“Where’s Shiloh?”
“We shot him.”
“Very funny.” They’d already told her the last time she was conscious that Shiloh hadn’t fallen, just veered away from the jump—catapulting her over it first—and then trotted back to the fence line as if that was all that was expected of him.
Good ol’ Shiloh.
“He’s doing what all pasture pets do. Eating grass and costing you a grand a month.”
“You’re giving me a headache.”
“Wasn’t me that did that, either. Come on, swing your legs out. My job is to get your butt upright.”
Mia tried to pull the pillow over her face. She absorbed a muffled shriek as the pain of her broken ribs stabbed into her.
“Is she awake?” her mother said as she came into the room.
“If you can call it that,” Dave said. “So you got this, Ma? I’ll get the car.”
Mia opened up one eye to see her brother lean over and give their mother a quick kiss before fleeing the scene. Her mother turned to her. A small woman with unruly auburn hair that she kept perennially tied back in a dancer’s bun, Jess Kazmaroff had once been a uniquely beautiful woman. At sixty-five, her looks had abandoned her leaving her with a visage of wisdom and kindness etched on her face, something that Mia thought suited her better anyway.
“Darling, I know it hurts,” her mother said as she pulled the bed sheets back. “Let’s get you situated at home, all right? Come on, baby, let’s sit up.”
Might as well, Mia thought as she pulled herself to a sitting position and swung her legs out of bed.
“I’ll get your slippers. Don’t worry about your clothes.”
“I thought they cut them off me yesterday.”
“They did, dearest. That’s why you needn’t worry about them.”
Mia felt the beginning threat of a laugh in her diaphragm and she forced it away. “Dead puppies, dead puppies,” she said.
“What, dear?”
The look on her mother’s face undid her efforts. Mia grasped the bed railing as the first wave of laughter wracked her body and she screamed. “Don’t make me laugh!” she gasped, turning away from her mother’s startled expression.
She snatched her hand from the bed railing as if she’d been burned. She held her hand to her chest, not daring to look at her mother.
Jess took Mia’s hand and held it in her two warm ones. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Did you feel something?” her mother asked.
Mia eyed the wheel chair and pulled her hand away. “Don’t I always?”
“Is that what happened with Shiloh yesterday?” Her mother’s voice was steady and reasonable. If Mia didn’t know how upset her mother was when talking about Mia’s “gift,” she’d think she was perfectly calm. But that was a lie. Because Jess had the gift, too.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Mia said, edging off the bed to a standing position, careful to keep her cast well away from the floor. “Maybe.”
Jess moved under Mia’s arm to serve as a crutch to help her daughter to the wheel chair. “You still can’t control it,” she said, her voice low as if fearful someone might hear.
Mia concentrated on getting into the chair. She knew this conversation was coming. Had known it ever since she woke up yesterday in the hospital, broken and confused.
“It’s because you’re overthinking it,” her mother persisted. “You’ve become too sensitive to it.”
“Okay, Mom. Thanks,” Mia said, putting up as clear a Go No Further sign to her mother as she felt comfortable doing.
Jess pushed right past it.
“When you were young you used to go on instinct more, darling. That’s what you’ve forgotten how to do. You were picking up on Shiloh, weren’t you? I told you that you were too old for competitive riding.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Don’t be cross, Mia. You need to learn to control your gift or stop riding altogether.”
“What about driving a car, Mom? Or working a food processor? Where do I draw the line?”
“It’s worse with people and animals. More dangerous.”
“Can we not talk about this? I cannot tell you how bad my head hurts right now.”
“Of course, dear.” Her mother arranged Mia’s feet in the chair pedals and pulled a robe across her lap. She disengaged the brakes and stood behind Mia in the chair. “Plenty of time to talk about it when you’re home.”
The drive back to her mother’s house in Doraville was a quiet one. Dave lifted her out of the backseat of the Highlander and carried her up the steps to their mother’s one-level ranch. Mia and Dave had been raised in that house and when her mother unlocked the front door, Mia had to admit, the familiar fragrance of lemon and lavender, coupled with the sight of the sun’s rays pouring through the side patio French doors made her glad to be home.
Her brother settled her on the couch while Mia’s mother put the kettle on for tea—her go-to answer for every crisis in the Kazmaroff family. As Mia nestled into the fat floral cushions of the over-stuffed couch, she could see three silver framed photos on the side table. The largest was of her father and mother, both laughing and gazing at each other as if the moment would never end, as if Gaspar Kazmaroff wouldn’t be dead within six months, the victim of a drunk driver.
Mia turned away. It had been ten years and she still couldn’t look at a picture of her father without feeling waves of sadness and anger at having lost him so soon.
“You’ll stay for dinner, David?” Mia heard her mother’s voice, light but insistent, in the kitchen.
“Can’t, Ma. Work.”
“I didn’t think you worked the night shift,” her mother responded.
“Yeah, I don’t as a rule.”
“All right. Another time. Perhaps Sunday? For lunch?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“We’ll plan on it then.”
“Sure, okay.”
Mia knew by how her brother was answering that he would be a no-show for Sunday. Her mother probably knew it too.
He came around the back of the couch and tugged playfully on a hanging tendril of her long, dark hair. “You gonna be okay, Mia?”
“Do you have to leave so soon?” Not that she didn’t love her brother’s company just for the sake of it, but she knew her mother would settle down to “fixing” Mia and her problem as soon as he left.
“Duty calls,” he said cheerfully.
Boy, that line covers a whole lot, Mia thought. “Well, don’t get hurt in the line of it,” she said, wondering if it was anywhere near time for her pain meds.
“Tell you what,” he said, backing up toward the door, “once you get the hang of all that…” He waved a hand to indicate her on the couch, her leg propped up on the coffee table, “I’ll take you to lunch. How’s that?”
“By ‘get the hang of it,’ you mean be able to walk on my crutches?”
“I was gonna say go to the bathroom by yourself, but yeah, the crutches thing, too.” He grinned at her and she couldn’t help but smile back.
“Call me. I’ll be here,” she said, feeling the weariness of the day beginning to weigh on her. Her hand fell back on the couch and touched the hard plastic casing of the remote control. Instantly, the smell and feel and sight of her father came roaring back into her mind. The essence of him was so real, so immediate that before she could block it from happening, her dad was on the couch with her, nodding goodbye to his only son.
She smiled woodenly at Dave’s retreating back and then turned to face her father, already beginning to ebb away.
“Mom,” she called, forcing her voice not to shake. “Dad’s here.”
Jess appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, a dishtowel in her hands. “Stop it, Mia,” she said. “Stop it this instance.”
“I wish I could, Mom,” Mia said, reaching out to touch the remote again as the image of her father began to fade. “Don’t you think I wish I could?”
2<
br />
Carol Maxwell hated these luncheons that the department forced on the wives from time to time. As if she had a single thing in common with the redneck, uneducated other halves of Atlanta’s finest. She took a sip from her appletini and smiled at Trish Barnes across the table. The stupid cow was sipping an iced tea as if it were nectar from the gods, looking as prim and dainty as a vicar’s wife.
Trish smiled at her and bobbed her head. Carol assumed the bobbed head thing was what people from West Virginia did when they greeted each other in the street. The woman wasn’t homely but she wore so much makeup—literally caked on her face—that not only did it tidily dispel the whole vicar’s wife look she had going on, it made her look years older than her age.
Trish was married to Keith Barnes, Dave Kazmaroff’s best friend. Not for the first time, Carol wondered what kind of secrets those two shared.
“Mind if I sit here?”
Carol looked up to see none other than Diane Burton standing next to her, a white wine spritzer in one manicured hand.
“Not at all,” Carol said, scooting her chair over to make room. Things had just gotten a little interesting. “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said forcing her face to look friendly to soften the words. It was all very well to get off a good zinger at a promising target but what was the point if it made the target clam up?
Diane sat down and let out a long breath as if just seating herself at the wives’ table had taken effort and courage.
Actually, Carol knew it had.
“I didn’t think I would, either.”
“You know the men never come to these things.”
“I know.”
“I say that because Jeff said he heard you’d been calling quite a lot.”
Diane took a sip of her wine. She was a beautiful woman, Carol noted. Blonde with fair features and full lips. Slim, too. Burton clearly had a thing for the cheerleader type.
“If even Jeff’s heard it, it must be all over the precinct by now,” Diane said.
“Aren’t you two divorced?”
Diane smiled and set her wine glass down. “You know we are, Carol,” she said. “I’m just not sure we should be.”
“Gosh, Diane, rumor has it the whole thing was your idea. Is that not true?”
Rumor my ass. Everyone knew Burton caught Diane in flagrante with their effing lawn boy. Kid couldn’t have been eighteen years old. When confronted, the silly woman insisted she was in love and demanded a divorce.
“I made a mistake.”
“Jack not returning your calls?” Carol forced herself to appear caring and interested.
“No. But I was thinking maybe you could help me.”
“Anything, Diane. What can I do?” Just don’t ask me to try to get him in the sack because, angel, I’ve tried for months. It’d be easier to get a water buffalo to serve afternoon tea.
“Could you talk to him for me? Tell him I was having emotional problems? I can give him the number of my therapist. Would you tell him that?”
Carol felt the pleasure of the exchange begin to wane. The stupid woman looked so hopeful and yet so desperate, it just wasn’t fun anymore. “Diane,” she said, signaling to the waiter to bring her another drink, “did it ever occur to you that there was a reason you were so unhappy that you…ended the marriage? Do you really think jumping back in is the answer? Is that what you’re therapist is saying?” Crackpots, all of them. Say whatever they need to say to keep you coming and writing checks.
“No, Carol, it wasn’t Jack. I had some issues I had to work out…is all.”
Okay, I’m not going to touch that one. Just nod sagely, Carol, and keep thy lips sealed.
“Will you talk to him for me, please?”
“Sure, Diane. If you really want me to.” The thought of ‘helping out’ poor Diane by climbing into bed with her ex brought a sudden smile to Carol’s lips. Maybe the indirect approach would work better with Jack anyway. She caught the waiter’s eye and pointed to Diane’s drained wine glass.
Life is so much more fun when you have an engaging project to fill your time, she thought, smiling in pleasant anticipation.
The call had come in at seven that morning. Burton knew it was coming, of course. From his desk he had a direct sightline to the elevators where he watched Maxwell disembark and lumber toward his office at the end of the hall. There weren’t many people in the office this early, a few finishing up the night shift is all.
Might as well get it over with. Maxwell wasn’t going to be any easier after his cup of coffee. And Jack had things to do today. He stood up, straightened his tie and wrestled into his blazer before walking to Maxwell’s office and rapping on the door. He entered before the man had a chance to tell him to come in.
As a rule, Burton never sat down in Maxwell’s office. Even in the best of times, he didn’t like to make meetings last longer than they had to. And this wasn’t the best of times.
Not even close.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
Deputy Chief William Maxwell leaned across the desk to tap his nameplate with a pencil. A large man, he’d spent so many years in lean, optimum physical shape in his life that he had real trouble accepting his new body image. The brawn that had stretched out between his shoulder blades now sagged below his belt. In a way, the extra bulk was just as intimidating behind a desk as it had been solid and well-cut on two feet.
“You see this, Burton?” he said, tapping the metal nameplate at the edge of his desk. “This is the line of demarcation where all the bull crap officially stops. You understand?”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
Burton noticed there was only one framed photo on Maxwell’s desk. It was a formal portrait of his daughter—looked to be about ten years old. Burton knew the girl graduated from high school last year and that Maxwell and his first wife didn’t get along. Maybe the poor bastard wasn’t able to get a more recent picture of his own kid.
“You know I gotta suspend you, right?” Maxwell said, rifling through a folder on his desk. “Oh, there’ll be an IA investigation. Count on it. The bastard is suing the department.”
“I barely hit him.”
“He looked like you ran him over with his own SUV. Says you stole his dog on top of it.”
“How long is the suspension for?”
“Until the suit is dropped or IA finds you did not use undue force.” The deputy chief snatched up a folder and peered at it. “What did you stop him for? A tail light?”
“Yes sir,” Burton said. “He had a busted tail light.” And two broken ribs and one cracked jaw after Burton finished with him. Burton didn’t regret a single punch. Just remembering the look on that kid’s face as he held the whimpering dog ensured that.
“And the transfer’s on hold, too.”
A muscle in Burton’s jaw flinched but he forced himself to shrug. “Like it was ever seriously considered.”
“Why you two morons can’t sort this out between you during the thousands of hours you spend in each other’s company, I’ll never understand.”
Burton knew Maxwell wasn’t interested in trying to understand. He wasn’t about to break up his most successful partnership. “You can transfer me to another division,” Burton said. “SWAT, narcotics, sex crimes, I don’t care.”
“You’re a homicide detective.”
“I can be anything.”
“Right now it seems what you are is a candidate for anger management.”
“Let me transfer, or I’ll quit.”
“Son, you have fifteen years on the force. I oughta send you to the department shrink even for saying that. Only a lunatic would give up this close to a pension.”
Funny. That’s exactly how I feel. Like an effing lunatic.
Maxwell continued, raising his voice. “I need a better reason to break up a partnership than just two guys don’t share the same eye shadow choices.”
“There is no partnership,” Jack said. “There never was.”
“Well, whatever it is,” Maxwell said, “it works and I need it to continue to work. Transfer request denied. Check your weapon in at Discipline Authority. You’re suspended until further notice.”
Burton turned to leave.
“And Jack?”
Burton stopped but didn’t turn.
“While you’re away, make a serious effort to get a grip, will you?”
* * *
The first person Burton saw when he opened the door to exit Maxwell’s office was Dave Kazmaroff, lounging on one of the desks outside. Waiting for him.
“You want away from me that bad, Jack, you’d flush your pension? There’s something wrong with you, man.”
Burton shoved past Kazmaroff to move toward his desk. He expected the suspension, in fact, he actually welcomed it. He wouldn’t say every day with Kazmaroff as his partner had been hell but it had come close.
Kazmaroff followed him. “You put that guy in the ER over a busted tail light? What are you now, Psycho Traffic Cop? What the hell, Jack?”
Burton felt the anger drain away as he pulled open his desk drawer and collected the items he’d need while he was at home. He patted his shirt pocket for his cell phone and glanced at his wristwatch.
Kazmaroff stood in front of Burton’s desk. “If you really want out that bad, I’ll talk to Maxwell for you.”
Burton looked up from his desk, startled. “Why would you do that?”
“Look, man, I don’t hate you. If you want out so bad...”
“If you’re trying to make this about me…”
“It is about you, Jack. It’s always been about you. I was one hundred percent ready to pull alongside you. I think somewhere down deep you know that. When I saw it wasn’t going to happen, sure, I stuck a few burs under your saddle, I ain’t gonna lie. Someone hates me for no reason, I say screw ‘em.”
“Big speech, Dave.” Burton turned away, heading toward the coatrack in the hall leading toward the exit. It was early morning and most of the other detectives were beginning to file in.
“Tell me one part of it that isn’t the truth,” Kazmaroff said.
“How about we just didn’t mesh?” Burton said over his shoulder, feeling the weariness of the emotional sparring. “Not everybody’s a good match.”
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