Blood Silence by Roger Stelljes

Congrats on the engagement. How’s Sally doing?”
    “She’s great, Summer, just great. She says hi. I dropped her off at the airport an hour ago.”
    “Tell her hi back. Next time she’s in town, she needs to call me.”
    “I’m glad to have you here—glad to have you on my side for once,” Lyman said, shaking Mac’s hand.
    “I’ll do my best, guys,” Mac replied. “I have to warn you, though—it dawned on me on the way over that I’ve never investigated like this before.”
    “Like what?” Lyman asked.
    “Without a badge. Without legal authority. Without police resources. Without backup. I feel kind of naked.”
    “Let me worry about the legal authority part,” Lyman answered. “There are a few more hurdles to investigating when you’re on this side of the fence. But if you find something you need to look into, let Summer or me know. We’ll get that taken care of.” Then Lyman lowered his voice. “But first, before we get going, there is someone who would like to have a word with you.”
    Mac sighed and grimaced. “She’s here?”
    Lyman nodded and then tilted his head left. “She’s down the hall, in a conference room, looking through some documents.”
    Glancing to his right and down the hall, Mac muttered, “Well, we better get this over with.”
    Mac deposited his backpack and folder in the main conference room, exited, and turned left down the hallway. He knew there would need to be an airing out between them. It was inevitable, but it was not a confrontation he would relish. Meredith knew how to push his buttons, and when she did, he could get nasty in response. It was a personality component that he’d kept locked up since he’d been with Sally. He had a temper and an ability to go for the absolute jugular in an argument.
    They just needed to keep it civil.
    Fifty feet down the hallway, he spotted her through the glass walls of the conference room. Meredith was sitting in one of the chairs and staring vacantly out the window. The dominant feature of her view was the St. Paul Cathedral awash in light, overlooking the city from the bluff to the west of downtown. He hadn’t seen her in four years, and now he was seeing her for the second time in three days. He tried to keep it light. “Hey, Meredith.”
    She turned to face him and waved for him to close the door. He did as instructed but stuck close to the wall.
    “I can’t believe you’re here.”
    “Yeah, I wouldn’t have envisioned this when I woke up this morning, either.”
    Meredith turned back to the window, looking outside. “You must be amused by this situation.”
    “Amused?” Mac shook his head, looking to the floor, and said quietly, “No, Meredith, I’m not amused. I’m concerned…”
    “Why don’t you just say it?” She turned back to him now. “Just say it.”
    “Say what?” Mac asked, his arms folded, leaning against the glass.
    “I told you so.”
    He wanted to say it, was thinking it, and it was probably written all over his face, but he thought better of it. “Meredith, what good …”
    “That Frederick was a two-timing loser when I left you for him.” She pushed herself out of the chair and stormed toward him with anger in her eyes. “That something like this would happen. That I’m a cold, calculating bitch who is probably getting exactly what she deserved in the end.”
    “What good would that do at this point? I don’t see how that helps you.”
    “That’s not exactly a denial.”
    He read her and could tell she was spoiling for a fight. He tried to de-escalate. “Look, Meredith …”
    “Oh, come on, Mac. I know you. How I reacted to you becoming a cop when your life was so set as a lawyer? Inside, you’re sitting there all smug and self-satisfied. That pride of yours has to be just welling up inside of you. Your life is a dream right now—engaged, rich, on a first-name basis with the president of the United States, a book deal, doing whatever you want. And mine? Mine has turned