Willow’s gaze shifted to Beth running over from one of the fire trucks. Davis looked up to see the firemen taking off their helmets—some were cursing while others were wiping at their eyes. They all started walking in Willow’s direction. Hollis reached her first. Layton trailed behind, scrubbing at his eyes. Davis gripped the man by the shoulder and made him stop. The tears made clean streaks on Layton’s rugged face.
“What happened?”
“Willow’s father. His wife found him this morning. Died in his sleep.”
Davis turned to see Hollis’s mouth moving against Willow’s ear and she dropped. Hollis let go of his equipment and caught her. Davis reached for her, but Hollis swept her up into his arms and he crushed her to his chest. The crowd surged around Willow, pushing Davis to the outskirts as federal agents and firemen alike swarmed around her, taking her deeper and deeper into a swell of grief and further and further away from him.
Davis walked into the club and went straight to the bar. He tossed his keys and the tape on the counter. His bartender Craig was tucking away the last of the bar linens he needed for that evening when Davis walked up.
“Jesus, D, you look like you need that drink.”
Davis walked behind the bar and snagged the bottle of Kettle One vodka from the shelf and a tumbler. “Place is closed for the next couple of days.”
“What’s wrong?”
Davis downed the shot of vodka and chased it with another. He rested the back of his hand against his mouth as he relished the feel of the vodka cutting a path down his throat. He poured another shot, and then sat the bottle on the counter. “My father died this morning.”
“Oh hey, boss, I’m sorry.” Craig moved to reach for him, and Davis sat back.
“William Daniels wasn’t my real father, but he damn well should have been. My family... I was adopted. Our car was firebombed. My parents were dead, and I was trapped inside. Will reached through the broken windshield, cut his arms up pretty bad, but he wouldn’t let go. It was one of the few acts of kindness I’d ever experienced in my life.” Davis threw the shot back and poured another.
“What can I do to help? You need us to set this place up for a repast or some kind of gathering for your people? You know me and the staff would be happy to...”
Davis put the bottle on the counter and pushed it away.
“She’s so lost now. Everything she ever knew or loved is gone. She’s an orphan like me, worse than me... If you and the others do this, I’ll pay overtime.”
“And none of us would accept it. Half of us, if not all, wouldn’t be working if it weren’t for you. Let me put in a few calls. We’re gonna do right by you and your lady.”
Davis shot a look at him.
“Saw you at dinner with them the other night. Lisa said you looked happy.”
Davis sat down on the stool and began to turn the tumbler in a circle.
“Hell, I was there that night. I’ve never seen you that happy.”
Davis poured another shot and downed it. “There will be engine companies and battalions from all over the state and possibly the country. This place can seat them. Don’t know what his wife is planning with the firemen’s chaplain, don’t care. I’ll have something upstairs for his daughter and anyone she wants to have near her.”
“Boss, whatever you need.”
David shrugged his shoulders sadly. “Same thing I’ve needed but couldn’t have for most of my adult life.” He took a step back from the counter and waited for the world to settle. He grabbed the neck of the bottle and the tape before he backed away from the bar.
“She was carrying my baby and I didn’t even... Lock up on the way out. I need it quiet in here for a while.”
“I can stay in case your lady friend shows up. We got deliveries coming, anyway.”
Davis walked away from the bar deeper into the club and further into the darkness. “She has no reason to come to me, Craig. And she’s not my ‘lady friend’—she’s my wife.”
Willow stared at the traffic rushing by. The colors of the cars seemed off, as if the world had bled away a bit. Everything seemed colder, smaller. She didn’t realize she was in the back of an ambulance until she heard the sirens screeching and felt the gurney swerve as they made a sharp turn. Tears swam in Hollis’s muddy brown eyes and he sat there wedged between the paramedic and the equipment that hung all around her.
“We’re just taking you in for precaution, Dr. Daniels. Hollis noticed you were bleeding from the mouth and one of the agents said you’d broken a few ribs.”
“Have to get to the other scene.” She tried to sit up and Hollis rested his warm meaty hand on her shoulder.
“Easy, baby girl. Let them have a look at you.”
“Uncle Ted. You said...”
“Yeah, baby girl, your daddy died.”
She let her eyes slip shut as she felt him pin her back down to the gurney.
That was their way. In the field they never said that someone passed away or they were gone as if they were leaving for a trip. In her training that was what they were all supposed to say. The person died. Not ‘they didn’t make it’ or ‘they passed,’ like going to the next grade in school. The person wasn’t there anymore. They weren’t coming back. They were dead.
Hollis stayed with her as they performed their tests and x-rays and rambled on and on about how she needed to rest to heal and how easily she could contract pneumonia. She nodded when appropriate and tried hard not to look at the old man sitting beside her bed with his hands folded and tears leaking from his eyes. She held out her hand and he kissed her palm before he pressed it against his cheek.
“Your daddy was my best friend. He was the best in all of us. He will have a funeral fit for a king. He will have his last call and the caissons and engine companies. I’ll make sure he’s put away right.”
“Fatima will want a say.”
“She never wanted any parts of us. Your daddy told me what he wanted. Wrote it down. We’ll tell her as a formality, her presence there is just that. You get his helmet. You get the flag because he was a veteran. Everything goes to you. His benefits, his insurance policies. Even the house. He wrote it down and I have it. Tell me what you need.”
At last she let her head roll against the pillow until she was facing him. “I need the last twenty-four hours back.”
Hollis stood and pressed his face against the side of hers before stepping out of the room. The smell of soot and aftershave made her well up.
Beth reached across the seat and squeezed Willow hand. Willow snapped back to reality and looked over at her.
“Come home with me, Willow,” Beth said. “You need to be around people who know and love you.”
“I have to get my things from the club.”
“Then let me do it. You don’t even have to talk to him.”
“I know you’re trying to help...”
“He takes your phone apart and tells you he can do the same with your gun.”
“Beth, I was talking out of my head. Like you, he was trying to help. The last thing I needed was to go traipsing off into the night. Good thing I didn’t.”
“He could have done anything to you.”
Nothing I wouldn’t have wanted, her mind whispered. At least she could admit that to herself. This man, this stranger, had breathed life into her and made her body react in ways she thought had long since died.
You’ll beg for me. The sound of his voice made her squirm in her seat. Even as he’d kissed her the last time, she’d wanted him—and it irked her that he knew it.
“He kept me safe, Beth, and if it was that much of an issue why didn’t you shoot him when he first came to the door? You saw him before I did, researched him. If he was that much of a threat...” She looked away.
“He took your only source of communication.”
“You and I have both walked into denied territory with less. When he got the call, he brought me to the scene. Gave me my space when the world was snatched out from under me.” She bit down on her lip, knowing the last part hurt her friend. “He went on scene and collected the tapes and other evidence and brought everything back to the office.”
“Yeah and Buddha said he never said a word. Just stood there watching the tape, then waited for a copy before making a phone call. Never said a word to anybody, not even me. Just fed Matisse and left.”
“Beth, I need this. I can’t explain why. I don’t know why. But I need to go in and get my things on my own.”
“How do you know he hasn’t trashed your stuff? You said he was mad enough.”
“He’s not that petty.”
“And we know this how? You’ve only known him for five minutes. He could hurt you.”
“He’s a federal agent, just like we are. He had ample time to kill me the first night.”
“You didn’t sleep with him, did you? You sound like somebody who...”
Willow met her eye for a long time and said nothing. She wasn’t even angry at her friend. If the tables were turned, she would be asking the same pointed questions and then some. If she were honest until she saw Davis’ badge, she was beginning to wonder about him.
Sure, she enjoyed the attention, but something about him was off. The man didn’t just cater to her, he seemed to anticipate her every need without any kind of hint or direction. Every woman wanted that kind of connection, where a man would set rearrange his agenda and make her priority. Willow was no different.
“Yeah well you still need to be careful. I did some more checking and his name is on the lease of a lot of those burn outs. He’s a Fed just like us. Where’s he getting the money?”
“You want to go up and ask him?”
Beth ran a hand under her nose and looked out the window.
“Endicott may have been a prick, but he was always good at following the money. He helped us weed out the copycats from the real deal.” Beth shook her head then turned in the seat. “You’re vulnerable Willow. You should still be in the hospital and with your father gone maybe.”
“Maybe I’m not thinking too clearly? Is that where you’re going?” Willow finished for her then patted Beth’s hand. “When my mother died, I filled the ice trays and put them in the freezer. When Harlem died, and I was finally able to sit up in a chair, I folded laundry.”
Beth gave her a sidelong quizzical look and Willow gripped her hand.
“I did what was next, the world didn’t stop because they were gone. It went on. Harlem told me once that the best way to love someone that was gone was to live. My father is with my mother. My bags are upstairs. Let me do what’s next.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“No. My truck is right there.” She pointed through the windshield.
“Willow.”
She reached over and touched her friend’s face. “Beth, I need it quiet for a while. I need the world to be quiet just for a little while.”
“And you can find that here, you can find the quiet you’re looking for here with some stranger.”
“I can’t explain it so that it makes sense, but he’s not a stranger. And no, I haven’t slept with him. This was the last place I was with my father. The last place we were happy. This man, whoever he is, was part of that, understood on some level the significance of it all. I need to be here for a while. Please?”