“Fuck you.”
The bartender got a nudge from a patron. I could see him starting over to us. Then he caught a glimpse of the badge and retreated back behind the taps.
“Why don’t you just tel me your story?” I said.
“What story?”
I spread my hands out, palms up.
Lawson let a smile slip. “Cops al have stories. Right?”
“I know I do,” I said. “Hold on while I get a beer.”
I went up to the front. The six people in the place now had an idea who we were and why we were in the area. I could feel their eyes on me as I waited for my pint. Final y, an old-timer at the elbow of the bar spoke up.
“You involved in that stuff down by the lake?”
His voice was ful of smoke and whiskey. A doctor might cal it a walking advertisement for emphysema. I found it comfortable.
“I was,” I said.
The old-timer coughed up some phlegm and rapped his knuckles on wood. Then he sank into his drink. I had the bartender back him with a second and carried my pint to the table.
“The locals love us,” I said.
Lawson glanced toward the taps. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I took a sip on my fresh pint. “Now you gonna tel me your story?”
“It’s nothing too spectacular.” Lawson stared at whatever was left in the bottom of her glass as she spoke. “Been an agent for almost fifteen years. Divorced the last five. It was mostly my fault. I let the job eat me up, and Kevin got sick of being in a relationship by himself. Packed up one day and left. Took our little girl with him.”
“He has custody?”
“The relationship was my fault, but the divorce was al him. At the time of the separation, Kevin knew I was heavy into one investigation and had two others in trial. I was putting in twelve-hour days and spending my nights working out the details for what we were going to do tomorrow.”
“And you were drinking?”
Her eyes crept up to mine. “You know how it is. Strategy sessions over dinner, head to the bar afterward. You’re working the whole time, but, yeah, there were a lot of late nights. Thing is, Kevin hired a PI to tail me.”
I whistled. Lawson nodded.
“No kidding. He got me on tape at some places on Rush. Pul ed the bar tabs. Stuff like that. His attorney sent me the whole package one night. Told me it was al going into a custody motion. They’d paint me as a drunk, whether I was or not.”
“And you caved?”
“No choice. That kind of thing gets into a public hearing and the Bureau’s done with you. Especial y a woman. So I gave him what he wanted.”
“How about your girl?”
“Her name’s Melanie.” Lawson’s face puckered around the edges. She wanted that second drink now, but there was nothing for it. “I saw her once a month for the first couple of years. Then Kevin got remarried. They had their own child. Now I don’t see her so much anymore. Sad thing is, I mind it less and less.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
Lawson tapped her fingers lightly on the table. “Thanks.”
I took another sip of beer. “You ever wonder if it’s worth it?”
“You ever wonder that when you carried a shield?”
I shook my head.
“Of course you didn’t. Nobody ever does. The job is the job and always wil be. Thing is to make sure you got your bases covered.” Lawson shrugged. “I left myself vulnerable. I paid the price.”
“And you don’t plan on making that mistake again?”
CHAPTER 29
I found Rachel inside an examining room at Northwestern Memorial. She was lying on a gurney and staring up at the ceiling while another woman shone a light in her eyes.
“They’re green and they’re gorgeous,” I said.
The woman snapped off her light and was about to cal security when the judge intervened.
“Ignore him,” Rachel said. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Trumpets didn’t exactly sound as the last sentence rol ed off her tongue, and I thought I might have been better served muttering non sequiturs with the old-timer at the bar.
“Family and friends are not al owed back here,” the woman with the light said. I glanced at her name tag: JAIME SINGER, ATTENDING PHYSICIAN.
“Sorry,” I said. “How long do you think she’l be?”
The apology seemed to buy me some rope. Jaime even smiled as Rachel sat up.
“Actual y, we’re just about done.” The doc turned to her patient. “Your X-rays show no damage and it doesn’t look like you sustained any sort of concussion. The cut on your head isn’t deep enough for stitches, so we’l just stick with the butterflies. You stil have a headache?”
Rachel shrugged. “It’s getting better.”
Jaime took out a pad of paper and began to scribble. “I’m going to give you something for the pain. Then maybe Lancelot here can give you a ride home.”
Jaime and Rachel looked at me and laughed. I didn’t get it, but that didn’t seem to matter. Then Jaime was gone. And we were alone.
“You okay?” I said.
“A little sore, a little light-headed, but I’m fine. What are you doing down here?”
I shrugged. “Came to get you.”
She sighed and held out her arms. I pul ed her close.
“What happened at the lakefront?” she said.
“We can talk about it later.”
Rachel nodded into my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Rach.”
She looked up. “For what?”
“This. What we talked about this morning. Everything.”
She shook her head. “This wasn’t what I was talking about. What happened to me today could have happened to anyone. In fact, it did happen to a whole bunch of other people. Except much worse. And none of them even knew you.”
She was right, but that didn’t touch the hol ow inside, the fear that flared every time I saw the emptiness in Katherine Lawson’s eyes and wondered when it might again be mine. I folded my arms around Rachel, trying to capture what lay between us, trying to keep it safe.
“I love you, Rach.”
She drew me down and kissed me hard. “You better, pal. Now take me home. Hospitals give me the creeps.”
We fil ed her prescription at the hospital pharmacy and caught a cab north. On the drive home, she tucked the top of her head against my cheek and immediately fel asleep. I sat quietly, listening to the cabbie talk on his cel and watching the headlights drift past.
CHAPTER 30
