Bleeding Out

Frank stared at the last sentence she wrote.

'Couple times.'

'What happened?'

'Different things.' Frank didn't want to go into details. Kennedy was silent for a minute. Then she asked quietly, 'What was the worst?'

Frank sighed, giving up on the report.

'Right after I made detective, my partner and I were talking to a woman and her boyfriend. Her baby'd been thrown out the window. Fell three stories, and they were insisting they knew nothing about it, that he must have just crawled over the windowsill. Problem was, the kid was only a couple months old. So I'm talking to the mother. My partner's standing next to her, and all of sudden he gets this look, and he's looking right behind me. I see him pull at his holster, and just as I'm crouching and turning to see what's behind me, I feel this burn over my hip. Bastard shot me with a .38. My partner blew his fucking arm off. Turns out he'd dumped the baby and decided we were weren't taking him in for it.'

Frank shrugged. End of story. But not for Kennedy.

'So what happened to you?'

'I was fine. By some...fluke, it went right through me. Exited the other side. I didn't know that though until after I came out of surgery.'

'Did you think you were gonna die?'

Frank had told her story to the wall. Now she turned toward Kennedy, remembering what Noah had said, how she looked like Mag. Her eyes were serious for once, but they still burned. There was a hunger in them that made Frank more comfortable looking at the wall again.

'I saw where it had gone in and figured it was pretty bad.'

'Were you scared?'

Frank scanned the smooth white paint for an answer. The shooting was another part of her past that Frank had walked away from without looking back. She'd never talked about it with Joe Girardi or her partner, and had managed to gloss over it during the shrink sessions. She'd acknowledged it only in the dark safety of Maggie's arms after a flashback had sent her reeling, or a nightmare had yanked her from sleep. Slowly she squared the papers on her lap, then closed the folder around them.

'Yeah, I was scared. Not as much when it happened, but later. That's when it hits you, is later, after you think it's all over and everything's okay.'

'Like how?' Kennedy persisted.

Frank twisted her invisible ring and took a long time to answer. She was so tired. She wished that Kennedy would go to sleep and quit dredging this shit up, but she bit back her irritation. This was why Kennedy's script was different than Maggie's. This was where Frank had a chance to right wrongs, maybe to grow up. It felt like an atonement, and Frank reasoned that penance was never easy. She'd gotten Kennedy into this mess and she'd see her through it.

'You'll be talking to a wit, or just standing at the sink doing dishes, brushing your teeth—you can be doing anything—and then out of the blue it just hits you. You'll feel where you got shot, you'll see your partner's face. You'll hear his voice, feel the burn where the bullet went in, smell burned eggs and a full diaper pail...you'll be there and it'll be real. It'll be happening all over again. And it'll scare the crap out of you. Then afterwards you'll think you're going crazy, but they say it's perfectly normal. Posttraumatic stress. There's also the nightmares. They're just as real. Sometimes worse than real.'

Frank faltered, her profile to Kennedy. She was haggard. Her jaw had softened and her shoulders hung slackly. Exhaustion had replaced tension. Frank's hard veneer had cracked. When she spoke again it was with effort.

'You know you're ROD for a while. You'll have to talk to a shrink before you can go back to work.'

Kennedy bobbed her head amiably. 'Yeah. I figured as much. Did you go to a shrink after you got shot?'

Frank closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the chair.

'Yep.'

'Did it help or was it just bullshit?'

'Let's just say I think you'll be a better patient than I was.'

'That shrink didn't get squat from you, did he?'

Frank graced the ceiling with a faint smile.

'You're gonna have to go in this time too, aren't you?'

Frank sighed, arching her back as she got out of the chair. 'I thought you were supposed to be sleeping.'

'You can go home anytime,' Kennedy grinned. 'You don't have to stay here.'

'I know.'

'So why don't you go home, get some sleep.'

Frank looked down at Kennedy. Around the jaundiced edge of the betadine, her color was good. Still pale, but not the awful chalk-white of serious shock. Her eyes were bright again. Frank looked away. She was young and strong. She'd be alright physically; it was the emotional fallout that worried Frank. But so far Kennedy was coping well, better than Frank ever had.

She felt an involuntary pang of tenderness. In order to get out of Johnston's apartment alive, they'd had to put aside their mutual antagonism and forge a fragile alliance. They came through it together, and Frank wasn't about to abandon Kennedy now.

'Look. I thought the deal was you sleep, I go. The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner I can get out of here.'

Kennedy surprised Frank by closing her eyes and wiggling deeper into the sheets.

'I'm Audi,' she murmured, and indeed she was gone, sleep quickly claiming her. But Frank stayed by the bed. A lock of hair, the color of sunflowers, was taut under Kennedy's pillow. Frank freed it, surprised how silky it was. She held it for a moment, then let go, an odd expression on her face. Quietly she backed away. Instead of going home, however, she took off her shoes and stretched out on the empty bed.

A few weeks after his father's funeral the boy picked up a whore. He was nervous. His father had always handled the business, but she seemed willing enough. He asked if it would be okay to do it in the car. When he told her what he wanted she balked and jacked the price up fifty dollars. He didn't have that much money.

'Then I guess you gonna have to settle for what you can get,' she said, starting to blow him.

He couldn't do it.

A week later he tried with another whore and a hundred dollars in his pocket. When she got on her hands and knees, he flew again. But he missed his dad.

22

The next few days brought endless visits from deputy chiefs and commanders. OIS came and went with their interminable questions and forms, as did Foubarelle and Luchowski and the suits from IAD. Timothy Johnston's family was calling for an investigation, and Internal Affairs was cross-examining all the detectives involved. At least Frank had managed to avoid the RHD dicks, but they finally cornered her at the hospital. She was less than cooperative. The two detectives left in a snit after a tense fifteen minutes, threatening to nail her with hampering an investigation.

'I reckon that's the least of your worries right now,' Kennedy observed.

Frank agreed. 'Pretty low on my list of priorities.'

Having just come from home and a decent night's sleep, Frank asked how Kennedy was doing.

'Never better. Ready to git on my board and hit the surf.'

'Not on my watch,' Frank warned.

Kennedy grinned. 'What are you, my mother?'

Frank nodded. 'As long as you're in here.'

'Well, that ain't gonna be for much longer. Doc said he'll probably release me tomorrow.'

Frank raised an eyebrow. 'Really?'

'Yep. Then it's me an' the long-board.'