Marked (28 page)

He sat with that a minute. Then: “You can lie to suspects, Ward. It's legal. And the Guild . . . well, a few lies that keep the peace may be the way to go. You handled the suspect; she's in custody. You united the Guild against her and prevented a civil war. You found the rotten apple in the TCO and solved an ax murder. I'm not unhappy with the outcome of this week.”

After a moment, I couldn't wait anymore. “Do I have a job?”

“That's up to Bransen. I'll mention your performance here, however. Come in tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Ward?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You leave me in the middle of the Guild hallways while you deal with suspects on your own again and I will chew you out so bad your ears will ring a month from now. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

CHAPTER 25

Cherabino was sitting
on my couch when I opened the apartment door. Her mind was worn, weary, worried sick with stress.

She looked up and put her head in her hands, a burst of relief coming through Mindspace. Her shoulders shook, and suddenly I realized she was crying.

I closed the door behind me, locked it. Then I stood there, not sure what to do. I mean, we were dating, right? I needed to do something. But Cherabino didn't cry. She just . . . Cherabino didn't cry.

I went over there, sat next to her. Put my arm around her.

She pulled away. “Don't touch me right now.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. I got up to get her a tissue.

She took it, her mouth set. “I can't believe you scared me like that! You went off without even telling me where you were going. And when I showed up here . . . when I showed up here, you were gone.” Her face was blotchy and red from the crying, and now the anger. She thought about punching me, decided against it. “Don't you
ever
. Not
ever,
okay?”

“I won't do that again,” I agreed. And then I realized, as scared and angry as she'd been . . . I hadn't felt her. I went inside, to the place where the Link was, and it was a thin vaporous bridge, nothing that would hold any weight. Nothing that would transmit emotions without specific intention.

A huge sense of loss hit me.

“What?” she asked, blotting her face with the tissue.

I looked up. “Your greatest wish has come true. I promised you the Link would fade, and, well, it has, damn it.” I crossed my arms. “I hope you're happy.”

She put her hand on my shoulder, and her mind came into focus. A focus it didn't have without the contact. “Adam . . .” But she was happy, in that moment, relieved and happy and just a touch of sad and angry left over. “I guess I didn't believe you were telling the truth. I'm sorry.” She paused. “What happened in there?”

“I caught a killer,” I said, turning, her hand falling off my shoulder. “I caught a killer and I survived.”

And then I was kissing her, kissing her as if she were the air and the sun and everything good in the world. And she was in my arms, kissing me back, the saltiness of her tears flavoring everything.

I'm sorry,
I said quietly, with no idea if she heard me or not.

I pulled her down onto the couch, into my lap, and we kissed for a long, long time, me slowing her down when she tried to escalate, me drawing out the moment, just the moment, no more, no less. Finally I pulled away, panting.

I wanted to tell her I loved her. I wanted it so, so bad. I looked her in the eye, everything in me wanting to say it.

She pulled away, like she always did, and I forced myself back.

Silence rang in the room as I tried to put the lid back on the box. As I tried desperately to figure out what I'd do without the feel of her in the back of my head.

“I wish this was easier,” I finally said. It was true, and I could say it, and for all the things rolling around in my head I had to say something. “I really wish this was easier.”

She stood. “You'll come back into the office tomorrow and we'll figure it out, okay? I filled out a fraternization report. You can sign it and we can tell Michael and we can figure it out.” She cleared her throat. “Sex is off the table for now?”

I looked up at her. “That one's up to you. As long as you want to walk away free and clear, then yeah, sex is off the table. You make up your mind to make this long-term, a lot of things go on the table,” I said, unable to keep my heart away from my eyes.

She looked away. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Sex is off the table. You're buying me better dinners to make up for it.” She needed more time, she thought. Her mind flashed an image of her dead husband, and some very strong feelings of loss and a squirrelly unwillingness to lose again, before she pushed both aside.

“Okay.” It was an actual effort not to respond to what I'd seen. Finally I offered, “You're not going to sleep at my place again, are you?”

She laughed, and some of the tension was gone. “Not unless you get a bigger bed, no. You're welcome at mine, but if you leave beard hairs in the sink I will kick your ass.”

“Understood,” I said. And a small, critical part of me relaxed. “Will you stay while I eat at least?”

“Dehydrated microwave crap?” she asked.

“Well, yeah. It's what I've got.”

“Make one for me too.” Her hunger flavored the space.

•   •   •

I called Swartz while the microwave was going, to let him know I was okay.

He was silent a long time, then finally said, “We meeting on Tuesday morning?”

I closed my eyes. “Yeah. Tuesday's great.”

“Good,” he said gruffly.

We talked inconsequentials for a moment before Selah made him hang up the phone. But I stood there for a long minute, looking at the phone, before Cherabino pulled me away to dinner.

The food was wretched and flavorless, but her complaining was amusing enough to make up for it, and at least the stuff was filling. And we talked about work, and life, and stupid stuff. I hadn't been so happy in a long, long time. It didn't really matter what we talked about.

She asked me about what had happened at the Guild. I told her, glossing over anything personal or private, keeping myself from reliving the emotions. Plenty of time for that in the next few weeks. Plenty of time to work through it with Swartz at the meetings. I'd have an army of listeners there. Here, now, I'd rather be with her; I was exhausted, and blocking off so much of what had happened into the back of my head would catch up later, but this one moment might never happen again.

We talked about work. Some of her current cases. Michael's first one he took on as primary. Ruffins's motives for killing Wright, and the case against him. He was in holding, coming up before the Grand Jury in January. Cherabino—Isabella—thought he'd be prosecuted. The Fiske case was stalled for now, but she had Michael working on compiling what they had outside Ruffins's influence. The inquiry into her actions was scheduled with IA in January as well.

“You think you'll be able to pull together a case against Fiske from scratch?” I asked.

She waved her fork at me. “With everything that man has been up to, if we can't pull together an airtight case from scratch, we don't deserve the badges. It'll take a while, but we'll do it.” Lingering regret and worry ate at her about the trip to Fiske's house, but she pushed it aside and concentrated on the now.

“Awesome.” I poked around at the bottom of my bowl for the last piece of tough pasta, and ate it with some of the limp broccoli. Got a hot pepper in there too, which woke up my sinuses. At least that was some flavor.

“How's Jacob?” I asked without thinking. She liked it when I asked about her family.

“They seem to be okay, but I'm worried,” she said. “About Fiske and what I saw. About the Guild finding out. I don't know what she'll do if they try to take him away from her. We may end up leaving the country.”

“You don't need to do that,” I said, then realized what I'd said. “Well, probably not.”

Her cop's mind turned on. “What are you talking about?”

I had a choice then. I could lie or I could tell the truth. Lying might get me the rest of this dinner, the rest of the night. Might get me a little comfort, which I needed.

But this was Isabella. “I talked to the Guild Council about Jacob. You don't have to worry about them taking him away. Twice-a-week lessons there, monitoring, and he'll get to choose what he wants when he's old enough. It's a good deal.”

Fury poured from her like a tidal wave. Her voice was dangerously, dangerously quiet. “You talked to the Guild about Jacob without me?”

I pushed the bowl away from me on the coffee table. Looked at her. “It came up. I didn't let them threaten him.”

“They
threatened him?
” She sputtered for a second, like she really couldn't believe what she was hearing. “They
threatened him
and you made a deal? Without talking to me. Without a single phone call to my sister or me or
anybody
who might have an actual fucking stake in what happens to Jacob. You just made a deal. All by your lonesome self.”

“That's not exactly . . .” I trailed off. “Listen, it keeps him under their protection! It gets him much more training faster. And it gives him some place to go if he gets threatened. He's a teleporter, Cherabino. He Jumps away from danger into the Guild and nobody—nobody—can hurt him. It keeps him safe, damn it!” Now I was angry.

We huffed at each other for a good long minute.

Finally she said, “You might have a point.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Don't rub it in. And I'm still not happy, understand? But you might have a point.”

A long silence reigned.

“Are you leaving now?” I asked, when the nervousness got too much to bear.

“Are you kicking me out?” she asked, right back.

“Well, no.”

She huffed and some of the anger dissipated. “Then . . . then I guess I'm staying until I get tired. I'm not sleeping on your puny cot again. I'm lucky I didn't throw out my back the first time.” She paused, looked at the dishes again. “On second thought, I have ice cream at my place.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Do you want it to be?”

Oh, what the hell. “Sure.”

“Then it's an invitation. Next time I'm cooking, though. This stuff is crap.” She picked up the bowls and moved them to the sink, noisily washing dishes, taking out her energy on soapy water.

I picked up a towel and went to help.

“I'm still mad,” she said.

“I know,” I replied.

•   •   •

The next morning, bright and early, Bransen looked up. “My door was closed,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “When my door is closed, it means I do not want to be disturbed.”

I looked at him. I looked at the door. “I can come back later.”

“You've already disturbed me. What do you want?”

I stood, half in, half out of the door. “I just wanted to know whether I have a job.”

He put down the pen he was holding. “The captain gave me a call last night.”

“Ah,” I said noncommittally.

“You go over my head again and you're out on the street,” he said, with fire. Then: “Part-time, like we talked about, trial basis. You only get benefits because the Guild pays for them. No coddling. And I will be monitoring the close rates for the detectives you work with. You're with Freeman today.”

“Not . . . not Cherabino?” I asked, gut roiling with mixed emotions.

“You work where I tell you to work. That a problem?” He peered at me.

“No, sir.” Another detective might be good for everyone. Especially since Cherabino and I were dating. Plus I wasn't in a position to be picky. “Am I going to work with her eventually?”

“I'll let you know. Now get going.”

•   •   •

After a hard day with the grumpy and hard-driving Freeman, I picked up my mail from the mailroom. Frances, the file clerk, who was now doing mail in addition to filing, had said there was something for me.

There in the mail room, I stared at the box sitting on top of a pile of my mail. The box was the size of a thick book, and the return address said
PI LICENSING BOARD
.
I lifted it. It was just heavy enough to have a badge inside. A small thrill went up my spine.

I opened the thing. Inside, as suspected, was my PI license, a small shield that looked official but not police official. I picked it up; the weight of the metal in my hand felt like an affirmation. I'd done it.

On the way back, I tripped over an uneven tile in front of the elevator, barely staying upright. My mail fell out of my hand, bills and junk mail scattering across the lobby floor, my new PI badge landing on the floor with a bounce.

Michael came by then and grabbed several of the bills to hand to me. “Is it true you're not working in the interview rooms anymore?” he asked reluctantly.

I nodded. “For now, it's just Homicide. Not full-time.”

His hand found the badge. “You going to be a PI?”

“Who knows?” I said. “But right now I'm working here.”

His mind made a passing inquiry about the Guild that he suppressed. He settled for “It's good to have you back.”

“Thanks,” I said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alex
has written since early childhood, and loves great stories in any form, including sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. Over the years, Alex has lived in many neighborhoods of the sprawling metro Atlanta area. Decatur, the neighborhood on which
Marked
is centered, was Alex's college home.