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“That’s a script for a painkiller,” the doctor said. Retrieving another one from his other pocket, he held it out, too. “And this is for some sleeping pills. You might have some trouble the next few days—”
Still woozy from the shot he’d given her to stitch her face, Risa shook her head…a little too hard. She gripped the table. “I don’t need it.”
“You’ve just been through a very traumatic situation. Are you sure?”
She stood up and the room spun. “I’m very sure,” she answered. “I don’t take stuff like that.”
His wavering image split into three men in three white coats. Each of them nodded. “All right,” he said with a sigh. The sound said he’d dealt with cops before. They were all macho—the men and the women.
Risa nodded—a big mistake—then she walked out of the cubicle, her friends on either side supporting her in more ways than one.
THE WAITING ROOM WAS a blue sea and it would remain so until Luke’s body was released. That’s the way it had always been done when an officer got shot and Risa expected the tradition would never change. She entered, then stutter-stepped slightly, Abby clutching her right elbow, Lucy still holding her left. Their grips were firm but discreet. Any sign of weakness from a female cop, even one who’d just been shot, set them all back.
“Hang tough,” Crista murmured from behind her. “We’ll talk to the widow then get you out, okay?”
Risa nodded, the word widow throwing her for a second.
The women waded en masse through the uniforms, eyes watching from every corner of the room. In truth, the majority of the men they worked alongside were okay, but the few who weren’t pleasant were a vocal minority. Risa heard someone mutter, “…better partner this wouldn’t have happened…” then she found herself staring at David Kinner. A fellow S.C.D. officer, Kinner was rude, repulsive and tried his best to make every woman on the force feel unwanted. Risa read his lips as he leaned toward the cop on his right and spoke.
“Five butts, one brain…”
They’d almost come to blows the first time he’d uttered the insult. She and her friends, still in the Academy, had been passing his table in the cafeteria when he’d said the words just loud enough for them to hear. Risa had immediately questioned his manhood and his alleged affinity for farm animals, but her comeback hadn’t been enough to quiet him. He was persistent as well as stupid.
She ignored Kinner’s remark and stepped before the thin, pale woman who’d been married to Luke.
Melinda Rowling was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties at the most, but grief had done its job and at the moment she could have easily passed for forty. Her expression blank, her eyes red and swollen, she brushed a hank of blond hair off her forehead then dropped her hands to her lap, raising her gaze to Risa’s at the same time.
They’d talked only briefly at Christmas parties and the like. Not sure Luke’s wife would recognize her, Risa went to her knees and put her hands over Melinda’s. Too late, she remembered the dried blood that still painted her fingers. Melinda didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m so sorry,” Risa said, her voice cracking despite herself. “I tried to stop them, Melinda, I swear. I—I just wasn’t fast enough.”
She blinked at Risa with eyes as pale as her hair. “I’m sure you did all that could be done.” Her words were spoken as if by rote, dully and in a chopped-up fashion.
Risa didn’t quite know what she’d expected from Melinda, but this wasn’t it. Grief, for sure, anger, perhaps? She pondered the question for a second then suddenly realized the obvious: Melinda was doped to her eyeballs, which was probably a good idea, Risa decided.
“I’m sorry,” Risa repeated. “If there’s anything I can do…”
As Melinda nodded, Risa began to rise but she was pulled back abruptly, Melinda gripping her stained fingers to hold her still. “Did he say anything?” she whispered.
Risa looked into her tortured eyes and made an instant decision, lying without hesitation. “He said he loved you and Jason.”
A momentary confusion flickered over Melinda Rowling’s face, then it was gone.
Without another word, she released Risa’s hands. Her emotions in chaos, her cheek now throbbing, Risa stood unsteadily then turned to leave. The uniformed men parted silently as the five women walked through them. After they passed, the path behind them closed once more and the vigil resumed.
THE WOMEN WALKED Risa to the hospital’s lobby, arguing over who would spend the night with her. She let them yak until they reached the elevator for the parking garage.
“No one’s staying with me,” she said firmly. “I need a ride home and then I’ll be fine.”
Abby looked at her with worried eyes. “You can’t be by yourself tonight, Risa. You’re been through too much to be alone.”
Mei Lu concurred. “You need company.”
“I’ll be fine,” Risa repeated, “and besides, I want to be alone. I need to think about everything that happened.”
“But that’s the problem,” Crista replied. “You’ll think too much and get even more upset.” She stepped to Risa’s side and put her arm around her shoulder, squeezing her gently.
As usual, Lucy was the lone dissenter. “Come on, you guys, Risa knows what she’s talking about. Let’s let her work this out like she wants to. I think that’s for the best.”
The others looked uncertain but, one by one, agreed, albeit reluctantly. Exchanging a final hug, they went their separate ways, Crista the one elected to drive Risa home. They headed down an almost deserted Main Street, winding through Rice University until they came out at the freeway again.
Crista glanced in her rearview mirror then over at Risa. “You did the right thing tonight, so I hope you don’t start second-guessing what happened.”
“I won’t,” Risa said woodenly.
“Yes, you will,” Crista replied. “You already are. I heard what you said to Melinda.”
“I didn’t know what else to say.” Risa stared blindly out the window at the passing buildings. “I had to say something.”
“So you’re okay with how it went down?”
“I’m okay with it.”
The rest of the twenty-minute drive was silent until they pulled into the driveway of the modest town house Risa had bought the year before. She said, “Thank you,” and started to climb out, but Crista’s voice stopped her.
“You better prepare yourself, Risa. This could get rough, you know. I’ve seen the system chew up and spit out a lot of folks, and sometimes the truth gets lost in the process, especially when the IA guys get involved.”
“I know there’ll be a dog-and-pony show, but I’ll get through it. I’m a cop’s daughter—remember?”
As the words left her mouth, Risa winced. God, her father… He was sure to know what had happened by now. He was even more connected since he’d retired than he had been in the past; he heard the department’s latest gossip before Risa.
“All I’m saying is you have to look out for yourself, okay? No one else is going to do it for you.”
Risa stepped out of the car then glanced back through the open window. “I’ll be all right.”
Crista nodded then Risa turned and went up the sidewalk, the Jeep’s lights shining on her as she unlocked the door. Inside the sanctuary of her home, she closed her eyes and lay her head against the front door, a weariness sweeping over her that quickly found a path all the way down to her bones. Her eyes were dry, though. She wouldn’t cry, because she couldn’t. She’d been just a child when her last tear had been shed and she could still remember her father’s mocking voice as it had slid down her cheek. “Buck up, Risa! Taylors never cry.”
“Taylors never cry,” she repeated softly in the dark. As if waiting for an answer, she paused, but there wasn’t one, so she straightened and walked into the kitchen, going directly to the refrigerator. She wasn’t a big drinker, but she kept some beer on hand for her friends. Pulling a Tecate out, she popped the can open and was lifting it to her mouth when the phone on the wall rang shrilly.
“Ed Taylor, Senior” flashed across the caller ID screen, and her hand hesitated over the receiver. Two more rings sounded before she picked it up.
She said hello and her father answered her, his gruff greeting followed by a heavy, accusatory silence. She hated the games he played and usually she fought them, but tonight Risa didn’t have the strength. Something about life-and-death situations took it right out of you, she guessed.
“You heard the news,” she said into the void. “Thanks for calling to check on me.”
Her voice held a tinge of sarcasm, but like always, her father ignored it. “Bobby told me what happened.”
Bobby was his former partner, and he was as attached to his police scanner as he was the oxygen tank he had to drag everywhere, years of cigarettes catching up with him. Risa had been surprised her father hadn’t come down with cancer himself, just from sharing a cop car with the guy all that time.
“Well, Bobby’s always got the goods.” She could hear her father’s television in the background. It stayed on 24/7. “I guess you know everything, then.”
“I know you’re alive and your partner isn’t.” He stopped there, his unspoken censure obvious.
Your brothers wouldn’t have gotten themselves into this kind of situation. I always knew something like this was going to happen. You’re supposed to back up your partner, not get him shot. What the hell have you done now, Risa?
She had never measured up. And she never would.
Swallowing her defensiveness, she gave him the details, leaving out Luke’s inebriation. Her father would be the last one to let it slip, but if the truth got out, Risa feared Luke’s family might be in danger of losing all they had left now—his pension. Should the medical examiner run a drug-and-alcohol scan, which he probably wouldn’t without cause, then the chips could fall where they did, but Risa wasn’t going to bring the subject up.
“I’ve got it under control,” she concluded tightly. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I don’t have anything to worry about regardless,” he answered. “This is your bag, Risa. You gotta carry it by yourself.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to do anything to make the family look bad.” Her father had left the force with all the right medals pinned to his chest, and her brothers were equally well regarded. The four of them were known as cop’s cops. Risa lightened her tone. “Gotta keep the Taylor rep, you know.”
He spoke without hesitating, his criticism slicing her heart in two. “I think it’s too damn late to worry about that now.”
CHAPTER THREE
NOON HAD COME and gone when Grady Wilson wheeled his two-year-old Porsche Boxster into the police headquarters parking garage and made his way up the ramps to his assigned spot. The car was his only extravagance, but he frequently left it at home for weeks at a time, driving an old Volvo to work instead. Sometimes it wasn’t worth putting up with the gibes he got whenever one of the guys saw him in the Porsche. This morning he’d decided he didn’t really give a big rat’s ass.
Picking up the Taylor/Rowling file from the seat next to him, Grady rubbed his eyes and sat for a second. He’d stayed up all night, reading the records he’d downloaded after coming home, and he felt like hell. When this case was over, he should head somewhere down in the islands, like Jamaica. He needed a break. Maybe he needed a permanent break.
Locking the car, he reached the elevator and punched the recall button, thinking of Trudie, his ex. Seven years ago she’d walked into his office late one night and said he was married to the job so he didn’t need her, and she’d left. She hadn’t given him a chance to defend himself, but that hadn’t really mattered, because she’d been right.
And nothing had changed since then. Grady still didn’t have a life outside of work. He was forty, but he felt like a hundred. He couldn’t remember when he’d had his last date, and he was daydreaming more and more, his mind wandering when it should have been concentrating. Sometimes he imagined himself as one of the monkeys he’d studied while getting his Ph.D. They’d literally worked themselves to death for the food pellets he and his first-year psych students would give them.
Grady continued to labor as hard as the animals had, but the satisfaction that had once made the sacrifices worthwhile was nothing but a memory now. He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but that had definitely become the case.
After getting a cup of coffee, he went to his office and dropped the file on his desk. He was on the twentieth floor and the view was incredible, but he didn’t glance at it as the file on his desk fell open to Taylor’s photo. He sipped his coffee and stared at the picture instead.
When he’d gotten to the hospital last night, Risa Taylor had already left, but if she matched the photo in front of him, she was a knockout, no doubt about it. Dark hair, even darker eyes. A body that looked fit and trim. Expanding on his former fantasy—and it was a fantasy because he knew he’d never take that vacation—he mentally gave her a bikini and put her on his Jamaican beach. He was slipping his arm around her bare shoulder when Richards knocked on the door and startled him. Grady cursed loudly as hot coffee splashed over the photo then dripped onto his newest Cole Haans.
“Whoa, man, settle down!” His boss looked at him with disgust. “What’s wrong with you?”
Grady rolled his eyes and grabbed a tissue from the box sitting on the corner of the desk, propping his foot up on the edge to dab at his shoes. “Did you need something?”
“I want to know where you are with the Taylor thing. Any thoughts yet?”
He looked up. “For God’s sake, Stan, they haven’t even had time to mop up the blood. Gimme a break—”
“Okay, okay,” the other man said. “I’m just checking, that’s all. Don’t get your panties in a wad. I’m asking for the mayor.”
God, first the chief, now the mayor. Who was next? The governor?
Grady continued to brush at his shoes. “You can tell the mayor I’ll let you know what I know after I talk to Taylor and find out what she knows.”
Richards knew better than to press Grady—he had his own way of doing things and had never played by the book—but Richards didn’t expect a real answer anyway. All he wanted was the ability to report back to his superiors that he had asked. He fled as Grady took another swipe at his loafers then tossed the tissue, wondering again about the role of the higher-ups in the situation. Maybe Stan hadn’t been lying about Chief Tanner. Knowing there was only one way to find out for sure, Grady picked up the sopping file and headed for Risa Taylor’s office.
After several false starts—navigation was not his strong suit—Grady found the Sex Crimes offices. An older woman with neatly braided hair looked up as he entered their area. Her name tag read, “Debra Figer,” and she’d been crying—her eyes were rimmed with red and glistening.
Grady introduced himself, but left out his department. “I’m here to see Risa Taylor—”
“She didn’t come in today.” The woman pursed her lips. Grady didn’t recognize her but she seemed to know who he was. “She was wounded last night and the boss told her to stay home.”
Grady nodded with a pleasant expression and started back down the hall. As he turned the corner, he heard Figer pick up her phone and punch out a number.
Before he could return to his office, Risa Taylor would know he was looking for her. He pulled his car keys from his pocket and walked quickly down the corridor.
GINGERLY TOUCHING the bandage on her cheek, Risa stared into her bathroom mirror then reached for the vial of pain pills on the counter. She regretted not taking the sleeping pills the doc had offered, but she didn’t handle that kind of stuff too well. Her cheek felt as if it’d been branded, though, and she had to do something. Shaking out one of the capsules, she broke it in two, then paused, her mind wandering.
When he’d gotten to the scene last night, Luis Trevino, her boss, had ordered her to stay home today. She’d ignored his words and had been getting ready when he’d called her earlier that morning.
“Take off the suit and forget about it,” he’d said when she’d answered the phone.
“How did you know I was—”
“I meant what I said last night, Risa. I want you to stay home today and take it easy. We aren’t doing anything productive anyway. Everyone’s pretty rattled.”
“What’s the word on the second shooter?”
“He’s hanging on, but barely. The docs still won’t let us talk to him so we’ve printed him and we’re working on an ID.”
“I could come in and help, look at the books or something.”
“No. You stay home. That’s it. No arguing.”
She’d gone back to bed and hadn’t woken up until the phone had rung again a half hour ago. This time, Debra had been on the other end and she’d explained about the man who’d been looking for Risa. The secretary seemed to know everyone on the force and she’d been positive the man was IA, but Risa had doubts. Things generally moved slowly at HPD, but the Internal Affairs department was notorious for its glacierlike progress. When Risa looked down at the half pill in her hand, though, she decided to wait. Opening her fingers, she let both pieces of the capsule drop into the sink then she turned on the water to wash them away. If by chance, Debra was right, Risa wanted all her wits about her.
Pushing away from the counter, she shuffled downstairs with the vague intention of eating something. She hadn’t had anything since lunch the day before, but the thought of food made her stomach churn. She decided on coffee instead. Heating a cup in the microwave from the pot she’d made earlier, she stared out the kitchen window to the small alcove that was her yard.
Last night had been the worst night of her life. She’d tried to sleep, but all she’d done was replay the shooting over and over and over. The few times she’d managed to drift off, she’d jerked herself awake, dodging bullets. If she’d thought she’d have gotten any help, she would have called her dad, but even as desperate as she had been, she’d known better. He’d never thought she’d make it on the force.
And maybe he’d been right, she thought as the microwave dinged and she pulled out her mug. What kind of officer let her partner get shot, point-blank?
The doorbell sounded and Risa jumped, splashing hot coffee down the blue warm-up she’d put on after changing from her suit and going back to bed. Not nearly enough time had passed for Debra’s IA man to be here, so the damn reporters had to have returned. Risa cursed and brushed at the stain with a cup towel, then she gave up and tossed it to the countertop, the bell pealing again, this time with more insistence. She’d already told two of them she had nothing to say. Storming into the entry, she jerked the door open with harsh words on her lips.
“Look, I already told you people I wasn’t saying anything.”
A man stood on the front porch. She didn’t know who he was, but he was not a reporter or a cop. His suit was too expensive and there were no cameras behind him or vans in the driveway. There was a Porsche, however. Her eyes came back to his. They were the color of cold ashes and she shivered without thinking.
“Risa Taylor?” His voice was deep and smooth, a direct contrast to the chill in his stare.
“I’m Grady Wilson.” He held out his hand and she shook it. “A lieutenant with HPD Internal Affairs.”
Risa’s stomach tightened, and she sucked in her breath. So much for her policewoman’s judgment. Score one for Debra.
“May I come in?” he asked.
