by Polly Iyer
“Jeez, I didn’t think of that.” Both men flattened to the ground, checking her back without moving her and examining behind the radiator. “I don’t see anything,” Bill said. “You?”
“No, she’s clear.”
Bill unraveled the lengths of cord as Linc snipped it.
“Tawny,” Linc said. Again she stirred. Deep grooves marred her skin. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She opened and stretched her mouth, dry from all the cement dust filling the room. A chunk of plaster fell down on top of them. Linc pushed away the pieces.
“Hurry up,” Bill said. “This place is about to come down.”
Tawny breathed out a sob. “Walsh. Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, and Bill here. We’re gonna get you out.”
She tried to move her arms. “God, I’m so sore, I can’t move anything. How long have I been like this?”
“Too damn long,” he muttered. “Can you stand?”
She tried to get up and would have collapsed if Linc hadn’t grabbed her. “I can’t. My whole body’s numb.”
“I’ll carry you.”
“You sure you can?” Bill asked.
“Yeah.”
“Walsh?”
“Yeah?”
“You saved me.”
“We’re not out of here yet.” As he uttered the last word, a loud creak sounded from above.
“Watch out,” Bill yelled. “The beam is falling.”
Linc hadn’t yet picked her up, and he didn’t have time to get her out of the way, so he did the only thing he could think of. He covered her with his body. The beam came down on top of them, along with chunks of plaster and dust. But all he felt was the weight of the heavens descend on his head. He thought he heard her scream his name, a split second before the lights went out.
Chapter Forty-Five
Going Home
Tawny sat in the hospital waiting room, numb and dazed. She’d cleaned up, but her dress was still covered with cement dust. The nurse gave her booties for her bare feet. Her shoulder felt like a wedge had been hammered into her joint, and the rest of her body protested in pain. An emergency room doctor declared nothing broken. A bad bruise, he said, and it’d take awhile to heal. He washed her cut face and feet with antiseptic and placed a couple of strips of suture tape in lieu of stitches. Her body was a roadmap of bruises from the tight cords, but all that would pass with time.
What wouldn’t pass was what Walsh had done to save her life. She’d be dead if he hadn’t covered her with his body, and he might be dead for doing it. He’d taken the full brunt of the beam on the back of his head and right shoulder. A CT scan confirmed cranial bleeding, and he was already in surgery. After they got that under control, they’d perform surgery on his shoulder. They couldn’t be sure how bad it was until they got inside. If he lived. The thought that saving her might cause his death brought tears to her eyes.
A guy came over and introduced himself as Linc’s partner, Dennis Hyde, and another, an FBI agent named Jim Clauson, did the same. Both men acted concerned, but she was too disoriented to respond with anything more than wan smiles and tentative nods to words she couldn’t process. Dennis told her Linc was tough, and he’d make it. She figured he was trying to make her feel better, and although she appreciated his effort, she felt just as bad after he spoke to her as before. Other detectives from Linc’s unit came and went. Most offered smiles she barely acknowledged.
Harry stood alone on the other side of the waiting room. She acknowledged him, but he wouldn’t look at her and didn’t speak to anyone except Clauson and the doctor. She knew how close he and Walsh were, but she didn’t understand his aloofness. Maybe he thought if it weren’t for her, Walsh wouldn’t be fighting to stay alive. Well, if he didn’t want to talk to her, that was okay. She didn’t feel like talking anyway.
She didn’t know how long she sat there. Days perhaps, but she knew it wasn’t. More like five or six hours because she drifted in and out of sleep due to the medication the doctor forced on her. She was stunned to learn it was already the next morning when she woke. She’d been in the hospital almost twenty-four hours.
She looked up. Harry handed her a cup of coffee. It had sugar but tasted good.
“Thanks,” she said. “Any news?”
“The surgery was successful. He’ll live, but he’ll be in the hospital and out of commission for a while. Shoulder’s bad. He’ll need reconstruction. He’s sedated now. No need to hang around.”
“Can I see him?”
“Better not,” Harry said. “I think you’ve done enough.” He turned away to reclaim his seat on the other side of the waiting room.
Tawny’s heart almost stopped at his words. Before her eyes filled with tears, she put the coffee down and headed for the door. On the way out, she ran into Dennis Hyde.
“You been home yet?” he asked.
Tawny shook her head. “I’m going now.”
“You mean you’ve been here all this time? No food, no sleep?”
“Plenty of time for food and sleep.”
“How is he?”
She told him what she knew, biting back the tears. “Tell him something for me, will you?”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
Tawny glimpsed Harry through the glass doors. He saw her, scowled, then turned away. “Tell him I…tell him thanks. He saved my life and I’ll be forever grateful. For everything.” She started to walk away when Dennis grabbed her arm.
“I’m sure he’d want to hear that from you in person.”
“I’ll be back,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t. She hailed a cab and went home.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
“Hiya, Walsh.”
Linc placed a briefcase in the passenger seat of the parked car before he looked her way. Dressed casually, no suit and tie under his open parka, hair a little longer than the length he wore it six months before. Still a handsome picture. He hadn’t seen her sitting on the side steps of his house when he came out the front door. She’d arrived early, bundled up against the frigid February weather.
“Tawny,” he said, surprised. “What…what are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe.”
“No ‘Good to see you, Tawny? How are you? You’re looking good?’ Just ‘What are you doing here?’”
“You caught me off guard. I figured you were gone for good. I didn’t expect to see you sitting on the steps of my house.”
“That was the point.”
“I guess I’m not cool enough to act blasé.”
“You? Not cool? Don’t be ridiculous.” That got a smile out of him. She was on a roll, if one smile was a roll.
“How’d you know where I live?”
“You’re not the only detective, you know.” She grinned. “First I called your office and asked for you. I would have called Harry, but I don’t think he likes me very much.” She paused, noticed the frown on Walsh’s face. “They told me you’d resigned. I left a message for your partner. He called me back and told me where you live. I taxied over.”
“My ex-partner, you mean.”
“Why’d you leave, Walsh? You were their golden boy, had it made. Hero and everything. Dennis said you still have problems with your shoulder, and you have some numbness in your arm and hand. Is that why?”
Walsh grimaced. “It was a good excuse, but no, that’s not the reason. I still have some mobility problems, still doing therapy, but it’s getting better every day. Should be back to normal in a couple of months. The numbness is pretty much gone.” He wriggled his hand, settled his beautiful dark eyes on her. “Guess I lost my taste for it all.”
“Have anything to do with Harry?”
He avoided her eyes. “Why’d you ask that?”
“A guess. I heard he retired too.”
“Had a lot to do with him. But there were other factors.”
He turned back to her. This time his gaze penetrated with such intensity she felt na
ked and exposed. “Me?” she asked.
Walsh shrugged. “Dennis gave me your message when I woke up in the hospital. Then the nurse told me she got a call from a woman every day while I was there, asking about my condition. I knew it had to be you. I called you, but you never answered. Was that on purpose?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“A million reasons―and none.”
“Not a very satisfying answer.”
He was still staring at her, but satisfying or not, it was the best answer she could come up with right then. She didn’t add anything to it.
“When I got out, I went to your loft to thank you for sitting vigil and for caring, but you were gone. To Europe, your neighbor, Tony said. Even gave him your plants. You left without telling me in person, not even goodbye.” He closed the door of his car and wrapped his arms across his chest. “What made you come back? The feds kept their part of the bargain and cleared your name. You had nothing hanging over you.”
“Yup, I paid them all their money. I guess almost dying gave me some credibility.”
“Why?” he persisted.
“Oh,” she said in a long breath, “Europe wasn’t as much fun as I thought it’d be. Times had changed; nothing was as I remembered. I love museums, but in my state of mind I found them claustrophobic. I needed to get out and do something. I minored in archeology in college, so I went to Israel, worked on a dig for a while. Then I realized I was homesick. Can you believe that? There I was, amid all that history, padding my résumé to expand to more than my specialties, and I was homesick.”
“For what?”
Though bundled up in a warm coat, the frigid air pierced right through, and she shivered. “Not for this weather, I can tell you that.” The digression was more to evade the real answer. It’d come later. “You in a hurry? Bad time?”
“I went back to school, but I’m sure you must know that too. I can miss this morning’s class.”
That was a good sign. He wasn’t racing away from her. “Psychology, Dennis said. That was your college major, wasn’t it?”
He drifted back to the steps. “Double major, along with criminal justice. Look, why don’t we go up to my apartment. You’re freezing. I’ll make a pot of coffee and we’ll catch up.”
She nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”
He took her by the arm. “Thought I’d work on my Master’s, get that doctorate, then go into practice. Maybe in the process I can figure out why people do what they do, because I sure as hell don’t understand any of it.”
That was the most he’d ever talked about himself, and she liked that he did. “Can I be your first patient?”
Walsh smiled, his eyes brightened. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, Tawny Dell. You always knew who you were. Never made excuses, never lied. Take me as I am or not at all. I always admired that about you.”
“You mean you didn’t think I was fucked up?”
“We’re all fucked up. Maybe you knew it better than most.”
She tilted her head in appraisal of his assessment and decided she agreed. “I went home to Marblehead before I moved back. Got things squared away with my parents.”
Walsh leaned forward, interested. “What did they say?”
“They were devastated, of course. It was a very emotional visit. The hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’m glad I went and came clean. I’m lucky to have them in my life, after what a disappointment I’ve been.”
“I doubt they see it that way.”
“They said they didn’t, but they did. They love me, so they forgave me.”
She walked alongside him up the driveway of the gingerbread Victorian, waited while he talked to the old woman sweeping off her back porch and craning her neck to see who he was with. They climbed the stairs to the second floor. His apartment wasn’t what she expected, although she had no idea what that was. The furniture was comfortable, with a guy’s mandatory recliner―not an ugly one―a flat-screen TV, and a wall of shelves overstuffed with books.
He must have noticed her surprise because he said, “Did you think I was illiterate?”
“Not at all, but I didn’t expect a voracious reader either.”
“What did you expect?” He went into the small galley kitchen, stealing glances in her direction.
Good question. She realized now she barely knew him. Other than the sexual attraction and the undercover operation, she had no idea if he liked old movies or sports or walks in the park. She’d been a small part of his life.
She watched him grind the coffee and fill the pot with water. He turned it on, and the coffee bubbled into the pot, releasing a rich aroma that wafted through the small space. She also noticed his left hand appeared to move with more difficulty than his right.
A lump formed in her throat. Had she made a mistake coming here? He’d saved her life, and now he was permanently damaged because of it. And I walked away when he needed me. Does he curse me every time he tries to use that hand? Does he hate me for leaving?
He caught her looking as he leaned against the doorjamb, waiting.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “I don’t know what I expected.”
“Back to my original question, then. Why are you here?”
Her insides shook with nerves, her heart fluttered. “The most important reason is to thank you for my life. It’s a long overdue thank you.”
“You’re welcome. What else?”
She’d planned this meeting, knew what she wanted to say, and now, faced with his question, her mind was a total blank. Just tell it like it happened, Tawny.
“There I was, Walsh, where I thought I always wanted to be, going from museum to museum, digging in the ground with excavation tools and brushes, and I wondered why I felt so alone. Wasn’t that what I always wanted?” She shed her jacket and sat at one of the two chairs at the small table and took in more of the room. There was a framed photo on the mantle of a very pretty woman. The photo was old, creased in a place or two. She knew who it was. “The answer, put simply, was no. Then I asked myself why, and I came up with the most startling answer. I missed you. Can you beat that?”
Walsh brought one mug of coffee to the table at a time, with his right hand, then a spoon, and a pitcher of cream. He went back for the carafe of coffee. He poured two cups and took the other chair, his gaze settled on her with a questioning expression that made her feel once more naked and vulnerable. “Cream, no sugar, right?”
“You remembered.”
“Not much I forgot about you, Ms. Dell.”
“So what do you think?” she said. “The part about I missed you, I mean?”
“How can you miss what you don’t really know? What you wouldn’t allow yourself to know?”
She’d known this wouldn’t be easy. The bitter edge in his voice spoke volumes. “I knew having me in your life would cost you, maybe your job, Harry, all your friends who’d think you were nuts for hooking up with someone like me. I rationalized leaving by saying it was better for you.” She poured cream into the cup and stirred, sipped. “Coffee’s good.”
“And?”
“Altruism doesn’t suit me, because I kicked myself the whole time I was gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You were there when I woke up in the morning, and I saw your face before I fell asleep. Every morning, every night. I didn’t know what to do. So I came back. When I did, I found out you’d walked away from it all. From the police department, from Harry. There was so much I didn’t know, and I’d been the catalyst that made everything happen.”
At the mention of Harry’s name, Walsh pulled back, and his expression darkened. “Ah, Harry.” He drank his coffee. “I haven’t seen him since the night I got hurt. He’s tried, but I…I can’t. Maybe someday, but I doubt it.”
She watched him a long time before she asked. Walsh was an open book. He wore his feelings like another article of clothing, only they covered his face. “What happened?”
“I haven’t told anyone this. N
ot a single soul.” Walsh took his time, as if he questioned mentioning whatever he’d held back. “He was an informant for Russo.”
The cold, hard words threw Tawny, but something else surfaced. “That’s how Mario knew I was at Upper Eighties that night. Harry told him.” She shook her head. “I always wondered. I thought it was Eileen, except she was as surprised to see him as everyone else there. Then I thought it was one of the girls, Darlene. Maybe she’d been one of Mario’s women. But she reported only to Eileen. Can’t trust anyone, can you?”
“Nope.”
“How long had it been going on?”
“Since before I came into his life. Thirty-plus years, and I never guessed. No one did. I fought with myself whether to inform on him, but I couldn’t.”
“So you resigned.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the only reason, and it wasn’t you either, although you were part of it. My decision involved a combination of things, but mostly it was me. By keeping his secret, I condoned what he did. I couldn’t tell, but I couldn’t stay on the force knowing what I knew. I suffered many sleepless nights before I decided. Harry had given me a life, and by keeping quiet I figured I paid him back. But we were finished.”
“Oh, Linc, I’m so sorry. I know what he meant to you.”
“That’s the first time you called me Linc.”
She leaned across the small table and touched his face. “Nothing beats the right moment.”
He captured her hand and kissed the palm. “I was never sure if he knew where you were that night. He said he didn’t know, but I think he did, and he chose to let you die. He must have told Russo about Clauson’s tail. How else could the old man have arranged for someone to block his car? Everything fell into place once I knew.”
Tingles shot through her at the brush of his lips on her skin. “Harry figured if I died, you’d be free of me. He didn’t want you saddled with my history.” She hesitated. “I had lunch with him one day. Did he tell you?”
“No.”
Walsh’s surprised expression was no surprise. Harry would never have mentioned his contrived lunch. “He told me about you, about your―”
