by LS Sygnet
“Doc, please don’t shut me out. I thought you wanted us to be together. How can that happen if you’re keeping secrets from me?”
“It’s better if you never remember some of it.”
Johnny gripped the steering wheel with both hands and silently focused on getting me home. It was cruel for me to voice my belief that he was better off never having part of his life back again. When you’re as riddled with guilt as I seem to be these days, what’s a little more?
We left the gate to my property open when we left earlier, since Johnny didn’t have a remote control to open the gate anyway. He drove slowly up to the house, around the circle drive and rolled to a stop in front of the low-walled courtyard that buffered my front door. I didn’t blame him for his silence or the anger he surely felt. Here he was, struggling to prove to himself that he was the same competent law officer, and I wasn’t shy about my preference that he never remember. It was beyond hypocritical when I was the one to beg him to spend time with me so he would remember.
I reached for the door handle, ready to slunk away with my tail between my legs, to accept the rejection that I’d earned.
“Wait,” he rasped.
“Johnny, you don’t have to say anything.”
“I’ll walk you to the door. It’s still icy out here.”
Oh. His assertion that he didn’t want to see me hurt again apparently applied to falling on my ass, even if I deserved it. I waited for him and clutched his arm while he walked, I skated, through the slick courtyard. My mood felt as frozen as the ice laden plants along the way. They drooped under the weight of frosty condensation, wilted and defeated by the burden crushing them.
I stepped into the entryway and pulled the key out of my coat pocket. I stabbed it into the lock with a vengeance, not because of Johnny, but because I couldn’t stop hating myself, all the contradictions in my head that pulled me in opposite directions.
His fingers curled around my key-grip fist. “Helen.”
“You don’t have to say –”
Johnny gently maneuvered me around and tilted my chin with one hand. “I’m not angry with you. I’m not blind. I’m not stupid. I’m missing a lot of memories that I can’t help but believe mean everything to me. I know that whatever happened between us hurt you, and I’m sorry if asking you to help me remember is making you relive that pain.”
I figured my tears would freeze in the bitter cold if they were allowed to fall. Some fights are futile. Moisture burned over my chilled flesh.
“Honey, please talk to me.”
And say what? Tell the truth? Hurt him more than the lie ever could? Be honest? Make him arrest me? This Johnny didn’t understand the emotions swirling around him like his previous incarnation had. He suspected that I murdered my ex-husband and broke the law to protect me in spite of his dead-on correct gut instinct. This Johnny had no reason to protect me, and I knew in my heart that I never wanted him to do it in the first place.
“I can’t.”
His thumbs anchored my jaw and tilted it upward.
“Helen, I feel like the luckiest man in the world, if I remember what happened or not.”
“Why?” More of a hiccup-sob than a word. Moisture drizzled from my nose.
“Because of all the doubt I feel right now, I know you love me. I get to learn who you are all over again. This time, you’re not running away from me.”
“Johnny –”
His head dipped, lips captured mine for a tender kiss. “God help me,” he whispered. “But if you don’t want me to remember certain things, I don’t want to know them either, Helen.”
“You don’t really mean that.” Still, my arms circled his neck. Fingers dug deeply into the thick cap of blond hair. Yeah, where Johnny Orion is concerned I’m wrecked. Ruined. Want him beyond rationality. And who wouldn’t? Even though he’s the one who can’t bring himself to say the words this time, his emotions are exactly as they’ve always been. He loves me, and I’m not too blind to see it anymore.
His next kiss was deep, filled with the longing that we both felt for long months which he couldn’t remember. Johnny lifted me off the ground and ate hungrily. His moans drowned out mine.
“I do mean it,” he mumbled into my mouth after several long minutes. “I can’t explain it. All I know is that nothing feels right unless you’re right here, exactly like this, Helen.” The grasp around me tightened. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me. Not ever.”
“Promise?”
I read the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. My intentions where Darkwater Bay was concerned were spelled out quite clearly. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“But you will.”
“No,” I whispered. “I can leave the job behind and never look back. That’s what I want. You’re someone I need, Johnny. It’s never been about running away from you. Never.”
“You can’t promise though, can you?”
“I can,” foreign words tasted acrid on my tongue. “I promise I won’t leave you.”
So much for a new beginning without the lies.
Chapter 25
“You frighten me.”
I looked up from the computer at Devlin. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t understand how someone can be so alert when I know she didn’t sleep last night.”
My face burned, and I refocused on the email in my inbox. “I don’t know how you could possibly know that, Devlin. You’ve been dead to the world thanks to Percocet since last night. Are you ready for your next dose?”
“I’m wondering when we’re going to suit up for Ned’s funeral.”
I squinted at the clock on the upper corner of the computer. Eight-forty. “It’s not until ten. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“We should leave by nine-fifteen, Helen. The weather report says the roads are solid ice. What’re you doing anyway? Is this about the case? I figured something must’ve happened when you and Orion sneaked home in the middle of the night. It was related to our case, wasn’t it?”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “We should get ready to leave. If the roads are really so bad, I’ll have plenty of time to fill you in on the way to Saint Angelo’s this morning.”
Dev tapped the badge on his police blues. “I’m not the one holding up the show this morning. Did you shower yet or are we looking at some long, drawn out girl ritual?”
“I don’t have girl rituals.” Not many anyway. I draw the line at skipping hygiene, even if it might be construed as a sign of grief. “Give me fifteen minutes to shower, do the hair and find my uniform.”
Devlin’s eyes widened. “They issued you a uniform?”
“Technically, my rank is just like yours, Devlin. Of course I’ve got blues.”
If those were wide eyes, they bulged like someone with severe Grave’s disease when I emerged from the bedroom in my official police uniform. Skirt, jacket, and the only sensible heels I own – a mere two and a half inches, but a wide heel and not the spike I usually favored.
“I’ve never actually seen your legs before.” He ducked his head immediately, but I caught him peeking almost as quickly as he averted his gaze.
“Please don’t start with the Hindu cow thing again.” While I have steadily been putting on the weight I lost while suffering from immobility, depression and the cusp of narcotic addiction from October to just about three weeks ago, my muscle mass is nowhere near what I expect it to become again.
“It was the farthest thing from my mind,” his low purr sent a thrill straight through my gut.
I squelched it. Not supposed to get those feelings from anybody but Johnny. The mere invocation of his name in my gray matter sent a thrill of another kind swirling in the pit of my stomach.
Johnny. He’ll be at the funeral today. Even the single night he spent with me after the injury, he hadn’t actually seen a whole lot of skin, since I favor the worn sweat suit for sleepwear. Would it trigger memories?
“You’re zoning out again.”
“Hmm,” I nodded. “Sorry. I think Johnny left the wheelchair in the back of the Expedition when we brought you home yesterday.”
“Forget it, Helen. I am not rolling into my partner’s funeral in a wheelchair. I’m going to stand and honor him with everybody else. No argument. This is how it’s gonna play.”
I held up my hands in a defensive gesture. “Don’t whine if you’re miserable by the time we get home. I’ve got a feeling this thing is gonna be standing room only.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Devlin’s mood shifted in a decidedly withdrawn direction the closer we got to Saint Angelo’s Cathedral downtown. The streets and parking structure were packed with vehicles.
“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath. Who the hell was guarding the store if every cop in Bay County turned out for Ned’s funeral service? Hey all you criminals we haven’t scared straight or arrested, here’s your green light to commit crime. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as brevity in Catholic services.
“Dev, this may offend you, but bear in mind that it’s icy as shit out here this morning, and I don’t own sensible shoes.”
He glanced at me. “And?” Wary. Suspicious.
I pointed toward the handicapped spaces front and center at the base of the spire-like stairs up to the church. “They gave us a temporary permit.” My fingers already fumbled for the center console where the offensive tag had been secreted when we left the hospital.
Devlin groaned. “So you’re forcing this on me with guilt because you don’t own shoes that aren’t sexy.”
“Don’t go there, brother.”
It tugged a tiny grin to his lips – until the Expedition slid to a halt, front right wheel bumping the curb. Then the levity sucked out of my car leaving anxiety in the resulting vacuum. Silence and grief prickled my skin.
I reached for Devlin’s arm. “Hey ...”
“I can’t do this, Helen. I can’t walk in there and feel all those eyes on me, accusing me of something I wish had been different too.”
“They don’t wish you had died instead of Ned,” I spoke the words with deep conviction. “Devlin, please don’t believe that.” Still, deep in my heart, I suspected that one of his detective brethren did hold that belief and lacked a propriety social filter that would enable him to keep his nasty remarks to himself.
I didn’t wear my sidearm to the funeral. Speaking of God, thank God, because I had no doubt that I wouldn’t be able to control the urge to empty the clip of my Glock into Tony Briscoe’s fat belly if he hurt my friend, my ally.
“They’re staring, and we’re not even out of the car.”
My fingers gripped Dev’s forearm. “This is precisely what happens when you befriend the pariah of law enforcement, honey. It’s not you they resent, it’s me, because Johnny got hurt and it was absolutely my fault.” Also, Tony Briscoe had a big mouth. I wondered idly if Maya might let me borrow the suture gun she used to close the sternums of bodies that rolled through the morgue. I could use it on his jaw. That might shut him up.
“These guys adore you. Well, all but one,” Devlin said. “And nobody was listening to his ranting after Orion got hurt, Helen. Nobody made Johnny rush in after you. We all got that. Why do you think Ned thought you ought to consider moving on and forgetting about Johnny?”
“Because you were his partner, and he knew you have a massive crush on me.” Teasing. Not a good plan.
Dev turned sad eyes on me. “Yeah, Helen. He knew. But he also realized that Briscoe had Johnny’s ear harder than anybody else, even his so-called best friend.”
“Had,” I whispered. I didn’t want to believe that was still the case. “Dev, he was our friend, our colleague. Ned had our backs every way imaginable. We owe it to his memory to put aside whatever anxiety we share right now, to walk in there, honor him and leave our baggage at the door. This isn’t about what anybody thinks of us. This is because we loved and respected him.”
“What if his family –?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I know,” Dev rasped. “Ned wouldn’t be surrounded by anything less that what he was.”
“Let’s do this. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to walk up those steps. Plus, if they start without us, it’ll cause a scene if we stroll in late.”
He gave a stoic stare at the church. “You’ve got my back, I’ve got yours. Right?”
“Forever, Dev.”
“All right. Let’s do this.”
“Wait for me. I don’t want to fall on my butt in a skirt.”
He grinned again. “Now we have the real reason you felt handicapped parking was necessary. You’re impaired by gender specific clothes.”
“Pretty much,” I grumbled. “I don’t know why Shelly insisted on skirts, but that’s all they gave me.”
Dev waited for me on the salt sprinkled sidewalk. I clutched his arm and let him lead the way to the front doors of the imposing religious edifice. “I hate churches.” Each step upward reminded me how much and why. “I haven’t been inside one since my mother died.”
“Catholic?”
“No,” I said. “Sort of a nutty fundamentalist one like Crevan’s.”
“What did you do for the ex’s funeral? Or am I wrong thinking you went to his service at all?”
“Secular, graveside only. It was me and a bunch of FBI agents who I think wanted to make sure he was really dead.” And serve me with a search warrant for our townhouse, but Devlin didn’t need that sordid tale. God knows, it might’ve given him pause before he could dismiss more of Briscoe’s ranting about the homicidal expression he glimpsed.
“What was that like?” Dev reached for the large wrought iron handle on the megalithic door and tugged.
“Blessedly brief,” I said. If people skipped all the happily ever after in the clouds nonsense, funerals were generally no-nonsense affairs. Since none of Rick’s criminal cronies were inclined to keep company with me and the bureau, there were no heartfelt eulogies offered on that rainy spring day either.
“Ours aren’t terribly long,” Dev yanked the door open and winced.
“We should’ve brought the wheelchair, and why am I not surprised that you’re one of the abundantly prominent Catholic residents in this city?”
“My mama raised me right,” Dev forced the pain out of his eyes but still guarded his still healing abdomen.
An usher met us at the door, some desk sergeant I vaguely recognized from Downey Division. “Detectives Eriksson and Mackenzie, the family has requested that you be seated with them in the front of the cathedral.”
I glanced up at Devlin. His eyes had immediately stained red. Moisture leaked into the swarthy creases at the edges.
“Thank you, sergeant.” I offered my other arm to our official escort through the packed cathedral.
Ned’s wives, both former and current, children and step children sat in the front row. Nancy, his third and current wife rose immediately and gripped Devlin’s hands. She leaned close, kissed his cheek and murmured something I couldn’t hear. It was a punch in the gut, whatever she said. One tear streaked down Devlin’s cheek. He nodded and hugged her.
“I’m so sorry, Nancy. I wish to God this hadn’t happened.”
“He loved you, Devlin. Don’t doubt for a minute how much you meant to him. In all these years, I’ve never known Ned to take to a partner as fast as he did you.”
She turned to me. “Detective Eriksson.”
The hug from someone I’d heard plenty about but never met was unexpected. She whispered in my ear.
“Look after him. Ned would want that.”
“I will.”
“And solve this case… for Ned. The job meant so much to him.”
“We’ll do our best.”
Years ago, I learned the hard way that promises to solve crimes were almost a jinx to cops. Never make a promise unless you’re absolutely sure you can deliver, Sprout. Dad’s words drifted back to me, the proverbial lifesaver tossed before I could drown with
out his wisdom to guide me. Of course he hadn’t spoken in the context of this job and making unfulfillable promises.
My mind drifted back to the promise I made Johnny in the wee hours this morning. Could I deliver? In the heat of the moment, I believed my promise was true and from the heart. Unfortunately, in my world, even the foggy dullness of Darkwater Bay daylight brought with it cold reason, and there is an absolute disconnect between the heart and the mind.
I took my seat beside Devlin. He clutched my hand in a death grip that I was pretty sure somehow stifled the tears he struggled to suppress. The priest or cardinal or whatever the heavily robed officiant droned on for a good fifteen minutes before I figured I’d need my fingers amputated from blood loss in the tight vice Devlin inflicted. I wiggled my fingers slightly, and he relaxed.
The service was nothing like the one for my mother. The priest knew Ned well, spoke of his kindness, his dedication to his family, extended though it was, his honor as a police officer who believed in standing up for the cause of right. The sermon wasn’t heavy on theology. Instead, the priest read the beatitudes and offered prayers and assurances to the living that Ned had truly inherited the kingdom of God, without a glimmer of doubt.
Still, my mind wandered away from the words that offered comfort to everyone but me. My eyes drifted inconspicuously around. I wondered where Johnny was sitting, why I hadn’t noticed him when we were escorted to the front of the massive sanctuary. Was that what Catholics even called the hub of their worship space? I had no clue.
Johnny could’ve been right behind me for all I knew. I figured that it would be bad form to start rubbernecking in the middle of my friend and colleague’s funeral and controlled the urge. The sensation of judging eyes on my back was blessedly absent. It got me thinking about both Dev and my assumptions where the influence of Tony Briscoe was concerned. Did anybody listen to him? Were all the cops in Darkwater Bay as prone to salacious small talk and gossip as I once believed?
Devlin nudged me with his elbow. People were standing.
“Is it over?” I whispered.
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Prayers,” he replied.
