Badge of Honor Page 8

  "Lovely color, honey," Roxy said, patting her uninjured arm. "Now let me get you those antibiotics and you can let that gorgeous man take you home. And if you can get him to put you to bed, more power to you."

  "Roxy!"

  Roxy only laughed.

  * * *

  He hated hospitals.

  Of course, he didn't know anyone who particularly liked them, but he had a special aversion and particularly to this one. And it wasn't solely because of Anna. She'd spent more than her share of time here, but she had died at home in her own bed, the last gift he'd been able to give her. And it wasn't solely because of the time he'd spent here after the shooting that had killed Chief Lipton and nearly killed him.

  No, it was because too much Trinity West history was in this place. Too many times that thin blue line had ruptured, and this was the result. A trip to the emergency room for an injured or dying cop.

  It had always bothered him, but it had become especially difficult since he had become chief. He felt responsible. He felt an empathetic pain. He worried, felt a need to be involved beyond the inherent obligation to be sure the family was all right.

  But when the call had come about Kit, all he'd felt was a sudden jolt of fear.

  He barely remembered the call, hadn't been able to believe the reassurances that it was a minor cut. He'd had to see for himself. He'd had all the sick feelings, felt the fear, the worry, chanted the too familiar mantra—"Let it be all right"—everything he always did when somebody from Trinity West was hurt.

  But this time it had all been overlaid by a sense of panic he hadn't felt in a very long time. Panic that had had him driving to the hospital even faster than he usually would after one of those calls.

  And it hadn't gone away until she'd looked at him and asked what he was doing there. Only then had he realized she really was all right.

  "What am I doing here, she asks," he muttered as he paced the waiting room. He was always here when one of his own got hurt. However, he had to admit he wasn't usually in such a state over what was apparently a minor injury.

  Before he could dwell on what that might mean, he heard Roxanne Cutler's voice and turned. The doctor had returned to the emergency room, but Kit was walking out, holding her left arm horizontally at her waist Concern made him wince. He could imagine how it would be throbbing until it settled down, and how letting it fall naturally at her side would women the pain.

  But she seemed well enough, was walking steadily enough, and he took heart from that.

  "At least you didn't have to have stitches," he said as he walked toward her.

  She looked up as if startled. "You're still here?"

  He frowned. "Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

  "Because it's really nothing. I almost didn't come in at all, but I was close by and—"

  "Roxanne said it was a nasty cut. That's nothing to mess with, it could get infected."

  Kit's mouth quirked. "The knife was clean. I think the guy polished it daily."

  He froze. "Knife?"

  Kit blinked. "Oops. Didn't Roxy tell you? I figured that was why she called you."

  "I've told her to call me anytime anyone from Trinity West came in with an injury, no matter the cause. If one of my people is in the hospital, I want to know about it."

  "I'm not in the hospital," Kit said. "I could have gone to a walk-in clinic or done it myself, but like I said—"

  "You were close by. Now, you want to tell me about this knife? And who cut you with it? Is he in custody? Did you—"

  She held up her right hand as if to stave off the flood of questions. That, he thought ruefully, wasn't like him, either. He wasn't reacting with his usual calm. Especially since it was clear Kit was going to be fine. She hadn't needed stitches, he reminded himself.

  "It's a long story," she said.

  "I have time."

  She looked at him. "It's Saturday. Sure you don't want to wait until Monday?"

  She seemed oddly reluctant, and he wondered why. "I don't have a thing to do except hear how this happened."

  She lowered her gaze and began rummaging in her small purse. She was muttering about keys, but Miguel had the feeling that was only an excuse. Something was bothering her. He knew that intense air. He'd seen it before, when she was deep into a case or when she was particularly outraged by some victim's plight or a miscarriage of justice. He'd worried about it before. That kind of intensity could easily lead to burnout, and he didn't want to see Kit Walker burn out.

  And he didn't like seeing her hurting. At all.

  "Maybe you shouldn't drive," he said when she pulled out a ring with a couple of keys on it and turned toward the door.

  "It's just a cut," she insisted. "I'm fine."

  "But you should go home and rest. I'll drive you."

  Her gaze shot to his face. "I'm fine," she repeated with emphasis. "I don't need to be babied." Then, as if she realized what she sounded like, she added, "Sir."

  For some reason, that put his teeth on edge. "Will you drop the sir, please? Let me drive you, and you can save time and tell me what happened on the way."

  "But my car is here."

  "I'll have somebody pick it up and bring it to your place."

  "That's not necessary."

  "I think it is. Do you need a key off of there for your house?"

  "No, I keep them separate. But—"

  He held up a hand to stop her protests. "Don't make me pull rank, Sergeant."

  She looked at him, her expression as intense as before, but somehow enigmatic. "Is that what you're doing?"

  There was a moment of silence before he let out a long, compressed breath. "No." His mouth twisted. "Guess I can't have it both ways, can I? Tell you to drop the sir and then pull rank on you?"

  She lowered her gaze, but her mouth curved slightly as he acknowledged the contradiction. That mouth…

  He slammed the door on that thought. "Look," he said, "can you forget the rank for a while and just let a friend feel like he's doing something useful and taking you home?"

  "All right."

  He hadn't expected the capitulation, and his gaze narrowed. Was she feeling worse than she was letting on, not up to a fight over this?

  He nearly laughed at himself. He'd gotten what he wanted, and he still wasn't happy. He took the keys from her, slipped them in his pocket, took her uninjured arm and led her toward his car.

  As he drove, Kit leaned her head on the headrest and closed her eyes. Despite his suggestion that they save time by her telling him the story on the way, Miguel hesitated to say anything, not wanting to disturb her if she was truly resting. He knew that no matter how minor the injury, there was a certain amount of shock involved, and if she'd received it in some kind of altercation, there was the post-adrenaline crash to consider.

  He slowed as he made the turn onto Marina Avenue

  . He hadn't been here since Anna had died, since the last time he'd dropped Kit off after she'd gone rushing home with him when Anna had had a particularly bad day. But the small house she'd bought a couple of years after Bobby Allen had been killed looked the same—neat, with a colorful garden in front behind a low fence and a graceful twisted juniper casting welcome shade across the grass. The lawn was a bit long, and he supposed she'd had little time to deal with such things since Gage had left early this year. He had to get her some help, before she ran herself into the ground.

  He stopped the car gently in her driveway, not wanting to jar her.

  "Kit?"

  "Hmm?"

  She did sound drowsy. Her lashes lifted halfway, and she turned to look at him, giving a warm, sleepy-eyed smile that rattled him even more than that husky note in her voice.

  "We're here," he said, aware his voice was a bit tight but unable to help it.

  "Oh." She blinked and sat up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go to sleep."

  "Don't worry about it. Let's just get you inside. Have you eaten anything today?"

  "I had breakfast."

>   He grimaced. "It's three in the afternoon. Did lunch ever occur to you?"

  "I was busy."

  "Apparently." He eyed her bandaged arm. He knew she was fit and strong, he'd seen her in action, but somehow the wrist beneath that bandage seemed delicate, almost fragile. And it amazed him once again that she was able to do her job so well, even though he had always been a firm believer in using wit before brawn. To him, muscle was the last resort, not the first.

  "I suppose you want the story now," she said with a sigh.

  "If you're up to it."

  "Come on in."

  He hesitated, questioning the wisdom of this. But he knew he needed to know what had happened, told himself he was here in an official capacity, and followed her into the house.

  It was much as he'd remembered, warm, homey, cozy instead of cramped despite the small size. The furnishings were simple and uncluttered, like Kit. The wall of bookshelves told him she still loved to read, and he knew if he checked the titles he'd find a little of everything. A wall of framed photographs, landscapes mostly, interspersed with the occasional whimsical juxtaposition of unlikely subjects, like the lovely butterfly hovering over a rusty can, reminded him of another interest of hers. He wondered if she had time to get out her camera these days.

  "Got any food in the house?" he said as she set her purse and keys on the round oak dining table.

  She glanced at him, seeming a little startled. "There's some leftover chili, I think, or I can put something together, if you're hungry."

  "I meant for you," he said dryly.

  "Oh." A faint wash of color tinged her cheeks. Funny, he hadn't noticed her blushing so often in years.

  He hustled her into the kitchen, which was also as he remembered, bright and cheerful in blue and white, compact but efficient. The door to the back yard was next to a tiled breakfast bar that divided the room from the small dining nook. The bright blue and white scheme was continued in the tile of the bar, the counters and the wall behind the sink. It suited her, he thought.

  She went to the refrigerator and opened it. He saw the detective division days-off schedule held on the door with a magnet in the improbable shape of a trout.

  "There's more than enough for two here," she said. "Do you want some?"

  "Is it your chili?" he asked.

  "Yes. I made a huge pot last week. Should be about ripe by now."

  "Then yes," he said. "You always did make the best chili I ever tasted."

  "Thank you," she said, looking pleased.

  "Can I help?"

  She shook her head. "I'm feeling better," she said, giving him a sideways look, "after my nap."

  He smiled at her. For a moment she seemed to stare at him, then turned to dump the spicy brown concoction into a pan to be heated. He remembered her telling him that she never microwaved it, swearing it changed the flavor. He'd eaten her chili more than once, in those dark days before Anna had finally lost her valiant battle.

  "I don't know if I ever thanked you properly." It was out before he'd realized he was going to say it.

  Kit looked over her shoulder at him. "For what?"

  "All that you did. When Anna was sick."

  Kit went still. "You don't have to thank me for that."

  "But I do. All the times you came over—" he gestured toward the pan on the stove "—with food or with some little thing to distract her from the pain or just to sit with her…"

  His voice trailed away. He couldn't go on, couldn't tell her how moved he'd been by the way she'd always seemed to worry as much about him as Anna, making sure he took a break from the constant care giving for at least as long as she was there.

  "She was my friend," Kit said simply. "And so were you."

  And what am I now? The thought formed before he could stop it. He turned to what had, ironically and amazingly, become a safer topic.

  "She thought the world of you. She always said so."

  "I … thank you. I'm glad."

  He swallowed tightly, feeling the lump in his throat that would make the next words hard to get out, but he knew they should be said. And finally, he managed it.

  "I'll never forget that day, the year after she died, when you came to me. You'll never know how much that meant to me."

  She'd shown up at his door on the first anniversary of Anna's death, laden with photos she'd taken over the years. He hadn't wanted to look, hadn't wanted to see his wife's smiling face. But Kit had made him look, and with each photograph she'd had a story to tell him, a funny story that reminded him what a happy, cheerful person Anna had been, words that had been unexpected balm to the still-gaping wound of her death.

  He knew his healing had begun that day and that even though it had been a long, agonizing process that was probably still going on, if it had not been for Kit and her gentle determination that he remember the good as well as the bad he never would have made the turn at all.

  There was still a huge hole in his life, and he knew he'd fallen into the habit of living with it, living around it, but if not for Kit, he wasn't sure he wouldn't have fallen straight into it. He certainly wouldn't have been in any shape to take over Trinity West.

  "It just seemed like the right thing to do," Kit said. "You needed to remember that it hadn't all been pain and loss, that you'd had so many good years. I know it was presumptuous—"

  "It wasn't presumptuous. It was the act of a good and perceptive friend. You saved my life, Kit. I don't think I would have made it if you hadn't done that when you did."

  She stared at him and swallowed hard. "I'm glad," she said in a small voice, and quickly turned away as if overcome with emotion.

  He knew the feeling. It was difficult to speak of that time, although the pain was much less immediate now, more of a distant pang. And thanks to Kit's intervention, he'd managed to learn the knack of replacing the sad memories with happier ones until he'd achieved some kind of balance.

  It wasn't until the steaming bowls of chili, topped with fresh onions and melting cheese, were in front of them that he brought up the reason he was supposedly here.

  "You want to tell me the story now?" He gestured at the chili. "You can take your time. Between bites is fine."

  With a sigh, she gave in. He ate and listened as she ate and told him of her meeting with Martin Rivas, of her visit to the scene where Jaime Rivas had died and how she had decided to ask around a bit as long as she was there. And how that had eventually led to the encounter with Mako.

  Looking wary, as if she expected a reprisal, she told him of the bargain she'd struck with the young gang member. He shook his head.

  "Sometimes you have to let a smaller thing go by to get what you need on a bigger thing," he said. "Go on."

  She took a deep breath, dropped her spoon in the empty bowl and took a drink of the ice water she'd poured for them both. He said nothing, just waited. Finally she went on.

  "Mako said he'd been in the neighborhood that night, around midnight. He'd seen Jaime."

  "He didn't see the beating?"

  "No. He just saw Jaime walking toward home."

  "He knew him?"

  She nodded. "Knew him because they'd been in school together, before Mako dropped out. He seemed to respect him for being smart."

  He nodded. "Then what?"

  "He said he saw somebody else in the neighborhood at the same time, too, only a block away and headed in the same direction. Said it was a guy all the kids knew to beware of back then. Made everybody on the street call him Boss, and if you didn't, he'd mess you up."

  "Is this guy still around?"

  "As far as Mako knows, he's still around. But it seems he sticks to the younger ones, the ones he can scare. Mako got too old or too big for him, apparently, and he quit hassling him. Same with his buddies."

  "Big man," Miguel muttered. "He got a name?"

  "Mako didn't know a name. Just knew him as Boss, like all the other kids the guy intimidated. They didn't ask questions. It only made him mad and he'd come after them.
"

  She didn't go on, and he wondered why. Was he going to have to ask the obvious? This Mako obviously had to know what this guy looked like. And Miguel knew Kit well enough to know she wouldn't have let the kid go before getting a description. So why didn't she just get on with it?

  Only one answer came to him, and he didn't much like it. But he knew he had to know, had to ask.

  "Was Mrs. Rivas right?"

  Kit looked at him across her table. She didn't speak, but the answer was clear to him in the tension of her body, the shadow in her normally clear hazel eyes. She looked like a person caught in a trap' unable to free herself yet unable to resign herself to what had happened. He knew why she was hesitating. She was afraid if she told him and it came to nothing, if she was wrong, she could kiss her career goodbye.

  "This is just between us, Kit. And you know if I say that, I mean it. This guy he saw that all the kids were afraid of it was a cop, wasn't it? And you know who he described."

  After a long, silent moment she nodded. And when he pressed, she rattled off the description as if it had been tumbling around in her head repeatedly. Maybe it had. But it left little doubt. Even five years old, the description fit only one person, a person whose appearance hadn't changed in thirty years.

  Lieutenant Ken Robards.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  «^»

  It seemed impossible to believe even of Robards, Miguel thought. But it made a twisted sort of sense. If there had been any legitimate reason for the confrontation, if he'd caught Jamie committing a crime or the boy had assaulted him, Robards, with more bravado than any three men, would have said it was justified and reported it.

  It was a method Miguel suspected Robards had used before, when he'd had to "get tough," as he put it, with somebody, somebody who was inevitably smaller and weaker than he was. It had worked for him before, especially when everyone had known he had the personal backing and friendship of Chief Lipton.

  But no one had ever died before, Miguel amended silently. So the fact that Robards hadn't reported it could mean they were way off base with their suppositions, that the man was innocent and the things Kit had discovered merely coincidence.