A week ago….
The phone rang and rang, eventually the false brightness of Crews voice came down the line reminding her that he was "living in the now and couldn't come to the phone." Yeah, she scoffed, he's probably safely in bed with some flavor of the week – some leggy blonde almost six feet tall and under 100 lbs, but he couldn't very well say that on his voice mail.
She rang off without leaving a message. Figures that she'd wait until 3AM on a Wednesday night to work up the courage to call him. She worked her short red toenails into the shag of her carpet and contemplated her next move. She'd been cleared to return to work, without him.
They'd assign her a new partner, her choice Tidwell promised, still being somewhat conciliatory. She didn't want a new partner – she wanted Crews – and that made her examine why. Crews remained a big jagged unfinished part of her life. They were connected – just as she'd told Roman.
"Crews is connected to me," she remembered saying the words and knowing they were true on more than one level. She needed to see his face, to look into those pale eyes that even when he lied to her held no harm, no malice. But Crews was in the wind, at a party somewhere, in bed with someone, but one place he was not was on the other end of the phone that she stared at willing it to ring.
Her phone finally rang at 6AM. She answered dully having finally fallen asleep. She hoped it was him – it wasn't. It was Tidwell. They'd found Crews car at a lonely gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway, keys still in the ignition. There was blood – it was being typed, but Tidwell was pretty sure it would match Crews. Her partner was missing.