What Can't Be Seen (Dr. Gretchen White) by Brianna Labuskes

Author:Brianna Labuskes [Labuskes, Brianna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2022-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SHAUGHNESSY

1984

Shaughnessy met Donna Sanders at a Memorial Day barbecue hosted by a guy in Vice. The only reason Shaughnessy had decided to go was because he’d gotten word he was being considered for a position on the beat, and while he would have preferred Major Crimes, he desperately wanted to get off traffic duty.

Donna had come with another officer’s girlfriend. She was pretty in a plain way, with a round, freckled face and teased, bleached-blonde hair that, given the shade, had come from a bottle. Her nose turned up at the end too sharply, but Shaughnessy liked the way his hand fit against her hip, his thumb tugging at a loop at the waistband of her cutoff whitewashed jean shorts.

A week and four dates later they were officially dating, and the boys at the station were giving him shit when he came in late one morning with a hickey on his neck too high up to hide.

It had been a few months since he’d been chased from Levi Cross’s house, more than six months since Anders White had held a shotgun on him. Most days he could forget about Rowan and Jennifer; most days he could pretend that he didn’t see Rowan’s face before he went to sleep every night.

And Donna helped with that. She gave him an air of respectability that he hadn’t realized he was missing. The cops at work would slap his shoulder and buy him coffee these days rather than sliding him suspicious looks whenever he spoke.

There were times, though, when he had Donna sitting in his lap, his earlobe caught between her teeth, and all he could think about was the way Rowan had said, “Run.”

“I have a late shift tomorrow,” he said, and she hummed, working her way down to his shoulder, his collarbone. She smelled of peppermint, like she always did when she tried to cover up the fact that she smoked like a chimney.

“I thought you were going to take me to that restaurant you liked.” The pout in her voice made him want to push her off his lap, see her sprawled on the floor like the child she sounded like.

“The next day, baby,” he promised.

“You should talk to the chief—he’s giving you too many late-night shifts,” she said, but she was already distracted with the buttons on his shirt. He hoped she wouldn’t talk to that friend of hers, Gina. The one who was seeing that guy in Vice.

Because Shaughnessy didn’t have a late shift. He just got tired of her sometimes in a way that he knew was inexcusable.

But she listened when he nudged her hands away from him, and she left his place, like she always did when he got like this. He did like that about her.

The knock on his door came twenty minutes later, just as he was about to pour himself a drink. He glanced at the clock on the mantel.

It was late, past the time when a neighbor or friend would drop by unannounced.

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