Karen Rose - Count to Ten

"Shortly thereafter. She'd burned some bridges with her own parents. They'd wanted her to give me up for adoption, but she kept me. It was a while before I had a relationship with my grandparents, but eventually things smoothed over. I'd come to Chicago on my summer vacations and look at every cop and wonder, was that him?"

"You didn't know his name?"

"No, not until he died. Mama wouldn't tell me and nobody else seemed to know."

"Is your mother still living?"

Pain flashed in Olivia's blue eyes. "No. She died last year. I thought my father's identity had died with her, but my mother had told her sister. Aunt Didi called me the day his obituary appeared in the paper. I drove straight from the airport to the cemetery."

She sighed. "And then I saw you, standing next to your mother, in your dress uniform. Your mother gave you his flag, then you saw me. You didn't know about me."

"No. It was… quite a shock."

Olivia looked down. "I imagine it was. The first time I saw your name was in the obituary. It didn't mention Kelsey."

"That was my request. The official department obituary had her listed, but I asked them to remove her name. I didn't want anybody to make the connection."

"That makes sense. It can't be good for your career, having a sister in prison."

Mia stiffened. "It's not good for her health having a sister who's a cop. Don't judge Kelsey, Olivia. Not until you know her." Not until you know everything .

"All right. When I saw you, I was shocked. There's some… family resemblance."

"I noticed that," Mia said dryly. "Why didn't you come and talk to me?"

"I was so shocked at first. I didn't know what to do. You were the one I'd hated my whole life. You were the one who got a father. Who got a home. A family. Mama and I, we had nothing. No one. And then to see you, dressed as a cop, looking at me. Looking like me. Afterward, I went to Aunt Didi's house and got on the Internet and found out everything I could about you." She stood up and checked the pizza. "You forgot to turn on the oven." She hit the knob impatiently.

"I'm not a culinary kind of person."

Olivia turned, her eyes now flat. "What kind of person are you?"

"You did the research, kid. You tell me."

She considered it. "I've checked you out thoroughly this week. You're a cop first."

"Last and always," Mia finished, her voice now as flat as Olivia's eyes.

"But you have compassion. Dedication. The reporters hate you, so you must be doing something right." Mia huffed a chuckle at that and Olivia's lips curved. "You have a few close friends, you're intensely loyal. You've had a few boyfriends, and one fiance. He was hot by the way."

"Thank you."

"You've just started a relationship with Lieutenant Solliday and you don't want anyone to know. But I think most people do."

Mia frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's hard to miss. Big flashing neon sign over your head. 'I like him. Stay back. He's mine.' Oh, I've finally hit a chord. You're blushing. He's hot, too, by the way."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Thank you."

Olivia sobered. "You're welcome." She turned to the fridge, opened it and stared inside, closed it again. "I'm impressed and resentful and jealous, all at once." She turned back around and met Mia's eyes. "Honest enough for you, big sister?"

Mia nodded. "Yeah. But I'm not sure you're going to like it when I return the favor."

Olivia drew a breath calmly. "All right."

"Your father is not the man you wish he was."

Her eyes flickered. "Nobody's perfect."

"No, hut Bobby Mitchell swung to the far left of the bell curve. He drank too much and he hit his kids."

Her eyes narrowed. "No."

"Yes. You know what I thought when I saw you tonight? That I was impressed and resentful and jealous all at once. You may have had nothing, but nothing was better than what we endured in that house."

"How can nothing be better than something?" Olivia asked bitterly.

"I'm a fast healer, which is a good thing, because Bobby had big fists and he used them often. Not so much on me. Mostly on Kelsey. Stitches and broken bones and lies to doctors all over town." Olivia's eyes were horrified. "And that's the truth."

"That's…"

"Horrible? Unbelievable? Irreconcilable?"

"Yes. He can't have…"

"Been that bad? I'm lying ?"

She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. Kelsey was a wild kid. Maybe…"

Mia lurched to her feet. "Maybe she deserved it?"

Olivia's chin lifted. "She is in prison, Mia. On a plea."

"Yeah, she is. She ran away from home when she was sixteen. Got mixed up with some bad people. She wasn't lily white, but she wasn't like them."

"But she did it. Look, she's your sister. Of course you'd feel compassion for her."

Mia's throat closed and her eyes filled. "You don't know what I feel."

"You've been a cop long enough to know that people make choices. She chose to run away. And having a father beat her wasn't justification for pulling a gun on a store clerk while her boyfriend killed two people. A father and a little boy are dead and Kelsey is responsible. Surely you can't excuse that."

The blood was pounding in Mia's head. Yep, little sister did read the papers, even the really old ones. "No, I don't, and neither does Kelsey. You might be surprised to learn she hasn't actively petitioned for her parole. She'll serve her time until she's done. And when she's done she'll have spent more than half her life behind bars."

Olivia looked surprised, but her jaw was still hard. "It's what she deserves."

Mia's lips curled. "You have no idea what she deserves . You know nothing ."

Olivia's eyes flashed fire. "I know she had a family. A house to live in. Food to eat. A sister who loved her. Which was more than I had and I didn't turn out that way."

Something snapped. "Yeah, and you didn't have a father who traded sex for protection, either." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Mia wished them back. "Goddammit," she hissed.

Olivia stood there, every ounce of color drained from her face. "What?"

"Hell." Mia grabbed the edge of the sink and hung her head but Olivia yanked her arm until she looked up.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. I said nothing. We're done. I can't do this anymore."

"Is that what Kelsey told you?"

Everything went still, the implied accusation of Kelsey's lie hovering between them. "Yeah, that's what she told me." She swallowed. "And it's what I know."

Olivia's eyes were dark against her pale face. "That can't be true."

"It's true. Believe what you want about your father, but it's true about mine."

Olivia took a step back, trembling. "Then why did you become a cop? Like him?"

Like Olivia had, Mia realized and felt the pain of her loss as keenly as if it had been her own. "Not like him," she said wearily. "I was raised around cops. Good, decent men. They had a sense of family I didn't have. I wanted that. And, I suppose I wanted to save kids like Kelsey since I couldn't save her. There are so many out there like Kelsey. You're a cop. You've seen them. I started helping kids like her, runaways. Then I got good at catching the bad guys who hurt them. Now, it's what I am. It's all I am."

"I'm sorry." Tears slid down her cheeks. "I didn't know."

"You couldn't have known and I didn't want you to. I thought I could make you understand what kind of man he was without knowing. But 1 didn't want you to grieve a man who wasn't worth spit on his grave. Or feel inferior because he didn't choose you."

"I need to go." She backed up, grabbed her coat and scarf. "I need to go."

Mia watched her run out the front door. Flinched at the slam. Then pulled the pizza from the oven. She wanted to throw it. But it wasn't her kitchen. It was Lauren's kitchen with the pretty framed cross-stitch teapots and flowers with the "cs" in the corner. Made by Reed's wife. Who he'd never found anyone good enough to replace.