GAGE BUTLER'S RECKONING Page 3

  Laurey's eyes widened. "A pilot?"

  Caitlin nodded. "Gage has a friend who flies a private jet for one of the big electronics firms in town. When Dion mentioned he liked planes, Gage arranged for him to go for a flight. He was hooked from then on. Gage is helping him study."

  "How … nice," Laurey said, unable to avoid the edge in her voice, "that he's helping someone in school instead of arresting them out of it."

  Caitlin ignored her tone. She pointed over her shoulder to a photograph on the yellow wall of four children who ranged in age from perhaps sixteen to a babe in arms. "Those are the Barton kids. Their parents were killed in an accident barely a year ago. There didn't seem to be any relatives, and they were going to have to be split up, all going to separate foster homes, except the baby, who probably would have been adopted right away. Gage spent two weeks of twenty-hour days until he tracked down a second cousin of the mother. Then he spent another month convincing her that she wasn't really ready for an empty nest yet, even though her own son was off at college. She took them all. They're still a family, thanks to him."

  "You talkin' 'bout the Bartons?" Elena asked as she pulled off her apron.

  "Actually," Caitlin said, "about Gage."

  "Blondie? He's something, isn't he?"

  "I suppose he saved your life?" Laurey asked the girl she'd met a couple of hours ago, wondering when the nomination for Gage Butler's sainthood would be made.

  "Probably," Elena said solemnly, her eyes sad and old in her young face. "I was way down the road to nowhere, but Gage, he helped me. I was drinkin', smokin' dope, all that bad sh—" she broke off, glanced at Caitlin, and amended it to "—stuff. He helped me stop, and he brought me here to the Neutral Zone, and then Caitlin, she helped me, too. And my mama, she was real sick, but Gage got her into a good hospital, even helped pay for her medicine, and she's better now."

  Sainthood, Laurey thought dryly, might not be good enough for the paragon they were describing. But that paragon bore little resemblance to the Gage Butler who had torn apart her life eight years ago.

  "I'm glad your mother is better," Laurey said, sure anything else she would say would not be welcomed here in the middle of the Gage Butler fan club.

  "She's gonna get well," Elena said determinedly. "She's not gonna die."

  "I'm sure you're right," Laurey said.

  "I am," the girl avowed. "She's not old. She's only thirty-five—that's way too young to die."

  "Yes," Laurey said, her throat suddenly tight. "Yes, it is." She blinked rapidly as the girl put her apron away and bade Caitlin good-night, and promised to be right on time tomorrow for her afternoon shift before Caitlin closed up the club for her baby shower.

  "I can't pay much, but it's more than she'd get at the local hamburger stand, and she's safer here," Caitlin said after the girl had gone. "And her mother rests easier, knowing she's here instead of in that gang hangout. Want another float? I could finish off the last of the ice cream myself, except that I already feel like I weigh a ton, and…"

  Laurey didn't even hear the rest of Caitlin's prattle. She knew that was what it was; Caitlin never just chattered on like this. She was doing it to distract her, Laurey was sure. Too bad it wasn't working.

  She fought the tears that threatened. She'd been sure she was past this stage, when the moisture welled up at the slightest reminder. Apparently not.

  Then she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  "I miss her, too, honey," Caitlin said softly. "So very much."

  "It was just so stupid!" The words burst from her as if she hadn't wailed them a thousand times before.

  "And worse, because there's no one left to blame," Caitlin said.

  Laurey knew exactly what she meant; the carload of drunken, stoned kids that had plowed into Lisa's little compact had died just as she had, leaving no one for Laurey to vent her rage upon. No one to cry out to see punished, no one to rail at when the fury rose in her. She could hardly take it out on the families, not when she looked in their eyes and saw her grieving self looking back at her.

  "I'm sorry," she said, swiping at eyes that were about to overflow. "I thought I was over this."

  "You'll be over the instant tears someday," Caitlin reassured her, "and even the anger." Then she added sadly, looking over at the dark, far wall of the club, "But the pain never goes away, it just changes. To something you can live with."

  Laurey followed Caitlin's look, staring at the mass of photographs, knowing that among them were Caitlin's own cousins, dead from their own bomb back in Ireland. She knew that was the common element of all the young faces in those photos; all had died before they had really lived. Caitlin had started the yellow wall—the bright, cheerful wall of life and love and successes, of puppies, babies and graduations—as an antidote to the other, so that her kids could see that good things were possible, that it wasn't all death and misery. But it had a long way to go before it would match, in numbers or in impact, the dark, grim wall that held all those young faces that would never grow older.

  "Such a waste," Laurey murmured.

  "Exactly. And it's that kind of waste that Gage fights so hard against. And the brutality. He takes on the worst rape cases, the ones no one else has the stomach for, even though it tears him apart inside. He's the most dedicated cop I know, and that includes my husband."

  Caitlin's voice rang with conviction, and Laurey knew she meant every word. "If you say so," she said, "but if he's still using the same methods, I still don't think much of them."

  "It was his job, Laurey. But he didn't ask for it. The brass just took one look at that baby face of his, found out he hadn't gone to school around here so no one would know him, and grabbed him for it. They planned it from the minute he made it through the first phase of the academy with flying colors. He never had a choice."

  "He could have said, 'No, I don't want to trick kids into thinking I'm their friend and then bust them.'"

  Caitlin didn't advance the argument Laurey half expected, that if the kids hadn't been breaking the law in the first place, they wouldn't have been arrested. Instead, surprisingly, she agreed.

  "Yes, I suppose he could have, although it would no doubt have damaged his career. But instead he chose to try, to try and stop the drugs and guns before they got to the kids, before more of those kids wound up on that wall."

  Laurey looked away from the grim photographic chronicle, not wanting to see it, not wanting to think about all those young lives snuffed out.

  "I can name you at least a dozen kids who would be up there if not for Gage. And two dozen more who would be behind bars."

  Laurey sighed; Caitlin seemed determined to convert her. And she herself was equally determined not to be converted. Although she had to admit, the things Caitlin was saying were having an impact; Caitlin, she knew, had few illusions left and generally saw things as they were. If that included Gage Butler, if he was indeed everything Caitlin said he was, then perhaps he'd changed on the inside, if not the outside. Maybe he was no longer the lying, deceitful—

  You're repeating yourself…

  Gage's words, uttered as if that were his only concern, not the fact that she was calling him all sorts of nasty names, echoed in her head. Of course, maybe that was because he was used to being called such names.

  She felt Caitlin's gaze and looked up. Suddenly it was as if she were twelve again and had just said something silly. Lisa had always just rolled her eyes; it had been Caitlin who had gently pointed out the error in her assumption or logic. And her tone was the same now as it had been then.

  "The bad guys have weapons the police can't afford and wouldn't be allowed to use if they could. More, they have no compunction about using those weapons. And they don't have anyone, especially people who have never faced death, watching their every move, second-guessing them. You try looking down the barrel of a Mac-10 in the hands of a gangbanger high on crack, knowing that to him your uniform makes you a target, part of a rival gang all of them hate."


  "But—"

  "What is it you expect, Laurey? That the cops go out on the street armed with nothing but Boy Scout honor? That they always play fair and honest when nobody else does?"

  Irrationally, Laurey knew her instinctive cry would be yes. She bit it back; it seemed so foolish now. But Caitlin didn't relent.

  "Quisto once talked an armed, barricaded suspect with several hostages into giving up without a shot, and he had to lie in the process. Is that wrong, lying to a criminal who is threatening innocent people? Is it wrong when it saves a half-dozen lives?"

  Laurey lowered her gaze, feeling utterly confused now.

  "I know," Caitlin said sympathetically. "It would be a lovely world if everybody told the truth, if no one ever hurt anyone, if no one took the easy way out by stealing instead of earning. If everything came out right and fair." Caitlin looked at her wall of remembrance, at the photos of those who had learned the hard way. "But it's not that kind of world, is it?"

  Laurey couldn't argue with that. If the world was fair, Lisa would still be alive. And she felt a sudden burst of shame that she'd let an incident so long past matter so much. It seemed so petty, compared to the stark, unrelenting reality of the world. To the reality of her sister's death, at a time when she should have been living life to the fullest.

  Time to grow up, kiddo.

  Lisa's teasing words, which had once made her so mad, rang in her mind, and Laurey wished fervently that she were here to say them again. She'd been so tired of always being the little sister, always being the one behind, the one who could never be first at anything because her sister had always been there already.

  And now she would never be there again.

  Time to grow up, kiddo.

  She was almost twenty-seven years old, but she suddenly felt as if she had never grown up. She'd gotten her childish wish: she was no longer the little sister. But she'd never dreamed Fate would grant her that wish by making her not a sister at all.

  Be careful what you're dreaming, 'cause it someday may come true…

  The words to an old, loved song came back to her with a pang; the songwriter had been even wiser than she knew.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Gage nearly laughed at himself when he realized he was skulking down the hallway long after hours, as worried about running into Kit as he was about running into Robards. The latter was a fear common to all the Trinity West detectives, although for him it was for a different reason than the others. But Kit was usually greeted with boisterous welcome; she'd made her way in a tough job that was mostly a male domain with grace and style and humor, and she'd gradually won over anyone who worked with or for her for any length of time.

  The only reason he wouldn't be glad to see her as well was that she'd ordered him out of here until Friday. Well, not in so many words, but that had been the implication, and he knew pleading that she hadn't actually said it wouldn't get him very far if she found him here long after he was supposed to have gone.

  He wondered, as he sat down at the single, sadly outdated computer terminal that graced the now-deserted detective division office, if the fact that the reason he was here had nothing to do with the Martin case would cut any ice with her. That he himself wasn't sure what it did have to do with was something he hadn't quite dealt with yet.

  He tapped in the records system access code, then his personal password. The inquiry form popped up, and he quickly filled in what blanks he could. He hit the Enter key and settled back in his chair for the wait; the antiquated machine took its own sweet time as it sent the command to search through the files held on the overtaxed system. Places like Marina del Mar had computer terminals on every detective's desk, but it would be a long time before such modernity reached Trinity West. Chief de los Reyes was a miracle worker when it came to wringing things out of a strapped budget—he ought to be mayor, Gage thought, except they couldn't afford to lose him—but even he could only do so much.

  He listened as he waited; he didn't really expect Kit to be here, but he wouldn't put it past Robards to show up. Everybody knew he came in at odd hours in an effort to catch somebody at something, or to search desks for anything he could use against his subordinates. Someday, Gage thought, the bastard was going to go too far. He was going to give the chief enough rope to hang him with, and Gage could only hope he was around when that day came. He would truly like to see Miguel de los Reyes take the pompous, arrogant Robards down. He wouldn't mind doing it himself, of course, but he was sure de los Reyes would reserve the pleasure for himself; Robards had made it too clear too often how he felt about taking orders from a man of de los Reyes's heritage.

  A faint beep brought his attention back to the computer screen. When he saw the response, Gage thought he'd made a mistake, the entry was so short. But when he sat up to read it, he saw why.

  It was her, he was sure of that. It gave her name, her date of birth—she would be twenty-seven in three months, he noted—and her address at the time of the contact. Below those unhelpful details, most of which he'd already known, were the words "Juvenile Record Sealed."

  He stared at the glowing amber letters that spelled out Templeton, Laurey Lee and wondered what he'd expected to find out. Even had the record not been sealed, it would have told him little more, unless she'd gotten into trouble again, which he doubted. Besides, his memory had been stirring rather actively since the encounter at the Neutral Zone, and just looking at her name glowing on the screen completed the job.

  He must have been better than he'd expected to be at quashing the less pleasant memories of that time. Much better, he thought, for him not to have recognized her immediately. He'd certainly wondered about her often enough, even after he'd finished the assignment. So often he'd finally made the decision to try to forcibly stop the memory of the tall, gangly, earnest girl with the huge gray eyes that made him think of the sky when a storm had begun to ebb and the sun was trying to break through again.

  Except, judging by her reaction last night, this storm wasn't going to pass. Apparently what had happened back then had made a tremendous impression on her. He tried to console himself with the thought that because of it, she had probably never even been close to being in trouble again, and that was, after all, the point, wasn't it? So why did it bother him that she was so angry still?

  Probably, he told himself as he flipped off the computer and stood up, because anybody who can hold a grudge for that long makes you nervous.

  It was a valid answer, and comforting. Far more comforting than admitting that Laurey Templeton had had such an impact on him. Far more comforting than admitting she had made his job back then harder than it already was, simply by her presence. He'd known she was flirting with him, or trying to; her innocent attempts were somehow infinitely more appealing than the more practiced efforts of others, although there'd been no shortage of that. That there was no question of him pursuing her attempts somehow didn't make them any easier to ignore.

  He'd begun to have trouble focusing on the task at hand when she was around. He'd tried to ignore her, telling himself there was nothing the least bit attractive in her long, gangly frame or her innocent naiveté—obvious to him at the ripe old age or twenty-one—but had instead found himself thinking that when Laurey Templeton finally bloomed, she was going to be something to behold.

  He'd been right.

  He leaned back in his chair. She had more than fulfilled the promise he'd seen in her back then. She was no longer coltish and gangly, she was a tall, slender, graceful woman who moved in that undeniably feminine way that drew male eyes from every direction. She'd indeed grown up.

  Well, he amended silently, on the outside, anyway. He wasn't sure she'd matched it on the inside, if she was still carrying such a grudge. What had happened to her hadn't quite been worth that kind of long-term rancor. Idly, he wondered if, thanks to the job he hadn't really wanted, she now hated all cops, or if she reserved her resentment for him.

&nb
sp; Not that it mattered, he told himself. What mattered was him getting out of here before somebody found him and reported back to Kit that he'd been here. He didn't want her mad at him. She had a long fuse; he'd only seen her blow up once or twice, but when she did, it was something to see.

  He headed out to his coupe, not remembering until he was almost there that he'd probably been safe from Kit discovering him all along; tonight was Caitlin's baby shower, and she was to help Lacey Buckhart, who was even more pregnant, and Kelsey Gregerson do … whatever it was women did to prepare for such things, he thought, a vague image of birthday decorations in soft baby colors forming in his mind.

  He felt an odd pang. What women did was something that had long been absent from his life. Ever since Trish had made it clear she was through playing second fiddle to his job, or what she called his obsession, and walked out, his social life had been so close to nonexistent that the difference hardly mattered. For the first couple of years he'd been able to write his isolation off as the normal reaction to the end of his marriage. But after that, the habit had become so ingrained that he hadn't quite been able to break it. And wasn't sure he wanted to.

  It wasn't just that his job consumed him, although he admitted it was the primary focus of his life; it was also that the effort it took to begin and maintain a relationship seemed too much. Even when he'd thought about it, with Kit or with Caitlin, it had been more in the nature of thinking he should than that he truly wanted to.

  And even that, he thought wryly, was mostly due to the continual chiding of male friends who worried about his neglected libido and were always urging him to accept the offers so regularly thrown at him. He'd thought about doing just that now and then, but he knew it was solely his looks, those damned, pretty boy looks, that attracted most women, and once they found out what trying to have a relationship with a cop was really like—especially, he admitted ruefully, a cop like him—they quickly went looking elsewhere. And after a while he'd grown weary of the seemingly inevitable circle and quietly withdrawn from the fray. He'd found that he didn't miss it, not really, found that the longer he went without, the easier the urges were to ignore. It was a lonely life, he supposed, looked at from outside, but it worked for him.