A woman will understand, Cassie thought. A woman will be willing to help.
So she’d taken her foot from the first step of the police station and made her way to that old office, the Trill Building, where Benny had once worked. The afternoon wore on, past five o’clock, the time she’d been supposed to pick up Becky from Jessie Tayman. It didn’t matter. The young woman would try to make Cassie feel bad about it, but Cassie would explain what had happened. And she’d have to try to find some way to make it up to Mr. Tayman, who would also surely get an earful from his niece.
When the red-haired woman eventually came out of the building, Cassie recognized her at once—and also remembered her name: K. C. Hunter. She ran up behind Miss Hunter and reached out to take her arm. It took a moment to get her to stop, and a little longer for Cassie to explain who she was and what she needed.
But Cassie had been right: Miss Hunter was willing to help.
So while Cassie stood in the middle of the front room of the police station, envisioning opening the side doors and calling out to Benny, Miss Kay Eaton—she used K. C. Hunter as a pen name—looked up at the officer behind the desk and asked, “With whom am I speaking?”
Cassie watched the policeman raise his head and regard her from his elevated position. “I’m Sergeant La Dotio,” he said. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
Suddenly, a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and crashed to the floor, just a few feet to the left of Miss Eaton. Cassie stared at it in disbelief. A second later, she saw an even larger piece land beside it.
Cassie looked back up and saw two ragged holes in the ceiling. And then another piece of plaster broke loose and smashed down beside the others. Cassie let out a yip. Then she stepped forward and pulled on the sleeve of Miss Eaton’s coat. “Come on,” she said, having to raise her voice as the room around them grew loud. The building seemed to groan under its own weight, as though it might collapse at any minute. “We have to go.”
Then the entire left side of the ceiling dropped to the floor with a thunderous sound.
Cassie stared up in disbelief. Through the gaping hole in the ceiling, she did not see the second story of the building, but the night sky. Even though she and Miss Eaton had walked into the police station just a few minutes ago, with the sun an hour or more away from setting, stars sparkled down on them.
“Come on,” Cassie screamed, for the roar around them had not abated. The rest of the ceiling would come down soon. “We have to go now.”
Above them, the remainder of the ceiling began to bow. Miss Eaton calmly looked from there down to the broken plaster on the floor, and finally over at Cassie. Oddly, she did not appear at all worried.
Cassie tugged at her arm. “Come on, Miss Eaton!” she yelled. “We have to go!” She could barely hear the sound of her own voice.
Miss Eaton blinked. “No,” she said. The word didn’t reach Cassie’s ears, but she could see it on Miss Eaton’s lips. “No,” she said again.
Cassie froze, unsure what she could possibly do. She wanted to rush from the danger threatening them—she had a little girl to take care of—but she could not leave Miss Eaton. She started to try to pull her away, but then Miss Eaton took hold of Cassie’s arm.
“Benny still needs our help,” she said.
That stopped Cassie. She heard a tremendous cracking sound, like a frozen lake splitting as spring caught up with winter. She peered up again, and saw a web of fractures across the ceiling. More chunks began to fall, one after another, raining down all around them.
She looked at Miss Eaton and cried, “I can’t help Benny if we stay here.”
“Yes, you can,” Miss Eaton said, staring deeply into Cassie’s eyes. “And everything will be all right. I promise.” Cassie hesitated. “Benny needs our help.”
“Okay,” Cassie said, not really knowing how she could stay in a building that might crush her in the next second, but knowing that she wanted to help the man she loved, the father of her child.
Around them, huge masses of the ceiling plunged to the floor. Cassie clung to Miss Eaton, waiting for one of the pieces to squash them flat. She closed her eyes.
Behind Cassie’s lids twisted a curl of bright blue light, the sort of shape a person saw when they rubbed their eyes too hard. It wound like a corkscrew, its center a concentrated patch of white. It seemed familiar to Cassie, in a way she could not name.
The thunder of the collapsing ceiling surrounded her. As she clung to Miss Eaton’s arm, Cassie cringed. She worried about her own well-being, and about who would take care of Becky, but mostly, she feared that the entire building would fall and bury Benny.
Cassie didn’t know how long it took the ceiling to cave in, but she suddenly became aware that she could hear again. She expected a sound like light rain as plaster dust settled on the wreckage. Instead, she heard nothing.
Cassie opened her eyes.
The police station stood just as it had when she and Miss Eaton had entered. Cassie looked wide-eyed at the floor, its flat green surface free of any debris. She gazed up at the ceiling, the unbroken expanse of plaster a shock.
Cassie peered at Miss Eaton, who regarded her calmly. “What . . . what happened?” Cassie asked, then thought that she really meant to ask what hadn’t happened.
“Everything will be all right,” Miss Eaton repeated. She’d said that earlier, when the ceiling had seemed to be collapsing, and somehow she’d been right. It felt to Cassie almost like black magic, but in the short time since she’d enlisted Miss Eaton to help her, the woman had proven willing, able, and perhaps most important, trustworthy.
“Okay,” Cassie said, though she didn’t feel okay. What had she experienced? A hallucination brought on by fear? A premonition? Or was she losing her mind?
“Okay.” Miss Eaton let go of Cassie’s arm and turned back to the policeman sitting at the tall desk. “Do you have a record of a Mister Benny Russell being arrested and brought into the station this morning?”
The sergeant stared down with a blank face, then offered an annoyed sigh as he shuffled through a sheaf of papers. “No, I don’t see any Benny Russell here,” he said. “You sure you got the right precinct?” Cassie herself started to respond, but then the sergeant held up a sheet of paper. “Oh, wait. Russell, Benny,” he said, reading. “Already been arraigned. Gotta bail ticket for him here.” He gazed down at Miss Eaton. “Bail’s set at fifty dollars.” He pronounced the amount fitty. “You got dat much?”
Cassie’s momentary elation at having found Benny crumbled beneath the weight of what his freedom would cost. “I don’t have fifty dollars,” she told Miss Eaton.
“Yes, Sergeant, we do,” Miss Eaton said, reaching up and taking the bail ticket. Once more, a wave of gratitude washed over Cassie.
“Second door on your left, pay the officer,” said the sergeant.
Miss Eaton turned to Cassie and took her by the arm again. “I’ll pay you back,” Cassie promised. “I’ll get another job, I’ll—”
“It’s all right,” Miss Eaton said. “Let’s just worry about getting Benny out.”
Cassie nodded. She wanted nothing more than for Benny to be all right, for him to be out of jail, out of the asylum, and back in her life again. Really back in her life, and not just for short visits on Wednesday afternoons. Back in her life . . . and in Becky’s life.
Miss Eaton guided Cassie to the door that the sergeant had indicated. They opened it and went inside, into a long, narrow room. At its front end stood another desk, of regular height. An older, uniformed woman sat there. She had a wide, flat nose and slanted eyes; she looked Chinese to Cassie.
Peering up from where she wrote on a ledger, the woman said, “Can I help you?”
“We have a bail ticket for Benny Russell,” Miss Eaton said. Cassie realized that the writer—a virtual stranger to her—had not only agreed to help, but had taken the lead in doing so. As Miss Eaton handed the piece of paper to the officer, Cassie reached for the small pocket hidden i
n the waist of her dress. From it, she extracted the only money she had with her: four dollars and change. She reached out to give it to her newfound friend, but Miss Eaton held up her hand.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll just write a check.” Then she looked to the officer again. “I can write a check, can’t I?”
“Cash or check,” the policewoman said. “Fifty dollars.” She took the bail ticket and wrote something on it.
Miss Eaton opened her handbag and pulled out a checkbook. She took a pen clipped to it and asked, “Do I make it out to the New York Police Department?”
“To the New York City Department of Corrections,” said the policewoman. Miss Eaton filled out her check, then handed it over to the officer. The policewoman made a notation on it, then opened another ledger and began entering information. Once she’d finished doing so, the officer pulled two forms from a pile beside the ledger, placed a piece of black carbon paper between them, and rolled them into a typewriter on the side of her desk. Cassie had seen Benny do the same thing—position carbon paper between blank sheets—when he wrote his stories.
The policewoman asked Miss Eaton for several personal details, including her relationship to Benny. Cassie thought she would say coworker, but she answered friend—something she had demonstrated beyond doubt that afternoon. She also had to provide her home address and place of employment.
Once the officer finished filling out the forms, she pulled them from the typewriter and set aside the carbon between them. Then she handed the copy to Miss Eaton and told her the details of when and where Benny would have to appear in court to face charges of assault and battery. The idea horrified Cassie, and made her realize that, no matter what she and Miss Eaton accomplished at the police station, Benny’s ordeal would not end that day. But she pushed such thoughts aside, focusing instead on freeing the man she loved from jail.
The policewoman pointed at the door through which Cassie and Miss Eaton had just come. “If you’ll go back out front and wait, an officer will escort Mister Russell out shortly,” she said. “Show the officer the release form.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Miss Eaton said, and Cassie echoed her. They headed back through the door.
In the precinct’s entry, Miss Eaton walked over to the chairs beneath the front windows, and Cassie followed. As they sat, Cassie said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done. I can’t even believe you’ve helped so much. It’s wonderful.”
“I’m happy I could help,” Miss Eaton said. “Benny’s a good man. He doesn’t belong in here any more than he belonged in an . . . in a hospital.”
“Well,” Cassie said, looking away, “I think Benny did need some help.” The admission felt almost like a betrayal. Peering back at Miss Eaton, she added, “But he’s faced a lot of difficult times in his life . . . a lot of hard situations.”
Miss Eaton nodded. “I saw a few of them,” she said. “It’s an unfair world, and I think that finally got to Benny.” Just as Cassie had done a few seconds earlier, Miss Eaton looked away. Shaking her head, she said, “Sometimes I feel this unfair world getting to me.” Miss Eaton seemed to drift off into her own thoughts, and Cassie let her.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, and then a door on the left side of the room opened. Cassie looked over, hopeful. A policeman walked through the door by himself, but then he reached back and pulled somebody through after him.
“Benny!” Cassie called out. She jumped up and ran toward him. The policeman put up a hand though, stopping her.
“Miss Kay Eaton?” the officer asked Cassie. He blocked the way to Benny with his body.
“That’s me,” Miss Eaton said, coming over to join the group.
“You have his release form?” the policeman asked. Miss Eaton handed it over. The officer examined it, then handed it back. “We’re releasing Benny Russell into your custody.” He directed Benny toward Miss Eaton, then disappeared back through the door, pulling it closed behind him.
Benny gazed at Miss Eaton. Cassie saw that he had a deepening bruise on the left side of his face, but otherwise he looked good—tired, but good. “Hi, Benny,” Miss Eaton said. “Been a long time.”
Cassie watched him regard her, alarmed that she saw no hint of recognition in his eyes. “Benny,” she said, her voice dropped down to a whisper.
He turned to her. “Cassie,” he said, and her heart soared. Whatever else might be wrong, at least he knew who she was. She stepped forward and threw her arms around him.
“Oh, Benny, I’ve missed you,” she said, hugging him tightly. She felt his arms come up around her back, and if he didn’t hug her quite as tightly, she chalked it up to all that he’d been through that day. Cassie buried her face against Benny’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of his body, its strength.
As she held him, Cassie closed her eyes tightly, and the blue and white whorl appeared again, reminding her of what she’d earlier imagined inside the precinct. At once, she wanted to take Benny and Miss Eaton and leave the police station. She opened her eyes, stepped back, and looked at Benny. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said.
“Yes,” Benny agreed. “I have to get out of here.” He didn’t look at Cassie as he spoke, but past her.
Cassie turned and followed his gaze to the front door. Before she could turn back, Benny rushed past her, nearly knocking her from her feet. She stumbled to the side, bracing herself against the front of the tall desk to prevent herself from falling.
As she straightened back up, Benny reached the front door and opened it with enough force to cause the doorknob to thud loudly against the wall. Then he ran outside. He didn’t wait for Cassie, and he didn’t look back.
“Benny!” Cassie called after him, shocked. “Benny!” She started across the room, toward the front door, but a grip around her upper arm stopped her. Cassie tried to pull free, but the hold only tightened. She turned, expecting to see a police officer restraining her.
Instead, she saw Miss Eaton. She stared at the woman who had done so much to help her that day, but who now held her back. They looked at each other for only a fleeting moment, and then Miss Eaton suddenly peered back over her shoulder—back over her shoulder, and up.
Up to where I thought I saw the ceiling falling, Cassie thought. But what does that mean? What does any of it mean?
Miss Eaton turned back to look at Cassie. “You have to let Benny go,” she said.
“Why?” Cassie wanted to know. Again, she tried to pull her arm free of Miss Eaton’s grasp. “We can be together.” After all that Benny had been through—after all they had both been through—she wanted nothing more than for them to be together with their daughter.
“No,” Miss Eaton said, her tone adamant. “You have to let him go.”
Cassie wanted to argue. No, I don’t want to argue, she thought. I want to go after Benny. But she didn’t. Something had driven her to Miss Eaton, who had completely proven herself, and Cassie knew that whatever the woman writer said, she would believe—even if she didn’t want to believe it.
But Cassie saw Miss Eaton hesitate. In that brief interval, she hoped that her new friend and guide would change her mind, would let go of her arm, and implore her to run after Benny.
Miss Eaton did none of those things. “You have to let him walk his own path,” she said, “or you’ll lose him. You’ll lose him forever.”
And though she didn’t understand it, though it hurt her deeply, Cassie knew that Miss Eaton had spoken the truth.
Sisko walked out of the home office and back toward the front of the house. Ahead of him, past the dining area, he saw that Kasidy hadn’t returned to the kitchen. When he reached the end of the hall, he didn’t see her in the living room either. “Kasidy?” He glanced behind him, toward the back of the house, but he’d been facing the open doorway of the office when he’d watched Akaar’s message on the companel, so he would have seen his wife if she’d headed to one of the bedrooms or the ’fresher.
Sisko crossed the sitti
ng area before the stone hearth and opened the front door. He stepped outside into the spring morning, raising a hand to shield his eyes until he acclimated to the bright outside light. Kasidy sat in one of the rockers at the end of the porch, peering out at the Kendra Valley, a light shawl wrapped around her shoulders. The curved runners beneath her ground against the wooden boards as she moved slowly forward and back. She did not look over at the sound of Sisko’s voice.
She knows I’m leaving, he thought. Or she at least suspects.
“Kas?”
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” she said, with no trace of irony or artifice. She continued to rock in her chair, staring off toward the mountains as though mesmerized.
“Yes, it is beautiful,” Sisko said, gazing out at the moba trees. He heard the gentle trickle of the rill that danced across the property. “This land called out to me from the moment I first saw it.” Uncertain about his wife’s state of mind, he immediately regretted saying something that evoked the past—not just his past, but their past.
Sisko considered heading back inside, but he knew that he had to tell Kasidy—even if she already suspected it—that he would be leaving. He pulled the front door closed behind him and walked down the porch toward her. It felt like stepping into a minefield.
“When do you have to go?” Kasidy asked.
Sisko froze in midstride, as though he’d heard the telltale click of a pressure plate beneath his foot. “I have to be at the Adarak transporter by two this afternoon,” he said. He waited for the explosion.
It never came.
Kasidy kept rocking in her chair, but she turned and looked up at him. “Two. That’s good,” she said. “Then you still have time to go out to the hospice and say your good-byes to Elias.”
“Yes,” Sisko said, working to keep the surprise from his voice, even in the single word. He had anticipated a much different reaction from Kasidy about his departure, especially since the amount and quality of their time together over the previous two weeks had been unexpected. Out at the wormhole, and then aboard Robinson, their emotions had swung to extremes and back again, and that had driven them together. Sisko realized that he’d allowed his guard to drop, and as much as he knew that he could not share his life with Kasidy—for both her sake and Rebecca’s—he saw that he had reentered his wife’s life in a manner that promised more.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 17
