Rhapsody in Flames (The Vane Dossier #1) by Ryann Fletcher

Author:Ryann Fletcher [Fletcher, Ryann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Suspense
Google: OVQO0AEACAAJ
Goodreads: 193260842
Publisher: RF
Published: 2023-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Virginia downed her fifth cup of coffee, her eyes dry and begging for sleep. But it was barely dawn, and the kid was still asleep on the sofa, curled up tight beneath almost every blanket in the apartment. Virginia couldn’t let her slip through her fingers, not when they could take Fiske out once and for all if they played their cards right.

She held her hands around the green ceramic mug, grateful for the heat that radiated through it, staving off the midwinter chill that crept beneath the windowsills like an invisible, suffocating fog. She pulled her sweater tighter around herself, and huddled over the coffee. The combination of the unexpected late night and the smell of the bitter grounds pulled her back to her VCPD days, when sleep was infrequent and rarely restful.

Her relationship with sleep had changed much in the intervening fifteen years. A notoriously early riser who stayed up far too late, she rarely got more than half a night’s sleep, even when her caseload was thin.

Her fingers traced over each page of Ursa’s file once again, desperate for a clue to jump out at her. None did. Ursa had disappeared without a trace, and it was driving Virginia senseless. There was always a thread, some crumbs to follow, but there were no bank accounts drained, no signs of a struggle, no witnesses reporting they’d been seen somewhere downstate starting a new life with a new name.

She envied people who could do that. She’d wanted to, after being removed from the force. After Arthur left, there was nothing and no one. Still, she’d stayed, despite the fact that no one would have blamed her if she had left. Maybe a fresh start would have changed things. Maybe it would have spelled out a better future somewhere else, where she wasn’t just a disgraced private eye, where she was respected, where she was unknown and free from obligation and expectation alike.

Or maybe that fresh start would have landed her in an early grave. There was no way to tell which way the paths would have turned, which life would have led her to the purest conclusion. All she had was all she had done, and lingering on what-ifs never did any good for anyone, least of all her.

Virginia let out an exasperated sigh loud enough that Jolie stirred, turning over on the sofa. The young woman shivered once, and then twice. Delicately, but with irritation, Virginia pulled a blanket from her own bed, laying it over Jolie to keep her warm.

It was months away, but Virginia was already looking forward to the gentle, almost imperceptible shift towards spring, when the mornings were still cold and crisp, frost laid itself delicately against the windows in its ostentatious fractal patterns, and geese flew overhead, returning from their sabbatical, but before the stickiness of summer let itself be known. Heat pressed like death. Cold pulled like the temptation of sleep to the drowning.

It was six-thirty in the morning when Jolie sat up, her chest heaving.

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