Page 53 of Trust my Heart

“Go home, Jordan,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Drink a lot of water first. A whole glass.”

“Yes, Detective.” He got two steps and turned around, walking backward toward the door, pointing at us with both hands. “No fear. I heard you. Not taking a year.” And he was gone into the street, and through the front window we watched him stop, look up at the summer night sky for a second, and hop into a cab Pat had called him.

We walked home. It was warm out, the streets busy, patios full, somebody’s music coming down from a third-floor window, and we moved through all of it side by side. Luke took my hand and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket.

Halfway down our block, he stopped. The street was quiet there, between streetlights, and he turned to face me with the look he got when he was about to say something.

“You know what?”

“What, Luke?”

His thumb moved over my knuckles, inside the pocket, careful of the bruising. “I love you, Detective.”

He leaned in and kissed me. In the middle of the sidewalk, slow, no hurry in it anywhere, one hand coming up to the side of my face. A car went by and kept going. Nobody looked twice, and for once neither of us checked.

When he pulled back, he held my eyes for a second.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

We went. My hand in his pocket, folded inside his, the whole way, past everybody.

Chapter 18: By Request

Luke

Reid delivered the summons with his sunglasses still on and two coffees, both for himself.

“Both of you,” he said, at the end of our desks, very quietly. “Murphy’s office. He says now. Please don’t make any loud sounds on the way.”

“Nobody made you keep up with Chen last night,” I said.

“Somebody had to. It was a matter of divisional honor.” He took a sip from the first coffee, winced, and took a sip from the second. “For the record, there’s a pool going about what he wants with you. Doyle’s holding the money.”

I looked over. Doyle sat two rows down with a notebook open beside the keyboard, taking quiet action.

“What are the options?” Ryan said.

“Transferred, promoted, fired, or wedding.”

“What did you take?”

“I’m not disclosing my position,” Reid said, with dignity, and drifted back to his desk, slow and careful with himself.

Chen passed us on our way to the hall, sunglasses on indoors also, daring anyone to mention it. “If this is about last night,” she said, without slowing down, “the tab was legally his idea.”

The floor was running at half speed behind us. Somebody had taped a printout of a raccoon to the property-room door, and nobody in authority had taken it down yet. An ordinary morning. We hadn’t had one in so long that everything in it stood out.

We walked down the hall together, not talking. Every walk to that office this spring had ended with somebody losing something. This time my body just walked. No bracing, nothing pulling tight across my back. I noticed it the way you notice a missing headache, halfway down the hall and only because it was gone.

As soon as I stepped into his office, Murphy pointed at the chairs without looking up from a file.

I closed the door and we sat. He let the quiet run. I knew the technique, I’d used it on suspects for years, and it worked on me anyway.

“Sergeant Wright surrendered his badge,” he said finally, still reading. “What happens to him now belongs to Professional Standards and to the Crown, and not to anyone in this building. That’s the last time the man’s name gets said in this office.” He looked up, and his eyes went to Ryan. “Detective Carlson. Now, let’s clear up your other mess. Tell me what happened in that washroom.”

“I hit him.”

Murphy closed the file. “You struck a sergeant. In this building, in the middle of an operation I authorized on the strength of your discipline. So, walk me through the part where the discipline you promised went out the door.”