by A. J. Downey
I was only one man, and couldn’t reverse all of the ills in her life, but fuck if I didn’t want to try. I was well aware I couldn’t save everyone. I’d been a cop long enough to know that, but I wanted to do everything and then some to save her… because if anyone deserved saving, it was Christina Marie Franco. She was one of the good ones, I wholeheartedly believed that and knew it was the truth, even if none of these other assholes in this city could see it.
I got a text as soon as I pulled up to the booth leading into the precinct’s underground garage. I used the key card to lift the gate so I could pull in and checked my phone. It was from my partner.
Finally a fucking break. You should come in.
I didn’t even bother responding, I just went upstairs.
“Holy shit, that’s gotta be some kind of a record.”
“Guess my ESP was working double-time,” I cracked back. “What’s up?”
“Neighbor across the hall dimed out some fuckin’ teens in Chrissy’s building. Apparently the Super has a bad habit of leaving the office unlocked and one of the kids jacked the key to her apartment. Guess one of ‘em’s a big baseball fan, convinced his buddies it’d be easy and fun times. They knew she wasn’t home on account of the fucking vultures that’ve been this city’s news reporters lately. They figured if they fucked some shit up, spray painted her walls, they’d get away with it on account of her address having been posted for everyone and their dog to see. Robbery put out a BOLO to all of the area pawn shops and sure as shit, they got one of ‘em trying to pawn the jewelry she had listed with her insurance company.”
I dropped into my chair at my desk saying, “Well fuck me sideways, it’s about time we got some good news and some kind of break when it comes to this mess.”
“Thought you’d like that.” Jaime leaned back in his own chair his expression pretty pleased with himself, a grin on his face like the fuckin’ cat that’d got the cream.
I raised an eyebrow. “You got something else?”
His face fell and he scowled, “Thought you might actually be happy with that… excuse the fuck out of me.”
“Easy partner, I am happy about it…” I propped my boots on my desk.
“Let me guess, it’s just bugging the shit out of you that we ain’t got a shooter.”
“Ah, yeah.”
“Well, they all fuck up eventually.”
I nodded, reclining in my seat and said, “Yeah, well, you got that right.” It was just a question on if another body hit the floor, first. I sure as hell hoped not. One was enough.
“So what’re you doing here anyways?” he asked, interrupting my dark thoughts.
“Dropping off the cruiser, picking up my bike. You seriously wanted me to come in just for that, though? A bunch of punk kids?”
My partner grinned and I dropped my boots to the floor and leaned in whispering harshly, “Man, fuck you. You do have something else.”
Jaime started laughing at me and said, “Yup.”
“Something about our case.”
“Yup. I got good and bad, what do you want first?”
“You know I like my dessert first.”
“Good, because the bad news kind of was a spoiler for the good. They caught our shooter.”
“Really?”
“Ballistics just came back on the gun, he got pinched for a liquor store robbery while Chrissy was still in the hospital. CSU was backlogged on weapons testing and they just got around to it. They got as good as it gets for a match on the gun as being the same gun that put holes in our girls.”
He tossed a manila file folder onto my desk and I picked it up, flipping it open. “In living color… fancy,” I muttered and let my eyes rove the mugshot. The dude wore a dirty red hooded sweatshirt in the picture. Usually, we printed these things out, we kept them in black and white to conserve cost. I could see why my partner had sent it to the color picture, though. I flipped to the next page in the file, the police sketch that’d come from Chrissy’s description.
“Damn. She pretty much nailed it.”
“Just got to get her in here for a lineup. I already put a request into the jail to have his ass brought in.”
“K, but there’s more bad news,” I said my brain catching up.
“Ah, figured that shit out, did you?” Jaime nodded.
“If our perp was in jail while Chrissy was in the hospital, then the threats, it’s not the same guy, is it?”
“Well, our shooter was picked up on the…” he grabbed the file folder out of my hands and looked himself, “21st at around two-thousand hours.”
I shook my head. That was after the flowers but before the deal with Yale. So, no, not the same guy. What the fuck, Christ? When you gonna cut this girl a break? I thought.
“The thing with Yale was a few days later, so it definitely looks like the shooter and the assclown making threats aren’t the same guy.”
“Of course not, that would make this shit easy.”
“Right, let me know when you’ve got the guy here. I’ll bring Chrissy in for a lineup and then we can see what shakes loose out of the guy.”
“Think she’ll pick him?” Jaime asked, worried.
I nudged open the file folder and separated the arrest sheet with the dude’s mugshot and the artist’s sketch from each other, putting them side by side.
“What do you think?”
Jaime sighed. I think I had more faith in our girl than he did when it came to making the ID, but then again, we’d seen it about a hundred times or more. Witnesses got in here for a lineup and the pressure of making a positive ID got to be too much. Next thing you know, they’re second guessing themselves and they shake apart right then and there and we get no closer to catching the happy bastards.
“Yeah, well, here’s to hoping. Go on and get out of here.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to be gone long, but we were all more than reasonably certain that nobody knew where we’d hidden her. I mean, it wasn’t like house calls were a thing in this day and age, and it was so not even normal protocol for a detective to take a victim home with them like some sort of stray puppy.
I got the hell out of there and rode back across the bridge towards home, stopping at the grocery store and pharmacy on the way. I figured she was probably starving and it’d been a while since I cooked, so I figured why not? I liked to cook, mostly Italian shit, but I was pretty solid on the Irish front, too. It was just typically pointless cooking for one, so I didn’t have much by the way of occasion to do it.
I half wondered what I would find when I got there and when I came through the front door I’d found her pretty much exactly as I’d left her, curled up on the end of my couch, her e-reader thing in her good hand, but the screen blank. She looked back at me when I came through the door leading out to the garage and I realized she’d been staring out the front window.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi,” she echoed back.
“You doing alright?”
“Yeah, just… thinking.”
“Got some news for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, why don’t you come on into the kitchen while I fix us something to eat?”
“Okay.”
She got up and despite being winged as bad as she was, she managed to make it look graceful. She set her e-reader on the coffee table and padded barefoot into the kitchen behind me. I set the bags on the counter and she managed to get herself up onto one of the bar stools.
I went around and hung my jacket and cut off the back of one of the dining room chairs and pushed back the sleeves on the thermal I’d put on under my tee shirt.
“What’s the news?” she asked and I met her solemn gaze and started with the big stuff.
“We caught your shooter.”
“What? Are you serious?”
I filled her in on everything and she listened, her attention rapt, and said, “So I suppose a lineup is in order?”
“Yeah, no pressure.”
&nbs
p; She rolled her eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as I unloaded the bags I’d brought in.
“I’ll do fine,” she said and stared out the gauzy curtains over the back slider out onto the deck. “It’s not like I’ll ever forget that face.”
I set down the loaf of bread I’d just pulled out of the bag and leaned my hands on the countertop. “I believe you. Your sketch was spot on.”
“So does this mean I’m safe?” she asked and I think my expression said it all because her shoulders dropped.
“Looks like the guy that shot you, and the guy that made a play for you at the hospital aren’t the same dude, but to answer your question…” I came around the kitchen island and touched the side of her face. “You’re with me, so yeah, you’re safe. Nobody, aside from me, the Captain, and Jaime know where you are.” Which wasn’t precisely true. I mean, Yale and the rest of the guys knew, but that honestly wasn’t here nor there.
I stood inside her space and just kind of chilled there, hoping it was reassuring and not overbearing. She looked up at me, her breath shallow and her eyes longing, and I understood that. I think what I was feeling was a perfect match to what she had going on inside, at least where we were concerned about each other.
“Kiss me…” she murmured suddenly, and I wasn’t about to say no.
I lowered my lips to hers and kissed her carefully, moving slowly. Her lips parted beneath mine, inviting. I took the invitation, slipping my tongue past her lips, chest seizing, heart stuttering inside the cage of my ribs when she let out this low, sultry, desire filled moan that held that perfect edge of relief, that sound that said, I’ve waited too long…
I could have stood there and kissed her for ages, but all things, especially the good ones, must come to an end. Both of our stomachs putting out a loud and grumpy growl put the kibosh on moving things along further and I drew back with a chuckle, pressing a kiss to her forehead before letting her go.
She sat with her eyes closed for a moment, fingertips pressed to her lips as if committing every single last moment of the kiss we’d just shared to memory, like it would never happen again.
Even though it wasn’t our first kiss ever, it felt like a first kiss. You know, like the first kiss, and I don’t know… maybe it was. I knew I wanted more, and I also knew that she was on board with how she was staring across the counter at me now.
“Thank you,” she murmured and I smiled crookedly.
“If you think that was any kind of hardship for me, you’ve got another think coming…” I growled and she smiled.
“Thank you for that, too.”
“You’re welcome,” I said realizing that I’d done something that even I couldn’t fully understand. One of those mysteries of being a woman thing. I also knew that it wasn’t a mystery I needed to solve. That whatever it was, it was okay and so I just let it be.
I had a lunch to cook anyhow.
Chapter 14
Chrissy
The second night in Tony’s home was comfortable. He fixed us lunch, did the dishes and just generally wouldn’t let me do anything to help saying there would be plenty of time for that when I was more healed. When I got through about half of that first meal, he produced an orange pill bottle out of his pocket and twisted off the top. He took out a single tablet and set it on the edge of my plate.
“Pain pill,” he’d said. “I picked up your prescription.”
I hated taking them, but I hurt and I needed it. I took it, finished my meal, and he told me to go back in the living room while he cleaned up. He joined me and his cat there and cuddled me on the couch, while I snuggled Roscoe, who was adorable and funny. Tony threw a blanket over the both of us before turning on the TV and I couldn’t remember a time in recent memory where I’d been so relaxed. I drifted, falling asleep under the influence of the narcotic painkiller to the sounds of Roscoe purring, revving engines in a chase scene, and the ticking echo of Tony’s heart where my head rested on his chest.
He let me, and it was nice. Warm and safe, and lord knows, I needed those things badly lately, finding them to be in short supply.
He’d gone into work the next day and my occupational and physical therapist had come in the afternoon. I’d worked hard, and it hurt, and I’d sweated unbearably. I’d managed to dress myself in workout appropriate clothing, but before either of us knew it, Tony was walking through the door.
“Good, you did good!” Penny, my physical therapist was all smiles, while me? I felt like I’d been through the wringer.
“I like the sound of that,” Tony said, shutting the garage door. I stood trembling in the living room where Penny had shoved some things aside to make room for us to do what needed to be done.
“Shoot, I lost track of time. I don’t have any time left to help you get a shower. I have to get back to the city, my next client…”
“Its fine, Penny. I’ll manage,” I said even though I wasn’t sure how I would, given all of my hair, there was so much of it and nearly impossible with two hands, forget about one.
“I’ll help you load up, save you some time,” Tony offered and she smiled.
“That would be great, and I mean it, Chrissy, you did really well.”
“Thank you,” I murmured and blotted my chest with the towel sitting over my shoulders. My left one screamed at me and I stubbornly refused to take any pain medicine for it. Tomorrow was the big day for me, and since I had learned he had been caught, I refused any and all pain medicine save for that one after lunch, realizing a bit belatedly that narcotics in my system could taint the identification. I wanted to make absolutely certain any ID I made was free of any taint because I needed to know. I knew it was too late and pretty much a fruitless endeavor from a legal standpoint, however.
I’d done my homework, and to be completely rid of the pain medicine they had me on, I would have to wait four whole days for it not to show on any urinalysis. Believe me, I had asked if we could wait. Then again, were I the defendant’s lawyer in this case, whether there were drugs in the eyewitness’s system or not; I would have played both sides. Drugs present, the ID was tainted because the witness was impaired by their pain medication. Drugs not present? Well then a witness suffering my injuries was impaired by the pain they suffered. It was a no-win situation, and honestly, eye witnesses made false identifications all of the time, and I was scared that now, when it really mattered, more karma would come calling and I would do the same.
I was a nervous wreck on the inside, more nervous than I had ever been walking into a courtroom, and that was saying something. Still, I didn’t show one iota of those nerves on the outside. I couldn’t afford to. I’d been sure of myself the previous afternoon, but the more I thought about it, the more time dragged by, the more I started doubting and second-guessing myself. In short, I was a hot mess.
I hugged Penny goodbye which was a little lean in, and a light touch on my good shoulder from her, and Tony grabbed up some of her gear. She picked up her big round inflated rubber ball she’d had me sit on while we’d done the exercises for my arm and Tony followed her out the front door and out to her car. I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of water from the tap.
Tony came back in from outside and I listened to the heavy tread of his boots cross the hardwood floor. He stopped in the kitchen and I felt his eyes on my back, belatedly realizing that the workout tank I was wearing only covered half of the ugly scars on my shoulder. I immediately pulled my hair out of my ponytail and let it cover, my face burning with… I don’t know. I couldn’t quite quantify the emotion but I guess if I had to, I would liken it to shame.
I heard Tony’s jacket hit the back of the chair he usually hung it on, and those heavy footfalls come my way, his shadow looming over me at the sink. He started to move my hair aside and I turned, whirling on my sneaker and backed up against the counter.
“Don’t… please?”
His blue eyes penetrated mine and he nodded carefully, leaning in none the less to kiss me. My eyes
fluttered shut as his mouth moved carefully over mine. I kissed him back, and it was just as magical and as beautiful as the kiss the day before. I blindly set my glass aside on the counter and went to reach for him, but dammit, I’d misjudged and it slipped off the counter’s edge and shattered on the floor.
The crash of breaking glass made me jump and cry out, and I stuffed my hand against my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut. Cringing from my memories.
“It’s okay; it’s totally okay…” he murmured soothingly, and smoothed some of my hair out of the way of my face so he could see me. “It’s just water and just glass, I’ve got it… no big deal.” He gently moved me the opposite direction of the mess around the kitchen island and said, “Go grab a stool, sit down.”
I swallowed hard, on the verge of tears, my heart racing, pulse jumping painfully out of the side of my neck, chest crushed as I struggled to breathe normally, in through my nose hold for a few seconds, and out.
The first panic attack had happened in the hospital, Pasquale had recognized it instantly and had helped me through some exercises. I knew what they were now. I am in control. I told myself. Tony went about cleaning up, letting me have some space, and by the time he was done, I felt better. Still rattled, but better.
“You alright?” he asked, and I nodded.
I knew in the front of my mind that it didn’t matter, that Tony was the last person who would judge, that any number of medical personnel had seen the scars, but for some irrational reason Tony was different. He wasn’t someone I wanted to see the ugliness… He just… wasn’t.