“Like hell,” Brandt deadpanned. “I wish I could say nothing hurt but my pride, but...”
She drifted off without finishing her sentence, Reed already knowing exactly what she meant. Not only had she suffered the indignity of letting the murder suspect they’d been chasing get so close, she had suffered severe personal injury in the process.
“I imagine,” Reed said. “I’ve seen up close what this guy can do. You’re fortunate it wasn’t worse. Both of you.”
It was difficult to say the words without sounding condescending, though Reed did mean them. Compared to the fates that had befallen Mentor and friends, the two people beside him had been quite lucky.
Brandt seemed to sense all of that, or at least had the good sense not to press it.
“He had a bad spell,” she said, jutting her chin toward Pierce on the other side. “His dad was never really in the picture, and his mom was an Air Force lifer. When he was growing up, she was stationed out of Rickenbacker, never missed a ball game or a school function.
“When he went on to college, though, she finally accepted the promotion they’d been trying to foist on her for years. She was gone, and he was left to his own devices.”
Reed nodded at the explanation. It did little to change what happened or what Pierce had said hours before, though that was no longer in his hands. Finding out about that incident years before was solely a means to an end for him, a way to determine who was coming after the Kings.
“We all tried to help,” Brandt said, her voice again fading away. “I don’t need to tell you my role in it.”
She paused and looked over at him, Reed getting the impression she was searching for some sort of response, to which he gave none.
“Anyway, two years ago he suddenly snapped out of it. I concede he’s still pretty arrogant, and does run a little too much while his mom’s away, but he’s much better than he was. Should finish at Ohio State in a few months.”
More than once while she spoke, Reed got the impression she was building to something, that her speech was predicated on more than just clearing the air. Still he remained silent as he listened.
When her explanation was complete, she fell silent, glancing his way again.
“Sounds like he should make a full recovery,” Reed said. “Little nerve damage maybe, but nothing like it could have been.”
“Yeah,” Brandt said, rising up on to her toes to get a better view through the window. She remained there before turning to examine Reed, the bandages giving her face a misshapen appearance that made her look like she was listing to the side.
Her mouth worked up and down, trying to find the words, no sounds escaping.
Reed could only guess at the number of things she would say to him if she found her voice. He imagined the difficulty she had in speaking stemmed from trying to thank him for coming to the aid of her and her nephew. Perhaps she would even apologize for threatening to have him removed, making his life so difficult in the preceding days.
On the flip side, she might be attempting to offer him something, her mind trying to find the best approach. She could be hoping to quiet him about what he had heard that afternoon, extending a marker to him just the way she had to Judge Bennett.
Whatever it was she wanted to say, Reed didn’t want to hear it. He was fatigued and hungry, his partner in the same state in the car. There was no interest in any bribe Brandt had to offer, as she couldn’t give him what he most desired.
He left her standing outside her nephew’s room, the first light of dawn visible through the windows as he headed to the parking lot.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Some blood was still crusted into Billie’s fur as she climbed from the backseat and out into the parking lot. First thing after getting home, he would load her into the bath tub and scrub it away, removing any lingering residue of Michael Rigas from them both.
“Go ahead,” Reed said, motioning toward the expanse of grass stretched before them, the same one she had visited at least three times a week for the past two months.
Unlike most trips though, there was no pent up energy for her to shed away, no long night in need of working off. Like Reed, she had spent the entire work week with her body clock flipped on its head, every function she possessed out of sorts.
She just stood and stared at Reed, giving every indication she wanted to climb back into the rear of the car, before finally drifting off into the grass.
“I’m not sure which of you looks more exhausted.”
The words tugged at the corners of Reed’s mouth as he remained leaning against his car, not bothering to look over his shoulder at the person he knew was there. The look stayed in place as Dr. Mehdi stepped alongside the car and came to a stop beside him, assuming the same pose.
“Doc,” Reed said, ignoring the prior barb.
“Reed,” Mehdi replied. “Congratulations.”
The smile rose a bit higher as Reed watched Billie work her way around the park, her nose aimed at the ground. “Thank you. It was a long week, but mercifully, it’s all over now.”
“Oh,” Mehdi said, “so you got your man?”
The question caught Reed by surprise, the smile fading as his eyebrows pulled inward. He tilted his head and cast a sideways glance at Mehdi, her attention still trained on Billie.
“We did. What were you referring to?”
Mehdi pulled her gaze from the dog, “The call came in this morning. You’re now officially free of me. I guess since you proved you could do this on your own again, they decided we didn’t need to keep having these little morning get-togethers.”
She watched as confusion remained on Reed’s face. “But apparently, that was news to you, too.”
“It was,” Reed agreed, once more focusing on the park.
There were only two places the call could have originated from – Grimes and Brandt. He doubted the captain would have made such a call on his own, certainly not contacting Mehdi in the middle of the night.
That left only the chief, a woman who was used to getting what she wanted, wasn’t afraid to dole out the occasional gift in exchange for it. What the reprieve on his counseling sessions was meant to procure from him, he couldn’t be sure, the options quite lengthy.
“Just now, you said I proved I could do it on my own,” Reed said, his voice neutral. “That definitely wasn’t the case.”
Without looking over, he could sense Mehdi raising the corner of her mouth at the statement, staring at Billie. “Yeah? She did a good job?”
In the five days since they had last spoken, Billie had proven herself in every way possible. She wasn’t Riley, would never be Riley, but she offered a skill set that Reed had never before known.
“Excellent.”
Silence fell between them, both staring out, neither one saying anything.
Never before had Reed spoken with a therapist, unsure how their final interaction should go. The past week had done a great deal in bringing him along, though that still didn’t mean he was suddenly ready to let the walls down, spilling out everything he felt inside.
Barring that, he doubted there was any way the doctor would ever realize how much she had helped him in the preceding months. Despite his abhorring the mandatory meetings, despite his clamming up whenever possible, his ire wasn’t aimed at her.
It was directed at the fact that speaking with her only served to drive home everything that was wrong with his life.
More than anything, he missed Riley. She was far more than a partner to him, she was a best friend, the kind of person who couldn’t be replaced. Every day there were dozens of things that happened that brought her to mind, twice as many that he wanted to call and tell her about.
Beyond that, he just wanted to be free of the feeling that he had to hide from the world. He enjoyed Billie and was growing accustomed to the night shift, though he wanted those things to be a choice, not a self-imposed exile.
“I wasn’t even here you know,” Reed said, his voice having
fallen away to just a whisper.
“Hmm?” Mehdi asked, turning her head to look at him, her body remaining against the side of the car.
“When it happened,” Reed said, avoiding her gaze, lowering his head so his eyes were aimed at the ground. “I’m guessing you see me and think I have survivor’s guilt or something. I know that’s what most people assume.”
“I don’t assume anything, Reed,” Mehdi replied. “Every person is different, sees things through his own lens.”
Reed knew what she was saying was true. Rarely, if ever, had she prodded him, letting him share or withhold as much as he wanted. For the first two weeks they had barely spoken at all, just taking turns throwing a ball for Billie.
Never before had he said any of this to anybody, the anguish he felt inside too much to allow it. There was no reason for why he felt the need to do so now, beyond perhaps the events of the week or maybe even the end of their time together.
“She bought me tickets to the Rose Bowl for Christmas,” Reed said, raising his eyebrows, letting the movement pull his head up to face the horizon. “I was in California when I got the call, curled up in a cheap hotel room trying to sleep off an day of tailgating in the Los Angeles sunshine.”
He paused, reliving the moment he got the news, thinking about how the next days, months, had been spent in a daze, trying to come to grips with it.
“Last night when we finally cornered our suspect, he told me that the worst part of everything that had happened to him was that he couldn’t do anything to stop it,” Reed said, glancing over at Mehdi beside him.
“I understood what he was saying. I’ll never condone what he did, but in that moment, I kind of got it. There is nothing in the world worse than feeling you might have been able to do something, if only...”
He let his voice trail away there, the words just seeming to evaporate. There was nothing left for him to say, no other sentiment that needed sharing.
Reed knew better than to believe that one week was suddenly going to change things, that he could now start discussing his feelings at will. This was a first step in what would hopefully be many.
As if she sensed what he was thinking, Mehdi reached out and placed a hand on his arm. She left it there a moment, offering a half smile, before turning and heading to her car.
Reed let her get halfway there without moving, the sound of her boots fading behind him before turning, his hands still shoved into the pockets of his sweatshirt.
“Maybe you could still stop by from time to time, just to say hi, toss the ball around with us?”
At the sound of his voice Mehdi turned around, walking backwards as she continued on to her car. She smiled and shrugged, her shoulders rising far enough to ruffle the hair hanging down on either side of her face.
“You’re welcome.”
Reed nodded once in response, one corner of his mouth turning upwards, the doctor knowing exactly what he was trying to say without him saying it.
“Oh, and Doc?” Reed said, Mehdi’s eyebrows rising as she continued to move away. “Your book-on-tape suggestion was dreadful. Might want to reconsider ever using that one again.”
A smile crossed both their faces as they turned away, neither one saying a word.
The late afternoon sun was warm, the first sign of a new season a long time in coming. Reed felt it on his skin as he exited the car, peeling off his hooded sweatshirt and leaving it behind on the driver’s seat.
“Come on,” Reed said, pulling the back door open and letting Billie spill out, not bothering to clip her to a lead as they walked across the open expanse of grass.
In the distance Reed could hear birds exchanging playful banter, could smell the sweet scent of damp grass.
Beside him, Billie bounded along, her large body lifting itself from the ground in jaunty movements, her front and back halves working in perfect harmony. Her tongue hung from her mouth as she twisted and writhed, begging for his attention, enjoying the freedom of being off the leash with room to roam.
A smile crept to Reed’s face as he closed his eyes and lifted his head to the sky, feeling the rays of sun on his skin. He held the pose as he walked on, the soft ground beneath his feet cushioning each step.
Never before had he been to the meadow, though he knew exactly where he was going. More than once he had heard details about the place, how it was situated, what was found there. Without thinking about it he aimed his path for the cherry tree standing alone in the back corner of the field, specks of green starting to line its branches, their sweeping length hanging almost to the ground.
The sight of it expanded the smile on Reed’s face as he drew closer, the shade of the tree stretched out, beckoning him to it. As he walked up, he could see the single grey slab on the ground.
Being buried in this meadow, under this tree, was Riley’s last request. No matter how much he missed her, no matter how much he wished that she was still there with him, no matter how much pain he felt seeing her name on the stone for the first time, just knowing her final wish had been fulfilled brought him some small joy.
“Hey,” Reed said, walking up to the stone and resting a hand on it, the cool feel of it passing through his palm. “Sorry I haven’t made it out here earlier, but I brought somebody along who I thought you should meet...”
Thank You For Reading!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. I know you have literally millions of options available when it comes to making Kindle purchases, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to select this novel. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you would be so inclined, I would greatly appreciate a review letting me know your thoughts on the work. Going against traditional writer protocol I look at all reviews, not in some form of misguided vanity but in hopes of producing a better product. I assure you I do take what is said to heart and am constantly trying to incorporate your suggestions.
In addition, as a token of my appreciation, please enjoy a free download of my novel Quarterback, available HERE.
Best,
Dustin Stevens
About the Author
Dustin Stevens is the author of The Zoo Crew series, the Hawk Tate novels, Going Viral, Quarterback, Be My Eyes, Scars and Stars, Just a Game, 21 Hours, Liberation Day, and Catastrophic. He is also the author of several short stories, appearing in various magazines and anthologies, and is an award-winning screenwriter.
He currently resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Boat Man: A Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1) Page 24