Page 31 of Missing Justice

He nodded. “We were lucky.”

“You found her?”

“We found her.”

She stood motionless, taking in the words.We found her.

“Please,” she said, “tell me she was alive.”

Matt stayed quiet. He had to. For a few seconds, at least. To get his head together. Talking about this never brought anything good, only madness, rage, and all those fucking thoughts about fucking evil things that fucking evil people did. So he propped his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers against each other, concentrating on their perfect alignment. If he looked at Taylor now, he might pick up that kiss where they left off and all that would accomplish would be two people in a helluva hot mess of emotional puke. “It took six months, but we brought her home. They found her in the woods five miles from my parents’ house. Those six months made us nuts. We didn’t know where she was. When we got her back, at least we knew. She was gone, but we had her body to bury properly.”

“That’s why you became a homicide detective?”

“Partly. I wanted to be FBI. Just like you.” He met her gaze. “Didn’t make the cut.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It doesn’t come up much. I wanted to tell you, though.” He stood, walked over to her, got right into her space, cupped her cheeks in his hands, felt the warmth flood his suddenly freezing hands.

“When I tell you we have the same monster inside.” He squeezed her cheeks, kissed her lips. “Believe it. I watched my mother turn into a grieving drunk and I can promise you scotch and sex won’t make that monster go away.”