Cause and Effect

by Brooke Edwards

  Street kids disappear all the time, Carter. She was the only other person there to hear those words, and she still doesn’t know if James knows that she was just outside the door, hand poised to knock, as Kane told him in no uncertain terms to get himself together.

  Something had snapped him out of it eventually, not long afterward, but she knows that the files are in the bottom drawer of his desk even now. She’s seen them, dog-eared papers and crinkled manila folders, when she’s gone to replace stolen snacks before he notices they’re gone. There’s always been something of James in Daniel, and it’s never worried her as much as it does now. They’re side by side in the room, the same rigid spines and shoulders inching toward their ears. She doesn’t know whether she’s more worried about what Daniel will do to bring Coy down, or what not catching Coy will do to him. Whether James and Derek’s relationship is solid enough to survive a manhunt so close on the heels of everything that happened the first time around isn’t certain either. Kay just hopes that fifteen years from now, she’s not thinking back to this moment with anything but a sense of relief. She forces her eyes away from the hallway and back down to her desk, reaching out for her cell. The background picture makes her smile as she unlocks the screen and taps a few times.

  Morgan answers on the third ring. “How’d you know I was thinking about you?”

  “When are you not?” The bubbling unease starts to fade at the familiar sound of her voice. “What are you doing?”

  “I was expecting ‘what are you wearing’ to be brutally honest.” Kay’s lips twitch into a grin against her will at the words and she relaxes back against her seat. Morgan sounds disappointed. “I’m making mac and cheese for your moody almost-teenager who refuses to watch anything except cartoons.”

  “How many times has he made you sit through the one about the yellow thing and the snail?” Kay glances up when she catches movement out of the corner of her eye, but it’s just Norman sneaking past with a pair of meatball subs that are leaking sauce from the aluminum wrappers. There’s an incriminating trail of marinara sauce behind him. “Ugh, Norman. I think the janitors here deserve sainthood about as much as you do.”

  “At least twenty so far,” Morgan says. Kay can hear the theme song playing and winces in sympathy. “When are you going to be back to share in the torture?”

  Kay sighs, eyes flitting back to the conference room window. James is looking at her and narrows his eyes. She flaps her hand at him, and he waves at her insistently. “New York’s finest are not at their best today. Probably later than usual.”

  “I’ll leave a bowl in the fridge.” She can almost hear the gentle smile. “Text me when you’re on your way home and it may just be hot and waiting for you.”

  “I thought that was you.” She diverts the headset to the message system. “Hey, I’ve gotta go. Chief’s waving at me. See you tonight.”

  “Hot and waiting,” Morgan says, and Kay’s still grinning when she slips her headset onto the stand and gets up. Daniel rolls his eyes at her, faux-gagging. There’s a spark in his eyes, and she beams back at him, winking and then licking her lips. He turns away, and is too far away for her to hear it, but she knows he’s chuckling.

  They’ll be okay, she tells herself as she heads to the conference room.

  4

  Peter swings by the community center a few hours before he’s scheduled to start at Marty’s for the night. His eyes still feel gritty, but two more capfuls of mouthwash and a vigorous brushing make it feel less like something actually died in his mouth. He’s prepared to take the small victories. It isn’t a long walk to the center, and there are just enough people out and about to quiet the anxiety rattling away in the back of his mind. Too many people for someone to try anything in broad daylight, and not enough to make it possible for something to go unnoticed. By the time he arrives, school hasn’t been out for long enough for many kids to have arrived. It’s mostly the younger kids from the crèche and daycare service running about, volunteers and a handful of staff scattered amongst them. Alysha waves at him from the top of the jungle gym, and he waves back, dropping his coat on one of the benches on his way over to Miranda and Lottie. Miranda smiles at him but the corners of her mouth are tight and drawn. It falls flatter than her usual toothy grin.

  “Hey. Are you okay?” he asks, glancing sideways at Lottie. “Uh, both of you?” Her blonde curls are piled loosely on top of her head, more haphazardly than usual.

  “Yeah.” Miranda lets out a long sigh, closing her eyes. When she stops trying to smile, her face looks less pinched. The anxiety picks up again, a low-grade buzz underneath his skin.

  “You’re here early,” Lottie says.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter pins her with a look that he hopes is more serious than hysterical. “You both look like someone died.” His breath catches in his throat. “Did someone die?”

  “Take it down a couple of notches, Pete.” Miranda rubs at her forehead. “Just this gang stuff. We’ve already got kids at risk in those neighborhoods, and I don’t know whether I’m more worried about them getting caught up, or getting caught in the crossfire.”

  “What?” Peter stares at her. “Did something happen?”

  “Where have you even been?” Lottie asks. Her voice is sharp. “The police literally fished a dead body from the East River the other morning. Everyone knows the dead guy was in a gang, but no one has come out and claimed him, and no other gang has said they did it either.”

  The relief is tinged with a vague nausea. He’s horrified that he’s relieved that it had nothing to do with Coy Fairhall’s escape. For the kids in those neighborhoods, the possibility of the gangs either seeking them out or getting caught in the middle of an all-out street war is more real than the specter of a serial killer. “No one has any ideas about who or why?” He swallows around the lump in his throat.

  Miranda shakes her head, and Peter notices how dark the bags under her eyes look. “No,” she says. “There have been a few cops hanging around, asking questions and keeping an eye out, but no one who knows anything is sharing.”

  A “they have bigger fish to fry” is on his lips, just a breath from being said aloud, when Peter rethinks it and bites the inside of his cheek instead. “Something will come out eventually,” he says instead. “They won’t stay quiet on it for long, you know how it goes.”

  Lottie nods. “Yeah,” she agrees. “It’s just what happens between now and then that’s frightening for everyone.”

  “I’m going to go say hi to the kids.” Peter smiles and has no idea what it comes out looking like, only that it doesn’t feel anything like what a smile usually feels like. He breaks into a jog toward the jungle gym where Alysha is climbing determinedly to the very top.

  The kids make a decent distraction for a couple of hours, more and more gradually filtering in as their schools let out. Some of the older kids, teens and preteens, look more tired and tense than they normally do. The part of Peter’s brain that isn’t laser-focused on the anxiety about Coy can’t stop thinking about the gangs and what could be happening out on the streets. As he starts disentangling himself from grabby hands and sticky fingers, all too aware of the afternoon ticking away, his thoughts turn toward the police presence on the street. He’s always been a little obsessed with law enforcement. Most kids grow out of their obsessions, or they go on to become whatever they’d been so obsessed with. Peter hadn’t grown out of the obsession, and definitely hadn’t become a police officer. Not for lack of dreaming about it, more a sad acceptance of the reality that he lacked the confidence necessary.

  Alysha hangs off his arm for a good five minutes before he can finally tear himself away, promising to come back next week. Miranda and Lottie wave at him as he darts past to grab his coat. The wind is cold and strong when he gets outside, stinging his cheeks, but as he shakes his head it clears his focus. “You’d be a terrible police officer,” he mutters to himself, hunching his shoulders, and sets off back toward the apartment building. Th
e streets seem a little quieter than normal, and he spots a couple of parked police cars in alleys and side streets. The windows are tinted, so he can’t see if any of them have people in them, but it makes him feel safer and more exposed all at once. Daniel Callahan comes back to his mind, and Peter hunches further in on himself with a sigh. The crush he can’t seem to shake is spiraling further and further out of control. He wonders whether Daniel’s as worried about Coy being on the loose as he is. It seems like a silly question when he thinks about it. Daniel’s probably even more worried, considering his less-than-professional relationship with both his boss and Derek Moore, who had been Coy’s primary targets. With him on the loose again, that’s more likely now than ever. Of course, Daniel is more equipped to do something about it than the average person. The whole gun and badge and training thing. Peter thinks that might go a fair way toward settling any anxiety he might be feeling about it. As it is, he’s painfully aware that he can barely even throw a decent punch, and if he miraculously managed to land one, the broken hand would likely spell the end of both the fight and his life.

  The closer he gets to the apartment and Marty’s, the more crowded the street gets and the fewer police cars he spots. The difference between neighborhoods isn’t usually so obvious but Peter isn’t usually looking for it either. By the time he gets to the shop, he’s waffling between worrying about whether Daniel’s hypothetical anxiety is causing him as many issues as Peter’s is, and the possibility of the gang issue diverting the police’s attention and resources away from Coy. Marty takes one look at him and the skin between his eyebrows crinkles as he jerks his thumb back toward the dishwashing station. Peter goes, dumping his coat and pulling on the thick elbow-length rubber gloves. It only takes a few minutes for the strong smell of the cleaning chemicals and heat wafting from the hot water to clear the worst of the fog from his head.

  An hour or so in, Marty calls him back into the kitchen proper and sets him to rolling out the bases. Santi breezes in and out with stacks of boxes, and Peter loses track of time. The radio plays a medley of ’80s soft rock that weaves around them and mixes with the heady tomato in the air. Marty sends him home after a few hours with a rough pat on the shoulder and a box that smells like steaming pepperoni and mellow cheese. “Monday,” he says with a nod, “5.00 p.m. Bette will teach you the cash register.”

  “Monday,” Peter agrees and lifts the box a little higher. “Thanks, Marty.”

  Saturdays at the precinct are usually one of two things, in Kay’s experience. There’s a reason she doesn’t usually take that shift, and it isn’t all because she has a life outside her job, unlike most of the officers. It’s either madness, utterly and completely, or just busy enough to keep her from being able to sink properly into any kind of distraction but not busy enough to stave off mind-numbing boredom. She’d perked up when Derek wandered in an hour or so ago and waved on his way back to James’s office, but the bullpen was pretty deserted. Most officers are either out on calls or in the conference room, poring over the towers of files and probably yelling at each other. She’s caught a few glimpses of Cohen Bailey here and there, and traded disgruntled glares with Daniel more than once because James had shut his office door as soon as Derek arrived.

  She’s taken a lot of bathroom breaks over the course of the day so far and discovered that the blinds in James’s office are stupidly effective. None of the gaps are big enough to see anything through and, believe her, she has tried.

  The man that stops in front of her desk when Kay is listening to the voicemail someone had left while she’d been in the bathroom, is familiar in a weird and distant kind of way. It isn’t until he opens his mouth, and then closes it abruptly when he realizes she’s busy, that she recognizes him. “Just a moment,” she says, and he nods so hard it looks like his head might just roll off his shoulders. His hair is sticking up like it’s been freshly washed and not quite settled. He’s adorable. The voicemail continues to drone on and on and she still has no idea what the person on the other end actually wants.

  Peter Saracen’s fingers are knotted together as he bounces from foot to foot in front of the desk. Kay smiles, as mildly as she can while sirens of excitement start blaring in her mind, and she gives up even attempting to decipher the garbled voicemail. She hits the Save key and scrawls the number down with a large question mark before yanking her headset off and getting up. “Hi!” she says brightly. “How can I help you?”

  Peter looks like a frightened woodland creature—all fluffy blond hair and big, wide eyes. She kind of wants to pet him. “I’m looking for Daniel Callahan?” he says, voice higher than she remembers. “Uh, I mean, Detective Callahan, I think?”

  “You take a seat,” she says. “I’ll track him down for you.” She’s proud that her voice doesn’t end up a squeak at the end. She’s been waiting for this day for literal months, and if Daniel screws it up, she’s going to put laxatives in his coffee. Peter watches her with wide eyes as she skirts her desk and takes off across the bullpen, which is suspiciously devoid of Daniel. She continues past the desks toward the back wall.

  Kay doesn’t call out as she pushes James’s office door open, her posture deliberately casual and relaxed but well aware that her face is twisted up into an expression of crazed glee. Derek stumbles off James’s chair the second she yanks the door open, ears a flaming red and his bottom lip suspiciously swollen. Kay’s eyes narrow at them, and James’s head is already in his hands. “Don’t come any closer,” he says, strangled. “Please don’t come any closer.”

  “Are your pants on?” she asks, eyes widening as she shuts the door behind her. They can’t accuse her of not respecting their privacy.

  Derek clears his throat loudly. His collar is unbuttoned. “That was supposed to be lo—never mind. What do you want?”

  Kay turns her focus on him, noting the damning mess of his hair and the rasp to his voice. “You two are the actual worst,” she informs them. She can’t wait to get home and complain to Morgan about it. “Anyway, Peter Saracen is here. He wants to speak to Daniel.”

  James groans, long and loud. Derek’s eyes light up. “What about?”

  “Probably about getting together to do what we know they’ve been itching to do since Danny got that bug up his ass,” Kay says. “The sexual tension was seriously the worst. I mean, at least I know you two are getting it on. There’s some satisfaction in that even if you still rudely refuse to share the details.”

  “I locked that down, I’m not sharing,” James mutters, while Derek ducks his head, snickering a little despite the red flush spreading to his ears. “Voyeuristic receptionists or not. If Saracen is here for Daniel, Kay, then why are you here? In my office?”

  “Because, oh fearless leader,” Kay says, hands on her hips. “Daniel isn’t at his desk, and Bailey has started disappearing very conveniently whenever I get within three desks of him.”

  “Don’t ruin that kid.” James exhales slowly, staring at the ceiling in a plea for strength. “He’s the only one out of the whole lot of them who actually does the recommended physical training, and I’m too fucking old for foot-chases.”

  “I saw someone bring donuts in when I got here,” Derek says. “He’s probably hovering in the kitchen trying to steal one when no one’s looking.”

  “Why does no one tell me when there are donuts?” James demands as Kay winks at Derek and heads back out into the bullpen. Drama and donuts. Her day has just gotten a whole lot more interesting.

  Daniel is in the kitchen, along with half a dozen others who Kay had been sure were out on patrol. There’s a box of donuts on the counter beside the microwave, or the remnants of a box of donuts anyway. “You’re all on the bossman’s shitlist,” she announces cheerfully. “Danny! You have a civilian visitor.”

  Daniel raises his eyebrows at her. There is powdered sugar all around his mouth. Not telling him about it is her first instinct, which definitely means it’s not the right thing to do. She wipes at her own face exaggeratedly,
and he squints. She points right at his face. “As much as I’d like you to walk out there like that, it would embarrass me more than you.”

  There’s a smear of white across his shirt cuff when he’s done, glaring mutinously, and she beams back. “Better.” She waves toward the door. “Can’t keep the public waiting!”

  “Why is someone here to see me?” His glare gets deeper the closer to the door they get. “I don’t have an active case with witnesses, or any CIs working right now.”

  “You’ll see.” Kay can’t hold back the delighted noise, and Daniel’s face immediately scrunches up, his nose doing the weird little crinkling thing it does when something surprises him.

  Peter is still standing at the desk with his back to them, weight shifting from foot to foot in a bouncing motion. Daniel sucks in a deep, audible breath, and Kay looks to the side quickly, wondering if maybe this was less funny than she found it. The tight, constipated expression on Daniel’s face confirms that no, it still is funny, and she hurries forward with an almost silent snicker. “Detective Callahan, your visitor.”

  Peter jumps at the sound of her voice, whirling around. Daniel straightens, shoulders back, in a pose that she’s seen both he and James use. James most notably in front of Derek, and both of them in situations where they want to appear both bigger and more intimidating than they actually are. Idiots. She sidles around them to get back behind her desk while they just look at each other instead of actually saying words. After a long moment, she snaps her fingers and drums on the surface of her desk loudly. Both of them startle out of their staring contest and she smiles at them. Daniel reaches out and grabs Peter’s wrist, narrowing his eyes at her as he pulls Peter toward James’s office.