Her phone had blown up. Per usual, she’d had the thing silenced—with no vibrating—so she’d missed calls from Trey. A lot of calls. As well as at least ten texts from him.
Hitting him back, she put the phone to her ear and waited for him to—
Her call was answered after the first ring. “Erika?”
“Hey, Trey. What’s going on—”
“Jesus Christ, where have you been!”
“At home—”
“No, not at home. I checked on your house twice last night and then again just—”
“Wait, when—” Her partner was talking so fast and so loudly, she had to raise her voice to cut in. “When did you come by my house?”
“Around ten last night. And then at just past midnight. And finally about ten minutes ago, I used the key you gave me and walked around—”
“You did what?”
“You gave me a key, remember? ‘In case something happens,’ to quote you—”
“Oh, God. I forgot that. And Trey, you shouldn’t have gone in there.”
“—as well as ‘in the event you went radio silent’—”
“Being out of touch for twelve hours is not radio silent—”
“Are you kidding me?” Trey cursed. “Erika, what am I supposed to think after you’d been to that scene on Primrose, and looked like holy hell in the Bull Pen yesterday—and then I find your car down by the river when I was working a scene that came in overnight—”
“Excuse me?”
Her partner took a deep breath. “All that’s not really important. What I care about—”
“You found my car?”
“Yeah, down two streets in from the bridge where people go to jump off because the fencing is low and still hasn’t been replaced by the city.” Trey’s voice broke. “I know the kind of stress you’re under. You take your job really seriously and we’re understaffed. I’m down to the bone, too. But you add on top of that stress what you saw at Primrose. I just… maybe I overreacted, and I’m sorry I went through your house. But I didn’t know what the hell else to do. You’re always available. I’ve never not been able to get a call or a text back. I was shitting myself that something really bad happened to you.”
Fuck. “Look, I’m really sorry I worried you.”
“It’s okay. As long as you’re okay.”
“Ah, listen, Trey.” As a car got blocked in behind her on the one-way street, she had to move up. “When you went to my house—”
“Your security system wasn’t on. And yes, I was sure I locked everything back up behind me.”
The memory thing, Erika thought. Of course, Balthazar had stripped his memories.
She relaxed. “Well, like I said, I’m sorry I worried you. I just crashed last night. I turned my phone off and just passed out.”
“So where are you now?”
“Looking for my car, actually.”
“I’ve got it. I brought it in to headquarters because I thought… well, anyway—”
“You thought I wasn’t coming back.”
“I thought you weren’t coming back, ever,” he conceded. “You and I both know the burnout for homicide detectives is high. You’re one of the best that the department has ever had because you take everything so seriously. Except you’re overworked and you’re getting ragged, and I know my wife is going to get on me for saying this, but you really shouldn’t have gone to that Primrose scene. You should have listened to me.”
Erika closed her eyes and remembered her and Balthazar sitting on her my-favorite-color-is-blue sofa, her blubbering like an idiot, him holding her, even after she’d told him what she had. Then she recalled showing him her scars.
“You’re right, Trey. I shouldn’t have gone there. It was more than I could handle. Sometimes I feel like I have to push through, though. Otherwise, I’m going to be hamstrung by what happened to me and my family.”
As her fingertips crept up to her collarbone and probed her uneven skin, Trey said, “You just take a couple of days off, okay? Don’t worry about everything here. Kip and I are on it, and yes, we’ll update you. And then I want you to come back—I want my partner back. We need you. Caldwell’s victims need you. And it’s so much better to take some time and recenter now, than to flame out and not be able to do the job at all. That’s reality, not weakness.”