Hidden in the Blood: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 5)

Chapter Forty-Six: Joanie, Saturday

Joanie had an old package of cigarettes she'd kept at the back of a desk drawer for years. She'd quit a long time ago, after she returned from the Great White North, where she smoked because everyone else did and there didn't seem to be anything else to do after her shift. She'd never gotten rid of it, though, but she'd also never been tempted to smoke again until now.

The first drag was like a punch to the head, the nicotine rush the only thing that made up for the staleness of the tobacco and the way it made her mouth taste like a sock. The second and third drags were better, her body responding to the remembered feel of the cigarette in her hand, the deep breaths she took relaxing her when nothing else would; didn't someone once say that the only reason smoking was relaxing was that it was basically deep, mindful breathing? Except what you were breathing was tar and a mix of other deadly chemicals, so once this pack was finished, she would be done again but, Lord, did she ever need this right now.

She sat on the curb outside her house, shivering under the foil blanket they gave people to keep warm and stave off shock, in the coat she'd thrown on over her robe, which she'd worn to the door to see Patrick out, not knowing that after he drove only a hundred metres his truck would go up in a ball of flame. She wore boots too, but they didn't make her feet feel any less cold because they were rain boots.

A female RCMP constable sat beside her, the one assigned to look after her and make sure she had anything she needed until a relative or other loved one could take over responsibility for her, but also to make sure she didn't do anything silly, like try to follow her lover into the afterlife. It happened, she knew from experience. She'd been this constable before, she knew how grief could make people do terrible things to themselves and to others.

She finished her first cigarette in five joyless drags, punishing her lungs without a care. She finished the second one before Joe pulled up in the tiny Nissan Versa on the other side of the police line. She chuckled as she saw him unfold himself, and that surprised her. She didn't think she was capable of humour after what had happened.

"My friend is here," she told the woman, who nodded, stood and rejoined her colleagues doing the work of securing the street and investigating the explosion.

She stood, ground out the butt, dropped the foil blanket and walked over to him, staying just inside the line.

"Hi," she said. 

"Hi," he said. "Al called Agnes with the news."

"Thanks. I thought she should know."

"Yeah."

"I couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't think I had the right."

"I'm glad you called me, though."

"Are you?"

He offered his arms to her, but she stayed out of reach. She lit up another cigarette.

He frowned. "You don't smoke."

"I used to. Seemed like a good time to start again."

He stared at her for a second before asking, "Mind if I have one?"

That surprised her. She'd been expecting disapproval, not that she would have listened to it. It surprised her so much that she felt her heart melt a little toward him. He'd come when she'd called, and that at least was something. The fact that he was the only person she could think of calling at a time like this must have meant something too.

She shrugged and offered him the pack. He leaned into her lighter and took a drag. He coughed a little, which made her chuckle again, but he got the hang of it soon enough.