Bending the Rules (26 page)

“Y
OU’RE BLEEDING
.”

Cory gave Henry a blank look.

He pointed to her elbow. “Bleeding.”

Lifting her arm, she cocked her elbow in. Sure enough, a viscous line of blood crept down her arm from an oozing scrape. And, seeing it, what had been blissfully numb began to sting. “Crap,” she breathed.

Would this day never end?

“Let me see.” Poppy came over at once, concern etched on her drawn features.

Cory stepped back. God, she couldn’t stand this. Ms. C. had been nothing but nice to her, and it was all her fault that her teacher/mentor/whatever had almost been run down.

Queasiness roiled in a great greasy wave in her stomach. She was probably responsible for those other “accidents,” too. And Jesus, Jesus, she didn’t know what to do. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I’ll slap a Band-Aid on it when I get home.”

“Let’s at least get it cleaned up. I’m sure Mr. Harvey would let us use his restroom. He probably has a first-aid kit, too.”

“I’ll take her,” Danny G. said, stepping between them. He smiled at Ms. C. without the ever-present if slight distance he usually used like an invisible force field between himself and the rest of the world. “You look ready to drop. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll help Cory clean up and then drive her home, too.”

“Oh, I don’t know—”

“I do,” Detective de Sanges said, taking her arm as carefully as if she were constructed of that special-effects glass that shattered beneath the slightest pressure. “Danny’s right, you do look ready to drop. I’ll take you home.”

“But what about my car?” Then Poppy sagged, looking worn to the bone. “Never mind. I’ll have my dad pick it up.” She nodded at the cop. “Thank you, Jason, I’d really appreciate a lift. It’s been…a day.” But she rallied to look at Cory, Danny and Henry. “I can’t seem to get my brain to track, so I don’t remember offhand when we meet again. But check your schedules and I’ll see you then. And thanks for being so great today.”

With her drawn skin and tired posture, she looked very un-Ms. Calloway-like as the cop led her away.

Danny said, “C’mon,” in a brusque voice and Cory’s attention shifted to him as he guided her to the back entry of Mr. Harvey’s store without actually touching her.

She was pretty sure he was pissed—and she knew at whom.

Henry trailed them, verbally reliving the afternoon’s events, wringing every drop of drama from them as if the other two hadn’t been right there. Rather than be irritated by it, however, Cory actually felt grateful for his nonstop chatter. If it kept her from having to deal with Danny, she was all over it.

Arriving at the storeroom door, she watched Danny rap on it with his knuckles, then test the lock when there was no answer. The knob turned under his hand and he stuck his head in. “Mr. Harvey?”

Voices murmured out in the store, but no one answered and he called the man’s name louder.

“Who’s there?” The shop owner’s voice preceded him into the back room. “Ah, the Three Amigos. How’s the project going? What can I do you for?”

Danny explained what had happened and, in the wake of the man’s exclamations, asked if they could use the employee restroom to clean Cory up.

“You bet.” Mr. Harvey gazed at her elbow. “There’s some triple antibiotic ointment and a box of Band-Aids in the medicine cabinet over the sink. Should be a bottle of aspirin or ibuprofen in there, too, if you need it.”

“Thanks, Mr. H.,” she said. “I’ll try not to get blood on any of your stuff.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We have plenty of paper towels.”

It didn’t take long to disinfect her scrape and slap a Band-Aid on it. Cory knew Danny was still pissed at her, but despite that, despite her painful scrape, she couldn’t ignore the little thrill she felt at the warmth of his hand cupping her arm, at the gentleness he displayed tending her wound.

They used a couple of the paper towels to clean the sink when they’d finished up, then Danny offered Henry a ride home. But Mr. H. said if Henry was interested in making some money he had about an hour and a half’s worth of chores that needed to be done around the store. Since Henry was always strapped for coin, he jumped at the opportunity.

She and Danny left without him.

Danny didn’t say much when they first got in his car. He concentrated on his driving, looking in the rearview mirror often and taking sudden unannounced turns, doubling and tripling back on his route. Ten or so minutes later, he pulled to the curb in a neighborhood Cory had never been in before, parking beneath the shade of an ornamental cherry tree that was shedding its flowers in drifts of pink. Shutting down the engine, he turned to look at her.

“Let’s have it.”

She thought about playing dumb—for about two seconds. The hard glint in Danny’s eyes warned her against the idea.

She thought about saying she didn’t want to talk about it, but the truth was, she did. She was tired of keeping all this crap to herself. It was like drinking a slow-acting poison: it was tasteless and odorless and for a while she’d convinced herself it was nontoxic. But it was eating her alive.

She really thought about crying, but bucked up. That’s what her daddy used to say: “Buck up, baby. Things probably aren’t as bad as you think.”

In this case he’da been wrong, but she sniffed air deep into her lungs, blinked back her tears and sat a little straighter.

She told Danny everything.

“Holy shit,” he said when she finally paused for breath. “Holy, mo fo’n sh—” He swallowed. “Damn.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”

“You can tell de Sanges, for starters.”

Except that. She knew better than to do that. “No!”

“Cory—”

“No! How can you even suggest that?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

She just looked at him, feeling as if he were speaking Swahili. “I’ve told you what those gangbangers did to my father. He was doing ‘the right thing’ and they killed him for it!”

“So how’s keeping your mouth shut working for you, Cor? Because from where I sit, it’s not looking so great. You never so much as whispered what you saw the guy do—yet he just tried to run you down! And apparently he doesn’t give a shit who he takes out with you.”

“I know!” she screamed at him. “You think I haven’t been thinking about that every fricking minute since it happened? You think I haven’t been torn in a bazillion little pieces knowing because of me Ms. C. nearly got taken out?”

“Then do something about it! Tell de Sanges and let him take care of it.”

All the fight went out of her. But the fear of talking to the cops, indoctrinated by hard experience, remained. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I just…can’t. The cops can’t protect me or my mom. Nobody can.”

“You’re wrong about that. Detective de S. isn’t exactly Officer Friendly, but that’s what I like about him. Because he doesn’t try to bullshit you. He doesn’t say trust me, I’m your friend—then turn around and saunter off into the sunset without giving a good goddamn the one time you might actually need his help. I get the impression he takes that protect-and-serve shit real serious. You know what he said the day you went apeshit on him?”

Heat surged under her skin at the reminder of her public anger and—worse—crying that day. She shook her head.

“He said you had a right to your grudge against the police—that they’d fucked up their obligation to protect your father.”

“He actually said fu—”

“Nah, but that’s what he meant. And when Henry wouldn’t let go of the fact you’d cried, de S. told us that he didn’t know much about girls, but that he did know they handled things differently than guys. And he looked right at Henry when he said he’d skin us alive if we gave you a bad time about it.” Danny looked her in the eyes. “Tell him what’s going on, Cory. The guy’s in the Robbery division. He’s the ideal person to get to the bottom of this.”

She knew he was probably right. Knew it deep down on a cellular level.

And yet…

“Give me a couple of days, okay? Please, Danny, just let me wrap my head around this, then I’ll find a way to tell him, I swear. I need a little time to come to terms with going against everything I’ve believed in since Daddy was killed.”

He studied her with a hard stare for a moment. Then he sighed. “Okay, but only a couple. You can’t afford to put this off. You ask me, that Arturo guy is seriously whacked.”

B
RUNO WAS SEVERAL
miles away, on the downtown side of the neighborhood he’d just left, when the fact that he’d screwed the pooch hit him like a bullet from a sniper’s rifle. He didn’t need to debate it; he wasn’t misinterpreting the facts. And there were no do-overs.

He’d fucked up, big-time.

He should have thought things through more thoroughly before giving in to the impulse to run the girl down. Either that, or done a better job of actually running her down. Because it occurred to him now that if Capelli hadn’t already told the cop what she’d seen that night in the U district, he’d just removed any incentive for her to keep her mouth shut.

Shit. He should have stuck to his first impression when he’d learned about the kid’s old man: that she’d had a goddamn compelling example of what happened to people who talked out of turn. But hearing the boy on that damn television spot mention a Robbery cop on the art project Capelli was part of had thrown him off his stride. Made him feel she’d betrayed his generosity.

And he’d maybe overreacted.

Shitfuckshit. He turned around at the next light and headed back, knowing he was a good six or seven miles away and likely too late to track her this afternoon.

On the other hand, she probably wasn’t moving as swift as usual. She sure as shit wouldn’t be moving at the speed she’d sprinted to get that blond woman, who would have been unfortunate collateral damage, out of his way. Swear to God the kid could be a contender if she ever decided to try out for an Olympic track and field event.

He shook his head impatiently. This was no time to go off on a tangent. His point was, there was a chance Capelli was still where he’d left her.

And this time he’d keep up with her. He would finally discover where the hell she lived.

And if that somehow didn’t happen today? Then he’d goddamn see to it that it happened tomorrow or the next day.

Because he’d set the clock ticking this afternoon. Had wedged himself solidly between a rock and a hard place. Either the cops were going to be looking for him. Or Schultz would hear that he’d disregarded his order to leave the kid be.

And of the two?

He’d just as soon take his chances with the cops.

J
ASON ASKED
Poppy more than once, on the drive to her apartment, if she was all right. She wouldn’t have minded that so much, since it was always nice knowing someone worried about your welfare. But he generally followed his solicitousness up with “Who do you know who could have done this?” And when she said, “No one,” he urged, “Think, Poppy. It’s important.”

She knew that, dammit. But she didn’t know anyone who had a reason to hurt her. So finally she rested her head against the passenger-side window and pretended to doze so she wouldn’t have to keep addressing his questions.

Because how do you answer the unanswerable when the response you have given isn’t even a hundred-percent true? Well, it was in the sense she was fine, physically—she’d seen worse scrapes on a playground full of kindergartners. But on the emotional front?

She was a wreck.

She knew she should probably call her parents. Let them know what had happened, both to her and to her dad’s ladder.

But she wasn’t quite up to the task. Not when she knew Mom would immediately get on the horn and spread the news. And that she and Dad would then descend on her with homemade chicken soup and a lot of TLC.

Not that the last part wouldn’t be just what the doctor ordered.

But Aunt Sara—who was actually no relation but still family—would also show up with her crystals and her tarot cards. In the ordinary run of things Poppy would enjoy that, but she simply wasn’t up to it today. Not to mention Uncle Bill, who was Aunt Sara’s partner of thirty years and one of Poppy’s all-time favorite people in the world. She knew he would accompany Auntie Sara—no doubt bearing one of his personal pan-size brownies that he’d have thrown together, complete with a healthy dose of marijuana, at the last minute.

To be baked in Poppy’s own kitchen, no doubt, as he wouldn’t want to waste time if he felt she was in need of his support. She sighed against the cool glass.

Because she could just imagine Mr. Law and Order’s reaction to that. Uncle Bill would probably be in the slammer before you could say, “Call the bondsman.”

That was her last thought before drifting to sleep for real. She didn’t awaken until Jason parked on the street in front of her apartment building. He’d shut down the engine and climbed from the car before she even lifted her head off the glass. As he rounded the hood she surreptitiously swiped her thumb and index finger down the corners of her lips, thinking, Please, God, don’t let there be drool.