Part 3

The cops went into ape-shit mode, as Harkins expected, as soon as the big guy went down. For a moment he feared that the woman cop—probably the same one who’d tried to arrest him at Rosa’s last time, and at the Silver Fox—would take a shot at him, but she went just as ape-shit as the others. Dawes had frozen in Hartford, and she’d frozen in the house the first time they’d met. He filed those facts away for future reference. For now, he had to move.

He hid in the overgrown bushes that lined the edge of the property, an evergreen variety that provided lots of cover. They’d grown up against the siding of the house, forming a waist-high tunnel under the thick canopy, camouflaging him in the dark thicket. He crab-crawled toward the back yard, but stopped when footsteps and rustling noises emerged ahead. The two cops guarding the rear, he guessed, were heading his way.

He squeezed through a gap among the trunks of the shrubs, counting on the cops’ racket to cover the noise he made. After scooting the ten feet of open space to the neighbor’s house, Harkins ran to the far corner where a network of plank and chain-link fences joined behind a leafless, sad-looking maple tree. He used the tree’s branches to help him scale the fence, the way he’d seen Antoinetta and her friends do it, and slid down the other side to the spongy turf.

Harkins stayed low and followed the cedar plank fence away from the chaotic scene at Rosa’s house. A couple of kids ran by, chattering in Spanish, too excited to notice him. Still, he crouched in the shadows until he could no longer hear them, exhaling steamy breaths into his jacket. He listened for the footsteps of adults large enough to wear blue uniforms, or who would report a suspicious-looking gringo to the cops. But none came.

He scanned the yard, looking for a path to escape—anything except the brightly lit street. Just his luck, this neighbor kept their front yard’s flora tidy. But one of their kids had left a full-sized bicycle laying on the ground, unlocked.

Five minutes later, chilled by his own sweat in the frigid air, he abandoned the bike at a nearby park. He boarded a city bus and crouched in the back row, behind a group of rowdy black teenagers with multiple gold earrings. One of them made eye contact with him, and he glared at the kid until he looked away. Still. Not good. His heart rate jumped up, and he started to sweat again.

Harkins got off the bus two stops later and pulled his jacket close, his upturned lapels warming and hiding his face, and walked, head bowed, until he spotted Raven’s Jeep outside her sister’s place. He had it hot-wired in under a minute. He had everything he needed to get away...except somewhere to go.

Val dragged Gil to safety behind the parked cruiser and stayed with him, applying pressure to his wound with a bandage she improvised from a section of Gil’s shirt. She checked his heartbeat and breathing several times—still there. Meanwhile, Shaughnessy and Jameson set the perimeter as the SWAT team arrived. An ambulance pulled in a few minutes later, or a few hours, she couldn’t tell. The medics took years to secure him to the gurney, then hoist him in the ambulance, and then, in an instant, the vehicle peeled away, siren blaring.

“Go with him,” Jameson said. “We’ve got this, and you’ll be useless to us until you know he’s all right. Go on, get out of here.”

Val stumbled away, upright, but only got a few steps before Shaughnessy pulled her to the ground. “You got a death wish?” he said to her. “Stay low until you get clear of the site. Where’s your vehicle?”

She stared at him, not recognizing him for a moment, or the words he spoke. When it sank in, she sat on the ground, numb, tears etching a salty path down her face. She had to do something—what was it? Right. Find their cruiser. Head to the hospital. “Where’d they take him?” she mumbled.

“Mercy General, I think. They’re the closest ER.” Shaughnessy squinted at her. “Are you okay to drive?”

Val nodded, aware that he knew she was lying. What could he do? He had to stay at the scene.

She rolled to her hands and knees and shuffled over to a thick patch of hedges that shielded her from sight, then got to her feet. She walked at a slow pace at first, directionless. At the end of the block she realized she was closer to home, and her own Honda Civic, than to the cruiser. She broke into a run, then stopped, realizing that she still had her gun drawn, safety off. When had she pulled it out again? She wiped blood off of it, onto her already-bloody uniform, and re-holstered it. She took in a deep breath, exhaled. Focus. What’s next? Oh, right. The car.

Val sprinted past houses and intersections and stop lights, all a hazy blur to her. She reached her Honda in five minutes, Mercy Hospital in another ten. She parked in a patients-only spot and raced to the emergency room’s double glass doors. They opened automatically, but not fast enough. She pushed them open faster with a grunt and lurched into the room.

The receptionist glanced up from her computer screen and gasped. “Officer, are you hurt?” he asked.

“What? Me? No.” Val examined her condition. She looked like a gunshot victim herself, other than the fact that she could, obviously, run. “An officer was just brought here by ambulance. Gil Kryzinski. Where is he?”

“He’s being prepped for surgery.” The receptionist pointed to a set of swinging doors. Val pushed through them and followed the signs to the surgical ward. Another receptionist waved her over and informed her that Gil had just gone under anesthesia. “Are you in any pain?” she asked Val, her eyes wide.

Blake and Gibson showed up fifteen minutes later, along with a couple of bureaucrats who took care of the paperwork related to Gil’s admission and treatment. “Any word?” Gibson asked.

“Still under the knife,” Val said. Her voice broke, and she failed in her attempt to rise out of the chair.

The men sat on either side of her, and Gibson rested a hand on her arm. She resisted the urge to pull away. He cleared his throat to get her to look at him. “What the hell happened out there?” he asked.

“Harkins opened fire and pinned us before the SWAT team got there,” she said in a dull voice. “I came up with the dumb idea to change position and get a better angle on Harkins. Gil tried to stop me, and...” A sharp pain knifed through her chest. Breathing became difficult. Words, impossible.

Val fought tears, holding her sides. Gil had taken a bullet. Her bullet. And now he might die. “Did they get him?” she asked in a weak voice. “Harkins, I mean.”

“What? You mean he got away?” Val’s anger flashed, then sank under the weight of the sadness that swept over her. “What will it take to get this guy?”

“We hoped you could give us an idea of where he might have gone, or who to talk to,” Blake said. “Seeing as how you’ve made him a project of sorts.”

Val leaned back, still forcing the tears not to leave her eyes. She wished she had an answer for them—for Gil. But if he was in Clayton, and no longer at Antoinetta’s, she had no idea. That saddened her, and she gave only a muted choke in response.

“Let’s give her a minute,” Gibson said. “Dawes, maybe you should go clean up?” He squinted, concern on his face. “You might want to get looked at—”

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice sharper than intended. She wiped her eyes with her hands. “I’ll wait here, in case there’s news.”

“Let’s get her a fresh shirt, at least,” Gibson said to Blake. “Dawes, you need to have a doctor look at you. I can see bits of glass in the cuts in your face. I insist.”

Val touched her face and winced in pain as her fingers pressed tiny shards of shattered windshield into her skin. Between that and the blood on her blouse, she must look a fright. “Okay,” she said. “But if there’s any news—”

“We won’t let them tell us until you get back,” Gibson said with a hint of a smile. “Now, go.”

A young female intern cleaned her cuts and picked out the glass bits in a cramped, antiseptic treatment room. Someone knocked on the door, and moments later Brenda Petroni entered with a clean blouse, sweater, and a pair of jeans.

“Are you okay?” Brenda asked her. Val stared at her in a fog. “Yeah, uh...what time is it?”

Petroni’s face curled into a puzzled frown. “What time...? Val, did you get hit in the head? You’re behaving oddly.”

Back in the waiting room, they exchanged office gossip until the receptionist directed a tall, ginger-haired woman in her thirties over to them. She wore fashionable black slacks, a crisp white blouse, and impeccable make-up. Definitely not an on-duty doctor or nurse.

The woman extended a well-manicured hand. “I’m Jessica Swan. Gil Kryzinski’s fiancée.”

If Val had not still been seated between Petroni and Blake, she would have fallen to the floor. The others stood to express their concern to the woman, but the room swirled around Val, rendering her immobile. From her seat, she gazed up at the newcomer, an archetype of femininity, with her flawless skin, long red hair, huge green eyes, and a slender but proportional figure. Despite her emotional state, Val detected confidence, intelligence, and alertness that would carry her in a crisis like this. No wonder Gil loved her.

Val steadied herself on the arms of her chair and pushed herself to her feet. She extended a handshake, her fingers trembling. “I’m Val Dawes.”

“You’re Gil’s partner.” A statement, not a question. Jessica Swan’s voice grew icy, her eyes distant. “I’ve heard about you.” She turned away from Val to face Gibson. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather hear the official version of the incident.”

Swan whirled to face her. “Not sorry enough to keep him from possibly getting killed!” Her lip trembled, and she glared at Val another moment before turning back to face Gibson. Her voice calmed again. “Now, Lieutenant, what information can you share with me?”

“Excuse us, please.” Gibson furrowed his brow and shook his head at Val. He pulled Swan aside and spoke to her in a low voice.

“Since when does Kryz have a fiancée?” Brenda asked Val and Blake. “And where does he hide her? She looks like a runway model!”

Blake shrugged and waited for Val. “News to me,” she said. “He told me he wasn’t seeing anybody. Not since he left New Haven.”

Jessica strode over to within a few feet of Val and crossed her arms. Her voice shook. “Yes, I’m the one Gil left behind in New Haven. We’ve resumed our relationship in recent weeks, long-distance.” She cast Val a withering glance. “We were supposed to get together this week, but he had to work on his day off.”

“Gil and I are just friends,” Val mumbled, her heart racing. “You have nothing to worry about from me.” She wanted to believe that. But the words sounded hollow to her.

Swan addressed Gibson again. “If you check your HR records, you’ll see I am still Gil’s emergency contact and am authorized to make medical decisions on his behalf. I understand that you approved surgery for him?”

“I appreciate that,” she said, calmer. “But I’ll take it from here, thank you.” She strode away from them and spoke again to the receptionist.

Gibson heaved a sigh and they sat down in uncomfortable silence. Brenda patted Val’s arm, sitting next to her. For once, she didn’t feel revulsion at the intimate human contact. She rested her hand on Brenda’s and lost herself in fearful musings about Gil’s wounds and surgery while Blake sauntered off to get everyone coffee.

Two hours later, a gray-haired woman in clean scrubs approached them. “Ms. Swan?” she said to Val. “I’m Dr. Vargas, Officer Kryzinski’s surgeon.”

“Gil’s resting and in stable condition,” Vargas said. “The bullet damaged some muscle tissue and tore the wall of his large intestine. It also grazed his pelvis, enough to scatter fragments of bone into his abdomen, causing significant internal bleeding and contusions on the outer walls of his small intestines. We saw no damage to other organs, but we’ll monitor him for several days to make sure.”

“What’s the prognosis, then?” Blake asked. “I mean, is he...will he...?”

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” Vargas said, her tone grave. “He lost a fair amount of blood, and suffered shock, both from the trauma of the wound, and from surgery. But he’s showing great signs. I like our chances.”

Our chances. Val bit her lip, hard. When doctors talked about “chances,” that meant they didn’t know for sure. She discovered Brenda Petroni’s arm supporting her around the waist, and she sagged into her. The rest of the group remained quiet, absorbing the news. Jessica Swan stood alone, her eyes shut, her body shaking.

“When he recovers, and I say when,” Blake said with false bravado, “what’s he looking at? Will he walk again?”

Vargas nodded. “Yes, but it takes time,” Vargas said. “The intestinal damage, and the risk of infection, is our most immediate concern. The damage to the pelvis, though, will take much longer to heal. Pelvic bone is very thick and provides core support to the entire body. He’ll need to be immobile for a few weeks. After that, he’ll be in considerable pain and won’t be able to walk under his own power for several weeks.”

“Will he require further surgery?” Jessica asked, her eyes still pressed shut.

“Not immediately,” Vargas said, “and it depends on how his pelvic bone heals.” She turned to Gibson. “I’m afraid you’ll be without his services for the foreseeable future. Months, perhaps longer.”

“Or forever, if I have anything to say about it.” Jessica opened her eyes again and pushed long red hair out of her tearful eyes. “And I expect that I will.”

On Monday morning, Dr. Chris Cyrus waved Dawes inside his office with a forced smile. “How was your Thanksgiving?” he asked.

“Fine.” She brushed past him and took a seat on the edge of the sofa. A handful of half-healed scrapes on her face presented the only outward evidence of the trauma she’d experienced in recent days. Dressed in jeans and a blouse, her short, light-brown hair pulled back in a headband, she looked less like a cop who’d just seen her partner shot and more like a college kid focused on passing final exams.

Cyrus pushed his black-rimmed glasses onto the bridge of his nose, waiting for more. None came. He sighed. Something about this woman disturbed him. Not her cockiness, a trait she shared with her male counterparts—in lesser amounts, if he told himself the objective truth—nor, even, her reticence to share her innermost thoughts and feelings. That, too, her male counterparts shared, many exhibiting even greater reluctance than Dawes. Nor even her open resentment at having to go through psychological evaluation again, for the second time in less than two months—another trait the men shared.

No, something else bubbled inside this one. Something made Valorie Dawes extra angry, more mistrustful of the world, even more than male cops twice her age who’d earned their cynicism. Something that, someday, might manifest itself in a way they would all regret.

But for now, Cyrus had no actual evidence of her being disturbed. For now, it was just a feeling. And feelings didn’t justify negative evaluations.

“My condolences to you and your partner for this tragic turn of events,” Cyrus said, stalling. Maybe a little empathy would open her up.

“He’s not dead, for God’s sake,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But I’ll pass on your good wishes when I see him.”

“He’s been under heavy sedation, in intensive care. I’ll see him as soon as he’s able to receive visitors.” She made a face, as if remembering something distasteful.

He thought about asking why, then figured it was obvious. “And how are you feeling?” he said. “Your cuts are healing?”

She scoffed and shook her head, staring at the floor. “Yeah, it took two or three band-aids and a whole squirt of Bactine to put me back on my feet.” Dawes fell silent a moment, then met his gaze. “I guess I’ll live, too.”

Cyrus nodded and made a note of her surliness—again—on his notepad and smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay, physically. I hope your mental and emotional state are equally strong. When officers witness their partners getting shot, even non-fatally, it can be a traumatic experience.”

“You can say that again.” She exhaled, hands folded across her knees. “So, what do you need to know?”

He coughed into his palm, surprised by her directness. She’d been so evasive on prior visits. “Are you sleeping well?” he asked.

Dawes shrugged. “Hard to say. It’s only been two nights. I stayed up all Friday night waiting for him to recover, then took a few naps on Saturday. Worked out at the gym yesterday, trying to wear myself out.”

The doctor pursed his lips, evaluating her response. “You didn’t answer my question.”

She blew out a burst of air, as if exasperated. “Six hours a night, maybe five. I’ll sleep better once Gil comes out of the ICU. Sound normal?” Her voice rose, then tightened, under her conscious control.

Cyrus shifted in his seat. This woman clearly wanted to strangle him. Yet, he had a job to do. She wasn’t making it any easier. Perhaps she’d appreciate an approach as direct as her own.

“He took my bullet.” Her voice remained calm, matter-of-fact. “Of course I’m responsible.”

Cyrus leaned back in his seat, weighing her words. “I wasn’t aware of that detail,” he said. “Did he say why he did that?”

Dawes rolled her eyes. “No, he was too busy bleeding and passing out,” she said. “But I’ll ask him when he wakes up, for your files. Jesus!” She stood and paced across the room, her back to him.

He let her blow off some steam, wandering about, scanning the various diplomas, certifications, and commendations framed against the dark walls of his office, taking her time. After a few moments, though, Cyrus grew self-conscious. He’d earned his degrees from smaller, less-famous schools, and earned his few commendations over a decade ago. He imagined her judging him, not favorably. “Miss Dawes?” he said when his nerves could take no more.

She returned to the sofa, her face calm. “Did you have anything else to ask me?”

“How do you feel about the man who shot your partner?” Cyrus asked. “I understand you’ve been in pursuit of him for some time now.”

Dawes barked out a sharp laugh and gazed at the ceiling. “Richard Harkins is human garbage who has abused countless women and children, shot two police officers, and God knows what else. We need to stop him before we have to bury his next victim. Which I would like to help with, in every fiber of my body. But where am I going to be while you ‘evaluate’ me? Tied to a telephone in a precinct office, listening to angry neighbors complain about stray cats and errors in their tax bills. Does that make sense to you, Doctor Cyrus?”

The force of her words pressed him back into his chair, his shoulders hunched around his neck. He cleared his throat, forcing calm into his voice. “It makes sense that we ensure our peace officers are not acting out of anger or revenge when they apprehend a suspect,” he said. “Surely you agree that taking a moment to determine your emotional state—”

“Look,” she said, leaning forward on the sofa, her voice tense but even. “I get it, okay? You don’t want me shooting first, asking questions later. So listen, Doc. Since I started this job three months ago, I’ve pulled my weapon out three times, and fired once—in self-defense. Each time, I filed a mountain of useless, unread paperwork, which alone ought to be enough to discourage anyone from even thinking about unsnapping their holster. I’m not running amok out there, okay? I’m exercising restraint, and I will continue to do so. It’s how I was raised, it’s how I was trained, and it’s how I’ve conducted myself on the job.

“As for my emotional state, I want to kick the shit out of that son of a bitch,” Dawes went on. “But I won’t. When I do find him, I will drag him by his long, greasy hair straight into a jail cell, and testify at his trial to make sure the judge and jury throw away the key. Write that down, submit your report, and let me get back to doing just that. Please!”

Cyrus exhaled, realizing he’d held his breath during her entire speech, and licked his lips. Part of him agreed with her about the futility of the department’s policy of requiring psych evals following partner shootings. Officer Samuels’ partner, Lopez, said almost the same thing a few weeks back, although he hadn’t spoken with the same level of passion. He’d sent him back out without a second thought.

Maybe that’s what Cyrus had sensed earlier. Her passion. That wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d seen cops go bad out of cynicism and frustration with, as they put it, how the department and city council tied their hands with red tape. None went awry out of passion for protecting the citizenry, in his experience.

He stood and ambled toward the door, signaling for her to follow. When she met him at the door, he smiled at her. “I should have my report filed in a day or two,” he said. “In the meantime, I recommend you take time off, visit your partner in the hospital, and try to relax. I can prescribe sleep medication—”

He paused, reading her eyes. He saw eagerness, and—what? Just the passion, or was it something more? He couldn’t tell. Meanwhile, she waited, unmoving.

“I’ll recommend that you return to patrol duty,” he said in a rush of air and words.

“Thanks, Doctor.” She gave his hand a perfunctory shake and strode out the door.

He watched her go, and second thoughts about his decision crept into the back of his mind before she left his sight.

Val took the bus from Cyrus’s office to Mercy General and learned that the doctors had moved Gil from intensive care to a private room. Shedding her jacket, she roamed the hospital until she located his room, where two uniformed officers stood at attention outside his door. The larger of the two she recognized. “Are we expecting an attack on Gil’s strategic location, Pops?” she asked him with a wry smile.

Pops scowled at her and exchanged glances with the other uniform, a quiet guy named Rico Lopez, whom she recognized as Samuels’s former partner. “Standard procedure after an officer shooting,” Papadopoulos said. He blocked her attempt to open the door. “He’s got company already.”

“So?” She took a step back, as much to escape the smell of garlic emanating from his every pore as to acknowledge his guardianship. “How small a room is it?”

Pops shook his head. “One visitor at a time. The fiancée’s in there right now. Good-looking gal with red hair. Have you two met?”

Pops shrugged. “I’ll let her know you want to visit. Better wait over there for now. It’ll give you time to react if she goes ballistic.” He laughed and slapped his partner’s arm. Lopez rolled his eyes but said nothing.

Pops hitched up his belt and waited, his eyes resting on Val. About chest level, to be exact. The one time she wore a form-fitting top, too. She moseyed over to the waiting room and remained standing while Pops entered Gil’s room. He exited moments later, a satisfied smile on his face, and he made his way over to her.

“She says she’ll be just a few minutes, then he’s all yours,” Pops said.

“In and out,” Pops said. “He’s pretty doped up, but he seemed happy to hear you wanted to see him.”

Val sat on one of the metal-framed chairs and stared at the muted TV, trying to get comfortable, without success. She brought out her phone and caught up on email, which took only a few seconds, and struggled to remember her Facebook password, eventually giving up.

Minutes ticked by. Nobody emerged from Gil’s room. Damn Jessica! She was playing with her, hoping Val might give up or create a scene. The latter option tempted her, but that wouldn’t help Gil any. She drew deep breaths and continued waiting.

A half hour later, the door opened, and the tall, ginger-haired beauty swished past the two officers. Val stood and half-ran to Gil’s door.

Jessica stopped and held up an open palm. “Could you wait before going in, please?” she said. “I need to speak with you, but I need a moment to collect myself.”

“I just want to say hi,” Val said. “I have to leave soon. My shift starts at five.”

“I’ll just be a moment. Please.” Jessica disappeared into the ladies’ room. Val sighed and returned to her seat.

Jessica, true to her word, emerged a few minutes later and ambled over to Val, taking the seat next to her. She seemed lost in thought at first, and Val opted to wait her out. After a moment, Jessica cleared her throat. Val braced herself for the verbal onslaught.

“I want to apologize,” Jessica said, “for being a perfect bitch to you the other day. I was upset and worried, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I realize you were also worried and upset about Gil’s condition, and I only made an emotional situation even more difficult.”

Val, stunned, searched for words. “Thank you,” she said. Relief flowed through her. She’d braced for a fight and hadn’t even realized how tense her body had become. “I understand. It’s a terrible situation.”

“I...how can I say this?” Jessica looked away, her hands bundled together in her lap. “I blamed you,” she continued in a soft voice. “For Gil being shot. The other night, I mean. I don’t feel that way now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she clenched her eyes shut.

“I blame myself, too,” Val said. “Finding this guy Harkins has become a fixation for me, and Gil has kind of...adopted the cause, so to speak. When I suggested we get more aggressive, Gil preempted what I was going to do, and... and...that’s when he got shot.”

Jessica opened her eyes and wiped tears from her cheeks, smearing mascara onto her face. “He has a bit of a hero complex,” he said. “That’s one reason we broke things off years ago. I couldn’t bear the worry anymore, of wondering whether he’d be coming home each night, or if I’d end up in a place like this...or worse.” The tears flowed again, this time in torrents, accompanied by loud, mournful sobs.

Val watched her a moment, unsure of what to do. The poor woman was a wreck, in need of a comforting hand. But providing comfort had never been one of Val’s strong suits, and memories lingered of how Jessica had treated her two nights before, despite the apology. She hesitated, hoping the crying would stop on its own, somehow.

It didn’t. Jessica cried harder, wrapping her arms around herself in a self-hug, rocking from side to side.

Val’s throat constricted. Her hand hovered near Jessica’s shoulder, shaking. Almost close enough to touch her. Almost.

She recalled her own pique of sadness, two days before, and how comforting Brenda had been, just sitting with her and holding her hands. How grateful she felt. Why couldn’t she do the same for this woman, who was so important to Gil?

Jessica’s body rocked harder, and her shoulder brushed against Val’s hand. To her own amazement, Val didn’t pull it away. Instead, she extended both arms and wrapped them around the sobbing woman’s shoulders, drawing her in, holding her, rocking with her to Jessica’s own internal rhythm. At some point, Jessica returned the hug and rested her forehead on Val’s shoulder.

Minutes passed, maybe hours. Days. Val’s body ached from holding the woman in the awkward position. It ached more from the inside, though, as Jessica’s grief crept into Val’s own heart. Grief for Gil that she shared, fear for what might happen to him now, and compassion for what this poor woman must have felt upon hearing the news. Her own body shook almost as much as Jessica’s.

How odd, that she only allowed herself to feel this in the arms of a stranger, and only through another woman’s grief. How cold she’d become!

After several minutes, Jessica’s sobbing slowed, then stopped, as did her rocking. She pulled back and wiped her eyes, then looked at Val and smiled. She reached out to touch Val’s face and wiped wetness off of Val’s cheeks. How her cheeks had gotten wet, Val had no idea. Must have been Jessica’s tears, dripping onto her, somehow, from below.

“Thank you,” Jessica said. “Thank you so much.” She handed Val a tissue from her purse and used another to wipe her own face. “I must look a wreck.” She emitted a short, sad laugh. “How do you keep your mascara from running?”

Val dried her cheeks with the tissue. “I don’t wear any,” she said in a small voice. How stupid that sounded. How unfeminine, especially compared to this beautiful creature.

“Your eyes are that pretty naturally?” Jessica said with a sad smile. “I’m jealous.”

Val’s head spun. This gorgeous woman, with perfect—oh, everything—was jealous of her? Words would not come.

“Well,” Jessica said, “you’d better get in there while he’s still awake.” She gave Val a quick, firm hug and sat in the hard metal chair nearby.

Val trudged over to Gil’s room. Pops looked down his long nose at her, clucked, and pushed open the door.

Gil lay flat in the bed, a myriad of tubes and wires running from his body to a slew of machines beeping nearby. His skin, what little she could see through the blankets and bandages, had paled, almost as white as the sheets. She drew to the bedside and rested a hand on his arm. He opened his eyes.

“Dawes,” he croaked, and the hint of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Thanks for coming.”

Gil half-laughed, half-coughed. “One of your worst ones,” he said through heavy breaths. “Shit, this hurts.” He shifted in the bed, maybe a millimeter, and winced in pain. He turned his head toward her. “Harkins got away, huh?”

Val‘s eyes misted over, and the lump in her throat doubled in size. “We’ll get him. Don’t worry.”

He nodded. “I know. You will.” He smiled and coughed, wincing again. “Fuck. That. Hurts.”

She blinked. Gil was always so stoic. For him to admit it out loud, his pain must have been extreme.

“I mean it, Gil,” she said. Heat rose in her voice. “I’ll make it my mission. And when I catch him, he will be sorry he was ever born.” Her own vehemence surprised her.

He closed his eyes tight, grunting. He spoke with great effort, a heavy breath punctuating each word. “Don’t. Become. A. Four.”

Val squeezed his arm. It felt...okay. Which, itself, felt weird—to touch a man without fear or revulsion. She set that thought aside and remembered what Gil had said about Avengers. They’d do anything to get their man, including break rules, get violent, and take shortcuts. They get tunnel vision, he’d said: all that mattered was getting their perp.

“I think I’m still a Two.” Her voice squeaked, and she realized that even she didn’t believe what she’d just said. She wasn’t a Savior anymore. Not with how she was feeling. Nor was she a Survivor, like Pops. “Maybe I’m becoming a One?”

Gil gazed at her a moment, then shut his eyes. “Don’t be. Soldiers...end up...like me.” He grunted louder with each word. “Shit.” He pressed a button on the side of his bed, and the machine beeped.

He shook his head. “Pain meds button,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” His head lolled back and his breathing grew heavy.

Dammit! She’d made his pain worse. Her chest tightened and the lump returned to her throat. “I should go.” She waited for Gil to respond. He didn’t. She patted his arm. Still nothing.

She sighed. So much she wanted to say to him. To ask him. Not least, whether the red-haired beauty crying outside was really his fiancée, and if he’d really given her decision-making control, and—

Something started beeping, and a gray-haired nurse in light blue scrubs entered moments later. “What’s up with our hero?” she said. “Oh, boy. Heart rate’s up, as is his temperature. His pain must be spiking.” The nurse fiddled with a dial and wrote on his chart while Val backed away. “I just increased his morphine flow. He’ll be out of it again for a while,” the nurse said. “Visiting time’s over for our boy here, I’m afraid.” She fussed with Gil’s blankets, then glanced at the displays of his machines.

Val exited to the hallway, ignoring the curious stares from Pops and Lopez. Jessica was nowhere in sight. Val trod toward the hospital exit, Gil’s words still rumbling around inside of her head.

An Avenger. Gil had said these were the worst kind of cops. And that she was becoming one.

What’s more, she really couldn’t argue with him. Val wanted Harkins so bad she could taste it, especially after seeing Gil.

She thought of Gil, and Samuels, and Antoinetta. No, she insisted to herself. Gil was right the first time. It’s for them. She was still about the victims.

Val took only one day off, and spent the night covering her ears to muffle the sounds of Beth and Josh in seemingly endless passionate bliss through their apartment’s thin walls. She returned to work the next evening, harboring thin hopes of Cyrus submitting his report early or Gibson changing his mind about assigning her to desk work. But the posted duty roster dashed her inflated expectations the moment she arrived. The next two nights she answered phone calls from irate citizens and followed up on cold leads for hours on end. Her boredom and depression hit new depths. She felt certain she’d gained a pound per hour from eating crap and missing out on the exercise she’d enjoyed walking the beat.

Late in the second evening of such drudgery, the phone rang just as Lieutenant Gibson’s imposing figure cast a shadow over her. His booming voice shook her out of her lethargy. “Dawes. My office.”

She looked up from her desk, receiver pressed against one ear, scribbling on a notepad to keep up with a litany of complaints being lodged by an angry citizen against his neighbors. “Yes, they should keep their dog inside if it’s going to bark,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I have your number, and we will follow up and call you back.” Still the man ranted on about his neighbor’s barking dog, their rude children, their overturned garbage cans, and their inattention to the upkeep of their house and yard. She lodged the phone between her ear and shoulder and held out one finger toward Gibson’s amused face.

“Absolutely. I’m not sure when, sir. That depends...No, we won’t forget...We rarely arrest people for overturned trash cans, but it’s reasonable to expect—yes, sir, I will personally—of course. Dawes. D, A—yes, sir, that’s me. What’s that? Oh, thank you, sir, I appreciate that...Yes, it’s difficult sometimes. We don’t like to use deadly force, if we can avoid it...”

Gibson motioned to his office, mimed hanging up the phone, and turned away. Val stood and held out her hand, imploring Gibson to stay. “Sorry, Mr. Parks, but urgent police business requires that I—What’s that?...No, I hope not sir. Thank you, Mr. Parks. Yes, you’re welcome. Goodbye.” She hung up the phone with a loud sigh. “Lieutenant?” she called after him, but he’d disappeared into his office. She hustled to his open door and peered in, finding him already engrossed in work at his desk. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Having fun on the phones?” Gibson said with a smirk and pointed to a chair.

“Loads.” She slouched into a seat. “If it were up to Mr. Parks, I’d be filing use-of-weapon reports daily, just to combat the litter epidemic.”

“You’re a natural,” Gibson said, enjoying himself a little too much. “Maybe I ought to transfer you to Dispatch.”

“I’ll quit!” Val blurted without thinking, then blushed. “I mean, whatever you think is best, sir.”

“The report says you’re not completely crazy.” Gibson grinned, glancing at a document on his desk. “Just crazy enough to do police work.”

“Normally, in cases like this,” he said, “I’d insist you go through more psych tests, the whole nine yards. But I’m short too many men—er, officers—so I can’t afford it. So, I’m putting you back on patrol. Same beat, new partner.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t imagine a worse fit than the creepy, condescending Pops—except answering phones. “Isn’t he on guard duty at the moment?” she asked.

“He’ll rotate off tomorrow. Pops is too experienced, and expensive, to play kindergarten cop at the hospital. Besides, you need to see a different style than Gil’s. Pops is a little more low-key, but you two will work well together.”

“Sure.” She could think of only one trait they shared: the color of their uniforms.

Gibson nodded. “Yup. You have a lot to learn from each other.” He held her gaze for a moment. “I mean that, too, Dawes. Each other. Naturally I expect you to take notes on what a more experienced officer can teach you. But he hasn’t exactly kept up with the times, as you say. So, I want you to teach him a few things, too.”

“I mean it, Dawes. Get him off his ass. He needs to get with the program—walk a beat, not drive it, and get familiar with people out on the street. The whole community policing package. There’s nobody better to teach him that than you.”

Val left Gibson’s office with a skip in her step. Back on patrol! And with a vote of confidence from the boss—a request to shake Pops out of his old school ways. It’d be a challenge, but one she embraced. Anything to push the good-old-boy mentality out the door and into the dustbin worked for her.

And now she could get back to the job she relished: getting crazy, violent trash like Harkins off the streets. For good, she hoped.

Val arrived at the hospital the next day as Brenda Petroni and Shannon O’Reilly exited through its double glass doors.

“He’s all drugged up again,” Brenda said. “They needed to run some sort of test that would put him in a lot of pain.”

“Doc says he’ll be out until tomorrow morning,” Shannon added. “I must be bad luck. I have yet to get here when he’s conscious.”

“Stay the hell away, then,” Val said, then covered her mouth. Shannon’s shocked, sad expression told her that her joke landed on a sore spot. “I’m sorry,” Val said. “That was in poor taste.”

“Make it up to me with a spiced latte,” Shannon said. “I’ve wanted to catch up with you anyway.”

The three women met at Friendly’s and sat in a back corner booth, sipping sweet, hot coffees while Christmas music chimed over scratchy loudspeakers. The smell of French fries permeated everything, from the duct-taped vinyl bench seats to the sticky plastic covering the faded menus crammed behind 50s-style metal napkin holders. A framed poster on the wall boasted of an “upcoming” concert at Tanglewood—from 1993.

“Word is you’re getting a new partner,” Shannon said after taking a long hit on her drink. “Lucky you.”

“How do you feel about it?” Brenda asked. “I understand you and Pops have butted heads a few times already.”

Brenda and Shannon laughed. “Good thing you’re not trying to sell me a car,” Brenda said. “But I can’t say I blame you.” She exchanged wary glances with Shannon, who pretended to read the Christmas message on the side of her drink’s paper cup.

“I’ve never had a good poker face,” Val said. “So, help me out here. What’s the best thing about working with Alex?”

“Going home after your shift is over,” Shannon muttered. Brenda snort-laughed with a mouthful of coffee and made a mess of the table.

Shannon grimaced and checked with Brenda before answering. She sighed when Petroni nodded and waved as if to say, “After you.”

“We were partners for a year,” Shannon said. “If you leave aside how many times he propositioned me, put his hand on my leg in the car, told jokes, and took credit for my collars, it was an outstanding educational experience.”

“And how much the department will back up a sexist jerk when it’s his word against hers,” Shannon said, heat rising in her voice. “The first time he touched my leg, I let it slide, like an idiot. The second time, I complained. You know what they said? ‘If you’re so upset, why didn’t you complain the first time?’ And they said—get this—‘Next time, grab his balls. That’ll stop him.’ As if I’d want to touch that sleazy pig, for any reason!”

Val shivered, and not from the cold. She’d been nervous around Gil, who’d acted like a perfect gentleman. Now they’d confirmed her worst fears about Pops.

They sipped their coffees in silence for a few minutes. Then Brenda smiled and patted Val’s hand. “In a way, it’ll be good for you. A new partner will expose you to a different style of policing, different approaches and attitudes. Not everyone’s a prince like Gil Kryzinski.”

Brenda squeezed Val’s arm. “Be careful,” she said. “Pops also has a reputation as a bad-mouther.”

Shannon blew air between her lips. “To say the least. I got my worst evals ever when I worked with him. Remember, anything that goes wrong is your fault.”

“Jeez,” Val said. “Does he have a good side? I mean, he’s not going to side with the crooks and child molesters, is he?” She imagined him making excuses for Harkins, not wanting to keep up an aggressive pursuit, and shuddered.

“No, no,” Shannon said. “He’s square, as far as that goes. Never went on the take, anything like that. Although I wondered at times if—no, forget it.” Her eyes drooped and focused on something miles away to Val’s left. Brenda looked away as well.

“What?” Val said. “You guys know something? What did you wonder about? Come on, tell me!”

“Tell me what I’m getting into, here,” Val said, lowering her voice. “Please.”

Brenda and Shannon exchanged glances. Shannon cleared her throat. “A few times, Pops arrested some street kids, and I thought, What’s he up to here? The kids weren’t doing anything wrong. But sure enough, he searches them, and turns up some contraband or a weapon in the kid’s pocket. You know what I mean?”

“That’s what the kids always said,” Shannon said, hiding behind her coffee cup. “But that’s what perps do, right?”

“Pops wouldn’t be the first cop to do it, nor the last,” Brenda said with a shrug.

Val sat back in her chair, stunned. Of course she knew that bad cops existed. She had a harder time understanding how casually Brenda and Shannon accepted it. Business as usual.

“Again, we have no proof,” Shannon said. “Be on the lookout for it, though.”

“But we were talking about Alex’s good side,” Brenda said. “I will say this: he’s not likely to put you—or himself—in harm’s way. You’ll always have plenty of backup around before you rush onto any crime scene.”

“That sounds more like a criticism of Gil than praise for Pops,” Val said, her eyes stinging. How could Brenda be so indelicate?

“Sorry,” Brenda said. “I don’t mean it that way. All I’m saying is, you might need to get used to a more cautious approach with Pops than you had with Gil.”

Val nodded. She understood Brenda’s point too well. If she wanted to pursue Richard Harkins, she couldn’t expect much help from Alex Papadopoulos.

Val squirmed in the passenger seat, putting as much distance as possible between herself and her new partner, Alex “Pops” Papadopoulos, driving the squad car down Broadway Avenue. His long but rotund frame took up half of the bench seat of their new Crown Victoria, which, he’d reminded her, she had dented on her second day on the job. He hadn’t yet brought up the incident at the firing range. But he’d have a hard time spinning that story in a way favorable to him.

“So, Alex, tell me about yourself,” she said, trying not to breathe in through her nose. Anything to minimize the aroma of garlic and stinky cheese that seemed to comprise half of his diet—the half not consisting of coffee and rich pastries. That reinforced her urge to sit as far away from him on the seat as she could, still mindful of Shannon’s warnings about his wandering hands.

“Not much to tell.” Val hadn’t noticed this before, but when he wasn’t insulting somebody, Pops plodded through words so that even a short sentence droned on. “Been on the force half my life, since the day after my twenty-fourth birthday. Most of it downtown and South End. Grew up in Granby. Married nineteen years, and Betty and I are still as much in love as the day we tied the knot. I guess that’s sort of special, huh?”

“Two,” Pops said, scratching his teeth while waiting at a red light. “Alex Junior is twelve, Hannah is fifteen, almost sixteen. Already dating boys. Can you believe that? I never dated until I was a senior in high school. Even that was a blind date, to my senior prom. But things sure are different these days.”

“That‘s for sure.” Val gazed out the passenger side window. “Does your wife have a job?”

“Full-time homemaker. And she does a great job. A super job. Betty sacrificed a lot to stay at home and raise the kids. Heck, we both did, living on just my salary. But neither of us would trade it for anything.” He stared ahead into the night and scratched a fingernail on his front teeth again. After a bit he shrugged. “Otherwise,” he said, “pretty much what you see is what you get.”

Which wasn’t much. Brenda Petroni had used generous terms to describe him: “deliberate” in nature, and “somewhat out of shape.” She’d use the term “roly-poly.” Pops wore a thin crown of short black hair around the bald top of his head and kept black horn-rimmed reading glasses stuffed in the front pocket of his uniform. Val suspected he might benefit from bifocals, judging by the way he squinted to read passing street signs.

“Sounds like the all-American life you’ve got there.” Val put on a rueful smile. “Pretty different from mine.”

“You can say that again.” He sniggered and slowed to a stop at a yellow light.

“Alex? Would you care to explain that remark?” Val kept her breathing steady, through her mouth to avoid the onslaught of his recent gastronomic exploits.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just agreeing with you, sport. Oh and call me Pops. Everybody does.”

She waited for the return interrogation, got none. He drove well under the speed limit, deep in thought, and stopped at all yellow lights. She wondered if his teeth-scratching habit was a nervous tic or an economy measure to save on dentist bills. He slowed down whenever they passed young men on the street, particularly dark-skinned men, something she’d never notice Gil do. After he’d done it a few times, she asked him about it.

“It seems like you do. Just wondered if you had a particular reason.” She wondered why Brenda and Shannon never mentioned his racial profiling. Maybe that’s what they meant by “old-school.”

“Just to get familiar with the faces. This being a new beat for me, and all.”

Pops shot her an irritated glance. “We will,” he said. “But I want to get a feel for the neighborhood first.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” She tried to strike a more placating tone. “Why don’t we find our local crime watch group and say hello—”

The crackle of the radio reported that the owner of a nearby store wanted a group of loitering youths removed from his premises. “That’s close by,” she said. “I’ll call it in.”

“I just want to know what we’re up against.” He pressed the switch to turn on the blue-and-white lights, but kept the siren off.

He grimaced at her. “Maybe that upsets your liberal sensitivities, but too bad. I call ’em as I see ’em, and in my experience, skin color is useful information.” He sped through an intersection, beeping the siren despite the green light facing them.

“Okay.” Val took a deep breath and tried a more conciliatory tone, the way she imagined Gil doing. “So what do you know about the situation we didn’t know before?”

He laughed. “You’re funny, Dawes.” A few minutes later he pulled into the store’s tiny parking lot and turned off the engine. “Okay, here we are. Normally, as the senior partner, I’d take the lead, but you know these people a little better. So why don’t you take the lead this time?”

“Sure.” Val suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the way he said “these people,” opting to remain as positive as she could. She approached the dim light of the building, Pops following. At least one of the fluorescent bulbs lighting the doorway had burned out. Three black youths loitered outside the store’s all-glass front and at least two more moved around inside. She ignored her partner’s “ahems” and addressed the teens standing in front of the store.

She focused on the tallest one, who had two gold loop earrings in his right ear. She recognized him as a Disciple, and one with a little authority. “Trap, isn’t it?”

“The store’s owner, who has the right to ask you to move along, if you’re not shopping.”

“I already done my shopping. We just waiting on Gunner and Pip. They inside.”

“Okay, look. I’m going in for coffee,” she said. “When I come out, I want you guys to have made a choice as to where you’re going next.”

“Hey, we gotta wait for our homies,” one of the other boys complained. “They inside getting some smokes.”

“They’ll be out in a moment.” Val turned to Pops. “How do you like your coffee?”

“I’ll be right back.” She turned to the boys. “I’m serious. I want you on your way.”

“Isn’t this a school night?” Pops asked. “Don’t you boys have homework to do?”

“Homework?” they screeched amid peals of laughter. “Oh, man. That’s a good one.”

Val sighed and made her way into the store. Sure enough, two black youths stood at the check-out counter, pointing at their favorite brand of cigarettes. The shorter, husky boy with a scraggly beard and a single gold loop earring she recognized as Gunner. The second youth, though taller, looked younger, perhaps about fourteen, with no earring. Must be Pip. A new recruit.

She headed straight to the coffee counter, but kept an eye on the group outside. Pops had struck up a conversation with them. She winced, imagining him uttering a racist remark to rile them, giving him an excuse to arrest them all.

“Five dollars? For one pack?” Gunner shook his head. “Man, that’s a rip-off. Last week they was four dollars.”

“They’ve been five dollars for two years now,” said the cashier, a rotund, middle-aged white man with a crown of salt-and-pepper hair. “Come on, you want ’em or not?” He picked up the pack as if to put them back.

“Damn, man,” Gunner said. He dug change out of his pocket and dropped it on the counter. Several coins rolled off the edge and onto the floor.

The cashier counted the remaining change. “You’re fifty cents short,” he said.

“I didn’t see any quarters drop,” the cashier said. “Come on. Pay or get out.”

“This dude’s ripping me off,” Gunner said to her. “You oughta arrest him.”

“Mr. Tanner?” Val said. “I thought I saw some coins drop. You want to check?”

Tanner growled at her and bent over for a moment. When he straightened, he held sixteen cents in his hand. “You’re still thirty-four cents short.”

“I’ll cover the difference.” Val slapped three one-dollar bills on the counter. “Have a good night, guys.”

The two youths stared at her, then at each other, then grabbed the cigarettes and ran out of the store.

Tanner leveled her with a long, hostile glare. “That was fucked up,” he said.

Val stared back at him. “What’s fucked up about it? Seems like everything came out even.”

Tanner fumed and rang up her purchase. “I called you guys to help me get rid of these kids, and—”

“And that’s what I’m doing.” Val pushed the money toward him. “Keep the change.” She allowed herself a smug smile and pushed her way outside—

Where she found Papadopoulos cuffing Gunner on the ground, his knee planted in the kid’s back.

“Arresting this punk,” he said. “Didn’t you see him? He tried to steal a pack of cigarettes!” He held up the pack of Kools, then shoved them into his pocket.

Pops waved her off. “Doesn’t matter. I got him on possession.” He reached into his pocket again and pulled out a bag of weed. “Over an ounce, I bet. This kid’s a dealer.”

“What?” Gunner, still on the ground, twisted his neck to look at them, fear and alarm on his face. “I didn’t have no—”

Val started to protest, then remembered Brenda’s and Shannon’s cautions about Pops throwing partners under the bus. She’d have to deal with this a different way.

Val took her mid-shift meal break at the precinct station at 9:00 p.m. while she waited for Pops to book Gunner on the drug charge. She’d convinced him that the kid had paid for the cigarettes, but he insisted on booking him on the possession-with-intent-to-sell rap, despite her reservations. “The dope fell out of his pocket,” Pops said over and over again. Val hadn’t seen it, so she couldn’t say either way.

She’d just opened an email invitation from Beth to a dinner party when her phone rang, and Chad’s image popped up on Caller ID.

“Happy birthday!” Chad said in his ever-cheerful voice. “I hope you’re out doing something fun.”

“Working,” she said. “You know I haven’t celebrated my birthday in...ten years.” She groaned. Val preferred to avoid even oblique references to those unhappy days surrounding her thirteenth birthday. She’d refused to celebrate the day she “became a woman,” as Milt—and clueless Dad, copycatting Milt’s creepy phrase—had put it. Birthdays came with too many awful memories.

A knock came at the door. “Valorie, are you in there?” Her mother’s voice.

Valorie huddled under her blankets, curling into a fetal position. If she stayed quiet enough, maybe she’d go away.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Mom said. “Uncle Milt wants to see you. He has a present for you.” Impatience, bordering on annoyance, tinged the edges of Mom’s slurred speech.

Valorie’s insides lurched, bile rising in her throat. She took the covers off of her face so she could breathe better. Several silent seconds passed.

“Valorie, you’re being rude.” Now the annoyance. She needed to defuse Mom’s anger before things got out of hand.

“I don’t feel good.” She moaned as loud as she could and held her stomach, which really did hurt.

The door handle turned. “Do you need me to—”

“No!” Louder than she’d intended. “I’m not dressed.” She’d changed into her pajamas right after school.

“Well, get dressed and come say hello. He came all this way.” More silence, then a heavy huff, then footsteps fading away down the hall and stairs.

When the sound ceased, Valorie climbed out of bed and set Mulligan, the stuffed bear with the little bell around his neck, against the bedroom door. Of course, she wouldn’t need the bear’s warnings if her parents had installed the lock she’d asked for ages ago. Oh, how many problems that would have solved!

For the past few weeks, she would lie awake in her bed for hours after turning out the light, not letting herself sleep until the house grew quiet. That morning her parents told her they‘d invited Milt over for her birthday dinner, over her protests. When they asked why, in their permanent state of clueless surprise, she couldn’t tell them. Not without TELLING them.

Which she couldn’t do. Milt had forced her to promise not to tell and warned her of what would happen to her if she ever broke that promise. Terrible, horrible things. Worse, even, than what he’d already done.

Uncle Val said he’d help her with that. He had to work until eight o’clock, but promised to stop by for dessert. By then, she’d feel better. Not until. And if he saw Milt there, maybe he’d arrest him this time.

She turned out the light and closed her eyes. She needed her strength for when Uncle Val arrived.

The sound of clinking plates, voices, and laughter told her they’d sat down to dinner. Later the television came on, and every so often, somebody laughed—most often, Dad or Uncle Milt. After another hour, the phone rang. A loud, dull thud of the front door closing sounded a few minutes later. Hope rose in her chest. Uncle Val had arrived early!

More footsteps, this time getting closer. Then Mulligan’s bell rang. Valorie’s eyes sprang open. The door swung wide—

“Are you feeling any better?” Mom sat on the end of the bed. The aroma of whiskey or something equally foul wafted over her.

“My stomach still hurts.” She held her breath. Mom wore so much perfume these days to cover the stench of the whiskey, but it didn’t work. It all just smelled stronger and more terrible. “Is Uncle Val here?”

“No, dear. He got held up at work. There’s some sort of problem at a shopping center. But he promised to swing by soon.”

Valorie sat up onto her elbows. “I thought I heard the front door.”

“Uncle Milt had to leave. He was very disappointed that you didn’t come downstairs.” Mom swayed from her perch on the bed. “He asked that you wait to open his present until he could be here.”

“Pfft.” Valorie lay back down, shutting her eyes again. Hell would freeze over first.

“Now, Valorie.” Mom sighed, and the scent of whiskey filled the air again. She lay a heavy hand on Valorie’s side, as if steadying herself rather than trying to comfort Valorie. “You’ve been so quiet lately.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Mom’s hand stroked her back. Valorie wiggled away. Mom gave her shoulder a little shake. “If something’s bothering you, we need to talk about it.”

Valorie rolled over, facing away from her mother. No. She would not talk about it. Not alone. Maybe not ever. Even thinking about it made her sick to her stomach. Made her insides hurt, and made everything else hurt, too. It was all so confusing. Made her ashamed of herself. What “we’d” done, he said, as if she’d been part of it. She’d let him do it, he said. Pain seared her stomach, and her body heaved, the bile surging up her throat again.

“Valorie, are you going to—”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She huffed into her pillow to stifle the ugly boiling in her gut and absorb the hot tears flowing onto her cheeks.

Mom sighed, her eyes unfocused. She burped, and her body convulsed enough to shake the bed.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Mom jumped up, hand covering her mouth, and rushed out the door. A door slammed. The muted sounds of puking drifted in.

She rolled over, hoping tonight she‘d sleep. With Milt gone, it might be possible.

But not until Uncle Val arrived.

Valorie woke up to loud knocking on the bedroom door, her room still pitched in blackness. “Valorie!” Chad shouted. “Let me in. Please!”

She sat up, alarm bells ringing. Chad’s voice sounded raspy, like he’d been crying. But he was sixteen. He hadn’t cried in years. Not even when he’d broken his arm a few weeks back.

“It’s open,” she said and checked to make sure her PJ’s covered everything. To be safe, she pulled the covers up to her chin.

Chad burst through the door and flicked on the overhead light. Tears flooded his red, puffy cheeks. He collapsed at the side of the bed, but flung an arm over her. “Oh, my God, Valorie,” he said. “It’s horrible, horrible!”

“What’s horrible? Chad, what’s happened?” Tears welled up in her eyes. She’d never seen her brother like this.

“It’s Uncle Val,” he said between sobs. “He was at the shopping mall—there was a shooter—he tried to—and then they—oh, shit, it’s horrible!” He broke into sobs again, and he clutched her in a tight hug.

Her heart pounded and fear gripped her. “What, Chad? What happened? Was he hurt?” Tears splashed her cheeks. Movement over his shoulder drew her attention. Dad stood in the doorway of her room, his face as white as Mulligan’s belly. Tears lined his stubbly face.

“Did Chad tell you?” Dad asked in a raspy voice.

“He hasn’t been able to,” Valorie said, holding her brother‘s shaking body. “What is it?”

“Your Uncle’s been shot,” Dad said. “A mass shooting at the mall.”

Valorie burst into sobs, matching Chad’s intensity. Her heart ripped in half, her chest heaving, and dizziness enveloped her. Not Uncle Val. Please God, no. “Is...will he be all right?”

Fresh tears flowed over Dad‘s face, and his body collapsed against the door frame. His gaze dropped to his feet, and he wagged his head. “No, honey,” he said in a whisper. “He’s...he’s gone.”

Chad’s voice jarred Val back to the present. “So, happy ten-year suck-a-versary.” He’d coined the phrase on her fourteenth birthday in solidarity with her not-celebrating and reprised the term every year. “How’s life at 23?”

He laughed, and she tried to chuckle along, but as always, no humor would come. Not about that. Still, Chad meant well.

Val cleared her throat. “Beats being dead, I guess. Anyway, I only have a few minutes left on my break, so...”

“I’m sorry about your partner getting shot,” he said after a brief pause. “Is he going to be okay?”

She drew in a slow breath. It hadn’t occurred to her that Gil had gotten shot on the ten-year anniversary of Uncle Val’s death, almost to the day. Her heart grew even heavier, her voice tight. “We think so,” she said. “If by okay you mean not being able to walk and having to eat and breathe through tubes. Yeah, he’s rocking this getting shot thing.”

“Okay, Miss Grumpy.” Chad’s heavy sigh sounded in her ear. “So, Val, are you okay?” he asked. “The papers didn’t mention any other injuries, and nobody called, so—”

“A few cuts and bruises, and deeply hurt feelings,” she said. “He got shot trying to protect me, so, I guess I also have some guilt over it.” What an understatement. Val shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut to force back tears. “How are Kendra and Ali?”

“That’s the other reason I called. Ali insists that we invite you for Christmas. Kendra and I would love it too,” he said, his words rushed. “Can you make it?”

She thought about it. Seeing Ali would lift her spirits, as would seeing Chad and Kendra. But there was something else she had to ask, somehow, without coming across as an ungrateful jerk. Maybe he’d just volunteer the information, if she waited...

After ten seconds of silence, she sighed and summoned her courage. “Will Dad be there?” she asked, her voice weak.

“He...hasn’t answered my invitation,” Chad said. “He no-showed the past few years. I’m not sure he’s been sober enough to drive, or even realize Christmas is coming.”

Val tapped her pen on the desk, thinking. “I’ll make it to your house at some point,” she said. “When he’s not there.”

“So. What do you want in your stockings? And by you, I mean Dar and Ali.” She laughed. “You get coal, as always.”

“Awesome. I bought energy stocks.” Chad laughed again. Good. “Let’s see. Kendra, as always, asks for donations to the homeless shelter in lieu of gifts, which I will again ignore. Dar’s too young to care, but Ali’s in full Auntie-Val-worship mode, so anything cop-related for her. She has a uniform and toy gun, all that crap, already. She’d love something ‘authentic’. Like a police radio, or a remote-control cop car.”

The hairs on Val’s neck bristled. “Kendra’s okay with that?” she said. “Last time I was there, she made it clear she’d hoped Ali would grow out of this cop fantasy.”

Chad sighed. “Me, too. But it would break Ali’s little heart if we didn’t let you do something ‘coppy’. But no guns, okay?”

“In light of recent events,” Val said, “I’m not a big fan of guns, either.”

Unless the weapon was aimed at Richard Harkins. Especially if she was the one holding it.

Val stewed in a cubicle for the next hour, taking phone calls and searching the database for any updates on Harkins. She looked up when a broad figure cast a faint shadow over her desk, expecting to see Pops. Instead, Travis Blake took the guest seat in the cube.

Val searched the vicinity for signs of eavesdropping ears, found none. “I don’t know him well,” she said, “but I’ve never known that to be true. Why do you ask?” She kept her eyes low, not wanting to give her suspicions away.

“He’s got a short rap sheet,” Blake said. “A few petty larcenies, a car break-in, an unregistered gun possession. No drugs. Not even a public intoxication charge. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah, that is weird,” Val said, her heart racing. Her first day with a new partner and already she didn’t trust him.

“And,” Blake said, “nothing in the last six months. Kid was a week away from getting off probation. Now he’s looking at two-to-five for what, a bag of weed? That add up to you?”

She shrugged. “None of what these perps do makes sense.” Her face burned. She realized what Travis was after. Could she do it? Bust her own partner?

“That’s right,” Blake said. “You saw the kid pay for the butts. Weird, huh? He’s nearly broke, had four buddies with him, and could have overpowered the old man in two seconds. Yet he counts out exact change to buy smokes for the whole group.”

“And guess what? His attorney finds it strange, too. Did you know that The Disciples keep a lawyer on retainer? She didn’t get four feet inside the building before claiming the evidence was planted.”

Val met Blake’s eyes, saw the anger there. The disgust. The hope. Or was that her, projecting onto him? “Have you checked the baggie for prints?”

“Not much,” she said, still meeting Blake’s gaze. “You might ask them to weigh it, too. It looked small—less than an ounce. Maybe we shouldn’t charge him for intent. Maybe simple possession.”

“Now you sound like his lawyer,” Blake said with a half-smile. He leaned closer. “Keep an eye on Pops, would you? Give me a heads-up if anything else strikes you as, ah, funny.” He nodded once and patted her arm.

“What’s up?” Pops glanced from Blake to Val. “What are you guys talking about in such low voices? You two making out in here?” He guffawed and slapped Blake on the back. “You dog.”

Blake glowered at Pops, then said to Val, “Give my best to Gil next time you visit.” Blake strolled off, rounding the corner without so much as a glance back.

“Let‘s walk for a while,” Val said as they approached the car. “I can introduce you to some people.”

“Nah, too cold out.” Pops shivered, zipped up his jacket, and got in on the driver’s side.

“Mind if I drive, then?” she said, but Pops closed the door as if he hadn’t heard.

Val climbed in the passenger‘s side. “What was that crack about back there about me and Travis?” she said with an edge to her voice.

“It’s not funny,” Val said, “and people might take it wrong, you know?”

“I doubt it,” Pops said. “You and Travis? Come on, that’s not even thinkable. And at work? He’s not that stupid.” He shook his head, laughing. “I mean, how low would that be? Travis hitting on you, with Kryzinski in the hospital?”

She spun to face him, her seat belt slicing into her neck. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

A sly grin creased Pops’s face. “I’m just saying. Even the randiest of operators wouldn’t think of moving on a gal with her boyf—I mean, partner, laid up in a hospital.”

Val gritted her teeth, fists clenched. “Pops, let’s get something straight. Gil and I are not involved, have never been, and have no intention to be. He was my partner—as a cop. That. Is. It. Understood?”

Pops stared at her, eyes wide. His glance dropped to where her fist had balled up a significant fraction of his jacket. When had she grabbed him?

He shrugged. “It’s common knowl—uh, yeah, lots of people think it. After all, you’re both single. You’re no dream, but not bad looking, alright? A little scrawny for my taste, but—”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you find me attractive,” she said, spittle flying. “In fact I‘d rather you didn’t. And those rumors are utter bullshit. Got that? Gil and I are not a couple!”

Pops cocked his head, let out a slow breath. “Okay, you’re not a couple.” He rubbed his face with his palm. “Tell that to the gorgeous redhead in the hospital. I bet she thought you two were knocking boots.”

“I don’t care what she thinks, or you,” she said, although only that half of that statement was true. Val didn’t want Jessica Swan as an enemy and vowed to straighten that out with her the next chance she got. “Stop spreading those lies. In fact, I want you to set people straight. Pro-actively. Am I being clear?”

He scowled at her. “First,” he said, “I’m not the one spreading the rumor. Only telling you what I’ve heard. Second, you don’t give me orders. I’m the senior partner here. Is that clear?”

She huffed back into her corner of the bench seat. “Screw you. When it comes to my reputation, I’m in charge. If you can’t accept that, we’re done as partners. Just stop the car and I’ll walk back to the precinct.”

A half hour of tense silence later, he pulled into a 24-hour bakery. “Break time,” he said.

Pops laughed. “You don’t get it, do you, rookie?” He handed her a five-dollar bill. “Black coffee, three sugars, and a cinnamon Danish. Keep the change.”

“Excuse me?” Val pushed the bill back to him. “You want Danish, you go get it. I’m not hungry.” She crossed her arms and stared out the window.

A broad, pudgy hand entered her lower peripheral vision. As if in slow motion, the hand approached her body at leg level, mid-thigh. It slowed to a stop, hovered over her leg. Frozen, she watched the hand drop downward. Touch her. Push the bill between her legs. It lingered there a moment.

Just as slowly, she turned her head toward the body connected to the hand. A large man, older than her. Bigger. Stronger. With power, and authority.

Val willed her body to react, but it refused. She sat, rigid, frozen, her legs burning where his hand pressed between her thighs. The burning shot outward, down to her toes, but also upward, fusing in almost unbearable pain inside of her, where another man had violated her so horribly once before. A larger, older man who had no right, no business doing—

The burning sensation ebbed as the pressure on her thighs lessened. Her mind unfroze. She realized he’d finished stuffing the bill between her legs and had lifted his hand up. That it was Pops, not Uncle Milt, touching her. That she was a grown, strong woman, trained in 27 ways to incapacitate a man with her bare hands—yet she had done nothing to thwart this violation.

Exercising as much restraint as she could muster, she slapped his arm away. “What—the—fuck?”

Pops scowled and turned away. “Three sugars, Dawes.” He drummed on the steering wheel.

He heaved a loud breath, unbuckled, grabbed the bill off the floor, tossed it onto her lap. “Rookies, men and women, do what their senior partners tell them to,” he said. “If I tell you to go get coffee, you get coffee. If I tell you to suck my cock, you suck my damned cock. You get it? Now go. Three sugars, Dawes!”

She glared at him a long moment. With one quick motion, she could drive two rigid fingers into the soft spot under his chin, leaving him at her mercy, gasping in pain, unable to breathe. She relished the prospect of teaching him a painful lesson in where, and how, not to touch her. Ever.

Val took the fiver from him, rage boiling inside her. She breathed in, fighting for self-control.

“You’d better undo your seat belt, or you’re not getting very far,” Pops said, chuckling.

She held the money in her right hand, extended out the door. Crumpled the bill into a ball and dropped it on the pavement.

“You want fucking Danish,” she said, her voice hoarse, “get it your own damned self.”

Val paid Gil a brief visit the next day, although the painkillers reduced much of their exchange to winces and grunts on his part, cheerleading and platitudes on hers. His only lucid moment came toward the end of their chat.

“Any...leads on...Harkins?” Gil asked, his words punctuated by painful grunts.

“No sign of him since...” She let her voice trail off. How to reference that awful night? “Your shooting” seemed too blunt. “That night” seemed too oblique. And “the incident” was, well, taken.

He reached out a hand, and she held it in hers. “You’ll... get him,” he said. “Wish I...could help.”

“You’ve done plenty,” she said. “The best thing you can do right now is heal.”

“Thank me?” She shook her head. “I figured you’d want to kick my ass for putting you in here.”

Gil‘s face relaxed into a wry smile. “Yeah. And that.” He leaned toward her, lowered his voice to a whisper. “In case...I don’t...uh...you know,” he said, wheezing, “I just...”

“Don’t even think that,” she said, grabbing his arm. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Sure,” he said. “But...in case. Thanks for...telling me. About...you.” He gasped, then groaned, and the machine beeped several times. The nurse rushed in and administered more painkillers. Val exited the room, shaken, and Jessica Swan met her in the waiting area.

“He just looked so much worse than I expected.” Val folded her arms across her chest. “I expected him to be getting better. What happened?”

“The tests they ran revealed internal infections, and they’ve flooded him with antibiotics.” A worried expression crossed Jessica’s face. “He didn’t react well. And if the drugs don’t work, he may need more surgery.”

Val stopped and turned toward her. “If so, I want to be here,” she said. “Even if it means missing my shift.” Anything beat sitting in a car with Pops for nine hours.

Jessica stared at the floor. “Gil is lucky to have such a strong community here,” she said. “Back in New Haven, we...” Her voice broke, and she waved the rest of her sentence away.

“He’s lucky to have you, too,” Val said after a moment. Despite Pops’s claim, Jessica seemed far from jealous. More proof that his instincts paled next to hers. “Is there anything you need? Any way I can help you?”

Jessica rubbed her eyes. “I’m...fine. I’m not sure how long—I mean, I need to get back to work, and my dog, and—I just hope he bounces back from this. It’s so...” She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut.

Val stood in front of her, silent, fear and sadness welling up inside. Almost as much as Gil, Jessica needed her support. A helping hand. Someone to spend time with her, listen to her.

She edged toward Jessica, the taller woman’s body stiff, her head bowed. No response from Jessica. She seemed so alone. So vulnerable. A feeling Val knew well.

Val’s fingers twitched at her sides. Then, of their own volition, her hands raised up, hovered beside Jessica’s arms. Achingly, slowly, they inched toward Jessica until they rested on her skin. Jessica leaned in, ever so slightly. Val did the same. Their bodies touched. She patted Jessica’s back, then let her hand rest there. A moment. Two.

Jessica stepped back, sniffling. “Thank you, Val,” she said in a low whisper. “My God, look at me, I’m a wreck.” She smiled at Val through tears. “I judged you too harshly when we met. You’re really very sweet, and...a good friend to Gil.”

Val shuddered out an unsteady breath. “I want you to know, there has never been anything between us. Romantically, I mean.”

Jessica smiled. “I know. But, thank you. And I’m grateful to you. Gil was lucky to have you as his partner.”

Val started to smile back, but then realized the import of Jessica’s words. “Was?”

Jessica cocked her head to one side. “The doctors have made it clear: his injuries are too severe. Gil can’t ever go back. He’ll be medically discharged from service. Didn’t he tell you?”

Val stepped back in a numb haze. She’d known the injuries were serious enough to keep him out of action a while, but always expected he’d return, notwithstanding Jessica’s earlier oath to prevent it. But if the doctors said he couldn’t...

Despite the hospital’s bright lights and bleach-white walls, in that moment, the world became a much darker place.

The short visit with Gil left Val with plenty of free time, so she showed up early for work, hoping to chat with Lieutenant Gibson about her partnering assignment. She’d had it so good with Gil, and too late, realized how much she’d taken him for granted. She’d likely never get another partner that good. And if he didn’t return, her assignment to Pops could become long term.

On her way to see Gibson, Travis Blake stopped her and waved her into his office. “Got an update for you on that Gunner kid,” he said, sliding an evidence report across his desk. She scanned it and choked when she read its conclusions.

“Gunner’s prints were on the baggie?” Her mouth dropped open. “How is that possible?”

“You said you didn’t see Pops take it from him,” Travis said, “but you didn’t see him not take it, either. There’s a little surprise on the kid’s personal possessions list, too.”

Val flipped the page, scanned down, and let out a low whistle. “Twelve hundred in cash?”

“In small bills,” Blake said. “And another detainee ID’d him as his supplier in exchange for a plea. Still think he wasn’t dealing?”

She crumpled in the chair. No way Pops planted a thick wad of street cash in Gunner’s wallet. “So that big scene in the store, counting out pennies...”

“An act. Or maybe he’s just a runner and he needed to give the cash and the drugs to someone higher in the organization.” Travis grunted. “In the eyes of the law, it’s still dealing.”

Numb, she set the reports back on Blake’s desk. “I guess I jumped to conclusions.”

Blake shrugged. “Doesn’t mean Pops won’t try it on someone else. Keep your eyes open, Dawes.”

Gibson was in a meeting, so Val trudged off to an empty cubicle and logged into the crime records database. A half hour of searching turned up a long list of Disciples with records for dealing drugs, mostly small quantities of pot, crack, meth, and ecstasy, including two others in the past month. Notably, Pope’s name never appeared on any of the lists.

Val turned her search to Harkins, hoping to find leads to his current location. She started with Clayton and Hartford, then expanded the geographic reach to the entire state. An hour later, she‘d come up with nothing. She was about to log out when an unexpected item caught her eye. A stolen vehicle report from the Silver Fox, from the day after she and Gil had staked out Harkins there. An old Jeep, owned by one of the Fox’s dancers.

“Dawes!” Jalen’s hearty baritone sounded friendly. “I hope you’re calling with good news on Gil. I’m planning to come visit him in the hospital my next day off, but I’d rather visit him at home.”

“Sorry,” Val said, her heart heavy. “Gil’s had a setback. Infections, and still a lot of pain. But we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

“Dammit.” Jalen sighed into her ear. “Rumor is, the shooter was that guy we let slip at the Fox. True?”

Val’s turn to sigh. “Afraid so. That’s why I’m calling. An employee of the Fox reported a stolen vehicle. Asheeda Wilson.”

“Raven. She’s a dancer,” Jalen said. “Think it’s connected to Harkins?”

“Thanks,” she said. “Keep me posted. And when you come to visit Gil, call me. We can get a cup of coffee.”

Jalen went silent for a few moments. “Yeah, okay,” he said, “I’ll do that.”

Her ears burned, and her pulse quickened. What had she done this time? “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I guess so,” Val said, although seeing anyone named Peterson remained near the bottom of her social calendar. “Why?”

“Well,” he said, “I just...don’t do social one-on-ones with women. My wife gets jealous sometimes.”

“Jalen,” she said with a nervous laugh, “I’m not asking you out on a date. I was hoping we could brainstorm on how to nail Harkins.” She held her head up with her open palm, suddenly weary.

“Great. Yeah, that works. Let’s do it. I’ll leave you a message at the precinct before I come.” He rang off, saying he needed to get out on patrol.

She sat for a while in the cubicle, massaging her temples and reflecting on Jalen’s awkward response to her invitation. Even the good guys, it seemed, struggled with how to act around women. Gil had had his moments, and now Jalen. Soon she’d be on patrol again with Alex, who was definitely not among the best of guys.

No. Not acceptable. That situation had to change. She jumped to her feet and headed down the hall toward Gibson’s office.

“I’m sorry, Dawes,” Lieutenant Gibson said in his office five minutes later, “but I have no one else I can assign you to.” He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, something she’d noticed he often did when stressed. “Besides, you’ve only worked a couple of shifts together. It’s early yet. Give it time. You guys will work things out.”

“He put his hand between my damned legs!” she said, her voice on edge. “And basically said that he owns me, in very crude terms. Very crude.” She worried her fingers together, trying to imagine any other way to interpret what Pops had said. She couldn’t.

“Cops are crude people sometimes,” Gibson said. “And hell, Dawes. If bad language upsets you, you won’t get along with very many of us.”

“It’s not about him saying naughty words!” Val strained to keep her voice under control. “He’s downright misogynistic and belittling. If I told you what he said, you‘d probably suspend him. I mean, it’s a basic violation of our code of conduct.” She stopped, realizing how lame her protests must sound. ‘Violating the code of conduct.’ Yeesh.

“What were his exact words?” Gibson asked. He paused, waiting, as patient as Job.

“Shit.” Gibson threw a pencil onto his desk. “That asshole. Okay, that’s serious. So, do you want to file a formal complaint?” Gibson said. “It won’t be easy to prove—your word against his, blah blah—but I’ll back you if that’s what you want.” He waited, tapping his fingers on his desk, his eyes locked on her.

Val considered it. She couldn’t allow Pops to get away with treating her like that. And if he treated her that way, it meant he treated all women that way. On the other hand, he’d been careful to call her “Rookie,” and that “men and women” rookies must do what their partners tell them to do. He could claim he meant it as a hazing ritual, something he might have said to a male rookie. True or not, she’d be hard-pressed to refute it.

She also didn’t want to earn a reputation as a thin-skinned snitch who couldn’t take a joke or the rough-and-tumble life of a cop. Men like Pops already believed that women weren’t tough enough for the job. The last thing she wanted was to give them fodder for their backstabbing attacks and make life worse for other women like Shannon O’Reilly and Brenda Petroni. Or, more likely, future recruits.

“Not...yet,” she said in a rush of air. “But I don’t want to let this go, either. Not entirely.”

Gibson shrugged. “Tell you what. There is something else we can do. It’s called a ‘Note to the File.’ You document what happened in a memo. I put it in his job performance file, instead of his H.R. record, and a copy in yours. It becomes a performance review item. I’ll have an ‘informal’ chat with him about it, too. See if I can’t coach him a bit. Sound useful?”

Val smiled. Gibson was a crafty old bureaucrat when he wanted to be. “Sure. Baby steps.”

Gibson stood. “All right. We’ll call this a teachable moment for Pops. You know, when I said I wanted him to learn a few things from you, I didn’t realize that I’d have to include ‘How to treat a female colleague’ on that list. Besides,” he said, “I don’t have other options. Not many other people want to work with him either. Or...” He cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah. That’s all.”

“No, we’re not done!” Val stood and stepped closer to Gibson. “People don’t want to work with him, and...what?” She searched his eyes for a clue, and he looked away.

Realization struck her like a baton to the face. Her jaw dropped, then closed. In a weak voice, she said, “They don’t want to work with me, either, do they?”

“That’s it, then.” She collapsed into her chair, deflated and hurt. “Can I ask why?”

Gibson strolled around his desk and sat on the edge, right in front of her. His expression went grim. “You have a rep for being a touch...reckless.” He held out his hands to dampen her protests. “Earned or not, it’s out there. And this did not come from Kryz. But.” He took a deep breath. “The fact that Gil is spending his days at Mercy Hospital getting his insides stitched back together doesn’t help your cause.”

“I am not reckless!” Heat rose in her face, and her voice swelled to nearly a shout. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Call it water cooler talk,” Gibson said. “I think it’s bullshit. But you did run head first into a few situations over the past few months where a wait-and-see approach might have been the more prudent course. Gil has always stood by you, but other people form their own opinions. Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” Val said, seething. “I take risks, like any other cop, but I don’t put my fellow officers in harm’s way. I mean, hell, we didn’t create that stand-off on Greenfield. Harkins did!”

“I agree,” Gibson said, his voice low and calm. “But people talk. Now you know what they’re saying. That information gives you the power now to take steps to correct that impression. Right?”

Richard Harkins left the girl whimpering on her bed, her scrawny fifteen-year-old body curled into a fetal position in the corner. He zipped up his pants and threaded the black fake-leather belt through the loops of his slacks. He’d barely broken a sweat this time. Barely felt the release when it happened. Stupid bitch. Almost a waste of damned time.

The girl, Kayden, covered her body with the filthy pile of blankets he’d ripped off her moments before, using it to wipe her face and muffle her sobs. He had no use for her tears, and she knew better than to yell for help. He’d taught her that lesson the first time around, with the aid of that same belt. Now all he had to do was loosen the buckle and she knew what to do. And what not to do.

Harkins trudged to the john, took a long leak, thought about what to do next. His growling stomach answered for him: Dinner. He left the toilet seat up, the bowl unflushed, his hands unwashed—like the rest of this disgusting dump—and made his way to the kitchen. Found some leftover chicken and fried potatoes in the fridge, nuked them in their takeout container and cracked open a beer. Must be something good on cable. He clicked on the TV, scrolled to the adult channels. Found a movie rated NC-17. That’d do. He pressed “Select” on the remote—

And then his head exploded in pain. He screamed and grabbed the top of his skull, smearing his hair with chicken grease, and rolled off the sofa. He scrambled to his feet and looked up, just in time to dodge the business end of a cast-iron frying pan. It swished an inch from his nose, held by the girl’s scrawny brown arm. Kayden swung at him again, accompanying her attack with a throaty, wild roar. He smacked her arm on its way past, knocking the pan into a cheap metal lamp, which crumpled to the floor, leaving only the twenty-seven-inch TV to illuminate their struggle.

She grabbed the broken lamp and tried to hit him with it, but the cord jerked it back into her, cutting her face with the jagged remains of the light bulb. She cried out and ran from the room. “Help! Police!” she yelled. Loud enough for the neighbors to hear, dammit!

Harkins followed her into the kitchen, shielding his eyes from the bright overhead lights. He tripped over a chair, hit his head against an open cupboard door. The girl disappeared out the back door before he could catch her, a cell phone pressed to her ear. Fuck! He couldn’t let her get through to the cops. He chased her out the door, but night had fallen, and his eyes were slow to adapt to the darkness. “Kayden!” he yelled. No response. He searched the yard, searching for the glow of the phone, listening for her crying, her breathing, her voice. Nothing. A cold wind whipped at him, splattering misty snow into his face. She couldn’t have gone far. He scanned the neighbors’ yards on all three sides, identical 100-foot well-lit suburban squares. Nothing.

A car engine started in the driveway. Raven’s Jeep! He almost laughed out loud. She wouldn’t get far in that piece of shit. Probably didn’t even know how to drive. Harkins ran toward it, but the wheels spit smoke and ice as the car lurched out onto the street. He cursed himself for having parked it face-out, keys beneath the seat as always. He’d prepared for a quick getaway, as usual, but this time that tactic had worked against him. The car‘s tires squealed, the girl’s frightened face visible behind the wheel with the light of her cell phone.

Harkins returned inside. Grabbed his coat, made sure the .44 was still in the right pocket. He snagged an envelope full of cash he’d discovered a few days before, taped to the back of the fridge. The mother’s emergency fund. Well, this constituted an emergency.

Minutes later he checked out of a corner store with a stash of beef jerky, two 40s of malt liquor, and a burner phone. He walked toward the center of town and dialed Candy from memory.

“Where are you?” she asked. Sounded like traffic in the background. “And where have you been? The cops have been looking for you!”

“Still?” He swigged the beer, chewed on the jerky. “Look, I need a place to stay.”

“Not here,” she said. “The pigs are everywhere. You won’t get within a hundred feet of this place. Where are you now?”

“New York,” he lied. “Heading south. You know how I hate the cold.” His breath puffed white clouds in the frigid air.

Something about that bothered him, and he stopped walking. “Join me?” he said. “What about work? How will you make money?”

“They got strip clubs down south,” she said. “How are you getting there? That Impala won’t make it back to Louisiana.”

“I, uh...” Dammit. Caught. “Well, maybe we can go together. How’s your car doing?”

“No,” he said, too quickly. “We’ll think of something else.” Headlights flickered around the bend behind him. After ensuring that it had no blue-and-whites on top, he stuck out his thumb. It whizzed past, never slowing down. Bastards.

“Why?” she asked. “What happened to it? You ‘borrowed’ it, didn’t you?”

“How the fuck do I know what happened to it? And what the hell kind of question—” Realization struck him too late, and he dropped the phone to the ground, crushed it under his heel. Fucking Candy was working with the damned pigs. Goddamn her! Thirty bucks, wasted.

An eighteen-wheeler slowed to a stop and the passenger-side window lowered. Harkins pulled his coat over his face and leaned close, wiping wet snowflakes from his brow. “Was that your Jeep, broken down on the road a mile back?” the driver asked.

“Yeah,” Harkins said. The truck’s warm air melted the snowflakes on his nose, and he caught a faint scent of whiskey on the man’s breath. “Out of gas. Can you help me out?”

Harkins smiled and got in. Felt the cold metal in his pocket. He didn’t need the Jeep any more, and at this point, it was probably a liability, anyway.

Seconds passed like hours that evening, patrolling the streets in the cruiser with Pops. In addition to everything else that bugged Val about him, he’d come down with a cold. His intake breaths sounded like a drowning man, and his exhalations whistled out of his snout like a freight train. He blew his nose every five minutes and littered the seat with soggy, mucous-filled tissues.

“I used up my sick leave already this year,” he explained, “taking care of my wife when she had her hysterectomy.”

She sank lower into her seat, putting as much distance between them as she could. The frigid temperatures outside made it a certainty they’d spend the entire night in the car, breathing in his contagious air. On the plus side, he talked less, and kept his hands away from her.

“Ready for a break?” Pops asked two hours into their rounds. He sneezed all over the steering wheel and wiped it off with his sleeve.

He sighed and drove another few minutes in silence. The radio crackled a few times with calls in the south end of town, nothing that concerned them.

“It’s just that usually I stop around now for coffee and a donut or something.”

Air hissed between her clenched teeth and she drummed on the armrest. Noise, any noise, to keep her from succumbing to the urge to snap back at him. She clenched her jaw, expecting him to ask her to get him a Danish again. He’d have the excuse of being too sick to go inside. Whatever. If he touched her again, she’d break his damned fingers.

“What’s the matter with you tonight? Wrong time of the month?” He glared at her.

“That’s a rude question. And watch where you’re going.” Val turned up the volume on the scanner.

Pops faced forward, muttering to himself. “You sore at me because of that drug dealer thing?”

“Gunner? No. I’m not mad at you.” She straightened up in her seat, got eye-level with him. “I was just surprised. I didn’t think you had a strong reason to stop him. But live and learn, I guess.”

His smug smile made her sick to her stomach. A few seconds later Pops turned into Java Joe’s parking lot.

“Getting a snack.” He parked and turned off the engine. “What do you want?”

“Figures.” He pulled cash out of his wallet. She tensed, but he unbuckled his seat belt and popped open his door. “After last time, I ain’t even gonna ask you to fetch me anything.”

“Standard operating procedure, right? I’m staying here, so you need to leave the keys in case we need to respond quickly.”

Pops wrapped his fist around the keys and held them in front of his face. “Nah. I wanna be certain the car will be here when I get back.”

“Then don’t quote chapter and verse from The Book at me. And another thing. We ain’t stopping again for a while, so if you want a break, this is it.”

“If we don’t stop again tonight, it’s fine by me,” she said. “You’re the one that panics if he isn’t eating every fifteen minutes. So go have your damned coffee and let’s get back to work.”

He glowered at her, got out and slammed the door. Clearly she’d pissed him off, but she didn’t care. If something didn’t change soon, she’d have to look for a new line of work anyway.

That sentiment surprised her. Not that she’d thought it, but that it came so easily. Her whole life she’d wanted to be a cop—never anything else. To follow in Uncle Val’s footsteps, continue his work. She never imagined that she’d have to put up with this kind of treatment, day after day, year after year. Plus the corruption, the cynicism, the glass ceiling—it all seemed much uglier up close.

Things had been different in Uncle Val’s day. Fewer rules and less bureaucracy, it seemed. Cops were tough, aggressive, smart—like Gil, and Uncle Val. Not like lazy, lumpy, and bigoted Alex Papadopoulos.

Pops took a seat in Java Joe’s behind a tall, steaming Styrofoam cup and a stack of powdered donuts. She would have laughed—he was such a caricature of himself and every bad TV cop show—but her frustration mounted with every passing second. He took his time, dipping the chewed edge of his donut into the cup a quarter-inch at a time and nibbling the soggy end as if he had all day to do nothing.

“Dammit!” She leaned across and beeped the horn. He gave her a half-puzzled, half-annoyed grimace. She waved at him: come on, come on. He waved back: Hello, I’m ignoring you. “Fuck,” she said, spraying spittle on the dash. She scrunched down in the seat. It was shaping up to be a long, long night.

The radio crackled three donuts into Alex’s coffee break. “Reported disturbance on Albany and MLK, Jr. Boulevard,” the dispatcher said. “Unit A-22, are you in the vicinity? Please confirm.”

“Five minutes or less,” Val said into the mic. “Will report again when closer.” She dashed into Java Joe’s, heading straight for Papadopoulos. “Wrap it up, Pops,” she said. “We’ve got a call.”

He grimaced at her, glanced down at his half-finished meal of sugar and caffeine. “Give me a sec. I need to get a lid for this.” He ambled over to the fixings bar, taking his sweet time.

Val fumed, ready to punch him, until she noticed something important: Pops had left the car keys on the bar.

She grabbed them and ran out the door, jumped in on the driver’s side, and started the engine. After backing out of the spot, she stopped at the cafe’s exit, passenger side toward Pops, who lumbered out with goodies in each hand. She leaned over, pushed open the door. “Get in,” she said. “Eat fast.”

“Wait until I get buckled in, at least,” he said, but she ignored him. Coffee spilled on his shirt when she raced around a corner, tires squealing and siren blaring.

“Dammit Dawes,” he yelled at her. “Don’t get us killed just so we can be late to a gang war.”

“Let Dispatch know we’re there,” she said, turning south onto Albany. But the intersection came into view before he’d even set down his donuts. She screeched to a halt at the corner of the parking lot and barked their location into the mic. “That’s them,” she said, pointing to two groups of heavily armed young men. The Disciples lined up along the back wall, with Pope standing in front. A group of Asian toughs entered the lot from the street. Angry shouts filled the air. She needed a strategy to defuse the tension. What would Gil do?

“This is our call,” she said. “We need to put a stop to this before someone gets killed. Are you coming to help me, or not?”

“Not without backup,” he said. “And neither are you.” He grabbed the mic and spoke in a low voice to dispatch.

“Dammit, Pops!” She kicked her door out wide and slid out of the car. “If we roll six more cops in here, waving guns, we’ll be fighting a whole different war—them against us. Or we’ll be sweeping bodies off the gravel—possibly a few of our own. Let’s go!” She unsnapped her holster and rested her hand on her baton.

Pops sneered at her. “You wonder why people say you’re reckless?” He shook his head. “I’m staying here. You want to get yourself killed, go ahead.” He gazed out the window at the gangs, paused about thirty feet from each other, staring at Val and Pops.

“Fine.” Val closed the car door and approached the space between the two gangs. “Evening, gentlemen.”

Pope stepped forward, flanked by Cardinal Thomas, Dog, and another familiar face. One she’d seen at the precinct house the day before.

Gunner smiled, hands on his hips. “I got me a good lawyer. Appears your fat-boy partner didn’t do his job right. He coming out, or is he gonna hide in the car now?”

“He’s calling in backups,” Val said. “In about two minutes, we’ll outnumber you all here, unless I can convince them you’re here to celebrate my birthday. What ya say, Pope? And you guys?” She faced the Asian gang leader, a short, muscular Japanese man in his early twenties, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt despite the bitter cold. His long black hair swayed in the breeze from a light-blue headband. The men behind him also wore T-shirts, no coats, and headbands of various colors.

“You the cop that killed Kuku?” the Asian gang leader asked with an angry edge to his voice.

“Kuku?” Val blinked, then her brain made the connection. “You mean Alfred Takura?” Her heart pounded, but she stood tall and faced the man. “I returned his fire. Unfortunately for him, I’m a good shot under pressure.” She rested her hand on the handle of her weapon.

The gang leader stepped back. “We’re not here for you.” He indicated his fellow gang members with a shake of his head. “He wasn’t part of the Dark Dragons.”

Val shuddered. The Dark Dragons, the New York chapter of the Nakaguchi Syndicate, had taken over from the Setting Sun gang after Takura’s death. Even more ruthless and violent than Setting Sun, reports of their internal battle were anything but bloodless.

“We’re here to politely ask The Disciples to stop harassing Dragons for no reason,” the gang leader said.

“Bullshit,” Pope said. “Tell her, Dog. What you told me.” He pushed Dog forward, and the youth lowered his gaze.

“Two Dragons pulled guns on me on Abernethy yesterday,” Dog said with a quick glance up at Val. “Told me we had to back off of this territory if we wanted to live to Sunday.”

“That’s a lie!” the Dragon leader said. “It’s The Disciples who’ve been threatening us and our families, telling us where we can and can’t go. That’s bullshit, man!” He pushed forward toward Pope, whose hand disappeared behind him. Probably grabbing a pistol out of his waistband.

“Jesus, guys, knock it off!” Val shouted. “The cops are here, remember?” She stepped between them and waved them apart.

Pope glared at her, then backed off a step with a noisy cloud of steam emerging from his lips. “Dragons are asking for trouble, coming here,” he said. “They gonna get it, too. I’m just saying.”

“Yeah. Your name. What your mommy calls you when she kicks you out of bed in the morning.”

He scoffed. “Lady, my mother booted my ass of the house when I was thirteen. And what she called me, I can’t say in front of a girl.” He laughed and looked to his gang for support. They laughed along, obligingly.

Exclamations of surprise escaped both gangs, amid bursts of laughter. “Bitch got her a mouth!” someone said.

The Dragon leader nodded at her, smiling. “Okay. Call me Fumi...Officer Dawes.” He pointed to a few others. “That’s Ito. Kimura—he goes by Kim. Over there, that’s Ishi.”

Fumi emitted a nervous laugh, then collected himself, put on a false bravura. “For now.”

She noted his uneasy stance, his uncertain tone. Fumi hadn’t been the leader of this gang for long. Which meant, he still had something to prove. An explosive situation, for sure.

“Okay, Fumi,” she said. “Here’s what I’m going to do.” She glanced up and spotted two Clayton P.D. squad cars pulling in. Alex crouched behind their cruiser’s open door, gun drawn. The gangs clutched their weapons, and many crouched into a fighting stance. She turned back to Fumi, keeping Pope in her field of vision. “My friends in blue are about to crash this party. So, unless you boys break this thing up right now, you’re all going to spend the night in cold, cramped, smelly jail cells downtown. You can ask Gunner here how comfy they are.”

“I’ve had the pleasure myself,” Fumi said. He eyed Pope, then glanced at his lieutenants, bobbed his head. He took a slow, careful step away from Pope, hands outstretched to his sides. Ito, Kim, and Ishi did the same, with the remaining Dragons retreating a few steps behind them. “Their turn,” Fumi said.

“You something else,” Pope said. He sized her up, took a deep breath, and signaled to Thomas with his finger. A moment later, Pope, Thomas, Gunner, and Dog stood in a row opposite the Dragons. The remaining Disciples crowded behind them.

Heavy shoes crunched on gravel behind Val. Glancing over her shoulder, she verified that the footsteps belonged to well-armed, uniformed cops. The gangs stood, unmoving.

The gang leaders stared at each other. Footsteps continued approaching from behind Val.

Footsteps pounded closer. “Everybody back off and drop your weapons!” a male voice shouted. Not Pops.

Val held up her hand behind her, and the footsteps stopped. “Get the hell out of the way, Dawes,” Pops shouted at her. She gave him the finger, then resumed her “stop” sign. A few gang members chuckled.

Val lowered her voice so only Pope, Fumi, and their lieutenants in front could hear. “They won’t wait there long, so if you hope to walk away from this, do what I say,” she said. “On the count of three, both sides, take two steps back.”

“Or else,” Val said, her voice growing louder, “I’m going to let my senior partner and his pals take over with, shall we say, more traditional policing methods. Capiche?”

“Dawes! Get out of there!” yelled an authoritative male voice she didn’t recognize. “Now!”

“One.” She glanced at Pope. His eyes remained locked on Fumi’s. His, likewise. “Two—”

After a moment, Pope snapped his fingers twice. The Disciples, en masse, took two steps back. Fumi waved at his group, and the Dragons retreated the same distance.

After a moment’s hesitation, the two groups pulled back to opposite edges of the lot.

“Gentlemen,” she said, raising her voice so her everyone could hear, “I trust you all have better places to be this evening?”

“What the heck happened?” Pops asked at Val’s elbow moments later. “Five minutes ago they were going to kill each other. What’d you tell them?”

“I told them they could either do it my way or your way,” she said with a smirk. “And they chose mine.”

“You let them off easy,” he said. “Not that it matters. We can lock ’em up every day and their smart-mouthed lawyers will put them right back on the street again. You saw that Gunner kid’s already out on some technicality?”

“Yeah, lucky him.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “Until the next time you screw with him.”

“Oh, cry me a river!” He walked back toward the car. “Don’t you realize how messed up that was? You could have gotten yourself killed. And a lot of other people!”

“You’re confused,” she said, following him. “If I hadn’t intervened, people would have died.”

“You’re the one that’s confused!” He paused at the side of their cruiser, his loud voice drawing stares from the other officers returning to their vehicles. He glanced at them and lowered his voice, pointing at The Disciples gathered around their trash can fire. “You think you saved them from something? Well, you didn’t. Tomorrow night, these guys will be back at it, cutting throats, shooting each other and selling crack to ten-year-olds. So will all the other gangs. As soon as one goes down, another will take their place. But these men here—” He waved an arm toward the officers, standing outside their cruisers, doors open, frozen in place. Pops fought for words, fuming at her. “Let’s just say I care a whole lot more when you put one of us at risk.”

She waited a beat, taking a deep breath. “That’s why I didn’t put you at risk,” she said. “That’s why I handled it myself. Did I follow established protocol? No, probably not. But it worked. For tonight, at least, nobody died.” She opened the passenger side door, held it there a moment. “And unlike you, Pops...for me, their lives count, too.”

She started to climb into the cruiser, then stopped. No way she could sit inside the car with him right then. She slammed the door shut. “And now it’s time for my break.”

She turned her back on him and walked past the dumbfounded officers still standing at their cars, up Albany Street, in a state of mind she knew all too well: angry, and alone.

Val walked the streets for the better part of an hour, checking in with various small shop owners and street regulars and responding to the occasional complaint. Pops passed her in the cruiser once, slowed to a stop and called out to her, but she ignored him and strolled past. He burned rubber pulling out from the curb, and she laughed. Let him pout if he wanted. She couldn’t get back in that car yet. Maybe ever.

She and Gil had never experienced such problems. Val missed his patience, intelligence, and strength, and most of all his intense desire to connect with and understand his fellow human beings. She’d been lucky to have him as her first partner. Now, it seemed, she’d be stuck with much lesser men—Pops, or others like him—for the foreseeable future. How depressing.

Val's radio chirped with her call number—meaning, someone wanted her, personally. She clicked the mic. “Dawes here.”

“Officer Dawes, please return to the precinct immediately,” the dispatcher said in a neutral tone.

Her breath caught in her throat. Pops must have written her up, the asshole. “Confirmed. I’ll be there in twenty.”

Ten minutes later, she waited in an uncomfortable chair outside Gibson’s office while he concluded another meeting behind closed doors. When the door opened, Travis Blake waved her in. He paused in the doorway and leaned close. “Say as little as possible, but tell the truth. Got it?”

Val nodded. Travis gave her a reassuring nod and stepped aside. Pops sat in the guest chair to the far right. A large blue windbreaker, probably Blake’s, claimed the center chair. She stood next to the third until Gibson, seated at his desk, motioned for her to sit. Blake shut the door and remained standing behind her.

“Officer Papadopoulos described a curious, and if he’s right, serious sequence of events from your shift together tonight,” Gibson said. He rubbed his eyes and took a sip of coffee. Dressed in plain clothes, he looked like he’d just woken from a bad dream.

“Tell me, in your own words, what happened,” Gibson went on, “and what compelled you to abandon your partner in the middle of your shift.”

“Abandoned?” Val glared at Pops, who smirked and looked away. “Sir, with all due respect—”

“Perhaps Officer Dawes is unclear what part of the evening you refer to,” Blake said, pacing behind them. “I’d hate to waste time getting off on a trivial tangent here.”

Gibson’s eyes narrowed, following Blake across the room. He grimaced, then held up an open palm to Pops. “Alex, give us the nickel tour.”

Pops shook his head, disgust all over his face. “Fine,” he said. “Dawes here left the security of the squad car, in contravention of my direct orders, to confront two rival gangs about to engage in a street brawl.” Spittle landed on the floor in front of him. “She narrowly escaped inflaming them into armed conflict and putting myself and four other officers at great risk of bodily injury. She refused to debrief with me afterwards, instead going AWOL, patrolling alone, on foot, in direct violation of department protocol. Then she refused—”

“That’s enough for now.” Gibson shushed him with an open palm. “Dawes?”

Blake strolled over to the side of the office, leaning against the wall in full view, and nodded to her.

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “I did intervene in the gang dispute, but it hadn’t yet escalated into actual, visible fighting,” she said.

Val took a deep breath before continuing. “In the situation described, I applied lessons learned about conflict de-escalation in college, the academy, and Sergeant Kryzinski’s training to prevent actual combat. In particular, I engaged with the gang’s leaders, establishing the rule of law and outlining the negative consequences of a brawl. I put no officers at risk except myself.”

She glanced at Pops again, who huffed and crossed his arms. “Officer Papadopoulos chewed me out for ‘putting him at risk’ and said his life, and those of the other officers, were the only ones that mattered,” she said. “I lost faith in his commitment, at that point, to carry out his oath to protect and to serve our citizens. I thought a break from each other might heal our mutual anger.” She glared over at him, still seething in his chair. “Apparently, I was mistaken.”

“No,” Gibson said. “Sergeant Blake, you talked to the other officers at the scene?”

“What?” Pops landed back in his chair with a thud. “That’s crazy! I want to talk to them. I want—”

“I want you to shut up,” Gibson said. “Travis, find Alex something to do to finish out his shift. Dawes, you stay here.”

Pops stood again, his mouth agape. “This is such baloney. I’ll appeal to the union. I’ll—”

“You’ll shut up and leave my office, as ordered, or get written up yourself,” Gibson said. “Travis?”

Blake escorted Pops out of Gibson’s office, grinning at Val as he closed the door behind them.

“Dawes, Dawes, Dawes,” Gibson said a moment later. “What am I going to do with you?”

Gibson answered his rhetorical question of Val less than an hour later, appearing at the cubicle she’d holed up in with Travis Blake at his side. “You two will ride together the rest of the night,” Gibson said. “I’ll figure out something more permanent later.”

Val jumped up, eager to get off phone duty and its endless litany of crank calls and noise complaints. “Thank you,” she said, pulling on her jacket. “Does this mean that Alex and I—”

“Like I said, I’ll figure that out later,” Gibson said with a growl. “This is temporary. And, Dawes?”

Gibson leaned in and spoke in an icy tone. “Let’s be clear. Sergeant Blake’s your boss. You do what he says, no matter what.” His dark eyes shone with fierce intensity.

She gulped. “Yes, sir.” Val shrank back into her chair, feeling like a misbehaving school girl again.

Gibson shoved off down the hall. Blake smiled at her. “Don’t let him spook you,” Travis said. “I don’t eat my young, and last time I checked, I only had one head.”

Blake waved his giant paw at her. “Cut the ‘sir’ crap, at least for tonight. We’re partners. Call me Travis, or Blake, or TB. You prefer Val, or Dawes?”

Blake belly-laughed. “This is gonna be fun. What say we go check on those two gangs and see if your little chat had any lasting effects?” He tossed her the keys. “Get the car. I’ll be along in a minute.”

When she reached their cruiser, the legs of a large, apple-shaped man extended out the driver’s side door. The door pushed further open, and the rotund body of Alex Papadopoulos sat up, red-faced from exertion. His face registered surprise and embarrassment.

Pops stood, shoving something into his belt or back pocket. “Yeah, just, ah, looking for my wallet. Got it.” He displayed a saccharine smile, closing the door. “All yours, princess.”

Val‘s temper flared, but she held her tongue and allowed him to pass. She glanced at his back after he slid by. The handle of a cheap pistol showed above the top of his belt.

“Expecting to bust some gang members on desk duty tonight?” she muttered under her breath.

“Have a good night,” she said, smiling. Pops narrowed his eyes with suspicion, but stalked away without replying.

Blake insisted that she drive, something Pops had refused to let her do, and they arrived at the Disciples’ favorite corner minutes later. A small group warmed their hands around the garbage can in the center of the otherwise empty parking lot. Val recognized Dog, Gunner, Thomas, and Pip standing closest to Pope, seated facing the fire.

Pope glanced at Val and Blake as they approached, then lit a second cigarette from the smoldering tip of his first and tossed the butt into the flames. “You come to pay up?” he asked when they closed within speaking distance.

Blake shot Val a quizzical glance. She hadn’t confided her five-hundred dollar bounty offer for leads on Harkins to anyone other than Gil and had let it slip her mind. “Payday is Friday,” she said. “That soon enough?”

Pope shrugged. “If we both make it to Friday.” He inhaled, blew smoke out of his nose. “I ain’t here, you give it to Dog. Cool?”

A few gang members muttered surprise. Dog’s eyes grew wide, and he shrunk back into the crowd.

Val nodded and glanced at her partner. Blake’s face showed confusion and concern, but he remained quiet, his eyes fixed on Val. She understood: this was her show. He’d chime in later.

“Are we going to have more trouble with you and the Dragons?” she asked, edging closer to Pope.

The gang leader coughed around another deep drag of his cigarette. “That’s on them. This is where we live. They want trouble, they know where to find it.” Pope coughed again and tossed his cigarette into the can. “Fucking cancer sticks. They gonna kill me if Fumi don’t.” The Disciples around him laughed.

“I’d rather not have to step into the heart of another meeting like you had today,” Val said.

“Then fucking don’t,” Pope said, laughing. He stood and warmed his hands at the fire. “Listen, Copette. I’m cool with you checking in, doing your cop thing. I get it. It’s your job. And, assuming we settle our business on Friday,” he said in a more serious tone, “I dig what you’re doing. You did right by Dog and Gunner. Ain’t no other cops around treat us fair, or even talk to us like human beings, ’cept you and Copsky. You’re all right.” He glanced at his buddies. “Am I right, Disciples?”

“Yeah, she’s all right,” a few of them mumbled. Gunner gave her a thumbs-up. Blake’s face darkened, and he crossed his arms. Still, he stayed in the background.

“Let me be clear,” Val said. “I had nothing to do with Gunner’s release. I didn’t know he was out until we saw you earlier tonight.”

Pope chuckled. “You say so.” He stared into the fire. “You going to talk to the Dragons now, keep them on their side of the playground?”

“That’ll cost you another five.” Pope laughed. “Nah, I’m only joshing ya. They hang out by the Y in the old mill district. Long as they stay there, we’re cool. Dig?”

“Yeah. Dig.” Val couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She signaled Blake, and they headed toward the cruiser.

Val paused, exchanged a glance with Travis, and faced Pope. “Call me Officer Dawes, if you don’t mind.”

Pope, still standing, shrugged. “Yo. I heard what happened to Copsky. I just wanted to say sorry. That sucks.”

The comment caught Val off-guard, and she stammered before replying. “Thanks. I’ll tell him next time I see him.”

Val and Blake returned to the cruiser. Pope’s expression of concern for Gil occupied Val for several minutes, distracting her from Blake’s tight-lipped, tense brooding. After they’d driven a few blocks in silence, she said, “Something on your mind?”

Blake cleared his throat. “Yeah, that business with the five Franklins,” he said. “You’re seriously paying them cash for some leads on a case or something?”

Val’s heart rate quickened, her ears burning. “I offered a reward for information leading to that child rapist, Harkins,” she said. “They gave us the tip that led to the shootout where Gil, er—”

“Holy shit!” Blake wagged his head and exhaled a burst of air, clouding his passenger side window. “I couldn’t think of a worse idea. You know what they do with that money, don’t you?”

“You can’t do it,” he said. “Even if you could afford it, which I doubt, on a rookie’s pay.”

“Bullshit!” Travis gripped the armrest on the passenger door. “Besides, you haven’t caught Harkins yet. We can’t even be sure he’s the one who shot Gil that night. You’ve got no proof they gave you good information.”

Val considered that and kept her voice calm in response. “Fair point. But we’re ninety percent sure.”

“Even if you were a hundred percent,” he said, his voice rising, “every penny of that money makes our jobs harder. It’s another gun on the street, another needle in a twelve-year-old’s arm. Can you live with that? Do you want to be the one shot by that gun?”

Her arms shook on the wheel, frustration and guilt rising to storm levels inside her. The vision of Gil lying in the hospital, the victim of a thug’s bullet, tore at her insides. Samuels, too, had taken one from a thug. How many others?

But the thug in both cases was Harkins—whom The Disciples were trying to help her catch.

“Besides,” Travis went on in a calmer voice when she didn’t respond, “it strikes me, they owe you. At least for Dog, whatever the hell that’s about. You’re right about Gunner—the prosecutor let him walk because of Pops’s sloppy arrest. But they don’t need to know that. I’d say your accounts are settled for now.”

Val swallowed hard and focused on driving. It was the one thing she could do on the straight and narrow at that moment.

Val found a note pinned to her bedroom door when she trudged in late that morning. Oversized girlish curlicues piqued her interest with the words, “Big news! Lunch at Claytown Café?” A noontime meeting meant getting less than eight hours of sleep. Not good, but she’d neglected her lifelong friend lately, and longed for meaningful conversation with someone she trusted. Besides, some old-fashioned girl talk would cheer her up. She scribbled “YES!” on the back of the note and shoved it under Beth’s door before collapsing into bed.

Val arrived early and nursed a cappuccino to jump-start her waking-up process. Beth, as usual, slid into the booth twenty minutes late, nearly colliding with the pink-haired waitress who’d come by to refill Val’s water glass.

“I’ve only ever been here for breakfast,” Beth said, shivering inside a fluffy winter coat. “How’s the lunch menu here?”

“Like, the best ever,” Pinkie said, hovering nearby. “Bagel sandwiches, frittatas, and, like, a killer omelet, the Freaky-Greeky. Totally vegan, except for the eggs and the feta cheese. You want a cappuccino too?”

“Regular black coffee’s fine,” Beth said, and leaned across the booth to hug Val.

“So, what’s the news?” Val asked when Beth settled back into her seat. “New car? Job? Boyfriend?” Please, she begged the universe, let it be a new boyfriend.

“None of the above.” Beth’s grin burst off her face. “In fact, you might say I’ve lost a boyfriend.” She slid her left hand to the center of the table. It took Val a moment to notice the glistening diamond cluster lighting Beth’s ring finger.

“Beth, I’m so...happy for you!” She hoped that sounded more convincing than it felt. She hugged Beth across the table, shouting congratulations and spilling the salt and pepper shakers. She waved Pinkie back. “This calls for a celebration!”

After a round of mimosas, the two friends settled down to lunch and serious talk. “I didn’t realize the relationship had gotten so serious,” Val said. “A month ago, you weren’t even sure you wanted to keep seeing Josh.”

Beth sipped her drink. “True. But we’ve talked a lot since then, and he is so sweet. He really loves and respects me, and that’s more than I can say about ninety percent of the guys I’ve dated.”

“But do you love him?” Val asked. “Last time we talked, you were only lukewarm on him. All your life you’ve talked about hooking up with an athlete, and, well, Josh is kind of...”

“He’s no Adonis,” Beth said. “But I don’t care. I’ve had my fill of those self-centered guys. A skinny, nerdy guy who wants to raise my children and treats me like a queen beats those empty-headed assholes any day.”

Val forced a wry smile. “I’m glad for you,” she said, trying to mean it. “You look happy, and that’s what counts.”

Beth gushed about her wedding and honeymoon plans for the next half hour. Val tried her best to show enthusiasm, but her heart wasn’t in it, and that only intensified her sense of guilt. She couldn’t decide on the culprit for her dour mood—she had too many options. Jealousy over Beth’s romantic bliss? Unease over Beth settling for the wrong guy? Her guilt over Gil’s condition? Perhaps it was her rising sense of desperation over the dimming prospects for finding Harkins. Or her general sense of frustration with her failures as a cop. She decided on All of the Above.

“What about you, Val?” Beth asked, finally running out of details to share. “Any new guys in your life?”

“No.” Val’s smile turned wry. “I fill my life with other things. Work keeps me busy, and I spend as much time as I can with my niece. Hell, Ali’s doing better than I am. She has a boy interested in her, and she’s only five!”

Beth laughed. “I’m sorry, Val,” she said, “but that’s funny. Well, maybe you can meet someone at my wedding, if you haven’t by then. You’re welcome to bring a date, of course.”

“Well, I doubt I’ll meet anyone by then.” Against her will, her mind flashed to the man she most admired, lying in his hospital bed because of her. “Besides, it’s boring to be the date of a bridesmaid.”

Beth’s expression made Val blush and caused her heart to sink. “Uh, oh.” Heat rose in Val’s cheeks. “I just assumed—I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m sorry,” Beth said. “We’re keeping the wedding party small—just a maid of honor and best man—my sister, his brother. Oh, Val, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“No, no, forget it.” Val faked a sneeze and dabbed her nose and eyes with a napkin. She took a sip of mimosa to help her swallow the lump in her throat. “At least I can’t say, ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’”

Afterward, Val sank into a deep funk on the bus to the hospital. Until Beth’s announcement at lunch, her lack of a romantic or social life hadn’t bothered her. Suddenly, though, she felt lonely. Beth was her only real friend, and she knew from experience—her growing distance from Chad sprang to mind—that Beth’s engagement and marriage would drive them apart, too. She’d made only one true friend on the force, and look what she’d done to him.

On the other hand, her limited dating experience was almost universally bad. Not all as bad as Josh’s Neanderthal friend Brent, but close.

She choked when she realized that Brent would probably be at the damned wedding. Oh, great, she chided herself. Way to ruin even that with negative thinking.

Val tried, and failed, to remember the last time a decent guy had asked her out. She rarely even drew a second glance from men, other than the leers from creeps like Pops. Being a cop didn’t help. But then again, she didn’t even try to attract men. She kept her hair short, rarely applied more than a trace of makeup, and when not in uniform, she dressed casually—Beth would say “frumpy,” and sometimes, “like a tomboy.” But she was not unattractive. Due to regular workouts, her body stayed fit and thin—okay, perhaps too thin. Her breasts could be bigger, and maybe she should invest in something other than an unflattering sports bra one of these days. Guys sometimes checked out her butt, thinking she hadn’t noticed. Guys other than Pops. Like that cute-ish guy in the second row of the bus...who got off on the very next stop. With his wife or girlfriend.

The problem wasn’t looks. Hell, Beth was no looker, but she fought the boys off with sticks. But Beth was interested in meeting men and showed it. Val wasn’t, and didn’t. Guys could tell before asking she would say no.

Stupid question. She knew the answer. She slouched down in her seat, covering her face with the lapels of her overcoat.

Hospital staff welcomed Val with good news upon her arrival. The doctors had upgraded Gil’s condition to stable and lowered his morphine dose so he could more or less function again. A more puzzling revelation greeted her at the door to his private room: the return of Pops standing guard.

“Surprised to see me?” Pops said. “You shouldn’t be. You’re the reason I’m here.”

Val tried to hide her elation. “Believe it or not, your own behavior might have had something to do with it,” she said. “On the plus side, Gil’s getting better, so you’ll be back on donut duty soon. Hopefully with a new partner.”

“Stuff it, Dawes.” Pops sneered at her, blocking the door. “Or would you rather I exercise my discretion and not let you in? It’s up to me, you know.”

“Why?” she said in an innocent tone. “Do you suspect I’m packing an illegal .22 somewhere?” She adopted a wide stance and held her arms out, daring him to frisk her. Please, please, she said with her eyes. Give me an excuse to level you.

Pops glared at her, lips curled, and stood aside. “Get in there before I change my mind,” he said.

Upon entering, Val found Gil awake and watching a sports talk show on TV. He’d lost the ghostly pallor, but dark circles remained under his eyes. When he spotted her, though, a huge grin spread across his face. “Hey, partner,” he said in a tired voice. After muting the TV, he held out his hand. Without thinking, she grasped it in both of hers. She noticed how clammy her hands were, and queasiness rose in her gut. She tried to let go, but he held on, drawing her closer.

Gil shook his head. “She went back to New Haven for a few days,” he said. “Sit, stay a while.” He nodded toward a guest chair.

Relieved to have an excuse to escape his grip, she pulled the chair close and rested her hands on her lap. “Jessica‘s great, Gil. You’re lucky to have her.”

“Yeah, she’s—wait.” Gil fixed her with a puzzled frown. “What do you mean, ‘have’ her?”

Val’s mouth stopped working for a moment. Or her brain did. In any event, words wouldn’t come. She coughed and patted her chest to buy time. “Uh, you know. As a fiancée.”

“As a what?” Gil’s frown deepened from puzzlement to pure confusion. “Did she tell you that?”

“Uh...yeah...she said you two had gotten back together.” Val’s ears burned, and guilty feelings swelled in her chest. “Don’t you remember?”

Disgust replaced confusion on Gil's face. “Oh, Lord. Jessica’s telling her damned stories again.” He blew out a gush of air, closed his eyes a moment, then opened them and faced Val again. “Jess and I were engaged—ten years ago. And I did call her a few days before, uh, all this happened.” He lowered his eyes and looked away. “I was lonely, I guess. Hearing her voice cheered me up, but we did not ‘get back together’. At least, not in my mind.”

Val covered her broad smile with her hands and pretended to cough again. Not engaged! She should feel sorry for him. And for Jessica. But she didn’t. No matter how inappropriate her feelings were for her partner, they would not go away. “You two need to chat,” she said after an eternity.

“We will. Damn, I don’t look forward to that conversation.” He chuckled. “I’d rather face Harkins again. He doesn’t scare me half as much as her.”

Val laughed. “Well, your sense of humor is back.” In a more serious tone, she continued, “I’m glad to see your condition has improved. You had us worried there.”

Gil waved that sentiment away. “I ain’t going anywhere. Not as long as I have these fancy accommodations.” He gazed around the room and his face lit up with another tired smile.

“You’ve got quite the armed guard outside your door,” she said. “Clayton’s finest.”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” he said. “I seriously doubt Harkins is showing up here. Besides, I thought Gibson assigned Pops to you?”

“We, uh, didn’t work out too well.” Val heaved a deep sigh. “You’re a tough act to follow.”

His directness caught her off guard. “I, uh, miss you too,” she said. “Working with you, and...everything.” Sweat collected on her scalp, and she could hear her heartbeat. She‘d never told anyone that, other than her brother. What was it about Gil that made her blurt out such things?

“He apparently stole a Jeep from one of the strippers,” she said, happy to switch gears in the conversation. “I’m supposed to meet with Jalen Marshall to follow up. Has he been by?”

“Jalen’s supposed to visit today. I actually expected him when you showed up.” Gil adjusted his position in the bed and grunted. “I’m going to have wicked bedsores before I get out of here.”

Seeing his pain and hearing his complaints, guilt washed over her again. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. I feel so awful.”

“Don’t!” Gil reached out again. After several moments of pretending not to notice, she pressed her hand into his again, and he enclosed it in a firm grip, sending a tingling sensation up her arm. “Listen to me, Dawes. You didn’t do this. Harkins did. Nobody else. And it’s my fault for being careless, not yours.”

“I’m the one fixated on this case—this guy,” Val said. “It’s my fault we chased him, and that led to the standoff. And you were trying to protect me that night, and instead—”

“Instead I fell on my ass and he shot me,” Gil said. “None of that is your fault.”

Val drew a deep, unsteady breath. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“We do agree on one thing,” Gil said. “You’re obsessed with finding him—understandably so. It makes sense given the type of cop you are, and your personal history. And because the guy’s a damned feral animal. But it’s important to me, too, Val. To the whole department—hell, the whole city. Or should be.”

“Yes, but it’s not worth losing y—uh, good cops like you over.” Her lip trembled, and tears welled up in her eyes.

“You haven’t lost me yet.” He glanced at the heart monitor behind him. “At least, last time I checked.”

She laughed, and tension flowed out of her. “You need to check the machines to be sure?”

Gil laughed too, then winced again. He squeezed her hand harder. To her amazement, no more tingling ran up her arm, and the clamminess had disappeared.

She had one more thing to say to Gil, but the words stuck inside her. She owed him more details about what had happened with Uncle Milt, and she’d waited long enough. Gil may no longer have been her partner, but he was still a friend—besides Beth, her closest friend. She couldn’t wait for another close call, or worse. She cleared her throat and composed her message in her mind—

A knock on the door interrupted. A moment later, Jalen Marshall entered, carrying a sheet of plastic rolled up in his hand.

“Kryz, you old dog!” Jalen bopped the metal rail at the end of the bed with the plastic roll. “How many women you got coming to hold your hand every day?” He laughed and slapped Val on the back. She pulled her hand from Gil’s grip, reddening.

“I’ll give you two some time,” she said, moving toward the door. “Jalen, can we catch up when you’re done?”

“Meet me and Ben in the cafeteria in twenty minutes. But first, stay for the ceremony.”

Jalen stood erect by Gil’s bed and unrolled the plastic sheet, exposing a bulls-eye bearing the caption, “Slowest-moving Target Award. G. Kryzinski, 2018.” She stared at it, her feelings of guilt doubling. Jalen, oblivious to her humiliation, burst out in laughter. “If you want, Gil, I can make a T-shirt for you!”

“You’re an asshole!” But Gil laughed along with Jalen and accepted a massive bear hug from him.

Great. Not only can Jalen get away with bringing inappropriate gallows-humor gifts, but he had no problem giving Gil hugs, the lucky bastard.

Val slipped out the door, her shoulders shaking, fighting to keep her emotions in check. But Pops’s disdainful grimace broke the dam, and as she fled down the hall, hot tears flowed like rain.

Val had no interest in hanging out with Ben Peterson while she waited for Jalen Marshall, particularly in her emotional state. Instead, she found an empty waiting room in the hospital’s pediatrics wing, set the alarm on her phone, and zoned out to a travel show on a muted TV.

Five minutes too early, her phone roused her from an unplanned nap on the rock-hard chairs. The Caller ID brought a smile to her face.

“Chad! So sorry I haven’t called you lately,” she said without a hello. “Work has been awful, and—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not calling to chastise you,” he said. “Dad isn’t coming for the holidays. He’s ill and isn’t up to traveling.”

“Ah. Is he, you know, sick-sick, or cold-and-flu sick?” Another thing to feel guilty about. Dad lived ten minutes away, yet she got news of him through her brother.

“Neither. He’s going back into rehab.” Chad’s voice grew sullen. “He’s been hitting the juice hard lately, I guess.”

“Oh.” She supposed she should feel bad about that. “So, when do you want me there?”

“Can you come a few days early and stay the weekend?” he said. “Kendra’s playing with the orchestra in a concert on the Friday before Christmas. If there‘s any chance you could make it...”

Val sighed. She hadn’t seen Kendra perform in years, and Christmas concerts always gave her a big lift. “I’ll try. That means taking Friday through Tuesday off, at least. As a rookie, I’m not sure how that’ll fly.” Her phone chimed again—her alarm. “I gotta go. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

She rang off and hustled down the hall, following signs through the maze of corridors to find the cafeteria. She arrived a few minutes before noon—rush hour. Small groups of sad, nervous people jostled in long lines and huddled around Formica-topped tables, filling the space with noise, heat, and sweat. After a quick scan of the room, she spotted two men sitting together, both around her age. She navigated toward their table, then stopped in her tracks.

The man facing her resembled Ben, but differed in appearance, too. She recognized his familiar face with a start: Paul Peterson, Ben’s cousin.

Paul appeared agitated, jabbing his finger at Ben while he spoke. Ben shook his head, his gaze lowered, his hands raised as if to shield him from his cousin‘s verbal onslaught. Paul’s expression showed frustration, which shifted to surprise when his eyes met Val’s. His lips moved: Uh-oh. Ben spun around, spotting Val, and mouthed: Shit. The men muttered something to each other—terse goodbyes, Val guessed—and Paul hustled out of the cafeteria without a backward glance.

“Did you have a nice chat with your cousin?” Val asked, pulling up a seat across from Ben.

“Yes, we were, uh, making holiday plans,” Ben said in an innocent tone. “The whole fam damily gets together Christmas Eve. How about you?”

“How lovely. I look forward to his post-holiday blog,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll learn more about how bad a cop I am.”

“Those stories don’t come from me,” Ben said through clenched teeth. “If you want to find out who’s feeding him, you ought to look closer to home.” He looked up and waved. “There’s Jalen.”

Marshall’s imposing figure appeared by their table, and he sat alongside his junior partner. “Good news,” Jalen said. “The stolen Jeep showed up a couple days ago near the New York border. Abandoned, with Harkins’s prints all over it.”

“But where’s Harkins?” Val asked. “In two days, he could be anywhere.”

“There’s more,” Jalen said. “A young girl filed a complaint, saying a guy matching Harkins’s description molested her—more than once. He was shacking up with her mother out there.”

Val’s stomach heaved. Another victim! All because she’d let him slip away again. “Holy crap,” she said. “This guy’s out of control. We have got to track him down. Organize a manhunt or something.”

“We’ve sent an APB with photos and fingerprints to law enforcement throughout the region,” Jalen said. “By nightfall, his face will be on every TV, airport security gate, train station and post office bulletin board in the Northeast. If he’s on the move at all, we’ll find him.”

“Whoa, slow down, cowgirl,” Jalen said, and Ben, who’d remained quiet, chuckled. Jalen went on, “First, we don’t have the resources. Second, Harkins doesn’t know that we’re onto him. Third, I think he’s staying close. Last time we thought he was running south, but then he popped up again in our own backyard.”

“Sooner or later he’ll run out of girlfriends with young daughters,” Ben said, smirking.

Val glared at him, but then sighed, and nodded. “I agree. He’s running out of options here. He’ll dash, sooner rather than later, and we need to get aggressive to find him.”

Ben shrank in his seat. “How many cops need to get shot because of this guy?” he said. “I say, if he runs to New York, he becomes New York’s problem.”

Val stared at him, open-mouthed, and shook her head. “You remind me of my ex-partner, Pops,” she said. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

“Nobody, at the moment,” Val said. An idea came to her, and excitement built in her voice. “How about we team up on this case? We both have warrants out for him, and it solves my boss’s problem of finding me a partner.”

Jalen rubbed his chin and nodded. “Nice idea. You need a partner, and we need each other’s help. Let’s pitch it to our bosses as an inter-city task force. What do you think, Ben?”

“Then try to stay out of our way,” Jalen said. “Let’s do this, Dawes!”

The night grew wintry toward the end of their shift. The icy drizzle turned to a steady downpour of freezing rain, raising the prospect of a bone-chilling walk home through the dark city streets. Val parked the cruiser in the garage and rubbed her hands together, shivering.

“Well, Val, we survived another one,” her partner said with a weary smile, surprising her by using her first name. Despite his exhaustion, his face radiated energy and kindness. He extended his hand, and Val shook it, then hugged her body for warmth. He cocked his head. “You walking home?”

“I’ll call Uber.” Her teeth chattered, and she laughed. “One with central heating, I hope.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride. It’s the least I can do.”

She relented. This one time, she could let someone do something nice for her.

After they clocked out, he waited for her in his SUV, motor running. When she clambered in, hot air blasted her face. Even the seat felt warm. “I got the winter package with this beast,” he said with an easy grin. “In Connecticut, I have to use it half the damned summer.” His strong arms rested on the wheel, a safe distance away from her. By the time he parked outside her place, she’d unbuttoned her coat and removed her gloves, but she was still hot. “Sorry,” he said, turning down the heat. “I guess I overdid it.”

The wind gusted and the clouds opened up. Torrents of rain splashed the windows. “I’m going to drown just getting inside!” she said with a nervous laugh. After a brief pause, she asked, “Would you mind walking me to the door?”

A massive golf umbrella covered them both as they ran up the walk to the building’s entrance, but they got soaked anyway. Val inserted her key into the lock, but the old mechanism refused to turn.

“Can I try?” he said. Gripping the handle, he gave the door a mighty shove. It burst open and he tumbled through the doorway onto the floor. Horrified, she covered her mouth—until she heard him laughing.

“What a klutz!” he said. “Oh, crap. That hurt.”

Val took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He weighed next to nothing. His dark brown eyes riveted on hers the whole way up.

“Well, I appreciate the ride,” she stammered. “I hope it didn’t take you out of your way.”

“Not at all.” He smiled. “Okay, that’s bullshit, but what am I supposed to say?”

She laughed again. He was still holding her hand. Or was she holding his?

“Anyway, I should thank you,” he said.

“Me? What for?” Their hands still touched. She should let go. Or he should. But they didn’t.

“You’ve made police work fun again for me,” he said. “Your curiosity and enthusiasm, the way you pick everything up so quickly. It reminds me of when I first started.” His eyes twinkled, radiating a smile that arose from deep within.

“Oh...uh, thank you,” she said. “You’ve made learning to become a police officer an absolute pleasure.” They stood in silence a moment, eyes locked. This is when Val should say goodnight. Thank you again for the ride. See you tomorrow.

“Would you like to come inside to get warm?” she said instead.

He nodded. “I’d love to.” His voice floated in a smooth, baritone wave around her. Like velvet. Or chocolate. Or...something.

Val led him inside, locked the door behind them, and put a finger to her lips. “My roommate might be sleeping,” she whispered.

“Might be?” He giggled. “At 3:00 a.m.? Who’d be asleep at this hour?” He pretended to sleep-walk through the living room, arms outstretched, but he looked more like a zombie, and it made Val laugh. That made him laugh too, and they tried not to laugh out loud but they couldn’t not make noise, which only made it funnier. She finally made it stop by looking away from him. Which sucked. Even with the five o’clock shadow, he had a nice face, framed by that wavy dark hair. And his smile could melt the ice frosting her giant living room window.

Wait. Since when did her living room have a picture window?

Music played from somewhere, a ballroom piece her dad used to like. Weird. Beth and Josh must be awake after all, picking out a wedding playlist. Hopefully they’d stay in her bedroom.

Val glanced at him, astonished to discover him dressed in a tux, complete with black tie. And completely dry. So was she. “May I have this dance?” he asked, bowing.

She laughed again. “Shouldn’t I be wearing a gown, or something?”

“What you wear doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”

Val blushed, but he took her hand in his and waltzed with her across the floor. She stared at her hand, enveloped in his, wondering why it didn’t hurt, or tingle, and why it stayed dry instead of getting all clammy like it did on dates. And why his hand on her waist felt so gentle and reassuring, rather than scary-creepy-awful.

She looked back at his face and had her answer. It was a face she liked. Admired. Trusted.

“Gil,” she said. “This is amazing.”

The music swelled, and he lifted her up, swirling her around and around until she got dizzy. His arms must be getting tired. Had to be. Hadn’t he gotten injured? But he held her steady, twirling them both in slow circles to the ancient tune, her feet in the air, as if she, too, weighed nothing. It felt like flying.

Val looked down and discovered that his feet, too, had left the floor. They floated near the ceiling, arms around each other’s waist, their faces close, eyes inches apart, bodies touching, his skin pressed against her thighs and abdomen, and holy shit we’re both naked.

Exactly when their lips met she couldn’t say, but it was soft, and sweet, and both gentle and strong. Gil's hands caressed her back, her hips, her legs, in a way that was loving and beautiful.

She remembered to touch him, too, appreciating his muscular arms, his broad shoulders, his strong back. He pulled her close and lifted her again, like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold, and beyond. Five seconds he carried her. Ten. And not walking but racing across the room, the breeze blowing her hair into her face. Thirty seconds, a minute, across the entire apartment. Just when she thought to warn him they’d run out of room, the apartment exploded with light and the tinkling of shattered glass. They’d crashed right through the big picture window, into the rain, and in a moment they’d land on the frosty grass outside, bruised and full of regret.

But they did not. The tiny shards of glass turned into a cloud of mist, gentle and warm on her skin. Instead of frozen turf and concrete, a giant canyon opened beneath them, layered with red and yellow strata reaching back into the millennia of existence. Rather than falling, they floated above it all, clutching each other and gasping in awe at the view. He kissed her again. Their bodies joined, and for the first time in her life she experienced the joy of a man giving himself to her rather than taking what he wanted, and it felt blissful.

In that instance, all the cold and wind and rain outside disappeared, as did Harkins, Pops, and the whole damned world except for Gil. All that mattered, all that existed, was him, and her, in a moment that could not last long enough.