Castillo Linda - Outsider

Her expression softens. “He is cute. I mean, Sammy. For a kid. I’m not usually a fan of, you know, little people.”

“I recall your aversion to children,” I say lightly.

She turns thoughtful. After a moment, she chuckles. “Do you remember that first big call we took over on Avondale?”

I’m not in the mood for a jaunt down memory lane. There’s too much history between us and not all of it is good. Still, it would be disingenuous of me not to admit there was fun, too.

I nod, let the memories rush over me. “The home-invasion call.”

“We’d been on the job for what? Six months?”

“One of the rare times we got to work together.”

“We were dying to see some action, make that first big arrest. Make a name for ourselves.”

“We definitely made a name for ourselves.”

“Not the kind we had in mind.” Gina chortles. “I’ll never forget the way that dude looked, running down the alley, buck naked, trying to pull up pants that were two sizes too small. One leg in, one leg out.”

“Some things can’t be unseen.”

She throws her head back and gives a raucous laugh. “Our big home-invasion arrest turned out to be a husband walking into his house with no idea his loving wife was upstairs doing the wild thing with another dude.”

“In his haste to get out of the house, Romeo grabbed her clothes instead of his own, and jumped out of the upstairs window.”

“Thinking there’s an intruder, the genius husband called 911.”

“His wife couldn’t exactly tell him what she’d been up to, so she let him report it as a home invasion.”

“Colorosa and Burkholder to the rescue.”

“Talk about a couple of geniuses,” I say. “Took us a while to straighten that one out.”

“First time I had to cuff a naked guy.”

We look at each other, grinning, and for a moment we’re partners again, best friends with no emotional baggage between us, no experience, and just enough youth that we’re not afraid to charge into our lives no holds barred.

“The detectives made fun of us for months,” I mutter.

“Called us the Naked Squad.”

“Title justifiably earned.”

Caught up in the memory, we look at each other and break into laughter. The release of tension that follows is palpable. But we’re older now, more than a little cynical, and we quickly fall silent, lost in the thoughts and memories compressing the space between us. We listen to the whistle of wind, the quiet patter of snow against the glass, trying not to acknowledge that the silence isn’t quite comfortable.

Gina turns her gaze on mine. “Those were the best days of my life.”

“We had some good times,” I concur.

“I didn’t appreciate it.”

“Young people never do. That’s part of youth.”

She nods, her expression sober. “Did you hear from Ken Mercer after you left?”

The muscles between my shoulders go taut at the mention of Mercer. I’d worked with him dozens of times in the years I was with the Columbus Division of Police. He was older. An experienced cop. A mentor. We were friends first and then lovers. We were only together a handful of times. But it was a handful of times too many.

“Never heard from him,” I say.

She tilts her head, her eyes probing mine, looking for something I’d prefer she not see. Like maybe she isn’t the only one who’s not proud of certain elements of her past. “He was crazy about you,” she says quietly. “Talked about you months after you left.”

“He was also a liar and a cheat.”

A smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “A charming liar and cheat. Not to mention good looking.”

I say nothing, holding her gaze. She stares back as if I’m some human contradiction that must be made to make sense. “Did you tell Tomasetti about him?”

“There’s nothing to tell. Mercer is ancient history and got filed under Mistake.” I shrug, trying to look nonchalant, not quite sure I’m succeeding. “It never came up.”

Her look turns knowing and one side of her mouth curves. “You were crazy about him, too.”

“I was twenty-four years old.”

“Youth and hormones can be a potent mix.”

“And I think that’s the end of this particular conversation,” I say, keeping my voice amicable.

“Okay.” When she speaks again, her voice is wistful. “We never talked about what happened. I mean, between us. When you left. We should have. I’ve always regretted that we didn’t.”

“I don’t think our discussing it would have changed anything,” I tell her. “Once you started down the wrong road, there was no stopping you.”

“You knew and yet you never told anyone. Why is that?”

You were my best friend. I loved you like a sister. I didn’t want to ruin your life. I don’t say the words aloud, but at the time all of them were true.

I study her face, the steady gaze and set mouth, and I wonder how honest she’s been with me. In the weeks before I left Columbus, I’d been faced with the biggest decision of my career. I spent months trying to move on, trying to forget about what she’d done, what I knew about her, and how I handled it. To this day I’m not certain I made the right choice.

It was the one and only time I looked the other way in the face of police wrongdoing. I kept what I knew—what I’d seen—to myself, and I didn’t tell a soul. Not because I approved, but because I’d known the truth would destroy her. It’s one of the reasons I left the Columbus Division of Police.

“I never thanked you for that,” she says.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

She nods. “If it’s any consolation, Kate, the circumstances weren’t exactly black-and-white.”

“Do not try to convince me that what you did was all right,” I say. “It wasn’t. Not then. Not now.”

The words hover in the air between us. A thousand more clog my throat, but I don’t dare say them aloud.

She breaks eye contact, then forces her gaze back to mine. “I didn’t realize what I was getting into. The depth of it. The wrongness. I didn’t know there would be no going back.”

It had been the beginning of the end of our relationship. A friendship that had been genuine and deep and untainted.

When I say nothing, she looks away, but not before I see the shame peek out from beneath the attitude and bravado. “If I could go back and change it, I would,” she whispers.

“Too late,” I say. “For a lot of things, the least of which is regret.”

“I fucked up my career. My life. Just about every relationship I’ve ever had. I’m sorry.”

I stare at her, trying to gauge her sincerity, wanting to believe her. Wanting to see just a glimpse of the woman I used to admire. The idealistic cop I’d spent so much time trying to emulate. It hurts knowing that part of her was quashed by something overbearing and dark, that it may no longer exist. That it may never have existed at all.

“You’d better get some sleep,” I tell her.

“Yeah.” Pulling the blanket more closely about her shoulders, she rises and leaves the room.

CHAPTER 12

I’m standing in the kitchen, nursing my first cup of coffee, and trying not to ponder the possibility of being stranded on this farm for a second day. It’s not quite daylight outside. The snow has slowed, but the wind continues to batter the house and surrounding trees. The three Lengacher children are sitting at the table, chattering and eating sausage and toast, when the rat-tat-tat-tat of gunshots sounds outside. Four of them in quick succession. Nearby. Too close for comfort.

Gina rushes into the kitchen, her eyes darting to the window, to me, back to the window. “Did you hear that? Where did it come from?”