At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(32)

“Does having Rhinehart in mean I’m out?”

“I don’t know. I’d need a flashlight and a shovel to know what Criver’s thinking. I just . . . Evan, you can’t abandon me on this.”

“I also can’t horn in on an investigation if your lieutenant is against it.”

“I’m allowed to consult with experts. Criver can’t deny me that. This case calls for a semiotician. Not some guy who knows a little bit about mystical alphabets.”

Evan prided himself on his ability to read subtext. “What are you so worried about, Addie?”

She startled. “It’s Criver.”

“The fact that he thinks women should leave the tough stuff to men?”

“All that male-superiority nonsense. I want to prove him wrong. I need to prove him wrong.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know what it’s like to be told all the frigging time that you’re inferior just because you don’t have a Y chromosome?”

“Perhaps not. But I do know what it’s like for people to assume your intellect correlates to your physicality, be it gender or race or height.”

She glanced at him, and her expression softened. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Humans are very good at underestimating each other.”

He stared out the windshield. Chicago rose in the distance, a shimmering metropolis against a backdrop of towering nimbus clouds. In that far place resided many of the things he loved. A handful of friends. His students who, at the moment, were listening to Diana give the lecture he’d prepared. And Diana herself. His neighbor’s daughter, Jo, who studied piano with him. His hawk, Ginny. And his home, which was a safe place in a world that did not look kindly on its children when those children were different.

He’d settled in Chicago almost on a whim. The job was important, of course, but he could find work anywhere. The decision had come down to a combination of the kind of classwork he’d be doing, the unscheduled hours for research, his generous office, and the fact that a professor with dwarfism and on a lengthy sabbatical had offered her home to him for the foreseeable future. Of course, there were also the city’s cultural offerings. Its theaters and galleries, its restaurants and street vendors. The many places it provided to fly a hawk.

Plus, it was literally half a world away from the darker memories of his childhood.

Chicago had felt like the promised land. Aside from the traffic, of course. And the politics. Sometimes the weather.

But it had been a lonely promised land, even with all the things he enjoyed. Until the night he and Addie stumbled into each other at an art opening—quite literally, when she’d walked into him as he stood in front of a painting of a trash can that he was trying to convince himself he liked. She had crushed his toes and managed to spill both their drinks, proving herself infinitely more interesting than the trash can. They’d gone on to bond over a small exhibit of Mary Cassatt, and through the next days and weeks, they’d recognized in each other a shared yearning to do something larger with their lives, even as societal expectations held them back. Addie, a woman working in a man’s world. Evan, of course, a person whose physicality kept him from being seen as a man in full.

He’d fallen in love with her immediately, right in front of the trash-can painting. Because of her clumsiness. At her insistence on replacing his spilled Manhattan. And at her snap decision to dump her date and spend the rest of the evening with him.

More than anything, at her refusal to look at him differently because of his height.

Until they met, Evan hadn’t realized how much of a mask he wore. Every person who falls outside the bell curve of what is defined as “normal” has to do the same—put on seemingly indestructible armor and go out to slay the dragons, be they out-of-reach coat hooks, steep stairwells, or merely the sideways glances and uneasy giggles of the ignorant.

But Addie had slipped inside his armor. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed someone who let him be vulnerable until she offered him the space to just be himself.

There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her.

“Evan?” Addie’s voice drifted through his reverie, soft as spider silk. “What are you thinking?”

He turned in his seat.

“If you think having me on the case will help you push back against Criver,” he said, “then I’ll do everything I can.”

“What about your consulting fee?”

“We’ll work it out. Or not. If you want my help, I’m not going to say no. I’ll make a first pass on a profile tonight.”

She reached over, gripped his hand. “You’re the best.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed.” He held his breath until she released his hand, then returned his gaze to Chicago growing larger on the horizon. His fingers tingled.

If Addie wanted him, even if it was only for his intellect, he would be there for her.

It was what friends—and if-only lovers—were for.





CHAPTER 12


Addie, her arms filled with printouts of reports and photos from both murders, followed Patrick as he rolled the whiteboard into the station house’s conference room and flipped on the lights. Outside, darkness pressed against the windows, strewing raindrops that glittered in the city lights.