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Back at the precinct, a hungover Benoit gave her a dirty look as she signed in and walked back toward her old captain's office. The door was closed, so she sat down and waited on an old, varnished wood chair, the same chair that had been outside the office for years. She could remember being a child, sitting in a similar chair, waiting for her Pops to open the door and welcome her in. Despite his gruff manner, he always left a warm feeling in her chest that reminded her of drinking hot cocoa on the coldest of days. It chilled and burned her at the same time. Intense.
"You can go in now," said the rookie who was leaving the office.
Harry got to her feet and knocked on the door frame. Briggs glanced up, then stood as Harry walked in the room. She reached out to shake Harry's hand, more business-like than usual, and Harry knew something was up. She sat down uneasily in one of the chairs on the other side of Briggs' big desk. Briggs’ posture was ramrod straight and her smile tight.
"What's going on?" Harry asked.
Briggs avoided her eyes and straightened some papers on her desk.
"Captain, I know something is up. Spill it."
The imposing woman looked at her for a moment with such scorn, Harry wondered if maybe she hadn't overstepped. She thought they had that kind of relationship, but since she had been put on leave, who knew what had happened? She cleared her throat and shifted in her chair, suddenly weary.
"Close the door," Briggs ordered.
Harry shot out of her seat, closed the door with a thump, and was back in her seat, arms on her knees, waiting expectantly before Briggs could say another word.
The captain gave her a withering look. "Don't act so eager." She took a catalogue with her eyes of Harry, from her boots to her crooked collar, then sighed and put her head in her hands. "We have a problem."
Harry tried her best to look less than eager, but it was no easy task. Something was going on, and Briggs had called her in specifically because she needed someone who wasn't on her payroll. This was dirty work.
"What's the problem?" she asked, aiming for nonchalance. She wasn't sure if she hit her mark.
Briggs sat up, watched a couple of rookies pass, then leaned in closer to her desk. "Do you know anything about the Kyson case?"
Harry had been following the high-profile case on the nightly news. Next to the young scalper and his bloody two days, the Kyson case was the biggest news since Truman Isles had been arrested. Elana Kyson was a seventeen-year-old bad girl and the daughter of a wealthy businessman who owned half the real estate in the city. The elder Kyson had been 65 when his young daughter was born; now in his early eighties, he was unable to control the rebellious girl. In her latest attempt at pissing him off, she had gone off the grid, but had not resurfaced within 24 hours like usual. Instead, she had been gone for almost a week. Harry pegged her for an eloper.
"I do. Why?”
Briggs stared her down, her gaze steely, her mouth a thin line of plum. Then she leaned even farther forward. She was practically lying down on the desk, and Harry knew it was serious business. She bent forward so that their heads were only inches apart.
“There is a link between Shannon Hardeen and Elana Kyson, and someone needs to find it.”
Harry leaned back, Briggs righted herself, and the two stared at each other for a long minute. Then Harry stood and held out her hand for Briggs to shake. Briggs stood, shook her hand, and gave it a squeeze at the end.
"You're a good cop, Thresher."
Harry nodded. "I just hope the police board will think so."
"They will. Since you’ve been here, you’ve solved a disproportionate amount of cases. People have taken notice.”
Harry headed to the door, but hesitated with her hand on the knob. "Piece of cake," she said.
But as she walked back through the precinct, saying automatic hellos to the people she had worked with for the past year, she wondered how successful she would be. A cop without a badge is like a gun without a bullet, after all. But didn't that sell her short? Surely, she was more than the title, more than an idiot with a gun and a license to break rules.
––––––––
HARRY SAT WITH THE baby, Lilliann, in her lap. She kissed the top of the baby's thick, frizzy hair, pulled her in to sit beside her, and looked at Cal. He was staring at the television, but he wasn't watching. He knew something was up. He could smell it on her, or see it on her, that she wanted to ask him something neither of them wanted to hear. It hung around them like cobwebs, waiting to draw them into a sticky mess that their friendship might not survive. Harry took a deep breath.
"No."
Cal's proclamation was sudden, and it threw Harry off her game. She faltered. She watched his profile, the little muscle pulsing in his jaw, the vein sticking out at his temple, and knew he wouldn't help her. But without Cal, who did she have? She couldn't call Busy, could she?
"Listen, Cal..."
He turned to her and she shrunk away. The baby sniffled, and she pulled her back into her lap and tickled her round belly. Lilliann cooed up at her, and she smiled back. If only all of life was as simple as it was for a baby. Just be, that's all you had to do.
"Thresher, I don't want to do this anymore. I can't keep saving everyone else's kids. My responsibility is to that baby," he said, pointing at his niece as she gurgled on Harry's lap. "And to my kid sister, who, if you haven't noticed, is a single mother and a young, pretty girl in a dangerous ass city. How many young women have gone missing lately? And you want me to just leave her alone - leave them both here to be hurt? What kind of a man would I be then?"
He had a point, and Harry closed her mouth on what she was going to say. She wanted to beg him to come for Cynthia and Lilliann; if they figured out what the hell was happening to all the missing young, his family would be safer. But she kept her mouth shut.
"I can't believe you would come to my home and ask me to do this. I already told you I was done. I told you that I can't do this anymore. My new job starts on Monday, and I plan to be there. I don't plan to be out sneaking around behind the precinct's backs, breaking however many laws, to solve a case I'm not even assigned to. That you're not even assigned to!"
"Well, actually..."
"No," he said. His stern voice caught the attention of Lilliann, who screwed her face up and started to cry in the most pathetic, beautiful way Harry had ever seen a person shed a tear. She looked heartbroken. Cal reached over and took the baby from her hands, shushed her, and rocked her until she calmed down. "You see?" he whispered. "I can't deal with this crap anymore. I have a baby to take care of, and I'm no good to her when I'm out screwing around with you."
Harry didn't have anything to say to that. What could she say? 'I don't care about your family; we have a case to solve'? She would rather do it alone than put him in such a position. She didn't know what she had been thinking coming here. Maybe she just didn't want to admit that she was afraid to approach the one person who was licensed to help her, because she was afraid of what the scorned woman might say. When they came up with the saying 'hell hath no fury,' they were thinking about a woman like Klaudia Biznicki. The girl was a whirlwind of fury when she was pushed to the edge. Her edge was far, and deep, and it took a hell of a lot to get there, but once there, she would push you off into the boiling lava of her wrath without pity.
"I'm sorry," Harry said.
Cal kissed the baby and stood. "I think you need to leave, Thresher."
Harry got the message. She wouldn't see him for a while. She stood, then leaned in and kissed the baby on the forehead. "Goodbye, Nugget. I'll see you again..." She looked up at Cal, who frowned down at her in an expression she had never seen before on his face. "I'll see you again one day."
Cal led Harry to the door and opened it with one hand, cradling the baby with the other. "I don't want to see you for a while, all right?" he said.
Harry let herself be put out. He closed the door behind her softly, but to Harry, it was like he had slammed it on her. Cal was no longer an option; if she asked for his help again, she might be destroying their friendship forever, and it wasn't a risk she wanted to take. Not for any case or any reason. She drove home, trying to work through in her mind just what exactly she could say to Busy to make her not immediately hang up the phone.
