John Hart - Down River

But that was a lifetime ago.

“Sorry,” she said. “Cop stuff.”

“Like what?” I slipped off the hood.

“Salisbury P.D. and the sheriff’s office use the same forensics lab. They’ve worked up the bullet that killed Danny Faith. Chest wound, by the way. They’re just waiting for a comparison sample.” Her eyes were steady. “It won’t be long,” she said.

“Meaning?”

“They found Dolf Shepherd’s.38.”

Although I knew they’d find it, a pit opened up in my stomach. I waited for her to say more. A yellow moth moved above tall grass.

“Will your friend at ballistics help you out?” I finally asked.

“He owes me.”

“Will you let me know what he says?”

“That depends on what he tells me.”

“I can give Zebulon Faith to you,” I said, and that stopped her. “I can give him to you on a plate.”

“If I share my information?”

“I want to know what Grantham knows.”

“I can’t make blind promises, Adam.”

“I need to know. I don’t think I have much time. My prints are on the gun.”

“A gun that may or may not be the murder weapon.”

“Grantham knows I spoke to Danny right before he died. It’s enough for an arrest warrant. He’ll bring me in and hammer me. Just like the last time.”

“You were in New York when Danny was killed. You’ll have alibis, witnesses that can put you there at the time of death.”

I shook my head.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“No alibi,” I said. “No witness.”

“How is that possible?”

“It had been five years, Robin. That’s what you have to understand first. I’d buried this place so deep I couldn’t see it anymore. It’s how I got through the days. I forgot. I made an art of forgetting. That changed after Danny called. It was like he’d put a demon in my head. It wouldn’t shut up. It wanted me to go home. It told me that it was time. If I tried to think, I heard the voice. When I closed my eyes, I saw this place. It made me insane, Robin. Day after day. I thought of you, of my father. I thought of Grace and of the trial. That dead kid and the way that this town just chewed me up and spit me out.

“Suddenly, I couldn’t stand my life. It was so empty, such a goddamn sham, and Danny’s voice tore down everything I’d built. I didn’t go to work. I stopped seeing friends. I locked myself away. It just ate at me until I found myself on the road.”

I lifted my hands, let them drop. “No one saw me, Robin.”

“Demons in the head and no alibi is not something you should ever say again. Grantham has already put in a request with N.Y.P.D. They’ll check up on you. They’ll be thorough. They’ll find where you worked. They’ll find out that you quit and when you quit. You need to think hard about that alibi. Grantham’s going to wonder if you didn’t drive down here and kill Danny. He’ll hold your feet to the fire. He’ll roast you if he can.”

I held her gaze. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Why are you home, Adam?”

I heard the answer in my head. Because everything that I love is here. Because you refused to come with me.

I didn’t say it, though. I pointed at the bright, aluminum buildings and told her what Emmanuel had said about Zebulon Faith and the drugs. “Number thirty-six. He’ll give you all the probable cause you need.”

Her voice was empty. “Good information.”

“He may have cleaned it out. He’s had time.”

“Maybe.” She looked away, and the wind stirred dust on the road. When she looked back, she’d gone soft around the edges. “There’s something else I need to tell you, Adam. It’s important.”

“Okay.”

“The phone call looks bad. The timing makes it worse. Prints on the gun. All the violence and coincidence. No alibi…” She trailed off, looked suddenly fragile. “You may be right about the warrant…”

“Go on.”

“You said I had to make a choice. You or the job.” Wind licked at her hair again. She looked uncertain and her voice fell. “I took myself off the case,” she said. “I’ve never dropped a case before. Not ever.”

“You did that because Grantham’s coming after me?”

“Because you were right when you said I had to make a choice.” For an instant, she looked proud, then her features collapsed. I knew that something was happening, but I was slow and confused. Her shoulders rolled inward and something wet moved on her face. When she looked up, her eyes were silver bright, and I saw that she was crying. Her voice broke into a sob. “I’ve really missed you, Adam.”

She stood on the roadside, breaking, and I finally understood the depths of her conflict. Two things mattered to her: the person she’d become and the thing she’d thought was lost. Being a cop. And us. She’d tried to keep them both, tried to walk the line, but the truth had finally caught up with her: there comes a time to choose.

So she did.

And she chose me.

She was naked in the cold and I knew that she would not say another word without some sign from me. I didn’t have to think about it, not even for a second. I opened my arms, and she slipped into that space as if she’d never left it.

I drove us to her place, and this time it was different, like the apartment was too small to hold us. We were in one room, then another, clothes on the floor behind us as we slammed through doors and into walls. Old emotions burned through us, new ones raged.

And memories of a thousand other times.

I held her against the wall and her legs found my waist, wrapped me up. She kissed me so hard I thought I might bleed, but didn’t care. Then she gripped my hair and pulled me back. I looked at her swollen lips, stared into those kaleidoscope eyes. She was breathing hard, trembling. Her words came in a fierce whisper.

“What I said before, about it being gone, about me being done…” Her eyes slid to my chest, back up. “That was a lie.”

“I know.”

“Just tell me this is real.”

I told her, and when we found the bed, it could have been the floor or the kitchen table. It didn’t matter. She was on her back, her fingers twisted into the sheets when I saw that she was crying again.

“Don’t stop,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Make me forget.”

She meant the loneliness, I knew, the five-year stretch of nothing. I rose to my knees and ran my eyes down the length of her; she was lean and hard, a broken fighter. I kissed her damp cheeks, traced her body with my hands, and felt the tension in her collapse. Her arms came up from the bed and there was no strength in them, just lightness and heat that seemed to mirror some desperate part of her. I slipped one arm beneath the small of her back and crushed her against me as if I could drive the demons out by sheer, brute force. She was light and small, but she found her rhythm and the strength to rise beneath me.

I fell asleep with Robin’s head on my chest. It felt familiar and warm and right, and those things scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to lose her again. Maybe that’s why I dreamed of another woman. I stood at a window, looking down on Sarah Yates and moonlit grass. She was walking, and carried her shoes in one hand. A white dress stirred around her legs, and her skin flashed silver as she looked up once and raised a hand as if she held a penny on her palm.

I woke in gray silence. “Are you awake?” I whispered.

Her head moved on the pillow. “Thinking,” she said.

“About?”

“Grantham.”

I shook off the dream. “He’s coming after me, isn’t he?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She was trying to convince herself that it was that simple, but we both knew better. Innocent men go down all the time.