Beck pulled up in front of her apartment building and sat for a moment in her Jeep while she wrapped her mind around the idea of moving back into her place. She was tired, but it was a good tired, and she tried not to dwell on the abrupt end to her time with Macy. She had work to do. When she was no longer riding a desk, she’d have a higher likelihood of being called away at a moment’s notice too. The best thing she could do right now was be the understanding girlfriend.
Girlfriend. She hadn’t caught the thought in time to stop it, but now that she’d used the word, she rolled it around in her brain to see how it fit. And it fit nicely. She’d enjoyed waking up in Macy’s bed, sharing coffee and the paper while discussing their mutual work.
Careful. You barely know her.
It was true. She didn’t know Macy well, but she’d always trusted her instincts and right now they told her that Macy was a good person. And her body told her she was a magnificent lover.
A knock on her window interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see Alicia Staples, Jack’s wife, standing outside next to the Jeep. What the hell?
She motioned for her to step back, and she climbed out of the car and looked around, half expecting to see Jack nearby.
“He’s not here,” Alicia said. “It’s just me.”
“Alicia, you shouldn’t be here,” Beck said.
“Are you saying you won’t talk to me?”
Beck glanced around, though she wasn’t sure what she expected to see. A reporter, looking to get a follow-up to Macy’s story? Someone from internal affairs, wondering why she was talking to Jack’s wife? All she saw were people enjoying their Sunday afternoon. Walking their dogs, jogging, playing tennis. The world turned at its usual speed despite whatever was going on with her, and the sooner she realized it, the better off she’d be. Still, she didn’t want to have this conversation—whatever it might be about—standing in the parking lot of her apartment.
“I’ll talk to you, but not here.” She shut the door to the Jeep and locked it. “Come on.”
Once they were inside her apartment, she invited Alicia to have a seat and told her she’d be right back. In her bedroom, she looked at herself in the mirror, surprised to see she looked fairly put together despite the fact she was wearing yesterday’s clothes and she’d had barely any sleep.
She smiled at the memory of waking up in Macy’s bed. At the way Macy was torn between her work and their affection, and that they’d found a way to combine the two. They’d ordered in breakfast tacos and pored over the case files all morning until Macy had gotten a call from her editor with a time sensitive assignment. The last twenty-four hours had been the most fun she’d had in a very long time, and she was already thinking about when she could see Macy again. All she wanted to do right now was take a nap and slip back into the memory of last night.
But Jack’s wife was sitting in her living room, and she needed to deal with her before she could do anything else. She pulled her hair back, washed her face, and changed into a pair of shorts and her favorite UT T-shirt, and walked back out into the living room, determined to deal with whatever Alicia wanted in short fashion. But when she saw her huddled on the couch, her eyes dark and swollen, her resolve faded.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, seizing on the simple task as a way of avoiding whatever Alicia had to say.
“No. I just want to talk to you,” Alicia said, her voice strong and sure in spite of her appearance. “I won’t keep you long. I promise.”
Beck sat down in the chair across from the couch. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“I know Jack better than you.”
Beck waited for a follow-up to the declaration, but a few seconds passed with only silence between them. “Is that a question? What do you want me to say?”
Alicia cleared her throat and shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m at a loss here. Jack has a temper. I know this. Anyone who knows him knows it’s true, but I’ve never seen him hurt anyone. He’s never laid a hand on me, or our kids.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a Kleenex, dabbing it at the corner of her eyes. “I don’t understand how he wound up in this situation.”
Alicia looked up and stared directly at her. “If you were to tell them you made a mistake, this would all go away. You have that power. Why won’t you use it?” She wrung her hands. “He was your partner, your friend.”
It was a gut punch. Yes, she’d always considered Jack a friend, but through the lens of retrospection, she wasn’t sure that had ever been true. Stuck in a car together, day after day, they’d talked and joked and shared light confidences, but all of that had been more about adapting to the environment than genuine affection. She cared more about Macy Moran who she’d known for less than a month than she did about Jack or the rest of his family, especially since he was the one who put her in this position.
She did care about him. It would be almost impossible to share such a big part of her life with someone and feel nothing, but she wasn’t interested in being dragged into his drama any more than she already was. She met Alicia’s eyes and wondered what her life with Jack was like. Was she here because she really cared about him or was she merely trying to salvage any normalcy she and her kids had left?
“What do you want me to do?”
“What I said. Tell the prosecutor you made a mistake. That you didn’t have a good angle to see. That you were caught up in the circumstance, afraid of being shot yourself.”
Beck sighed. “You want me to lie.”
“Can you not even entertain the idea you might be wrong, or are you so locked into your version of events and the notoriety it gives you that you can’t bear to tell the truth now?”
“What the hell?”
“I read the paper this morning. You’re the big feature story. I can’t believe you talked to the press when you won’t even talk to Jack.”
Beck started to say it was Jack who wouldn’t talk to her. Jack who’d told his buddies to haze her for speaking the truth. But Alicia wouldn’t, couldn’t know all of that. Jack would have shielded her from the truth.
She’d spent so many hours with Jack. In the car. At his house for barbecue, drinking beer, shooting hoops. Except for the times they were on patrol, Alicia had been there for a lot of it, but it was as if she didn’t know her at all. She’d allowed herself to think Jack and Alicia were like family, but they were nothing like Liam, who might question her judgment, but would never question her integrity.
“Alicia, don’t you think I’ve gone over every detail of that night hundreds of times? Every second is burned into my brain. Not because I’ve been asked to recite it or gave an interview to the paper, but because I saw it happen. In real time. Right in front of me. We never should’ve pulled Ben Aldridge over in the first place, and believe me when I’m telling you that Jack shot him for no reason whatsoever. I will go to my grave believing that was true.”
Beck delivered the words with force, hoping they would convince Alicia to leave her alone, but she was completely unprepared for her to burst into tears. She shifted in her seat, unsure how to deal with the messy display, finally springing from the chair to go in search of Kleenex. She brought them back and handed Alicia the box.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “This keeps happening. I think I have it together, and then I realize our lives have fallen apart. He was so kind and gentle when we met, but the longer he’s on the force, the angrier he gets. I don’t think he even likes being a cop anymore, but there’s nothing I can say to make it better. And now…” She shook her head. “Now, I don’t know what to do.”
Beck’s heart ached for her. Alicia hadn’t asked for any of this. She might have known Jack wasn’t right, but how was she supposed to know what to do about it when even she didn’t know, and she’d served by his side for years. Summoning all the compassion she could find, she reached for Alicia’s hands and squeezed gently. “He needs to take a deal. If he goes to trial, he’s going to go to prison for a long time.”
“He won’t ever agree to plead guilty.”
“I know it will be hard for him, but it’s the best thing for your family. A trial will be as painful for you as it is for him. And think about Jack Jr. Put this behind you and find a fresh start. It could take a year before he goes to trial. Do you really want to endure the frenzy of attention from now until then?”
Alicia wiped away the last of her tears and abruptly stood. “I should go. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Beck wanted to protest, tell her they could talk some more, but the words didn’t come. She didn’t really want to talk about Jack’s case. Not with anyone on the other side of it, anyway. Alicia would do whatever she wanted to do, and she had no control over the outcome. All she could do was tell her truth.
After Alicia left, Beck’s first instinct was to pick up the phone and call Macy. Tell her what had just happened, not like a tipster giving her the news, but like a friend who needed to vent, to decompress. Except they were more than friends now. What she really wanted to do was shower and then go back over to Macy’s and repeat the last day, but when she replayed the thought in her head, she remembered how focused Macy was on her work and the better thing to do was to give her that space. That’s what friends would do. The real question was what would a lover do?