Jan Burke - Nine

“I’ll give her a lift,” Alex said. “You get some sleep and we’ll see you in the morning.”

He hesitated.

Ciara glanced at Alex, then said, “Alex is right. See you tomorrow.”

As Hamilton drove off, Alex realized that he had never been to Ciara’s house. Over the last year, within a week or two of being partnered with anyone else, he had known exactly where his partner lived, and usually they had gone out for a beer together, or had spent some other time together after work. That hadn’t happened with Ciara.

“Long Beach, right?” he asked.

She smiled. “Right city. Are you going to take a wild stab at one of the dozen or so exits?”

He felt his face redden.

“Atlantic Avenue,” she said.

They hadn’t gone far before she said, “It’s none of your business.”

“Hamilton?”

“Right.”

“If you’re thinking of having a relationship with him-”

“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I enjoy talking to him, that’s all.”

Alex was silent. He found himself comparing Hamilton’s age to hers. Not fair of him, he knew, but couldn’t help wondering what all Ciara and Hamilton had in common. And why, apparently, she felt more relaxed around an FBI agent than him.

“Alex-really. Don’t do this.”

“What?”

“Go all protective on me.”

“Can’t help it. Is that so bad?”

She didn’t answer.

“Maybe I’m jealous,” he said.

“Jealous!”

“Sure, why not? I don’t mean-not in that way. Just makes me realize that a guy who blew into town yesterday has better rapport with my partner than I do.”

She bit her lower lip. “That’s my fault.”

“No. John made me realize the same thing when we were down at Shay Wilder’s place. My uncle probably knows more about you than I do.”

“We haven’t been working together all that long.”

“More than a damned day. That’s all it took either one of them to get you to come out from behind the barricades.”

“The barricades…that bad?”

He shrugged.

“Look, it was easier to let my guard down with them. They’re not really in-house. They didn’t meet me knowing that everyone else in the bureau hated my guts.”

“That’s not true.”

“I came to you as a problem child. No use denying it.”

“Maybe you weren’t the problem. Hey, listen-let’s not talk shop. That’s what always happens.”

She smiled. “Oh, so you were bullshitting poor Agent Hamilton?”

“You know I was. He does, too. Cut it out. Tell me-I don’t know-tell me about your sister.”

She was quiet for so long, he almost wondered if he had accidentally stumbled on to some taboo subject.

“Laney’s the reason I’m a cop.”

He waited.

“Her attackers were never brought to justice, so I figured the only way I could deal with my anger over that was to catch people like them. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky one day and just happen to round them up, too.”

“You have a description of them?”

He saw her struggle for a moment before saying, “My sister is one of those victims who was never able to describe her assailants. You know how much patience some cops have with victims like that.”

He did know. It wasn’t hard to get so caught up in trying to catch the bad guys that you focused only on what could help you do the job, even if it meant turning away from the victim’s misery if it wasn’t going to provide a lead. Especially when you’d had a steady diet of misery for a few years. John had talked to him about it, warned him. “Some days you are going to be tired and frustrated and fresh out of sympathy,” he had said. “If you ever want to make a cop hater out of somebody, go ahead and show it.”

“So,” Alex said now, “does your sister approve of your career?”

“Maybe you should meet her,” she said.

“Sure, I’d like that.”

“We’ll see if you do. We’ll pick her up on the way to my place, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“You have much in the trunk?”

Surprised, he said, “No.”

“Good. We’ll need the room for her wheelchair.”

“Okay,” he said mildly.

She smiled. “Alex Brandon will present a lecture this evening on how to remain calm while your hair is on fire…”

“Ciara-”

“…and you are simultaneously being pursued by a swarm of bees. Killer bees.”

He smiled. “Well, what good would it do you to panic in that situation?”

That made her laugh.

They pulled up in front of a small house with a wheelchair ramp built over its front porch steps. “She’s sometimes afraid of men she doesn’t know,” Ciara warned.

The woman Ciara paid to care for Laney when Ciara had to work late-which was often, Alex figured-opened the door to their knock and protested that she had just picked Laney up from the Clooney Center. The nearby Betty Clooney Center, Alex knew, specialized in helping those with head injuries and their families.

It prepared him, a little, for meeting Laney. She was watching television, or was facing it, anyway. Unlike her sister, she was a redhead. Alex thought that if she could have stood, they would have been about the same height. But Laney was thin to the point of gauntness. Like Ciara, she had big brown eyes.

At the sound of Ciara’s voice, she turned her head and gave a lopsided smile. She made a sound that was something between a shout and a squeal.

“Hello, Sis,” Ciara said. “Ready to go home?”

This was met by a low sound. She was staring at Alex now.

“Hello, Laney,” Alex said. “I’m Alex. I work with Ciara.”

Her brows drew together, and her face twisted, then relaxed. The squealing sound again, if a little less enthusiastic.

“Well,” Ciara said, “so you won’t mind if he drives us home?”

Another lopsided smile.

Ciara thanked the caregiver and managed all the effort of getting Laney into the car, while Alex stowed the wheelchair. Ciara had seen him consider helping to lift Laney into the backseat and said, “Let’s not press our luck.”

Throughout the short drive to Ciara’s home, Alex held a conversation of sorts with Laney, an exchange of signals of interest in each other, if not something comprehended on both sides. He spoke to her as if she could understand every word he said. She apparently did the same.

Between directions to her house and managing the trip inside, Ciara explained that Laney had some motor skills left-she could grasp objects, for example. She could also chew and swallow, which made life for the two of them easier than it was for some of the other head injury patients and their families. But Laney’s speech, ability to walk, and anything involving fine-motor skills were lost. Ciara did not exclude Laney from the conversation while explaining all of this. “Laney, you obviously catch a word or two now and then, or read people’s voices and body language, right?”

Laney made a soft sound they took for agreement.

The house was a small single-story Craftsman, probably built in the 1930s. There was a white picket fence around what had been a front lawn, but was now completely covered in concrete. A long, gently sloping ramp led up to the deep front porch.

The interior of the house was neat and clean, with what little furniture there was moved to the walls, where it would not block the way of the wheelchair.

Ciara took a framed photograph from a shelf-a picture, she said, of Laney with their mother-taken when Laney was about twelve. The young girl in the photo was at a stage of life when her prettiness was already maturing into beauty, and he supposed that the changes her injuries brought to her appearance must have been all the more difficult for her family to bear because of that beauty. But having met Laney now, becoming acquainted with her now, he found himself unable to think of the image in the photo as the same person. Ciara might as well have shown him a picture of one of Laney’s ancestors.