Chapter Seven
T he alleyway between the two crumbling buildings was enshrouded in darkness despite the sunshine that existed on the street just beyond the perimeter. It was as if nothing bright could be allowed to enter here—no sunshine, no hope.
The air was foul, filled with the smell of decay and rotting garbage the city had neglected to pick up. Pickup was sporadic.
Following behind Hawk, Teri glanced over her shoulder toward the curb where he’d left the car parked, wondering if they would find it in one piece when they were finished here.
Teri nearly tripped over what she thought was a mound of garbage, catching her balance just in time. The mound moved, drawing into itself. She sucked in her breath. Two eyes stared out at her from somewhere within the pile of filthy rags, then closed again into slits before disappearing altogether.
Adrenaline doing double time, she felt for her weapon as she hurried to keep up pace with Hawk. The phone call he’d received earlier had brought them here, to this unlikely place where people existed in the moment, hoping the next would not be as bad as the one they were in. He’d been typically uncommunicative, only saying that the call was from someone about a tip regarding the home invasions. She assumed it had to be one of his snitches.
She scanned the area. Beyond the person beneath the rags, there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Just who was he meeting? “Is this where you hang out when you’re not working?”
He glanced in her direction, wishing she was back in the office. He was at home here; she wasn’t. “Nobody asked you to come.”
And the friendliness continues. “You’re my partner,” she emphasized. “I’m supposed to have your back, remember?”
He led the way to where four sagging buildings in various degrees of disrepair stood with their backs to one another, like feuding members of a family who had long since forgotten why they had gotten angry in the first place.
“Nothing’ll happen to me here.”
Hawk said the words with resignation rather than confidence. “Now who’s being a superhero?” she asked.
His answer made the smile fade from her lips. “I grew up here.” Pointing off toward what appeared to be an abandoned apartment building that had been dark and dreary long before it began to crumble, he said, “There. Third floor. In the back.” His voice was completely devoid of any emotion.
She stared at the building that had only rats and the homeless for its tenants now. Sympathy flooded through her. “My God,” she whispered.
Picking his way farther into the shadows, Hawk spared her a hint of a cynical smile. “No. He never came calling.” Memories crowded into his head. Horrible memories he pushed back. “These were the people even He gave up on.”
They stopped by the next alley. She stared at Hawk, not knowing what to say. The last thing he wanted was pity and it wasn’t really pity she was feeling. Just a tremendous desire to comfort, to somehow erase that period of time from his mind. To help him pretend it never happened.
But before she could find the words she needed, she saw someone coming. Teri tensed as a dirty-looking man in even dirtier fatigues walked toward them.
Toward Hawk.
Seemingly oblivious to the weather, the man wasn’t wearing a jacket. He was scratching at his arm as if trying to systematically tear away the flesh and get clear down to the bone.
This was who they’d come to meet.
The thought telegraphed itself through her brain. She looked at Hawk for a sign of recognition.
To her surprise, Hawk smiled. “Hey, Jocko, how’s it going?”
The man shrugged paper-thin shoulders that echoed within a shirt that might have fit him once, but was now at least two sizes too large.
“Complaining ain’t gonna do me no good.” And then his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes brightened. “But you look good, man.”
“Thanks.” Hawk hated seeing the man this way, hated it because he knew what Jack Armstrong had once looked like, had once been. But drugs and alcohol had long since destroyed that man, leaving behind only a shell that went through the motions of living. “You have something for me?” He saw Jocko’s eyes dart toward his partner. “She’s okay.”
“She’s more than okay, Jackie.” The man smiled and Teri saw that he had more spaces than teeth in his mouth. “She’s fine.” Jocko drew out the last word as if he was savoring it. As if he was remembering another time when women mattered in his life. “You got a name, pretty lady?”
There was something about the derelict that told her she had nothing to fear, even if Hawk hadn’t been standing next to her. Even if she hadn’t a loaded weapon at her disposal. She smiled at him. “Teri.”
“Teri,” the man repeated as if he was in love with the name.
Any second now Jocko’s thoughts would wander, taking with it what he needed to know. He’d seen it happen before. Hawk laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, hating the feel of his bones as they met his touch. “Jocko, what do you have to tell me?”
Jocko ran his tongue along his lips. His eyes looked a little crazed as he drew back into his life, retreating from the momentary respite he’d sought. He struggled to think.
“I do a little ‘donation gathering’ around Bancroft Avenue, you know, where all those restaurants are. Kind of upscale for me, but you know, man’s gotta try.” He shrugged. “One of the chefs there behind Angelino’s, sometimes he gives me a little something to tide me over.”
“Food?” Teri asked only to have Hawk give her a silencing look.
“For the soul, pretty lady. Food for the soul,” Jocko told her with a wide grin. Hawk tapped his shoulder and he returned to his narrative. “I heard these two guys talking last night. They didn’t see me there.”
“What two guys?” Hawk pressed.
But his thoughts already appeared to be fading. Jocko frowned as he tried to think. “I dunno. Guys in uniforms.”
“Soldiers?” Teri suggested.
“No.” Jocko looked down at the fatigues he was wearing, then shook his head. “Not like this. Just something that made them look alike.” He looked up at Hawk. “One guy was talking about maybe laying low for a while now that those two guys were caught for the home invasion. The other guy said that once the guys were out, they could maybe make a big score, then move on somewhere else, like before.” He licked his lips again. “Did I do good, calling you?” And then he grinned again. “A cop. Who’d’ve thought it?”
Hawk stared into the other man’s eyes, willing him to focus, to pull up this one incident from his jumbled brain. “Think, Jocko. What kind of uniforms?”
Jocko sighed, shaking his head helplessly.
“Were they waiters?” Hawk asked. “Chefs, interns?” To each question, Jocko just continued shaking his head. Exasperated, Hawk looked at Teri. “Help me out here. Who else wears uniforms?”
“Policemen, firemen—” The list was endless and they were wasting time. Maybe there was another way. “Can you describe the uniforms, Jocko?”
Jocko looked down at his worn, cracked boots. “I was a little out of it,” he confessed sheepishly. But because there were two sets of eyes looking at him, he scrubbed his face with his hands, searching for a piece of something more to offer. And then he brightened. “Red. They had on red jackets.”
She looked at Hawk. Who wore red jackets? “Doormen?” she guessed out loud. “No, wait. Valets.” That seemed more likely. There were a score of valet services up and down Bancroft in the area Jocko had described. “Were they valets?”
Jocko only looked at her blankly, as if he didn’t understand the word she’d used. And then he turned toward Hawk. The expression on his face testified that his attention span was almost gone.
“Did I do good?”
Hawk smiled at the man. Teri could swear there was even warmth in his voice.
“You did good, Jocko.” Digging into his pocket, Hawk took out two hundred-dollar bills. He pressed them into the filthy palm. “Here. Clean up a little.”
Gleefully, Jocko looked at his windfall, then carefully placed the bounty into the one pocket that wasn’t torn clean through.
“Absolutely. That’s what I’m going to do. Clean up. Soon as you go, I’m going to head off to the mission and clean up. Start a new life—you’ll see. Thanks, Jackie. You would have done them proud.” Teri watched as the babbling man grew misty. “You take care now.”
He scrambled away before either one of them could say anything more.
Teri turned away from where they’d met the man and fell into step beside Hawk as they made their way out of the alley. “He’s going to use the money to buy alcohol, you know that.”
Yes, he knew that. But the battle for Jack Armstrong and his soul had long since been lost.
“Yeah, maybe.” His voice was steely again. Removed. “More than likely, he’ll use it to score some drugs.”
Emerging out into the sun again, Teri saw that their ride was still there, untouched. It seemed almost incredible, given their location. “You gave him money to buy drugs?”
“No, I gave him money for information. What he does with it is his business.” He rounded the hood and got in on the driver’s side. His emotions, though blanketed, were on a dangerous edge. “Don’t get on your high horse with me, Cavanaugh.”
He started up the car and peeled away from the curb, just as he had once peeled away from this neighborhood, gasping for air and something clean to look forward to. He hadn’t quite found it yet and probably never would, but he could live with that. Growing up here had taught him he could live with a lot of things, as long as it meant continuing for another day.
He didn’t bother looking at her. His thoughts were still with Jocko. It had been over six months since he’d last the seen the man. Each time, he looked a little worse.
“Until you’ve lived on these streets, don’t preach.”
“I’m not preaching,” she insisted, taking offense. “I just thought that helping Jocko really get clean instead of just tossing money at him—”
She saw him set his jaw hard. “Doctor at the free clinic gave him maybe six months. He wants to spend it in oblivion, that’s his choice.”
How terrible, she thought, to have nothing to look forward to except the numbing oblivion that came from drugs. “Where do you know this man from?”
He laughed shortly, ready to dismiss the question. Hawk had no idea what made him answer it. “He was my father’s best friend. Jack Armstrong. My mother named me after him. Jocko kept my father from branding me once. I owe him.”
Teri felt as if someone had just punched her in the stomach. “Branding you? My God, Hawk, that’s awful.”
Hawk blew out a breath. The incident had occurred over twenty years ago, yet it hovered around his brain as if it had been last week.
“No, awful would have been if my father had succeeded. Jocko was a lot more together then than he is now.” Shaking his head, he took a corner. The neighborhoods slowly got better, the despair receding into the background. “He’s a pretty decent guy who just never had enough willpower to walk away from what was keeping him down.”
“What gave you willpower?” she asked quietly.
Hawk looked at her sharply. He knew what she was asking him. She wanted to know what had kept him from sinking into the mire he’d found himself standing in.
“I didn’t want to be like my old man. Ever.” How did she do that—get him to talk when he had no intentions of talking? “Look, this isn’t something I want to discuss, okay?”
He’d opened a door and she didn’t want it shutting again. “You brought up the subject.”
She was nitpicking, he thought angrily. “You asked me where I knew him from.”
She wanted to set the record straight. He’d been the one to start the ball rolling, not her. “But you said you grew up around here.” Shifting in her seat, she turned toward him. “Hawk, I don’t want to pry—”
He snorted. “Well, then you’re doing a damn poor job of it.”
“But sometimes, when you keep something like that inside of you for too long, it can make you break apart.”
He rolled his eyes as he eased through a green light. “Any shrinks in your family?”
“No.”
Hawk turned in her direction before switching lanes. “You trying out for the position?”
“No, I’m trying out for the position of partner.”
The radio crackled, but no message followed. Just his luck. “’Case you haven’t noticed, you already are my partner.”
It took more than a coupling to accomplish that. She wanted what everyone in her family had. What she’d grown up believing in. Partners knew each other inside and out. They were there for one another, come hell or high water, no matter what. That didn’t begin to describe what existed between them.
“We sit next to each other in the car every day, and in the office, but you don’t share.”
He scowled at her. Why hadn’t he gone with his first instinct and just disappeared on his way to the men’s room? She didn’t need to come with him. “You never stop talking. Nobody else can get in a word edgewise.”
She was one step ahead of him. “You wouldn’t start talking to me if I did stop.”
He laughed, savoring the thought. “No, but the peace would be nice.”
“Hawk, partners share things.”
Maybe in her world, but not in his. “I didn’t even know one of my partners had kids until they showed up at his retirement party. We talked about work, which we were getting paid for.” He looked at her, his point clear. “Nobody was paying us to be best friends.”
She seized on the word. “Have you even ever had a best friend?”
“No, but I’ve had an urge to wrap my fingers around a throat as white as snow.” His patience snapped. He shouldn’t have to have this discussion if he didn’t want to. What was it about this woman that brought his emotions to a full boil? “Damn it, Cavanaugh, I don’t need a friend, a father confessor or a shrink.”
She braced herself as he flew through the light. She could always tell when she got to him. He drove faster. “You work it right, a friend can be all of that.”
He bit back the curse that rose to his lips. It wouldn’t solve anything and she’d probably come up with a bar of soap to use on his mouth. “You just don’t stop, do you?”
When he looked in her direction again, she moved her head from side to side. “Nope.”
This time, he did mutter an oath, albeit a mild one. “You’re like that kid’s story about the train—”
It took her a minute to realize what he was referring to. “You mean The Little Engine That Could?”
“Yeah, that one.” He turned right on the corner. “Pushing and shoving, being a damn pain in the butt, until you make it up over that hill.”
“Who read you a story?”
Her question, asked so softly, caught him off guard. He shrugged. “They read it in school once.” Why was he even telling her that? Why was he telling her anything? Every time he tried to clam up, she was at him with a crowbar and he didn’t even realize it. “Cavanaugh, I don’t pry into your life—”
She spread her hands innocently. “Pry away, it’s an open book.”
He didn’t want to pry. The less he knew about her, the better. She was already haunting his thoughts far more than he was happy about. To know anything more about her might increase her occupancy time. “That’s your problem, not mine.”
It never bothered her to be too open. She had no secrets, other than a deep fear of commitment, of being hurt. But that certainly wasn’t in play here. “Okay, but someday, you’re going to need a friend. And when you do, I’m here.”
That sounded more like a threat to him than a promise. He sighed. “Until then, could you make like a silent partner?”
“Sorry.”
And then he laughed. “Didn’t think so. I guess that sort of thing comes under the heading of miracles.”
“Looks to me as if yo
u’ve already had a slice of that.”
Hawk pulled up into the parking lot. “How do you figure?”
He expected Cavanaugh to say something about his having her as a partner, but instead, she said, “You got out of your old neighborhood in one piece.”
Almost one piece, he thought. But the mean streets had left their mark on him and it wasn’t the kind of mark that anything could ever wash away.
He kept that to himself.
Andrew’s body felt stiff as he brought his car to a halt in the parking lot. It was the tension rather than his years that was taking its toll on him. He’d felt it ever since he’d gotten into his car earlier.
Turning off the ignition, he sat behind the wheel for a moment. Gathering his thoughts. Gathering his courage. Beside him on the passenger seat was their family album and Rose’s copy of Gone with the Wind. Evidence to prove his case.
He wavered, debating turning back. Debating bringing one of his kids with him. Callie was the convincing one and he wished she was here with him now.
Damn it, a man shouldn’t be afraid to see his own wife.
But he was. Afraid of rejection. Afraid that what would happen here would destroy the fabric of the life he’d woven together these past fifteen years for himself and the kids. A life that was still missing one thing.
Rose.
He’d wanted to call the family together and tell them about the fingerprints. That he’d been right all along. That their mother was alive. Twice he’d even picked up the phone to call Brian and tell him about it. But each time he’d hung up before the call went through.
This was something he needed to face himself, to do himself. The others could know later.
Rayne had been the one who’d seen Rose first. On her way to Bainbridge-by-the-sea on a case, his youngest had stopped at the diner and seen the woman who called herself Claire. The resemblance was so strong, Rayne had been struck by it immediately. She’d come home to tell him about it, about possibly seeing her mother.
But she hadn’t asked him if he’d gone to see for himself, hadn’t asked him anything at all. It was as if she’d uttered a silent plea that until he was certain, she didn’t want to hear anything.
The Strong Silent Type Page 8