Her Thin Blue Lifeline: Indigo Knights Book I

by A. J. Downey

  “Easy, precious. You’re not going to see him the second you step off the elevator. We’re gonna get you to the room, rack ‘em up on the other side of the glass and you’re gonna knock him down. Then we’re gonna wait until he’s all the way back in holding before you even set foot outside of that room. That’s how we do things.”

  “Thank you for telling me, I mean, it’s nice to be prepared.”

  My palms were sweating and my nerves vibrant and alive. I was stiff and hot and while outwardly I appeared calm, my heartrate liked to pretend I was at a rave or something. I walked alongside Tony between twin rows of desks, officers at them filling out reports, through a doorway into a cubical farm. Tony took us right and gave a chin lift to a man in a fishbowl of an office.

  The man said something in his phone hastily and set it down in its cradle. He came out of his office and said, “Ms. Franco, I’m Captain Rollins, welcome to the 12th.” He reached out to shake my hand and I gave him mine and shook back firmly, hoping he would go easy. Handshakes were interesting anymore, you never really realized just how connected your back was to literally everything, until making even the smallest of movements just plain hurt. Handshakes were one of those things that had become a bane of my existence. I couldn’t understand why shaking my right hand bothered my left shoulder so much.

  “Youngblood, Ms. Franco,” I heard behind us and I jumped slightly and turned, it was Jaime, Tony’s partner.

  “Sorry, I’m just nervous, I guess.”

  “No need to apologize, right this way, we’ll get you settled and get this over with so you can go –“

  He stopped himself and had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “It’s okay, really,” I said quickly, before he could apologize for having been about to say ‘home.’

  An awkward silence descended on our little group until Tony cleared his throat, the Captain stood aside and held an arm out and said, “Right, um, Ms. Franco, if you’ll come this way, we’ll get you settled and get this done.”

  “Thank you, Captain Rollins.” I stepped up beside him, taking the offered arm which was a sweet, if old fashioned gesture. Tony stayed at my back and Jaime fell into step beside me on my other side. They led me further back and into a hallway with another freight type elevator in it. The Captain opened the door into a small room with a window leading out into the hall. I stepped into the room, and realized that the hall was where the lineup took place, that the wall was painted with the stripes across and numbers on it, that would go over even the tallest man’s head.

  The Captain picked up a radio in a small docking station off a narrow entryway table pushed up against the window, and said, “Captain Rollin’s to detainment, go ahead and bring up lot alpha, Charlie, one, three, zero, six.”

  A voice crackled over the radio, “Detainment to Captain Rollins, that’s alpha, Charlie, one, three, zero, six, over?”

  The Captain depressed the button on the side of the radio and said, “Confirmed.”

  He flipped a switch on the wall and the lights went out on this side of the glass, he flipped another, and bright, bright floodlights switched on, on the outside of the room, above the window pointed at the wall. Whoever was standing against it would be blinded. The door opened hurriedly and Parnell stepped in and he shut it firmly behind him.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said.

  “S’alright,” Jaime said. “You’re just in time for the main event.”

  “Doesn’t the, ah, accused have a lawyer?” I asked.

  “Public defender,” Tony grunted.

  “Oh.”

  The elevator door whooshed open from the left and a guard from the jail stepped off. He called out, “Single file, ladies! All the way down, stand under numbers six, five, four…” he called out each number as each man passed him and I swallowed hard. None of them were dressed the way he had been that night, no red hoodies, which I was glad for. I was almost afraid they would all be dressed that way. All of them were white men, with brown hair and light colored eyes but when number three stepped off the elevator, my heart nearly stopped.

  “I see him,” I blurted out and Mr. Parnell spoke up.

  “Just wait for it,” he said in a conciliatory tone of voice.

  “You’re sure?” Tony asked and he sounded a bit anxious himself.

  The men all stood profile under their numbers and the jailer ordered them to face forward. They turned and I took an almost involuntary step back, fetching up against Tony, who put a hand on my shoulder lightly to steady me.

  “They can’t see me, right?” I asked and I knew it was a stupid question, they were all blinking and trying to shade their eyes from the blinding overhead lights, but they couldn’t. Their hands were shackled to their waists and they couldn’t bring them up high enough to make a difference.

  “They can’t see you,” the Captain said and I shook my head.

  “Right, I know that, I guess…”

  Parnell interrupted me gently and asked the official question, “Ms. Franco, do you see the man who broke into your apartment and shot both yourself and Ms. Hayworth.”

  “Number three,” I answered immediately. “Number three kicked down my front door and shot my best friend Samantha Lynn Hayworth, and when I tried to run, he shot me in the back, twice.” My heart was thundering in my chest, pulse leaping out of the side of my neck, and my hands shook. Yet my voice barely trembled. It was solid, it was steady, and I knew by the slight squeeze that Tony gave my shoulder that I had, indeed, correctly identified mine and Sami Lynn’s assailant.

  The Captain depressed the button on the side of the radio and said into it, “Take ‘em back down to holding. Keep alpha-Charlie-one-three-zero-six, on current charges, further charges pending.”

  “Copy that, Captain.”

  They led the men back onto the elevator and I heard the mechanisms whisk him away and I breathed out, a pent up sigh of relief. The captain switched out the blinding lights and switched on the muted lighting in here.

  “Please tell me I correctly identified him, I just need to hear it,” I said and Parnell smiled at me, the smile not an entirely friendly one.

  “Oh, you got him,” he said. “Best eyewitness ID I’ve ever had to work with.”

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  “This is a capital murder charge I’m about to bring, even though Maryland did away with the death penalty. I have to convene a grand jury to indict still, though. You going to be up for testifying in front of that grand jury?”

  “Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. I mean, I knew what happened next, I was a lawyer, but it was like my lawyer brain had short-circuited or something and I just wasn’t able to access it. I think these men knew that, though. I think they understood that I wasn’t standing here as Christina Marie Franco, Attorney-at-Law. I think they knew better than I did that right now, I was just Chrissy Franco, gunshot victim who had watched her best friend since third grade murdered in cold blood right in front of her eyes.

  I closed my eyes and felt tears track down my face and Jaime pressed a handkerchief into my good hand.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, following it up with, “I’m so sorry, usually I’m tougher than this,” and it was true, usually I was. Still, this was something incredibly different. Usually when I was on this side of the glass, I was representing someone on the other side. Guilt swirled through my veins and it was an unexpected emotion given everything else I was feeling. I swallowed hard, and tuned in to what Parnell was saying.

  “…I’ll give you a lift to the courthouse, Youngblood.”

  “Need to swing by the Ten-Thirteen and drop Chrissy off, first.”

  “We’d better hurry, then. Court begins session in an hour.”

  “You ready?” he asked me and I nodded mutely.

  I’d come this far, I was ready for anything…

  Chapter 17

  Tony

  She was silent the whole way over to the Ten-Thirteen. Yale parked us in the loading
zone and said, “Make it quick, core traffic is going to be a bitch and we only have twenty minutes to get there.”

  I got out of the car and went around to the driver’s side back door and opened it so she could get out on the sidewalk. Gotta love Old Town’s one way streets. She stepped out carefully with very little help, Yale’s old school Mercedes much easier to get in and out of than my truck. I walked with her to the door and opened it up for her. She went inside and I followed. Skids and Reflash both at the bar, Skids behind it, Reflash, too.

  Golden and Angel, a pair of identical twins, twisted around on their stools. Golden was a cop, but Angel had legit earned his name. He was one of the city’s medics and had earned his namesake thusly.

  “There she is,” Golden said cheerfully and I was safe and among just club and would take their ribbing later. Chrissy turned to say something to me and I covered her mouth with mine. She made a surprised noise and stiffened but relaxed into the kiss almost immediately. I pulled back and looked her right in the eyes.

  “You did outstanding, precious.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded, saying, “You’d better go. I heard Judge Spunkmayer’s name mentioned. She’ll be pissed if you’re late and things will go badly for you the rest of the day as a result.”

  I popped a quick kiss to her forehead and backed off. I shot a look over her shoulder to my brothers who all sat around looking a bit gobsmacked and said, “You guys take care of my girl.”

  “We’ve got you,” Skids said, but didn’t sound exactly happy about it. I wasn’t either, not about the fact I considered Chrissy my girl, but about the fact I had to leave her side while she was here, in the city.

  I left, got back in the car with Yale and we hit it. We lucked out and hit just about every green light on the way there, it was about the only luck we had, though. The defense was on their game when it came to the case I was testifying for. Another banger on banger scenario. One we thought had been airtight, but the slippery bastard, one from Chrissy’s firm no less, managed to poke a big fucking hole in things. One that Jaime and I were gonna have to follow up on.

  When I got back to the Ten-Thirteen, it was hopping, and that made me nervous. I caught Skids’ eye behind the bar and he pointed up. I nodded and went back out front and to the glass door between the restaurant and bar and the boutique next door.

  I used my key to get in and took the stairs two at a time up to the top. The door a few feet down the hall and to the left was Skids, I rapped on it, the universal secret decoder knock that was to announce to the guys on the other side an Indigo Knight was on this side of the door. Angel opened it up and gave me a chin lift.

  “Hey, how is she? Where is she?”

  “Laying down, man, she’s okay. Relax.”

  I pushed past him into Skids’ living room, Golden saying, “What’s up, man?”

  “She okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah… she’s in the guest room laying down. That shit really took it out of her this morning.”

  “Yeah, I was there, I know.”

  “Hey, no need to be a dick to us about it,” Angel frowned.

  “No, you’re right, my bad.” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I liked these two, a lot. Golden played on the ICPD’s basketball team against his brother. Angel was on the medic and fire side of things. I sometimes wished Angel was a cop, these two on the same team would have wiped the floor with ICFD.

  “What happened?” Golden asked.

  “She feels like shit, shit went sideways in court, it’s just been a red fucking letter day.”

  “Gotta look at the bright side,” Angel said, dropping into a seat across from his brother.

  “Yeah,” Golden agreed. “Way I hear it, she rocked that ID.”

  I nodded and joined them at the table, pulling out a chair and dropping into it myself saying, “Yeah, yeah she did.”

  “So what has you so worried?” Angel asked, taking a drink out of his Mexi-Coke, so called because it was one of them glass bottle ones made with real sugar that was an import from the country. Just because the boys were Hispanic, didn’t make Mexico their country of origin, however. They were born and bred American boys. Their grandad had been an immigrant, their daddy American born like them. Their mom, however, had immigrated, and had just two years ago landed her citizenship, just in fucking time, too, at least now with our orange overlord in office.

  While Indigo City wasn’t a sanctuary city, it’d been an unspoken rule of the department that status didn’t matter. We didn’t actively go arresting vics on their immigration status, at least not anymore. It’s one of those things that’d gotten the department into trouble. Not because it wasn’t the right thing to do, but because the unsolved crime rates in the poorer neighborhoods had skyrocketed right along with unreported crimes.

  People had been too scared to come forward or were too scared to even call it in on fear that their illegal status would be uncovered and back to their country of origin they’d go.

  The city was a fucking PR nightmare at this point when it came to community relations, and cops on the beat had finally wised up and had just stopped asking. It helped, but it wasn’t perfect, and the rift just grew bigger with no solution in sight. At least, not for now.

  Golden reached back into the fridge and used a bottle opener off his key chain to crack one of the Mexi-Cokes for me, pushing it across the table towards me.

  “Looks like you need something stronger, though,” he commented dryly and I picked it up, twirling the bottle between my hands to read the label all the way around.

  “Got any Jack to put in it?” I asked, and Angel laughed.

  “Downstairs.”

  “Nah, I gotta drive, anyways.”

  There was silence at the table for a long minute and finally Golden sighed, “She’s really a tough chick,” he said and I nodded.

  “I know that.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, you guys.” Her voice startled all three of us. We turned as one to the hallway leading back into the rest of Skids’ place and found Chrissy leaning against the wall, her good shoulder pressed to the green painted surface. No tellin’ why Skids had picked an Army green to paint his walls, but he had and surprisingly, it kind of worked.

  She was barefoot, her blouse slightly wrinkled, her hair foaming around her face where she’d let it loose from the clip in order to lie down comfortably. She was beautiful, even unkempt. In fact, maybe even more so because of it.

  She pushed off the wall and came to me, hugging me to her one-armed, bending and kissing the top of my head. I put my arms around her and pressed my ear to the satin between her breasts, listening to the beat of her heart inside the delicate cage of her ribs. I didn’t care about sharing this intimate moment in front of my club brothers. I don’t think she did either. We’d spent the entire day apart and after so many tumultuous emotions both for her and for me, we needed this. A closeness, a contact that grounded and centered us both.

  I was so going to take her home and make love to her tonight, but first…

  “Feel like staying for dinner downstairs?”

  “Sounds really good,” she murmured softly.

  “You boys joining us?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” they echoed in unison, and both of them were all smiles.

  “Thanks for not making a thing out of this,” Chrissy said softly and they both shook their head.

  “That’s your business,” Golden said.

  Angel, the easier going of the two, said, “You guys look pretty good together.”

  And they both left it at that.

  I followed Chrissy back to the guest room where she’d left her things and took up her hair clip off the side table where it rested by her purse. She slipped into her low heels and I gathered up her hair into a loose ponytail. I didn’t have a brush, or a comb to do anything else, but the clip was burly enough for a loose pony and so that’s what I did. Just something enough to hold all that long, sable soft hair back from her b
eautiful face.

  She turned and looked at me and we both just sort of gravitated into each other’s arms, lips meeting as if by magnetic pull. We kissed and it was something real, with none of the stiffness or unease of anyone watching. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, but we were going to have to downstairs. There was public, and maybe cops from the 12th down there and you never could tell with people. Someone construes something as inappropriate, they’d dime you out… as much as it was anathema to a cop to dime another cop out, it happened and we didn’t need her case turning into a shit show for yet another reason and they’d pull her case files out of my cold, dead hands…

  “Gotta be on our best behavior downstairs,” I murmured, giving her the heads up.

  “Oh, right, cop bar.”

  I chuckled, “Yeah, and public. Should be alright, though. We’ll grab some dinner and then grab a cab or an Uber back to the station to get my truck and I’ll take you home.”

  She smiled and it wasn’t entirely without mischief when she asked, mock-innocently, “Will we have to behave there, too?”

  “Don’t think so, but then again, Jesus might be watching so…”

  She burst out in a light laugh and shook her head saying once more, “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Yeah, and you love it.”

  “Starting to,” she whispered, voice husky, and to that I only had one response and that was to kiss her again.

  “Mm,” she moaned against my mouth, a short, small thing but the sound traveled straight to my cock which perked up and definitely paid attention.

  Down boy, I silently admonished and broke apart from her with some serious effort.

  Dinner felt like it took forever, and even though the place had cleared out some, it was still plenty full. We tucked ourselves back into a corner booth, but still there were some lookie-loo’s that were craning their necks and who followed us with their open staring as we walked through to take a seat. All of their eyes were on Chrissy.