Critical Pursuit (14 page)

JACK SAT
in the squad room listening to the banter going on around him without joining in. The topics of conversation were similar to ones that would have bounced around six years ago. Guys talked about last night’s difficult arrest, recounted funny incidents, or complained about something going on in the department.

He still felt like a fish out of water. But he’d slept so well
 
—in spite of the fact that he hadn’t gotten to bed until 6 a.m.
 
—that the memories didn’t seem to be screaming so loud. And Caruso’s drive to be a savior to every missing kid lingered in his thoughts. Even though he’d tried to make her feel corny, her mission impressed him. It made him yearn for the same kind of drive to return to him. Could he ever really be the same cop he’d been six years ago?

“O’Reilly.”

Jack raised his head when Klein called his name. “Sir?”

“Your partner called. She’s en route from K-9 training and she’ll meet you at the back steps.” Klein started to turn away, then stopped. “You and her getting along okay?”

Jack nodded and Klein left the room. He knew the sergeant would probably ask Brinna the same thing, and he wondered what she would say.

Well, the arrangement with Caruso wasn’t permanent. Sentencing or no sentencing, this partnership was only for another week and a half. Caruso might be an okay cop, with a lot of ambition he admired, but he didn’t have a reason to get close
 
—and certainly no reason to care about her work or life. If she wanted to take every missing kid to heart, it was her funeral.

* * *

Brinna pulled into the PD lot and parked her truck. She’d left her Explorer at home, seeing no reason to drive it if she didn’t have Hero. She hoped O’Reilly at least thought to find them a good ride.

Her partner waited where she’d wanted to meet him. “I got us a car,” Jack said, stepping down to meet her. He pointed to a black-and-white.

“Great. Sorry I’m late. I didn’t factor in the time it would take to drop Hero off at home.”

“No biggie.” Jack climbed into the driver’s seat and popped the trunk.

Brinna stowed her kit and took the passenger seat. She noticed Jack already had the log-in screen filled out, and she pushed Send, hoping for a quiet radio.
Let’s see if we get some patrol time in and how he handles it. What kind of patrol cop is he, anyway?

Sighing, Brinna couldn’t relax. She was just too tired. It
wouldn’t do for the trainer to fall asleep on the trainee. Thinking about Jack as a trainee took her thoughts back to the night before. He’d been a partner for a bit. She wondered what mood he’d be in tonight and what she’d see
 
—lifeless eyes or cop eyes.

“Did you sleep better today?” she asked.

Jack grunted. “Actually, I did. Slept until about two thirty. What about you? I hope you didn’t let that kid eat you up.”

“I just got a couple hours. Lots going on in my life right now besides Heather.” She rolled down her window and turned off the air conditioner vent. Though the fresh air was warm, it made her feel more alert.

Jack seemed to start to say something, then stopped. He slowed to standard patrol speed, and Brinna noted that his eyes were roving the street. The car stayed silent until the first radio call.

As they rolled through quiet residential streets, Brinna wondered if Jack would want to jump on anything. Technically, the driver ran the unit, deciding when to answer calls and when to make traffic or subject stops.

When the radio went quiet, guys had different ways of spending their free patrol time. Some liked to try and snoop, working known dope locations. Others liked to work traffic, and still others prowled streets and alleys checking for stolen cars or miscellaneous illegal activity.

Brinna knew she’d be checking out pedophiles from her Wall of Slime and going over every bit of Heather’s investigation. She’d faxed the list of names to Chuck, and he’d promised her he’d scrutinize each one. All she could do was wait for him to call, and Brinna hated waiting.

Jack drove through the roughest section of town, she noted.
So he’s not afraid to work . . . or is it something else?

“Can I ask you a question?” Brinna decided not to put off a direct frontal approach any longer.

“What?”

“The other night, when you rushed the stolen car, were you trying to get yourself killed?”

Jack stomped the brakes, pulled the car to the right, and stopped at the curb. “Is that what you think?”

Brinna shrugged. “I’m just asking. Car wasn’t clear; kid could have had a gun. What should I think?”

“Have you run around telling everyone this theory of yours?” He turned to face her, left elbow up over the steering wheel.

“No. I’m the one working with you, so I’m asking for my information.” She held his angry gaze, trying to read his thoughts. She knew his concern. All she had to do was mention she thought he had a death wish and he’d be bounced to the department shrink and out of patrol.

Jack blew out a breath. “Maybe at first that thought crossed my mind. At the domestic violence call. I thought it might be easy to get shot out here. But the thought just crossed my mind; it didn’t take up residence.” He glared at her for a moment, then turned away.

She had the feeling he wasn’t finished, so she stayed quiet. After a minute he spoke again.

“As to the victor . . . well, I wanted a fight.” He faced forward and sat back in his seat. “I was angry, thinking about
Bridges, the guy who killed my wife. I wanted to beat something or someone, pretend it was Bridges.”

Sighing, Brinna relaxed. “Okay. Thanks. That I can understand.”

“Can you?” Jack’s forehead scrunched. “Can you really understand? I fantasize about killing Bridges all the time.” He shifted in his seat and stared out the window.

“I fantasize about killing every creep who hurts a kid. Join the club.” She shrugged when he shot her a surprised expression.

They were both silent for a minute. Then Jack laughed. Brinna’s jaw went slack with shock. He rarely smiled, and this was the first laugh she’d heard.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“You trying to tell me I’m normal.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist, so whether you’re normal or not is not my call. I just think we care. We hate to see injustice or the innocent taken advantage of. I consider myself a good judge of character. You worry me for a lot of reasons. That you’d take the law into your own hands is not one of them.”

He sighed and pulled back into traffic to resume patrol. “What makes you think I won’t act out on my fantasy and kill Bridges?”

Brinna shook her head. “Sad, burnt out, and hurt, you’re still a cop. It would completely wipe out sixteen years of being a good guy if you went after Bridges. I’d never act out on any of my fantasies because I have faith in the justice system, flawed as it is. Would your wife have married a man who would take the law into his own hands?”

JACK WORKED HARD
to regain some semblance of patrol rhythm. Though his body was well rested, his emotions were all over the map. He felt like a drunk trying to walk a straight line. Brinna’s question about whether he had a death wish came out of the blue and hit him hard. Confessing to her that it wasn’t really his own death he wanted but Bridges’s surprised him.

For months I’ve thought of nothing else but taking care of Bridges. I’ve lived for the sentencing and a clear shot at him,
he thought. Brinna didn’t think he would do what he fantasized about.

Just a little over a week until the day. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, angry at the thought of Bridges’s future. It was like ripping the scab off a raw wound. Bridges had a future. And it galled Jack that Brinna was probably right. He didn’t think he could kill Bridges any more than she did. Vicki wouldn’t have looked twice at a man who acted like judge, jury, and executioner.

The realization freed him in a way. Maybe the scab was gone and the wound raw, but opening it let some poison out. The pressure had stopped building. Jack felt tension release in his neck and shoulders. It was as if a test deadline had just been removed from his day planner.

He decided to take a flying leap at letting the job consume him and run the unit like he would have six years ago. His partner was still a paradox to him. On one hand, he didn’t want to get close to Caruso. On the other, he had the feeling they could do some great work together.

He and Brinna made a few traffic stops, arrested a drunk driver, and Jack watched his uneasiness and anger evaporate. He was a cop again, and it felt great.

“Haven’t seen you up here in a blue suit in a while,” Pettis, one of the jailers, said when Jack dropped off his prisoner.

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” Jack took his cuffs from the man.

“Sorry to hear about your wife. That has to be rough.”

“Yeah, it is.” Jack slipped his cuffs into the cuff case on his belt and waited for the depression curtain to descend at the mention of Vicki. His chest tightened with a familiar tightness, but it wasn’t suffocating.

“You done with homicide?” Pettis asked.

Jack shrugged, surprised by the question and by the fact that he wasn’t upset at the idea of being done.
Am I?
he thought as he struggled for an answer. “I needed a break” were the words that finally came to him as he stepped into the elevator.

“Good luck, whatever you decide.” Pettis gave a mock salute as the door closed.

His partner sat in the break room, sipping coffee.

Jack slipped coins into a machine and bought a cup as well. “I’m finished. You ready to go back to work?”

“Sure.” She stood, drained her coffee, and tossed the cup.

Jack took his coffee with him. It was Brinna’s turn to drive, so he could take his in the car.

As she pulled out of the lot, Jack fidgeted, deciding to be talkative. “I’ve got a question for you.” He didn’t turn her way but kept his gaze out the passenger window.

“I guess I owe you one,” she said. “You answered mine.”

“Thanks.” Jack took a deep breath and dived in. “Have you ever lost someone close to you?”

“You mean to death?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I haven’t,” she said, and Jack thought maybe she had more to say.

“You haven’t, but . . . ?” He turned to watch her and saw her frown in the light of the car computer.

“But what?”

“It just sounded like you wanted to say more.”

“I, uh . . . well, I found out today my dad has liver cancer. He’s dying.”

“Wow, sorry to hear that.”

Jack saw her shrug in the semidarkness, but she didn’t turn his way.

“The thing is,” she said, “we’re not close. He really hasn’t been a father to me. He’s been a mean drunk ever since I can remember.”

“He’s still your father.”

“That’s what my mom said.” She gave what sounded to Jack like a mirthless chuckle. “For as long as my father’s been drunk, my mother’s been praying for him. She swears God can change a person, turn their life around, make them stronger. I think having a crutch like God only makes a person weaker.”

“I used to be that way.” Jack sucked down some coffee, anger pricking him like a hype’s needle. “Your mom believes God will change your father’s heart, get him off the bottle, make him a better man, and their life will become all hearts and flowers.” He swallowed back the bitter taste in his mouth.

“Yep.” Brinna nodded. “My mom’s a true believer. Prayer changes everything.”

Everything but death,
Jack thought, fist clenched around the end of his baton. “I was raised in the church. Vicki and I were both good, faithful. I don’t understand why she had to die.” He crumpled his empty coffee cup in his hand and stared out the window.

“I asked Ben, your old partner, about that once. I mean, about why good people get murdered or why I was rescued when so many innocent kids are not so lucky.”

“What’d he say?”

“Something about God being in control, that believers must trust he’s got their best in mind even when something bad happens. I didn’t get it all.”

“I’ve heard that enough to make me puke. Vicki believed that as well. How could it be best in anyone’s mind that she be killed by a drunk driver?” Jack said bitterly.

“I’m with you. But my mom believes that Christians go
to heaven when they die. What do you think about life after death?”

Jack stared at his partner while he processed her question. In all his grieving over Vicki’s death, he’d worked to believe she was in a better place, but if there was no God and no heaven, where was she?

“I don’t know,” he said lamely, his good mood evaporating like smoke in a strong wind. He brooded, keeping quiet until the shift mercifully came to an end.

* * *

Jack threw his kit on the kitchen floor and turned on the faucet. He held his breath and stuck his head under the tap, letting the cool water run over his face and trickle down his back.

After a few minutes he brought his head out from under the water and shook like a dog, sending water all over the kitchen and not caring.

God just keeps coming back into this,
he thought.
Caruso and her mom, my own mom and her constant preaching, Ben, and now heaven. God, heaven
 
—you can’t have one without the other.

He leaned against the sink and stared at the ceiling. “God, if you’re up there, why did you take her away?” He’d asked the question a million times before and knew there would be no answer.

He’d asked his mother the same question, and when she couldn’t answer it, he told her not to bother praying for him. But he knew she was on her knees every day praying he’d come to his senses.

Jack grabbed a towel from a pile of clean laundry in the dining room and rubbed his head dry. Memories of all the messages he’d heard through his life about the mystery of God’s will and the privilege of spending eternity in his presence popped into his consciousness.

“We see through a glass, darkly.”
The verse surprised him. He hadn’t picked up a Bible in a year, yet he knew the phrase came from the New Testament. He knew it went on to say that one day everything would be clear. One day believers would
know
without a shadow of a doubt, and one day they would be in the presence of God.

Where does my denial of God put Vicki?

Jack’s head hurt and he grabbed a bottle of aspirin. Shaking out three tablets, he swallowed them without water.

Too many questions, not enough answers. All I can do is take one step at a time.

When the phone rang, he ignored it, heading for the shower. The answering machine picked up as he stepped into the shower. He heard his mother’s voice imploring him to answer the phone.

“I’m not ready, Mom; I’m not,” he said to the pounding water. “Maybe I’m getting there, but I’m just not ready today.”

He closed the shower door to shut out the sound and ducked under a strong stream of cold water.