Keren said through clenched teeth, “Anything about that you don’t understand, Manny?”
Manny shrugged and said sheepishly, “Sorry, I was out of line.”
Keren turned to Paul. “In the car! Now!” She stormed out of the hospital.
Keren’s temper tantrum shocked Paul out of the strange mood he’d been in pretty much nonstop for the last two days. He couldn’t believe he’d grabbed her like that. He ran his hand over his face, through his hair, and brushed the lines of recently removed stitches. Then he started after her. He was so embarrassed at what Rosita had witnessed, that he knew he had to stop and take whatever humiliation was due him.
He looked, and she only seemed concerned, which was almost worse than if she’d been disgusted. He could lead someone into sin with his behavior.
“I’m sorry, Rosita. This whole mess…” He waved his hand at LaToya’s room and looked at Rosita. Suddenly he realized that she had lived harder and seen more in her life than the most seasoned cop. “Rosie, do you ever relapse? Does it ever get hard to remember you’re a person of faith?”
“It happens, Pastor P,” Rosita said kindly.
“I’ve got to get out of this.” He looked in the direction Keren had gone. “I can’t deal with police work. It brings something out in me that I can’t seem to control. It’s a feeling of… of power, and I love it. It’s like a drug, and I’m high on it right now. I feel smarter than anyone else. I get smug and arrogant. Cocky. I think I’m a better cop than the real cops. I am better. I’m really good at this. But—” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I need to get back to the Lighthouse.”
“You can’t seal yourself in the mission and hide from the rest of the world,” Rosita said with a gentle smile.
“Can living in a mission be hiding? I would have thought that was life at its toughest.”
“It doesn’t count as tough unless it’s tough for you,” Rosie said simply. “It was like giving up letting guys slap me around. For me that was harder than kicking the crack. Weird, isn’t it?”
All of Paul’s pastoral concern for Rosie flared to life. He watched her closely when he said, “But you did it. No man has slapped you since you found the Lord, has he?” He glanced at Manny.
Manny raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t look at me, man. I’m afraid of her.”
Rosie flashed her thousand-watt smile at Manny. She turned back to Paul. “Manny’s good to me. It’s what I grew up with, watching men knock my mother around. They came after me, too, and so did Mama. It feels like love to me, how sick is that?”
Manny rested a hand on the back of her neck. “It’s not love. You know that, right?”
Nodding, Rosita leaned closer to Manny, and his hand dropped until his arm circled her waist.
Paul wondered if there might be a wedding and they might let him perform it. The idea helped him get a better grip on the humble, faithful side of himself.
“Maybe giving up the power of being a cop wasn’t so easy for you,” Rosita said. “Maybe you’re some kind of adrenaline junky. You just didn’t know it because you cut yourself off from it. And now this case—it’s like falling off the wagon.”
“So what do I do?” Paul really hoped Rosita could tell him.
She took on a glow. “I think it’s the same as drugs and booze, Pastor P. One day at a time. There’s no way out of this mess until it’s over.” Her glow faded and she looked at LaToya’s door. “So you don’t have any choice but to deal with it the best you can. You know, God is letting this unfold, with you in the middle, for a reason. Maybe it’s time you faced your old life.”
Paul thought of how he’d grabbed Keren and the disrespectful way he’d treated her. She’d gone to her car and he knew she’d be waiting for him… waiting to take him apart.
“And facing forward takes you straight into the angry clutches of Detective Collins,” Rosita said. “And by the way, anything she does to you… you deserve.”
“Good luck,
Keren kept both hands on the wheel to keep them off Paul’s throat as he slipped into the car beside her.
“So, Stupidville just took a vote and you’re the new mayor?” Keren slammed her foot on the gas before he got the door closed.
“It was a landslide.” Paul grappled for his seat belt, as if he suspected she had violent plans for his side of the car.
“What’s the point of having a head if you’re not going to use it?” Keren left rubber behind on the pavement as she pulled out into the traffic.
“I promise I’ll sit here quietly while you let me have it, even if it takes all day. I deserve every word of it.”
“Don’t think you’re going to get out of this by being sorry and nice,” Keren snarled. “It won’t save you.”
Paul sighed. “I’d hoped it would.”
“I know this is hard for you.”
“Please don’t start sounding like you feel sorry for me.” Paul waved her politeness away. “I woke up just as you came in, and it was like I—I sort of time traveled back to the days I was a cop. I’m awake now. I deserve scorn, contempt, rage, compound fractures. But I don’t deserve sympathy, and if you start being nice instead of crushing my out-of-control ego, I promise I’ll maul you again just to get your angry juices flowing.”
She glanced over at that last bit, and his eyes weren’t really back to normal—there was still heat when he said he’d maul her. And plenty of cynicism. She did need to abuse him. It was the right thing to do.
“I don’t know where to start.”
Paul said, “Why don’t you start by telling me what I did to you that made you so mad at me in the first place. It wasn’t something like that was it?”
Keren slammed her palm on the steering wheel. “Was there a time when you did things like that? You were
“No, I never cheated on my wife. But I sometimes… well, I didn’t always treat women with… well… respect. The thing is, there might be a few women who’d tell you I was kind of a… a…”
“Jerk?” Keren supplied.
“Well—”
“Pig?” Keren wheeled around a corner.
“Some of them might—”
“Letch?” The back end of the car fishtailed.
“I don’t think letch is—”
“Scumball?” She straightened out and floored it.
“Now, Keren, scumball seems a little—”
“All of the above? You want to supply your own words?”
“You’re doing fine. You don’t need my help.” Paul shrugged. “Anyway, I wasn’t unfaithful. Disrespect to women, yes, but I disrespected men, too. Nothing sexist about it. I was an equal opportunity, arrogant jerk. All my trouble with my wife was about how important my work was and how unimportant my family was.” Paul slid lower in the seat and she caught him taking a quick look at her.
She clamped her mouth shut, trying to figure out whether to commiserate or go after him with her nightstick.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me? Please don’t tell me you’re done, because I really can’t stand the guilt if you let me off the hook this easily.”
“Okay, no problem.”
Flinching, Paul said, “That was reverse psychology.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Tough luck. I guess the only reason I’d stop yelling at you would be because I decided you were hopeless. And I really don’t want to think that.”
“Don’t give up on me.”
“Now you’re being the kindhearted pastor again. Turn back into the cop so I can yell at him.”
“I’m not brave enough to do that.”
“This weird morphing thing you’ve been doing, into the cop you used to be, has to be an aberration.” Keren glanced at him, but mostly she watched the road. “Maybe tearing a strip off your hide will help you get a handle on
