by Karis Walsh
“This is good, Beth. Very good.”
Beth shook her head, and Billie saw her eyes redden. She stepped closer and put her hand on Beth’s shoulder.
“I’m just not sure what to do. If it’s been long enough…If this would hurt Ryan and Callie…If I’m even ready.” Beth gave Billie’s hand a squeeze and then she sighed audibly. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Forget I said anything.”
Billie shook her head. Beth had never mentioned anyone before, but Billie had no doubt other men had shown interest in her during the past few years. “Has he asked you out before this?”
Beth shrugged. “Once or twice. He knows about Mike and he doesn’t push, but he’s let me know he’s interested.”
“You’ve never mentioned this before.”
Beth looked away. “I don’t know why. I guess I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
“Or maybe it’s because now you want to go out with him.”
Beth was silent for so long that Billie thought she might have misread her. When she finally spoke, her voice was almost a whisper.
“You were his best friend, Billie. Sometimes I thought the two of you were even closer than he and I were, because of everything you went through together, everything the two of you shared and that he wasn’t allowed to talk to me about.” She paused and visibly inhaled. “I need your honest advice, Billie. What do you think he’d say to me right now?”
Billie wanted to launch into a series of encouraging platitudes. Time heals all wounds; it’s time to move on; Mike would want you to be happy. There was some truth to them, but Beth wanted honesty. And Billie wanted her friend to have hope for the future again. She chose her words carefully.
“Mike was one of the most matter-of-fact people I’ve ever met, about both life and death.” She thought back to the days before each mission, when they had to write letters home in case they didn’t survive. Billie had written to her dad and sisters, feeling the distance between them measured both in miles and in emotional connection. The letters had been a chore to her, a necessity before she was allowed to go into the field. Hers had all been alike and as impersonal as a form letter, unlike the ones Mike wrote for Beth. “He knew the odds of being hurt or killed were high. He accepted it, and I know how proud he was that you did, too.
“If I could talk to him right now about you and what you’re going through, he’d say Of course she’s moving on. Why wouldn’t she? He wouldn’t be at all surprised that someone is interested in you because he always talked about how gorgeous and smart and wonderful you are.” Billie paused and took a breath, making an effort not to look like she was gasping for breath. The nightmare and the resurfacing memories over the weekend had weakened her. Now, thinking of Mike and imagining what he would say to Beth, she felt her insides clench. But she kept her tension inside. Not on her face and not in her voice. It was what she was expected to do, what Beth needed from her. She exhaled and continued.
“More important, though, he wouldn’t be surprised in the least to hear that you might want to let someone new into your life. He’d expect it. He’d see it as a natural and human thing to do because he understood more than most people that life would go on whether we survived a mission or not. He’d never judge you for moving on, or condemn you to the life of a martyr. He’d want you and the kids to live a full and happy life.”
Beth wiped away the tears on her cheek and hugged Billie. “Thank you,” she said when she pulled away. “You’re pretty wise for someone who avoids romantic relationships of any kind.”
Billie laughed. “I don’t avoid them. I just move around too much to find someone and settle down. It’s a family trait, I suppose.”
“Hmm.” Beth glanced around the apartment with an unreadable expression. She didn’t say anything else, and Billie was about to ask what was on her mind but she had a feeling she knew what Beth was thinking. Billie had pictures crowded on the walls, and every surface was covered with something personal—mementos from her travels, more photos of the friends she’d made in the service and in the department, and pieces of tack she’d brought home from the police barn to either clean or repair. She looked like a settler here, not a temporary occupant. What Beth didn’t know was Billie had always lived this way. She’d been shuffled from house to house because of her dad’s job. He was on the boat for long periods, and she and her sisters had stayed with someone different almost every time he left. Spreading the wealth, he called it. Desperately trying to find someone willing to take in three kids was more like it, in Billie’s opinion. Still, she and her sisters hadn’t had much choice, and they’d gotten in the habit of unpacking and making each new room their own as soon as they arrived. Billie had never shaken the habit, no matter if she’d been at an army base for two weeks of training or here in Tacoma for almost a decade. She might give the appearance of being settled, but her heart was always prepared to move again.
Callie and Ryan came back into the room lugging their suitcases. Billie would miss the kids’ company, but she was relieved to have the conversation end in the chaos of good-byes. She was willing to listen to Beth’s issues but much less comfortable when the topic of her own love life—or lack of one—arose.
As soon as her guests were gone, Billie showered and got her police uniform out of the closet. She pulled on the tight navy pants and straightened the seams so the extra material designed to protect her inner thighs from the stirrup leathers was placed just right. She buttoned her freshly ironed shirt and tucked it in before buckling her duty belt around her waist. The belt was modified from the one she’d worn as a patrol officer to make it easier for her to move on horseback, but it still held everything she might need while at work, from gun to handcuffs to notepad.
Even the act of putting on the outfit of a mounted patrol officer soothed her. She loved Beth and the kids, but being around people who’d been through trauma always made her relive her own. She was as exhausted by their presence as she was uplifted by the children and her friendship with Beth. Soon she’d be with her horse, Ranger. Grooming him and riding the streets of Tacoma. He’d put her back in balance.
Her first mount, a gray mare named Corona, hadn’t worked the same magic as Ranger. Billie had joined the unit with little riding experience, trusting her sergeant and fellow officers to help her transition from a beginner with only a handful of therapy lessons to a capable rider. Instead, she had found herself in the middle of an unanticipated battle to destroy the unit and take over the land where the police barn now stood. Billie had managed to seem confident even though she was never certain whether Corona would do her job or decide to bolt or buck, but she’d spent more of their training sessions on her butt on the ground rather than in the saddle.
Then Rachel Bryce had stepped in as sergeant and put her on Ranger. Billie had finally found the healing and strengthening kind of partnership she had been hoping for when she had joined the team, not just with Ranger, but also with Rachel and Cal—Rachel’s girlfriend and the team’s trainer—and her teammates Clark and Don. Don especially was an odd choice for someone she now considered to be one of her closest friends. They were far apart in age and interests and lifestyle, but they’d bonded over the horses and their friendship had carried over into everyday life beyond the barn. The mounted team had come to mean everything to her.
She checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror and straightened the small TPD pins on her lapels. She combed her hair and was clipping back her too-long bangs to keep them out of her eyes when her cell buzzed. A photo of her lieutenant, Abigail Hargrove, popped up on her screen.
“Hey, Hargrove. What’s up?”
“Murder and mayhem.” Abby was speaking in her work voice, crisp and no-nonsense. When they’d first met, Billie had doubted there were any other sides to Hard-Ass Hargrove, but lately she’d discovered the funny and playful woman beneath the controlled officer persona. Love had been good for her. Abby was all business today, though.
“Another homicide last night. Drive-by. I need you
to canvass the area with the witness, so report to the one sector substation instead of the barn.”
Billie sighed. No time with Ranger today. Instead she’d be subjected to the fresh trauma of a murder witness. “Fine. What are we looking for? Did they see the shooter?”
“No. She doesn’t seem to have any useful information since she was looking for something on the floor when it happened, or getting carsick, or whatever. But driving around the area might jog her memory. Plus, she’s pretty upset, obviously, and I want you to spend time with her. You’re one of the best in cases like these, and I’m sure you’ll be able to calm her down and get a clear story from her.”
Great. An afternoon playing grief counselor. Billie was flattered by Abby’s praise because she knew Hargrove never gave it lightly. The only reason Billie was so good at working with frightened or traumatized people, though, was because she had all her own grief sitting right under the surface of her skin. Maybe other people sensed it was there and knew she understood them, or maybe the currents of PTSD just made her more sensitive to the resonating vibrations coming from victims of trauma. Whatever the reason, these interactions eroded her strength a little more each time, and she was left fighting harder than ever to conceal and control her own feelings and memories. But she had to put aside her personal issues and do her job. “I’ll be there,” she said.
Chapter Three
Merissa sat slumped over in the hard plastic chair. She’d been ferried around the city in cop cars since the police had arrived at the crime scene the night before. Everywhere she went, though, the picture of Dennis staring out the window of the BMW with unseeing eyes and a trickle of blood dripping off his chin superseded everything else. Brief flashes of other images came and went, but they shifted through her mind out of context and a little fuzzy. She couldn’t describe the inside of the main police station, even though she’d seen the exterior hundreds of times. All she remembered of her time there was resting her clenched hands on a metal table in the stark room where she was interviewed by a string of detectives. The hospital morgue was reduced to a flash of Karen’s horrified and confused expression after she identified her husband and before she rushed into Merissa’s arms. And when Merissa closed her eyes, all she could recall from the tiny Hilltop precinct room where she was now and had been waiting for the past two hours was the curved, orange chair on which she sat. It must have been there since the seventies, but was the rest of the furniture in the room just as old, or was it more modern? She had no idea. Even when she opened her eyes and looked around, she couldn’t make her mind register the rest of the décor. It slipped in and out of her head, unable to dislodge the image of Dennis.
She shifted in the uncomfortable chair. She was apparently waiting for yet another officer or detective to come see her. She knew the drill by now. Each time someone new was about to approach her, they’d first talk quietly with the detective who’d been in charge of her most of the night, both of them glancing her way as if she was a specimen in a lab. Then each new arrival would walk over to her wearing what they must have hoped was a consoling and reassuring smile. They’d gently ask her the same questions about what she’d seen and heard, she’d give the same brief and unhelpful answer—nothing —and they’d sigh and leave her alone again. She tried to make them understand that she wasn’t trying to disappoint them or herself or Dennis. More than anything, she wanted to be the one to identify the shooter and have the horrible person locked away forever. Why had she been focused on finding her index card and not paying attention to what was going on around her?
The next awaited officer finally arrived. Instead of the grizzled older male cop Merissa had come to expect, this one was a woman about Merissa’s age. A gorgeous woman. Her dark thick hair was blunt cut and held off her face with a plain clip. Her uniform was different from the ones the others wore, made of a clingy fabric and snug enough to show off her slender legs and small waist. She was beautiful with her combination of gentle curves and muscular strength, but Merissa’s attention was drawn past her looks and to the expression on her face. Intense and shielded, as if she had powerful thoughts and memories and emotions below the surface, but would only show faint ripples on her controlled face.
Damn. Merissa had been feeling vulnerable and raw since she had first stumbled out of the BMW and called for help. She hadn’t showered yet, and she was so tired she’d probably get lost if she stepped outside the precinct and tried to get back in. She hated feeling weak and at a disadvantage in any situation, but she had been managing her irritation just fine with the string of unappealing cops that had been interviewing her. Just because she found this one attractive and confident didn’t explain why she was suddenly angry, but her emotions had been running the gamut from extreme to nonexistent all night.
The woman walked toward her, and Merissa realized with a start that this officer was the first person or thing to really register in her mind since she’d realized Dennis was dead. She felt an odd mix of guilt, like she was betraying him somehow, and gratitude that she wouldn’t be stuck in the memory of the immediate moments after his death forever.
“Shitty day, isn’t it?” The woman stopped next to Merissa’s chair, no trace of the placating smiles others had worn. She carried with her a faintly spicy and sweet scent. Merissa couldn’t quite define what it was, but she inhaled deeply and exhaled with a sigh, glad to have the momentary break from stale police precinct air.
“Yes,” Merissa said. A simple answer, but she was as relieved by the honest words as by the respite from the sweaty, ferrous aromas of death and fear that she’d been living in for the past hours. No Are you doing okay? and Yes, I’m fine lies to suffer through.
“I’m Billie. I’m going to drive you around the neighborhood. I know it will be hard to be back where the shooting happened, but maybe something will jog your memory.”
Merissa shook her head. Why go through all this when it was hopeless? “I didn’t see anything until…after. I’m sorry, but I’d rather not—”
Billie put her hand on Merissa’s shoulder and stopped her words with gentle pressure. “Don’t apologize. Our minds can play tricks on us, making us forget what we actually remember. You might have seen or heard something that you don’t realize will be important to us. Any clues we can discover will help us find who did this to your friend.”
“Okay,” Merissa said. She was distracted by the feel of Billie’s touch. She felt a shiver pulse through her at the contact, and Billie must have interpreted it as discomfort because she pulled her hand back. Merissa could only call it awareness, as if her cells were turning toward Billie’s palm and fingers, and drawing her mental focus there as well. Traitorous body and exhausted mind. Merissa shouldn’t be feeling attraction after what had happened. Or was it a stress response and nothing more? Unlikely. Billie would have caught Merissa’s attention in any circumstance. She wanted to explain away her body’s response the same way she’d been rationalizing her unexpected reactions to everything happening to and around her since the shooting, but she couldn’t convince herself. She needed distance and privacy before she could process what happened and understand her reactions, and she wasn’t likely to get either one soon.
She stood up and only noticed she was a couple of inches taller than Billie when they were standing side by side. Billie’s bearing made her seem larger than her physical size. They went outside and got in the patrol car waiting by the curb. Merissa buckled the seat belt. She’d managed to avoid being in police cars for all thirty-four years of her life. In less than twenty-four hours she’d been inside more of them than most felons probably had.
Billie got in the car and hesitated before she started the engine. “I’m sure you’ve gone over this a hundred times today, but will you tell me your version of what happened?”
Merissa sighed. The car seat was much more comfortable than the chair had been, and all Merissa wanted to do was wrap Billie’s scent around her like a blanket and take a nap. No such luck. It was bad e
nough that she’d had to experience Dennis’s death one time, and now it was time to relive it yet again. She’d sympathized with victims of violent crimes on news reports, but she had never realized that what happened to them wasn’t a single event, a single moment in time. Instead, it was a repetitive series of internal reruns and external conversations. Over and over—how many more times? Her stomach clenched and growled, and she put her hand on her belly. “I had dropped some notes I’d taken earlier in the day and when I picked them up I missed one card. I leaned over to find it, and when I sat up again, I noticed something was wrong with Dennis.”
Merissa shuddered at the understatement. Something wrong sounded as innocuous as the flu or a headache. Billie was frowning while Merissa talked, and Merissa interpreted her expression as one of judgment. She had felt judged throughout this entire process, by the detectives and even by Karen, although they all tried to deny it. She should have noticed more, done something different, saved her boss and dear friend. She heard the tone of her voice growing more defensive as she talked. “I heard a noise, but it sounded like a rock hitting the window, not a loud gunshot. And there was so little blood. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to figure out what was going on, but I was sort of distracted because I was carsick, and it wasn’t…it wasn’t like you see on TV.”
“Hey, I’m only trying to figure out what happened, not blame you for it.” Billie’s voice was soft and free of judgment. So very different from the harsh and berating one Merissa had been hearing in her own skull all night. The kindness in Billie’s tone washed her free of recrimination for a moment, but Merissa fought with the freedom from guilt. She didn’t believe she deserved it, and the realization made her want to weep. She was glad Billie didn’t look her way as she started the car and pulled away from the curb. “This was a small caliber bullet and it would have been fairly quiet and with a small point of entry. I’m sure you, like most people, don’t drive around expecting someone to shoot at you, so on the rare occasions when it does happen, it’s perfectly natural for the brain to take a while to process what’s happened. Start from the beginning and tell me about yesterday without beating yourself up in the process. Where were you when you took those notes?”