? The technicality that I was innocent? The charges had been dropped. With prejudice. Meaning the court’s decision was final. Case closed.

It didn’t feel closed.

I stopped again, closing my eyes and taking a long, shaky breath, feeling the white hush surrounded me. Letting it slowly, slowly sink in. Letting go of all that roiling emotion.

After a few seconds I realized I had not called for Freyja. I pulled my gloves off, put my fingers to my lips and whistled.

The sharp sound shot through the trees, echoing…echoing and then fading away.

No answer.

Okay, she wasn’t Lassie. She wasn’t good at tricks. She had a bad habit of chasing ducks. She had a tendency to get lost. She barked too much and for a long time she’d, no exaggeration, been afraid of her own shadow. But she was loyal and affectionate. She had a joyful spirit. She was funny too. She knew when she was being teased, and she’d give that big goofy goldie grin and try to lick my face. If she’d run away—if she hadn’t gotten lost—she had been looking for me, and that was hard to take.

I whistled again, but the silence that followed hurt more that time.

I waited a few minutes more, listening, and then started back to my car.

I mean, I hadn’t really expected to find her. I knew she was gone. Gone like everything else. Every good thing else. I knew she wasn’t here, but somewhere deep down I guess I’d been hoping for a little miracle. A harmless one. Something nobody had to die for.

Just let me have my dog back.

As I stepped out of the wood line, I saw a black SUV parked behind the Range Rover. The SUV bore the familiar—and now dreaded—red and white insignia of Little Copenhagen Police Department.

My heart stopped.

I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m allowed to be here.

Before panic—and rage—could take over, I recognized the tall, dark-haired figure peering through the driver’s window of my vehicle. No uniform. A plainclothes officer. My heart kickstarted back into life, began to pound in a painful mix of anger and hatred—made even more painful by my recognition that even now, my instinctive reaction to seeing Raleigh was…delight.

Because I had loved him all my life. And as much as I hated him now, the conditioned reflex of my blood and bones to the surprise of seeing him was…

Stupid.

Raleigh must have caught my approach out of the corner of his eye because he straightened up, turned. He didn’t look surprised, but then he’d have recognized the car.

The snow made a squeaky-creak sound as the ice crystals shifted beneath my boots. It seemed to take a very long time to cross that clearing. Raleigh didn’t move. He was too far away for me to read his face, but then it was always hard to read his face.

I kept walking toward him, not saying anything, just looking at him without any expression. You learn fast to hide your feelings in County. You learn fast not to have feelings.

Raleigh stared gravely back—his eyes were the color of the shadows on the snow. Maybe he was waiting for me to get closer than shouting distance or maybe he was waiting for me to speak first. If so, he was going to wait a long time.

I was never willingly going to speak to him again.

Even as that thought formed, it was washed aside by the fury now always bubbling beneath the surface.

“Problem, Officer?” I sounded clipped because I was out of breath. It’s funny how anger winds you.

Raleigh gave a short shake of his head. “Hi, Casper. Just making sure everything’s okay.” He dipped his head, drew a sharp breath. “Actually, I’m glad I—”

“Oh yeah,” I cut in. “Everything’sfantastic.”

His light gaze flickered.

“But you’re a detective now. You probably could tell that just from the way I parked.” I made a commiserating face. “Then again, you’re a pretty shitty detective, so maybe not.”

Raleigh’s expression changed, grew stony.

Funny—crazy—that I had kissed that straight line of a mouth. That he had kissed me too. Not once, not twice, not by accident, not because we’d been drinking. Many times. Many kisses. I regretted every single one.