Still Falling (Home In You #0)

by Crystal Walton

  Without warning, flashes of last night’s attack trampled over her confidence and slammed her into the chair. Memories compounded, her pulse soaring with familiar panic.

  No. Not this time.

  Bree willed away the doubts. She might not have the courage she needed yet, but she had Josh. Somehow, the rest would be okay. Wouldn’t it?

  Bonnie leapt onto the table.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Bree put her right back down. “You know better than that.” The cat rubbed against her calves in apology, and Bree gave in to letting her sit on her lap instead. “See? Nothing exciting up here. No food, just an NYPD backpack and . . .” The corner of what looked like a picture under the bag caught her eye.

  She slid out a photo of Gabe peering over his shoulder near the deli he worked at. Confusion sputtered into suspicion. Had Josh been tailing him? Pulling out the picture had uncovered the edge of a manila envelope. She hesitated for a minute before opening it, regretting it a second later. Pictures, notes, all leading to . . . Josh suspected Gabe was the second suspect at her dad’s shooting? How could he—?

  An incoming call from an unknown number lit up her cell’s screen. “Hello?”

  “Brianna Ramirez?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Chris Woods from the Queen’s DA Office. I understand you know Officer Joshua D’Angelo.”

  She pulled one leg up into the chair. “What’s this about?”

  Three sentences in, the conversation trailed behind too many questions she didn’t have answers for.

  The front door opened. “Hey, you’re up. Sorry, I had to take a call . . .” Josh’s voice stalled with his footsteps.

  He wasn’t the only one lost for words. Her heart kept her lodged in the chair, unable to turn around. “Let me call you back.” She hung up but still didn’t move.

  “Bree, let me explain—”

  “Explain what exactly?” A blade of betrayal twisted through the web of paralysis binding her in place. “That you’ve been lying to me? That the District Attorney’s Office is about to prosecute you? Or that you’re getting ready to turn my brother in so you can finally make detective? Which part, Josh?”

  “It’s not like that. I . . .” He strode forward, stopped with his chin to his collar, and then started toward her again, slower this time.

  She gripped the table when he didn’t answer. “Tell me you’re not really a part of this. Tell me you wouldn’t set Gabe up for your own gain.”

  Hurt splintered down his face. “How can you ask me that?”

  “How can you accuse Gabe of leaving our father to die on the streets?”

  “You think I want him to be involved? I’ve been trying to keep him out of gangs for years. You know that.” He clenched his fingers through his hair and then let his arms fall to his sides. “The evidence is there, Bree. I can’t change that.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Wouldn’t. Stability lost, she shook her head faster than she meant to.

  “Refusing to believe something doesn’t make it untrue. But I was gonna—”

  “Ask me to sacrifice my brother for your career?”

  “What?”

  Unbridled anger propelled her to her feet. “You say making detective is about your dad, but at what cost?” She grabbed a fistful of the papers in front of her. “You tout around about making sacrifices and putting family before status, when, really, it’s always been about pride, hasn’t it?”

  Deep-seated emotions hardened his eyes. “As if you can say anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You wanna talk about pride? About family? Fine. Let’s talk about how you’ll look the other way when your brother messes up, because if you lost your self-imposed mission of saving him, you’d have nothing distracting you from facing the rift you created with your parents.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “No? You’d go miles for Gabe, claiming you can’t sacrifice your future, yet you won’t take a single step of faith toward what you want most.”

  “You think it didn’t take faith for me to move back here and audition for associate concertmaster?” Her voice came out with less conviction than it should have.

  “It doesn’t take faith to play it safe.” Josh swiped a Hilary Hahn album off the end table. “C’mon, Bree. You go on and on, raving about your favorite artist. How she pushes boundaries, dares to make her own music—all the things you dream for your life but are too afraid to go for. You gave them up for what? Tenure? Security?” He waved his hands around her apartment. “A posh neighborhood without a single friend?”

  She winced at the truth but refused to show it.

  “It’s called fear, Bree. You cling to it like a life jacket, always looking for an excuse to bail before you can get hurt. That’s why you left, isn’t it? ’Cause you’d rather guard yourself from being vulnerable than take a single risk—”

  “Except on you.” Her heart raged against her ribs. “And look where that got me.”

  The fiery burn in her chest smoldered under a slow build of tears.

  His brow pinched. “Bree . . .”

  “Don’t.” She closed her eyes. “I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I thought it’d be different this time.” When she looked up, she met his gaze with the acceptance she should’ve kept in place all along. “You know what, you’re right. I play it safe. Because when you don’t, this happens.”

  His cell rang like a boxing bell. He looked from her to his pocket. The strain of knowing he had to answer creased his face, and all she could do was shake her head.

  “If you want to call me on selling out my dreams, at least man up and admit you’re doing the same.”

  “Is that what you think?” A serrated edge tore at his voice, but the phone kept ringing with the obvious answer.

  She motioned for him to take the call.

  His shoulders sagged as he answered. “Give me a minute, Daniels.” When he swept Bree a look of apology, the rejection she’d fought all her life seared into her like a branding iron.

  Years of the job relegating her to second place closed in and drove her to open the front door.

  Josh didn’t move at first. The brokenness in his eyes begged her to look inside him, but she couldn’t let herself go there. She clutched her elbows to keep the torn pieces from coming undone.

  In the doorway, the space between them pulsed with everything left unspoken. “I’ve always chosen you, Bree. I hope you’ll realize that one day.”

  The door closed, and so did her heart.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Leap

  Bree slumped against the metal door, wishing she could be as cold and unfeeling. The harder she strove to keep her ground, the faster the world moved backward to moments she couldn’t afford to relive.

  She jumped at a knock at the door. Steeling herself, she opened it part way. Johnson.

  “Morning.” He slid her a sultry smile. “Mind if I use the John?”

  Classy. Bree tightened her robe and let him in. “First door on your right.”

  She headed behind him and slipped into her room to change. Even with a loose sweater on, it was hard to breathe. Her apartment pulsed with traces of last night’s memories. The warmth, the exhilaration and contentment. She needed to get out of there, needed to move.

  Back in the hall, Bree cast a glance from the bathroom to the front door and the empty hall behind it. Two seconds. She didn’t think. She ran, not slowing even after the exit doors splashed a burst of sunlight over her eyes. She’d apologize to Johnson later. But right now, she needed to be alone.

  She kept trekking, kept breathing, and waited for the city’s constant hum to drown out the thoughts still pummeling through her.

  Time passed in sound bites—sirens, horns, tires rumbling over manholes. One sidewalk square blurred into the next until the double doors she ended up in front of finally drew her to a stop. They opened and closed. Again and again. Her feet clung to the pavement,
her heart to a wound no one but Josh could make her confront.

  Hesitant strides led her inside the hospital and up to the floor she’d been avoiding all week. While the numbers in the elevator lit up, one after the other, her reflection stayed trapped in the shimmery walls. Unmoving. Boxed in. Just like her life. She could run a thousand miles away and still be hiding behind borders that would always follow.

  The elevator’s ding shook across her shoulders as it opened, her reflection lost in a pathway waiting for her to take the first step.

  In front of Dad’s hospital room, her mom peered up from the floor while Bree was still a few feet down the hall. A flicker of surprise transitioned into the same look of motherly intuition that’d always given Bree what she didn’t deserve. Grace.

  Bree tamped down the rise of emotion threatening to revert her to a schoolgirl needing her mom to make everything okay.

  “He just woke up a few minutes ago. I’m on my way to grab us some coffee.” Mom’s smile warmed and soothed as she stopped beside Bree and patted her hand. “Take your time, love.”

  The crack in the dam her fight with Josh had forged stretched deeper, and Bree nodded the response she couldn’t voice.

  Once alone, her grasp on the door handle faltered between breaths. “If you lost your self-imposed mission of saving him, you’d have nothing distracting you from facing the rift you created with your parents.”

  She pushed through the pain of Josh’s words and into the room. One look at Dad hooked up to monitors spread the crack into a gorge tearing her in two.

  He shifted on the mattress. “Hey, Shortcake.”

  An automatic smile at one of his many nicknames for her fused her together enough to move without falling apart. She took Mom’s seat.

  He followed her gaze across the tubes tethered to his arms. Just like Mom, he always seemed to know what she was thinking. “I’m not going anywhere, baby.”

  “You can’t promise me that.”

  “Bree Bear . . .”

  “Why, Dad?” Years of unshed tears mounted in her throat. “Why didn’t you walk away that night? You weren’t on duty. Someone else could’ve responded to the call. You—”

  “A cop’s never off duty.”

  “And what about a dad, a husband? When do those roles ever come first?” The unseen bruise inside pulsed from the center of an ache that’d never healed. “I asked you to move us away from here after Uncle Luis died. I begged you to never put yourself in harm’s way again—for Gabe and me. For Mom.”

  “Aw, sweetie. You know I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why weren’t we enough?” The whisper quivered in a broken plea.

  Strong yet compassionate eyes filled with understanding. “C’mere.” He tugged her beside him on the mattress. “I’ll always be a father first, doing what I have to do to protect my family. But taking care of you doesn’t always look the way you think it should.” He rested his chin over her head. “Sacrifice doesn’t negate love, Shortcake. It defines it.”

  His blood pressure cuff compressed around his arm. A beat at a time, seconds drifted into the sounds confining him to the risks of his job.

  Hot tears soaked into his gown and clogged her voice with the fear that’d kept love at bay for so long. “I can’t lose you.”

  His overgrown whiskers rubbed against her hair as he kissed her head. “As long as you keep letting me hold you like this, you never will.”

  She hugged him tighter, wanting to believe that’s all it’d take. “I’m sorry, Dad.” For so much, she didn’t know where to begin.

  Instead of waiting for the endless list, he simply let the comfort of his presence say enough.

  “You know, I can still picture you as a toddler—your will as stubborn as your freckles.”

  “Dad.” She huffed through a sniffle. Leave it to him to find a way to lighten the mood.

  “What? You wanna try to tell me you don’t remember refusing to sleep in your bed for three weeks when Abby Cat was sick?” His hearty laugh shook her head against his shoulder. “You’d park yourself by my side on the couch, set that old cat on my stomach, and tell your mama you weren’t moving till Abby got all better.”

  Bree chuckled at the memory. “The poor thing was skin and bones. She needed body heat.”

  Dad’s voice thickened. “My Bree Bear, determined to change the world, even then.”

  Some change. “I used to think I knew what that looked like. Making a difference.”

  “Oh, I think you still do.” He gave her arm a pat. “If you want to change the world, go home—”

  “And love your family,” Bree finished with him, smiling at how many times she’d heard the quote while growing up. “Mom’s favorite line.”

  “Well, she always did have Mother Teresa’s wisdom.”

  Along with her courage and faithfulness.

  Unlike Bree.

  “Not to mention, the woman knows where to get a good coffee. You want me to ask her to bring you back one from OK Café’s?”

  “Dad.” She sat up and gave him a glare of reprimand. “You made her go all the way to Astoria?”

  “Hey, you try downing one sip of that sludge from the cafeteria. Then we’ll talk, young lady.”

  She rolled her eyes, but he obviously wasn’t done having his fun. “She wanted to go home for a change of clothes. So, I might’ve conveniently slipped in a mention or two of OK’s.”

  “Or two?”

  “Or three.” His feigned look of innocence beckoned a smile out of her.

  He tugged her into another hug, and Bree held on for longer than he probably intended. Years she couldn’t get back with him collided with years she might lose with Gabe. Did loss always have to accompany love?

  “Dad? What happens when the sacrifice asks too much?”

  He leaned back and offered the look of assurance that’d anchored her countless times. “Then you cling to the only thing that’ll get you through.”

  He didn’t have to finish. She knew the answer, just as she always had.

  Faith.

  She pecked Dad on the cheek and scooted off the bed. “Do me a favor and tell Mom I’ll meet her at OK’s if she’s still there in an hour. I have something I need to take care of first.” And someone to find.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  Around the back of her parents’ house, Bree jimmied open the sliding glass door the way she’d done all through high school when sneaking in at night.

  Inside, the stale air held a chill juxtaposed to the warmth Mom had always made sure her home held. Bree tightened her sweater jacket while moving through a hall that shouldn’t feel this unknown.

  Although the place had already been processed for evidence, the remnants of the drive-by still scarred the walls. Pummeled sheetrock stood bare where her parents’ massive collection of frames should’ve been.

  She ran her fingertips along the wall. So many memories now torn and shattered, matching her frayed view of the life she’d shut out for fear of getting hurt. When really, hurt was all she’d found on her own. Because without roots, she’d lost her anchor.

  Her lashes closed. Josh was right about all of it. She’d buried dreams under the piles of sheet music she’d turned to for answers they couldn’t give her.

  The life she truly wanted was built on leaps of faith it took to risk love, put passion over prestige, and invest in a wall of memories instead of a vault of paychecks.

  Was that life still in reach?

  The sound of someone jiggling the door drew her back. She wiped away the beginning of tears as Gabe’s heavy strides led him down the hallway.

  “You got my text.” She willed her voice to stay even while struggling to read Gabe’s expression hidden in the shadows.

  “We shouldn’t be here.”

  The heck they shouldn’t. “This is exactly where we should be. In the home we’ve both had a hand in tearing apart.”

  Right in front of her now, he looked down from his tall frame. “
We need to bounce.”

  “No.” She fired back his determined gaze. “No more running.”

  When his shoulders lowered, the weight on hers almost pulled her to the floor.

  “I need to know, Gabe.” But one look in his eyes eliminated any question.

  “I already told you—”

  “Lies.” She shook her head, voice as wrecked as she felt. “You told me lies.”

  “I told you what you needed to hear.”

  “How could you do this? Our own dad. Did you even think about what this would do to Mom?”

  A condescending expression dared her to go on. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She grabbed his arm as he turned. “Then tell me.”

  He pushed past her. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “At least tell me why.”

  “Because I had no choice.” He jerked around, voice raised.

  “Don’t you dare give me that copout. I deserve better.”

  Face tight, he clenched his fist at his side, but whatever he’d wanted to say seemed to drain with a weighty exhale. “You deserve to be protected.” He shifted a pointed stare at her from the carpet. “Which is what I was trying to do, a’ight?”

  “By joining the Sanchez Crew?” Did he seriously want her to buy that?

  “One job. That’s all it was gonna be. One hit to make them think I was in so they’d finally back off. That’s it.”

  Bree crossed her arms to keep them from shaking. “You left Dad on that street. He could’ve died.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to be there. Neither of you were. No one should’ve gotten hurt.”

  She wasn’t hearing this. “What did you think was gonna happen? That’d you just pull an armed robbery stunt and walk away untouched? That they’d just leave you alone after that?”

  “Until I could get to Nyack? Yeah.” His heated tone didn’t hide the fear and guilt trapped under it. “In and out. That’s all it was gonna be. Then Dad had to show up, and now they think I played them.” He yanked his ball cap off and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I needed the cash for that deposit. I didn’t mean for Frankie to . . . I was gonna pay him back. I swear.”