Noah let it go, placing a hand easily on Frank's knee. 'You know, that could've been any one of us in there.'
'But it wasn't.'
'Would you feel better if it had been me? Or Jill?'
Frank didn't answer. Instead she asked why he'd been so insistent she leave Kennedy out of the bust.
Noah flapped his big hands in his lap. 'I don't know. It just felt wrong. What was I gonna say? 'Gee, Frank, I'm like having a psychic flash or something.''
'Could have.'
'Would it have changed your mind?'
Frank thought about it, and Mag's last words zig-zagged in her head:
'Probably not,' she admitted, disgusted with herself.
Noah heaved a bony shoulder. 'You couldn't have known it was gonna slip.'
'No, but I could have listened to you. You've got good guts, and maybe if I hadn't been so hell-bent for Kennedy I'd have heard you.'
'That's hindsight. Don't start second-guessing.'
A cold smile twisted Frank's face.
'That's my specialty. We should go see how she's doing.'
Frank started to rise, but Noah reached over and pushed her back down.
'Hold on. They know where we are.'
Frank was too tired to protest. Noah rubbed at a bloody smear on his wrist, and she waited patiently for him to continue.
'You know, I gotta tell you, I was fucking scared.'
Frank nodded her understanding.
'When I saw him standing there with his arm around her throat and the knife there...I didn't know what to do. I just felt so helpless. And stupid. I just kept wondering how the hell did this happen? And Kennedy, man, she looked so scared. But she was calm, man, and I remember thinking I had to be calm, too. For her. And then outside, knowing you were both in there...but at least outside I was doing something, you know?'
Noah looked up anxiously, and Frank bent toward him.
'You did good, No. You don't know how fucking glad I was that you were there. You handled Johnston beautifully. I know the commission's gonna try and eat us alive, but you did great. I wouldn't have done anything different than you did.'
'Lotta good it did us.'
'Hey. There was nothing else you could've done.'
The silence settled between them again. Frank tried not to remember the clutch of fear in her gut, or the moldy bathroom, or Johnston's sudden shout. She did not want to remember the fear in the hallway trying to envelop her in its leathery wings or the disappearing white curl on Johnston's do-rag, or him dancing herky-jerky with half his head gone. Least of all, she didn't want to remember seeing Kennedy turn with her eyes too wide and her fingers red, and wanting to run as far and as fast as she could, screaming all the way. She didn't want to and
'You know what? After sitting in here with you, and with the way you shoot, I think you should get out of law enforcement and become a shrink.'
'Man, you're not kidding. If I can get you to talk I can have an autistic kid's life history in five minutes. And wait'll you see my bill.'
They shared tired smiles. Frank slapped Noah's leg and said, 'Come on. Let's go see how she's doing.'
21
Frank sat in recovery with a sheaf of papers on her blood-stiffened lap. Jill and Johnnie had brought them for her after she'd sent Noah back to division. He'd wanted to stay and see what the doctor had to say, but Frank had him copying the Agoura and Peterson murder books. She might be officially off the case but she was goddamned if she was going to give it up. Noah tried to talk her out of it, but she'd slapped a wad of bills in his hand and told him to take the binders to Kinko's and copy them there. She couldn't order him to, she was ROD, so she asked him as a favor. Before Foubarelle or RHD got hold of them.
'Frank...,' Noah had sighed, trying to protest.
She'd gripped his shoulders.
'If not for me, then for Cassandra Nichols.' Cheap shot, she knew, but it worked.
'Shit.'
As Noah stuck the money in his pocket Frank told him, 'When you're done with that go home and kiss the kids, make love to your wife, and sleep as late as you want. Fuck those IAD bastards.'
Noah waved tiredly.
The doctor came out of the recovery room about an hour later and told her Kennedy was going to be alright. A flicker of relief penetrated the emptiness she felt. She asked if she could sit with Kennedy.
'After you clean yourself up,' he said.
Frank scrubbed the blood off her hands with her nails, catching a sorry glimpse of herself in the mirror. It was the best she could do without a shower and a change of clothes, but she didn't foresee either of those in the near future. She snagged a tepid cup of coffee from a vending machine and settled into a chair next to Kennedy's bed.
An IV stuck out of Kennedy's hand and a half-dozen leads and wires monitored her vital functions. A large bandage plastered her neck. Kennedy's head was still enclosed in a block, but the doctor was happy. He told Frank it was a damn good thing the ambulance arrived as soon as it did.
'She was this close,' he said, holding his fingertips slightly apart. Tunnel's knife had jerked into her carotid artery, causing the massive blood loss and a precipitous drop in blood pressure. Once they'd stabilized her and gone in, the rip was easily repaired, but Kennedy was going to be laid up for a few weeks. Luchowski had called her father, who was too sick to fly out, and there was no one else on her emergency contact sheet. Frank had thought hard about that, finally deciding that Kennedy could stay with her. It was the least she could do.
Despite the fatigue that had settled into her bones like lead, Frank tried concentrating on the statement she was writing. But she couldn't stop replaying the scene in Johnston's apartment. She and Johnnie had been the first ones down the hall. It was hard for her to believe she hadn't picked Tunnel up behind the doorway. If only she had, this never would have slipped out of her hands. She'd be home drinking a cool one, sitting on the couch in clean clothes, ignoring the TV while she wrote far less difficult reports.
And Kennedy'd still be getting to me, she thought. Frank glanced at the sleeping young woman and felt a wave of shame. Bleeding out on Tunnel's floor, Kennedy hadn't looked so cocky anymore. Frank squeezed her eyes against the similar image of Mag amid the candy bars, blowing pink spume. Both days, Frank's pride had been running the show. She wondered how many times she was going to have to do this. How many trips to the hospital would it take before she got it right?
She had no answer. In fact, Frank felt like she had nothing at all. She'd lost Mag, she'd almost lost a cop in her command, she'd lost her case to RHD, and she'd lost her badge. She thought that must be how it felt to drown: words were useless, fighting just made you more tired, there was nothing to see but waves and waves and more waves behind them, and always the dark weight of the water trying to pull you under. At some point it probably felt good to give up. Frank wondered if she was there yet, but then a lifeboat bobbed into sight. It was the realization that Kennedy could be in the morgue instead of the hospital. It wasn't a huge comfort, but it would do.
Remembering the grotesque spew and suck of Mag's breathing, Frank gratefully watched the even rise and fall of Kennedy's chest. The ride in the ambo, the waiting, blood everywhere—it was all too deja vu. It was Maggie again, but this time with a different script. Through her hazy fatigue, Frank wondered dimly if Kennedy wasn't some kind of second chance.
Elbows on knees, chin against fists, Frank studied Kennedy's still figure. An uncompromising determination gripped Frank, and the lifeboat she'd glimpsed on the horizon sailed closer.
As Kennedy came out of the anesthesia, a nurse bustled around her, asking how she felt.
'Fine,' she croaked, jerking Frank out of a shallow sleep.
