by Jolie Mason
She stumbled toward the rubble, over it at times. She stopped only to check a pulse or two along the way. The third she found was a young girl of maybe nineteen. She was covered in blood, but her labored breathing suggested she needed help, not a hearse.
"Medic!" Hayden screamed into the cacophony of the disaster. She searched for a wound but there was so much blood she couldn't find a source. "Medic."
A uniformed officer she knew appeared out of the dust cloud. "Thursday, is that you? Jesus!"
Archie used his emergency short range. "I need a medic Southwest entrance. Officer down."
Hayden felt nothing but the blur of confusion as she stood again and looked for the officer he was calling in.
"What officer? We have to help him."
The uniform sighed. "It's you, detective. You just don't know it yet."
"That makes no sense," she stammered before the dizziness swept over her vision, and she felt the officer's arms go around her and lift her up.
The last thing she recalled before unconsciousness took her were all the hazy lights and the sound of screams and wails all around her. Once someone touched her right arm. The searing pain left little room for anything but her own screams and moans.
*
She dreamed somewhere in there, somewhere between the screams and the chaos. Hayden dreamed long and beautifully, if fitfully at times. She dreamed that she and Ace were at the ballpark eating hot dogs and talking stats. She dreamed that Gray came back with an explanation, but, mostly in those moments when she would feel pain scrape out her insides, she would call for help from whichever man was most on her mind at the time. They'd both left her. Why had they done that?
They'd left her a mess to straighten, hadn't they?
No sooner than that thought would cross her mind, than she would push it down and return to the sweet dreams, the pockets of good memories where she and Ace were having lunch in the plaza on a sunny day.
Occasionally, she thought she heard Mary's voice from the kitchen singing those sweet, Chinese lullabies she liked so. Then, the dream would change, and she was chasing Gray through darkness.
Why wasn't he here with her? Why was she alone?
Her mind would remember eventually, but it was like losing them over and over.
As she slept, she had one dream that made little sense, but it comforted like a hand to hold.
She was in a playroom with other kids her age, and there was a laughing, talking mirror image of herself to play with. A button nose and chestnut hair, she even smiled like Hayden, and Hayden smiled back.
They had so much fun in that playroom with the other children, and, when nap time came, they had to cuddle up together. Hayden had never felt so warm and safe as she did in that playroom with a sister she'd never had.
The mind is a funny thing. Later, she would wonder if she imagined that safe place that made her feel secure and loved, and she'd wonder how a girl who'd grown up without it could have imagined that kind of love at all.
For now, though, she chose to sleep, to bide her time and dream in the world she'd gone to sleep in a little while longer. Outside the edges of those colorful, safe dreams, Hayden could sense that the world was not as she'd left it. There were frays on the edges and holes in the middle.
When the pain intruded, she knew it to her bones.
She felt a niggling intuition that out there was the nightmare, and this was the safe, warm playroom filled with all the things she loved, intact and whole. Then, Mary would sing.
Mary's songs always seemed to drag her from the dark and make her think about the world and what was left undone in it. Over time, the songs drew her more than the dreams, and she hated it. She would cry silent dark tears of loss when she stepped that little bit outside the dreams. If Mary would just leave her alone and let her sleep, she would be safe. She would be whole a little longer.
Mary didn't, though. She just kept singing, and then one day. It happened.
Hayden woke up.
CHAPTER SEVEN
*
Hayden came to in yet another hospital bed. Briefly, she wondered where Gray was, until she remembered. He'd run off to investigate something without her. Things were fuzzy after that.
She did a quick inventory. Arms and legs were in their usual place. Her head hurt, but it was only uncomfortable. She pushed up with her arms, and found that they were a little more injured than she'd thought.
Crying out at the pain in her right arm, she stopped moving, thinking as everyone in a lot of Paine did that maybe, if she stayed very still, the pain wouldn't see her.
A nurse rounded the doorway. "Detective, don't move, please. That arm is being treated for severe burns, and your hip was fractured."
The woman leaned over to help Hayden back in the bed. "I'll call your family in."
"My family...Ace" Hayden smiled because she knew Ace would have her answers. She needed to find out what he hell had happened. She remembered being on the way to the precinct, and getting coffee. There things get blurry. Images and flashes came, but nothing that told a coherent story.
Mary pushed open the door a crack, then peeked inside. Her overcoat was over an arm, as if she had been here a while and taken it off in the heated air, and her jet black hair peppered with lines of white was pulled tightly back from her tired face. Something was wrong, Hayden realized.
"Mary, where's Ace?" Hayden dreaded the answer, a ball of dread sat in her stomach.
The woman who had faced down mobsters and fire on her own dissolved into tears before Hayden. Covering her mouth with a tissue, Mary walked closer to the bed.
"Mary, Mary, don't cry. We'll find him. What are they saying? Mary?"
"He was in the building, Hayden. He's gone. They are all gone."
The words sounded as if they came from a distance as Hayden realized that, of course, they were all inside the building. They were all on duty, questioning her suspect, filing the arrest paperwork, and celebrating a job well done. They were all in the building.
The building she now clearly remembered exploding, fire erupting from somewhere deep inside.
The creepy little, sometimes helpful medical examiner, Risen and his AI. Her boss and the chief bitch of all of MPD, Margery would have been right by the Mayor's side, making a name for herself in front of the cameras to further her political goals. Tanner Murphy and her case were gone in one shot. He'd been with Ace in interrogation.
"How many?" she asked it distantly.
"The death toll is up to eight hundred and three."
"I was almost there," Hayden told her.
Mary had always been full of vinegar according to Ace, but Hayden hadn't seen it in action until today. When the tiny woman pulled herself as tall as she'd go and pursed her lips to say, "So, you could do what? Die with him? Hayden, I was never so thankful to get a comm in my life."
Mary put a hand over the bandages taped to Hayden's right jaw. "When they told me you were alive, I cried because I hadn't lost everyone. You were still here."
Tears flashed like diamonds on her dark eyelashes, and she looked older today than Hayden recalled. She and Ace had been taking a toll on Mary, she thought. And, she hadn't noticed it until this moment.
"What is today?"
"It's Friday, Hayden. You've been unconscious for almost three weeks. I've been waiting for you to wake up."
*
Hayden was off the job until she could pass fitness. The doctors had only released her to Mary because Mary could get anyone to do what she wanted. Those same doctors were telling her she wouldn't pass fitness, ever.
But, being in the home of Randall Ace wasn't the easiest thing for her, she thought as she looked around at his things; Baseball memorabilia scattered throughout, a raggedy dart board from the bar he used to belly up to. It had been a parting gift, his God-awful ties in the closet. And, the more she stayed in the neighborhood, the more she realized that Ace wouldn't have wanted Mary to stay here alone.
Today was the day sh
e was going to get Mary to move into her place. Mary visited his grave a lot, but Hayden hadn't done that yet. She hadn't been ready. Still wasn't, she thought now that she was here.
She groaned her way out of the cab with Mary's help, and just as she'd always done, Mary gave her and Ace the space to be who they'd always been. She'd said nothing about the two coffees in the carrier. She'd never pushed, just asked each day if she wanted to come. Hayden toddled along the thick grass to his grave, while Mary stayed back at the car.
An ornate stone bench rested at the foot of the grave.
Hayden stood somberly taking in the squared off stone and the grass that grew thinly over the turned earth below it. She could hear birds in the trees just beyond. Was this the only place in the city to still hear birds singing?
"Hi ya, Ace. Got you a coffee." Hayden popped a lid off a black coffee, then walked over and poured it into his grave, almost spilling her own in the process.
Then she gave him a surly and typical, "Shut up. I'm tired."
She lowered herself carefully onto the stone bench, and took another sip of her own coffee, then swirled it around in the recyclable cup.
"I'm pissed, Ace. All the time. Bastards got very nearly everything from me." Repressed fury was there inside the words and inside her heart, packed in there like a squirrel packed away nuts for the winter.
She took another sip of coffee. Then went on, "All anyone talks about is the terrorist threat, but I know better. That was overkill."
"It was an attempt to kill off every single person with the information it took to go after the ones who set this up. It was a brilliant way to distract the cops. They are all chasing their tails and ducking my calls. No one wants to hear it, Ace."
"So, here's my plan; I'm going to find Gray, then I'm gonna find the bastards who killed you. Then, I'm going to go private. It's looking like I might be on the way out anyway. My thoughts on your death are not welcome in the precinct. That's been made abundantly clear."
"So, that's my multi-step plan, Ace. That, and I'm gonna take care of Mary. You don't ever have to worry about that."
She stared at the ground for a moment. "Guess I better go. No, no, don't get up."
It was just the sort of bad joke he would have rolled his eyes at, and Hayden laughed a moment too loudly, but quickly realized she wasn't laughing any longer.
She had curled over on the bench, her coffee cup spilling out into the grass. Hayden cried like a baby over her partner who would never make another bad joke, or roll his eyes at her. He would never hold his wife or take that worldwide tour. He was just gone.
Hayden felt Mary's arms on her shoulder, then curled into her side like a little girl. She couldn't imagine a day would come that this wouldn't hurt, that there wouldn't just be this hole where her best friend was meant to be.
She hadn't been there. It was all she could think about in the dark some nights, and it didn't matter what anyone said about it not being her time or he wouldn't have wanted her to die. Her partner had needed her and she wasn't there. She'd stopped for a coffee.
Mary led her back to the cab and helped her in. Hayden felt infinite grief over that as well. She was making Mary carry her through her own pain, through her injury. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair or right.
In the cab, Mary put a hand on Hayden's where it rested on her lap. "Hayden, I've been thinking, and I want you to be quiet and let me finish."
Sternly, Mary held up a finger. "You can't be left alone, you know that. Your wounds aren't healing properly. I suspect you're already looking into going freelance as a detective. You can't do that alone."
She started to interrupt, but Mary shushed her.
"I'm moving into your apartment."
Hayden just stared at her wide-eyed. Finally, she said, "Ace was right. You're a witch."
Mary laughed told her, "I've been onto your game for some time. Trust me, if I didn't agree with you, I wouldn't do it. " In a very motherly fashion, she pushed Hayden's now short hair back off her face.
It had gotten singed in the attack, but it would be grown out soon just like it had always been. But, she was thinking of keeping it short. Nothing would ever be the same. Why should she?
"You're young, Hayden. You'll bounce back, and one of these days you won't need an old lady to watch over you. That day is not today."
"Bullshit, Mary. We need each other, and you know it." Hayden's words were tearful and relieved.
"Language, Miss."
"Yes, Mary."
They sat the rest of the drive imagining what kind of world they would wake to in the morning, since it seemed that rapid and devastating change had been all they had known for a while. Mary would be in her house, and they would both have to get used to a world without Detective Randall Ace. That was their world now.
Ever since some criminal mastermind had decided to blow a hole the size of a building in Hayden's life. Thank goodness, she had a multi-step plan.
*
Hayden still didn't know her way around the new municipal building, but she found personnel pretty quickly. She'd only had to ask two security officers and a bot the way.
Today was the day. She finalized her disability retirement from Metro PD in just a few minutes. In moments, she would no longer be a police officer. She was about to join the rank and file. Hayden breathed in deeply to steady herself.
She could walk without limping now, but the docs said her hand was going to have nerve damage all her life. Her pointer finger was stiff, and the others didn't bend quite the way they should. With therapy, she could probably overcome it, but she didn't really want to.
She'd accepted that she wouldn't be a cop anymore.
She would never accept the outcome of the task force investigation into the attack on the Waldorf Municipal Plaza. But, she was learning not to say that out loud, and that felt like a betrayal.
"Detective Thursday?" A nice lady in a snappy suit exited an office behind the reception desk. She approached with her hand out. Hayden nodded her head and accepted the woman's handshake.
"Yes, I'm here for my sign off."
"Out of necessity, I've been going over your file... to process your paperwork. I am very sorry to see you leaving us, Detective. Your work was exemplary."
Hayden inclined her head. "Thank you, Miss...?"
"I am so sorry. Belinda Herrington, Personnel Director. I wanted to handle your sign off personally, Detective. Also,would you convey my condolences to Mary Ace? Her husband was a fine officer. He'll be missed."
Belinda was sincere in her condolences, but Hayden rushed her off the subject by agreeing and asking what needed to be done next. She couldn't abide this side of death, the condolences, the sympathy. It only opened the wound.
Her heels clicked as she walked ahead of Hayden. Belinda stopped and held a large glass door for Hayden. It led to a room with a long conference table where a dispatch officer stood holding a large bouquet of flowers. Hayden didn't know how to react to the unnerving sight of those flowers. More condolences she suspected.
"Detective, my name is Chief Sam Oxly, Homicide."
She shook his hand. This man was the one in charge of rebuilding her former work division. He had to have been named in the last twenty four hours. A special Mayoral election had been held the day before, and there hadn't even been an announcement to the public as yet. She would have heard.
The new mayor was moving fast.
The Chief handed her the flowers which she took with some amount of awkward trepidation. She hadn't prepared for any pomp and circumstance this morning. She'd hoped to simply sign the papers and go.
Ms. Herrington handed her a large tran file. "These are your documents and certificates of service, Detective. Everything is all ready."
Belinda Herrington wore her hair pulled back tightly from her face, and let it frizz curl on the back of her head. The exotic tilt of her eyes revealed little about her mixed heritage, but the tear she brushed away said a lot about her sincere regre
t at the next words she would say. "The Chief would like to, with your permission, give Detective Ace his final call today."
"Now?" she stared in disbelief at both of them. She wasn't ready for this. This wasn't supposed to happen today, was it? "I... I wasn't prepared...."
The Chief stepped forward. "I understand if you can't, Detective."
Something in his warm, brown eyes made Hayden straighten her back and clear her throat to say, "No, no, it's all right. I can do it."
Belinda nodded her approval. The Chief stepped up to a comm console and hit a button.
With power and authority behind his words, he said, "All units 10-3: Detective Randall Ace, Four Seven."
He paused. "Detective Ace, Four Seven."
It was his call number. An officer's name wasn't usually used on the band. It was how the others would know this was a final call.
She imagined them all out there. All the officers and emergency personnel would stop and listen to that call, knowing one day it could be their number on the band. There wouldn't be any friends listening, though. Ace had died with most of his friends that day.
"Four Seven will not be answering his call," Oxly said sadly.
Hayden blinked back sadness of her own, fighting fiercely not to break down in this moment that needed dignity and sobriety, but she wanted to scream to the sky. She wanted to rail at the injustice of it all and the ineptitude of the department for looking in all the wrong directions.
Chief Oxly met her gaze with eyes filled with sympathy and respect as he said, "Detective Ace has answered his final call, and he has gone from our company. He does not travel alone. He will not be forgotten, and we thank him for his service. All units 10-8."
That last hadn't been scripted or insincere words spoken from habit. Sam Oxly was a good man paying his respects. He spoke with a solemnity that she thought must be part of who he was as a person. It wasn't something one learned. It was part of a man or woman. Some could get it through suffering and some were born with it. She wondered momentarily which was true for the Chief.
Hayden clutched the flowers in her arms, crushing them against her chest. The Chief had said, "He will not be forgotten." There was a promise in the sentence, or there appeared to be at the time. She didn't want to read anything into it that wasn't there.
