Only as an afterthought did I turn on my heel and run after Miles, my gun clutched in my hand. I caught up to him at the van, hopping in the front seat as he twisted the keys in the ignition. It took everything I had not to put my gun against his head and arrest him right there and then, operation be damned, everything be damned, because I had just watched a cop die because of a mistake I’d made. It would mean work lost, a case that wouldn’t mean anything anymore, but I would have someone to answer for the murder of a police officer.
No. I couldn’t let that death be in vain. I had to ride this thing to the end, to make sure that the right people got to face the consequences of their actions.
To let the slow wheels of justice turn.
“What the fuck was that?” Miles demanded, wheeling out of there. “How’d you know that guy was a cop?”
“Saw his badge in his wallet,” I said.
“Dumbass.”
“Yeah.” But I was the dumbass, not Joe. If I’d simply gone cold, maybe I could’ve saved Joe’s life. He was an idiot, buying drugs like that from people he didn’t even know, but I was the bigger idiot, saying something about it. What, really, was a man’s life worth? Was it worth breaking my case? Was it worth losing years of my own life, spent neck deep in corruption and shit?
I took a small break from the investigation, just long enough to touch base with Cora, even if we had to be even more careful than before about meeting. I was certain there were eyes on me. I felt them as a physical presence.
“Joe Clayton,” I said, staying out of the pool of light the streetlamp threw down.
“What about him?” Cora was in the light, her phone to her ear.
“He’s dead.”
“Is that why we’re meeting? You don’t have any other leads on the case for me?”
“A cop’s dead, Cora.”
“That’s not something you need to worry about right now. We shouldn’t be meeting out in the open like this. The risks are too great.”
“It was my fault. Joe Clayton’s dead because of me.”
That apparently hadn’t been what my supervisor was expecting to hear. “How do you figure?”
“I was with one of my contacts when we ran into Clayton. My contact shot Clayton dead.”
“Then it’s your contact’s fault. We’ll get this all taken care of, when the time is right.”
“The time is now,” I said. “Think of Clayton’s loved ones. They deserve justice.”
“They’ll get it. But not at the expense of your investigation.”
“Cora”
“Joe Clayton was a dirty cop, Black.”
“What?”
“He was under investigation by internal affairs.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m telling you that he wasn’t worth the angst you’re experiencing, and you didn’t put a bullet in him, and you need to focus on your own case before someone puts a bullet in you. This is how you fuck up, Black. You pull yourself out of the investigation. You get caught. Is that what you want? For all of your hard work to mean nothing?”
No. That wasn’t what I wanted. I was too far in to pull myself out again. I couldn’t let all that work fall by the wayside. I had a job to do, and that’s why I returned to the apartment I was renting, called Miles up, and sank down in to that world again.
But once the arrests were made and my case was complete, I found I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t just file away all my notes and observations and move on to the next task. The promotion I got and all the various commendations that came along with it was like adding insult to injury. I couldn’t forget about my mistake, about how it had cost a cop his life, even if he was corrupt.
It didn’t matter. In the end, a life was a life. Everyone was redeemable. I couldn’t justify deadly force, let alone the death penalty. And in my line of work, that just didn’t make sense anymore.
I left the force and just wandered for a while, trying to make sense of things. For a long time, longer than I cared to admit, the closest thing I had to a friend and confidant was my motorcycle. There was a certain kind of intimacy, a kind of camaraderie, between man and machine as I roared up and down roads I’d been down before until I reached a part of the state I’d never been in, and then I discovered it together with my bike. I got a hotel room in Rio Seco as I explored, and when I realized I’d stayed there for two whole weeks, I looked into renting an apartment. Something about the wildness of New Mexico soothed whatever was raging inside me, and I found I could stop running, think about rebuilding my life.
So that was what I did. I found work through Jack, who was still trying to rebuild his own life after coming back from Afghanistan. He and I hit it off right away, though I suspected it was because I was one of the few people in his life who didn’t know him from before his incident. He had a blank slate with me, and neither of us expected anything out of the other, even if it turned out that our friendship helped both of us in unexpected ways.
We built the motorcycle club with friends who turned up along the way, and I thought everything in my life was finally going to be all right.
Until Katie Kelley entered it and threw everything for a loop.
I wished…well, I wished a lot of things. I wished that I could go back and somehow make everything all right with Joe. That I could have reacted or not reacted in the way that would’ve saved his life, whether he was a good cop or a bad one. Of course, that would’ve meant that I would’ve never left Albuquerque, never found the life and friends that were waiting for me in Rio Seco, never given purpose to my life, or opened my eyes to the beauty around me that made my heart beat true.
But maybe I wished most of all that I could’ve met Katie in other circumstances, that she wasn’t out for my blood because she believed whether she was right or wrong that I was the one who had put bullets in the chest of her partner and lover. Because I loved Katie. I’d loved her since the moment I laid eyes on her, drifting into the bar at sunset, beautiful and a mystery. I liked to think that she fell in love with me, too, just as helplessly, if I could believe her words.
I didn’t want to be back in this place, re-examining my time undercover. They had been dark days, even if they were for the greater good.
And I didn’t want to completely write Katie off. We might’ve been in a bad place together, but whatever we had shared had been real, at least to me. Maybe it had all been a plot on her part to get me to let her in. Or maybe it had been a complete accident. Either way, I missed her. If I knew how, if I knew what to say or what to do, I would’ve done it.
Anything to get her back.
Chapter 10
“What are you doing here?” Brody asked, looking up at me in surprise as I strolled into the bar.
“I’m here to work, of course,” I said. “What are you doing? I’m on for today.”
Brody took a long look at the booth, and I knew that’s where Jack was. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”
“Well, I’m here today, so go do whatever you were planning on doing.”
“I was planning on working the bar today.”
“Fine.” If he was going to make this hard, I wasn’t going to push. “See you some other time, then. Let me know when I’m scheduled.”
“Ace, wait.”
I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to even look at Jack, who’d tried to hail me from the booth. It was stupid to blame my heartbreak on him, especially when he was only trying to protect me, but I did. Maybe I could’ve gone on for the rest of my life or until something else happened to reveal who Katie really was pretending that everything was going to be fine, that I was going to finally be allowed happiness.
I was stalking toward my motorcycle when he finally caught up with me, grabbing my shoulder, and spinning me around. “Ace, stop.”
“What the fuck do you want?” I snapped, wincing when I realized how aggressive and broken it sounded.
Jack didn’t so much as bat an ey
elash. “I want to talk to you.”
I groaned and pushed my face into my hands. “I confronted Katie, if that’s what you’re curious about.”
“I…gathered as much, from how angry you are.”
“I mean, I don’t know what you think I should say or do,” I said. “You’re right. It wasn’t good, her having that information before she even met me in person.”
“How not good?”
“She’s a cop.”
“Well, you were a cop, once.”
“Once upon a time, sure. But I was also the cop who was responsible for her lover’s death.”
“Yikes.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I’m sorry, Ace. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“But you’re not sorry about snooping.”
He lifted his chin. “No. I’m not. You needed to know if you were in danger. Are there going to be repercussions? Anything we can do?”
I sighed. “I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t actually pull the trigger, but I might as well have.”
“We’re worried about you, is what I’m trying to say. All of us. You’ve been a little reclusive.”
“I just haven’t felt like going out lately,” I said. “Not after all of this.”
“I understand.”
“I love her. Even now.”
“I’m sorry, Ace.” He pulled me into a rough hug, dragging me forward even as I tried to drag my heels in the ground. “We’re all here for you. Just tell us what you need, and we’ll make it happen.”
“A time machine,” I muttered, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“We’ll work on that,” he vowed, pounding me on the back. “Take care of yourself.”
That was easier said than done. My appetite and my need for sleep had both apparently taken flight with Katie’s exit from Rio Seco. I knew, abstractly, that I should be eating and drinking and resting like a normal person. I just didn’t seem to want to. Katie was foremost in my mind, followed by the old song and dance routine of examining whether I could’ve done something to prevent Joe Clayton’s death, second guessing myself at every opportunity.
I even went so far as to call my former supervisor, Cora Slade, who had since retired from the force.
“Cora?” I asked, scooting forward, on the edge of my chair, nervous energy making my foot wag rapidly back and forth.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me, Ace uh, Anthony Black. I used to work for you.”
“I remember you, Black,” she said, her voice warm. “What’s going on with you? It’s good to hear from you.”
“I’m sorry just to call out of the blue like this.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. Really. It’s a pleasure. What can I do for you?”
“I hate to rehash old things, Cora, but I’ve been thinking a lot about”
“Let me guess. Joe Clayton?”
“What how well, yeah. Pretty much.”
“You didn’t kill him, Black.”
“I”
“I’ll tell you the same thing now as I told you then. Joe Clayton was a dirty cop. He got himself killed, getting involved in the kinds of things he was involved in.”
“How did you know I was going to ask you about Joe Clayton?” I asked, curiosity outweighing, for a moment, my angst.
“Well, I knew it wasn’t going to be a social call, Black.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m a busy woman in my retirement. I don’t have the time to waste on small talk. Also, I heard through the grapevine that someone was trying to get Clayton’s case reopened.”
“Oh.”
“I’m guessing that someone made contact with you.”
“Yeah. In a way.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about, Black. The case is staying closed.”
“You know this from your contacts?”
“Yes, and my common sense.” There was a pause. “Was there anything else?”
“No… I mean, how’s life, now, after the police?”
“I’ll bet I’m having just as much fun as you are. Have a good night.”
“Okay. Thanks. You, too.”
Cora had always been no nonsense, and it was something of a comfort to speak to her again. The fact, though, that she had heard in her retirement that someone Katie was trying to reopen Joe Clayton’s case gave me pause. My ears burned as if I could sense being talked about from across the state.
Days stretched into weeks, but I still couldn’t recapture normality. I avoided work at the bar, couldn’t get myself astride the bike, dodged calls from Jack and the rest of the guys.
It got so bad that they’d taken to playing ding-dong ditch, leaving bags and boxes of takeout for me outside of my apartment, knowing that I probably wouldn’t want to talk to them but that I had to eat at some point. They were good friends, and I was a piece of shit for ignoring them, but I just couldn’t bring myself to see them right now.
But that was the funny thing about time. If you were patient enough with it, it would do you favors, like dull the ache I felt in my chest at Katie’s absence, make me remember how to feed myself, how to sleep, how to get my ass to work and earn money, even though the guys had set aside some club funds for me to help with my bills while I was away from the bar.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” I said, trying to push the envelope back to Jack.
“That’s what we’re here for,” he said. “That’s what the emergency fund is for.
“For me to have a nice, long mope?”
“Stop,” he said. “We’re happy that you’re back. Now take the fucking envelope, or I’ll get Chuck to kick your ass.”
Being at the bar turned out to be a blessing, but it made it all the more difficult to return to my empty apartment at the end of the night. Maybe I should’ve tried to get back on the horse and gone home with someone, but that felt about as hard as returning alone to my apartment.
I didn’t even realize someone was in the apartment, waiting for me, until I’d tossed my keys on the table, sighed deeply, and gone for the cigarettes on top of the refrigerator, intent on using one or the rest of the pack to extinguish the misery building up inside of me.
I froze, though, my hand still outstretched, because I’d realized that I’d passed right by someone seated in my dark living room. I turned slowly to face their presence, sure it was some shadow from my past the nasty one, the one when I’d had everyone believing that I really was a part of the underworld, where I lurked for work. I’d made plenty of enemies there, and I’d always thought it was more than likely that one or two might come looking for me at some point.
“State your purpose,” I said curtly, and was surprised at the answer I got more surprised, even, than the fact that someone had been lying in wait for me at my apartment.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Katie asked, her voice quiet, her head bowed.
I wished I could’ve said that I felt dread, seeing her form sitting on my couch in the darkened room. She’d pulled a gun on me the last time we interacted, but it seemed like any sense of self-preservation I’d had before had deserted me. If anything, I was relieved she was back. I was glad to see her, even if I couldn’t quite make out the expression on her face, or whether she was clutching a weapon right now.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, staying where I was. I wasn’t sure that I would be welcome if I decided to get any closer, even if it was my place.
“You…you just let me go on and on. I pulled a gun on you. And you didn’t tell me your side of the story. Not a single detail. Why?”
“I think I was more concerned with the fact that you had a gun on me.”
Her shoulders heaved in a sigh. “I’m…I was desperate. I don’t know why… I’m sorry.”
“Katie, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I pointed a gun at you. I was going to use it.”
/> “I don’t think you were actually going to fire.” I tried a smile on, found it felt pretty good. “I’m too charming for that.”
“I would’ve used it, Ace.”
“But you didn’t. Because you weren’t absolutely sure. That’s some good detective work. At least, I’m glad for it. That you ask questions before shooting.”
“I’m not a good cop. I almost…I could’ve…”
“Katie, enough.” I stepped forward, into the room, just because I needed to be closer to her. She was torturing herself, hurting, and I would do anything to stop that. Even if I wasn’t sure where we stood with each other.
“Just tell me.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” I stood in front of her, looking down at her, noting the way she pressed her hands into her face. She practically radiated exhaustion, and I realized that I had no idea where she’d been, when the last time she slept was, if she’d had anything to eat, or whether she’d been taking care of herself.
“Everything you know about what happened to Joe Clayton, and why,” she said.
“How much time do you have?” I asked, meaning it as a joke even as it fell flat.
“I need to know. I need to understand all of it.”
“I’m not sure I understand all of it, myself.”
“Try. Please.”
So I told her. Everything. Regaled her with stories of things I was afraid might be classified. I imagined the case files on them, just pages and pages of line after redacted line. And I told her everything I knew about Joe Clayton, including the things that Cora had told me. I didn’t leave anything out, knew I was probably hurting her with the truth, but I wanted to be perfectly honest. I didn’t think I could stand anymore secrets between us, and I was betting Katie couldn’t either. I didn’t even care that it might drive her away again. She’d already gone away once, and if she was going to do it again, there wouldn’t be any regrets with how it went down. I recognized that if I tried to keep anything from her, it might go over terribly if she ever found out I lied.
But when I was done and silence reigned once more in the dark room, I worried that I’d gone too far. I could’ve at least tried to soften the blow of her learning that her former lover and partner was corrupt, through and through. It couldn’t have been easy to hear.
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