“Mommy? This was Grandpa Greer’s hammer, wasn’t it?”
“That’s called a gavel,” Carey said. “Yes, that belonged to Grandpa Greer.”
Lucy held the gavel with both hands. It was almost as long as her arm, and an incongruent accessory to her pink fairy costume. An impish smile curved her mouth. So precious. The one good thing to come out of her marriage: her daughter.
Carey brushed a hand over Lucy’s unruly dark hair. Tears burned the backs of her eyes.
“I wish Grandpa Greer could remember me,” Lucy said.
“I wish that too, sweetie.”
God, I wish that too.
All her life she had been able to go to her father with anything, for any reason, day or night, 24/7. He was the Rock of Gibraltar, her foundation, her anchor.
He had never really liked David. She knew that because he had told her when she had announced her engagement to him. Not in a harsh way, but with concern for her. Was she sure that was what she wanted? Was she sure David was the one?
She had been upset with him at the time. She had wanted him to be happy for her, to be supportive of her, to approve.
David had been a different person then, confident from the success of his work and the accolades of critics. But even then her father had sensed a lack of foundation in him. And he had said to her that if this was what she truly wanted, he would give her his blessing but that she needed to know that she would always have to be the strong one in the marriage, that when the chips were down the only person she would be able to rely on was herself. He felt that David’s strength would always rise and fall with the opinions of other people.
Her father had walked down the aisle with her and handed her over to the man who would be her husband. And he had never spoken of his opinion of David again.
“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Lucy said. She put the gavel down on the desk and stood up on the seat of the chair and hugged her mother.
Carey winced at the pain in her ribs, but she didn’t tell Lucy to let go. She wanted to feel the security of being held by someone who loved her, even if that someone was only five years old.
A sharp knock at the door startled her. Before she could ask who was there, Kovac walked in with a stormy expression. He stopped short to take in the scene. He had wanted to come in with a big temper to throw at her for leaving the house, but seeing her with Lucy, seeing her with tears in her eyes, knocked the wind out of his sails.
Embarrassed, Carey touched gently beneath her eyes to wipe away the tears. She could probably have counted on one hand the number of people who had ever caught her crying. Kovac had managed to do it twice in one day.
“By all means, come in, Detective Kovac,” she said with an edge of sarcasm ruined by the weakness of her voice.
Kovac looked from Carey to Lucy.
“How did you know we would be here?” Lucy asked, bright-eyed with curiosity.
“I’m a detective,” Kovac said. “That’s what I do. I find out where people are. I find out who committed crimes.”
“My mommy’s a judge,” Lucy said proudly.
“I know.”
“She puts bad people in jail.”
Kovac glanced at Carey, biting his tongue on some smart remark, she thought.
“Hey, Princess Lucy,” Kovac said. “I need to speak with your mom in private. Why don’t you go out in the hall with Officer Young, and he’ll show you all the cool stuff on his belt. He’ll show you how handcuffs work.”
“I’m a fairy now, not a princess,” Lucy informed him. She turned. “Can I, Mommy?”
“Sure, honey.”
Lucy climbed down from the chair and went around the desk to Kovac and offered him her hand. By the look on his face, she could have been offering him a live snake.
“I’m not allowed to go places alone,” Lucy said. “You have to take me.”
Carey motioned to the door when Kovac looked to her.
“Uh… okay,” he stammered, taking her small hand. He walked her out to hand her over to the care of Officer Young.
When he came back, he looked a little rattled, as if he didn’t know what to do with the emotions Lucy had evoked in him. Murderers he could deal with. A five-year-old child undid him.
“Do you have children, Detective?”
He hesitated a beat before he answered. “No. I’m not married.”
Not that one necessarily had anything to do with the other. Like eighty percent of the cops she knew, Kovac had probably been married and divorced at least once.
“She’s a doll,” he said.
“Thank you.”
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.
“I suppose you want to scold me for leaving my house,” Carey said.
“I believe I did tell you to stay put.”
“You can tell me anything you want.”
“And you’ll do whatever you damn well please.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He thought about that; then one corner of his mouth crooked up. “Point taken. You should sit down, though. You look a little pale.”
“I look like something from a zombie movie.”
“Well… yeah,” Kovac conceded.
Carey eased herself down into her desk chair, glad for the soft padded leather. “So is this bad news, or are you just going to lecture me?”
Kovac sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and let go a sigh. “Well, yeah, I was gonna lecture you, but… what’s the point?”
“I wouldn’t have come here alone,” Carey said. “I’m not that stupid woman in every suspense movie who has to go investigate the strange sounds in the basement.”
Once again he gave that little quarter of a smile that only touched one side of his mouth. He let his gaze wander around the room, seeming to not want to make eye contact with her unless he had the cop face on.
“This is a lot nicer than what the prosecutors get,” he said. “You kicked ass back then. Do you ever miss it?”
“Yes, sometimes,” she admitted. “But this was what I always wanted to do.”
“Because of your old man?”
“Yes. My idol,” she said, looking away as the emotion threatened to surface again.
“He was a good judge. What’s he doing in his retirement? Golfing in Arizona?”
“He’s dying,” she said. “He has Alzheimer’s, and… he’s dying.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Kovac muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I never miss an opportunity to stick my foot in it.”
“You didn’t know,” Carey said. “Have there been any leads tracking down Stan Dempsey?”
Kovac shook his head. “No sign of him. No sign of his car.”
“Has anyone called Kenny Scott? He has to be up there on Dempsey’s hit list.”
“That’s supposed to be happening.”
“You didn’t call him yourself?”
“Kenny Scott is not my priority,” Kovac said. “I’ve got all I can handle with you.”
Carey smiled a little and realized that she never made eye contact with him either in those moments when her guard slipped.
“Am I being difficult?”
He didn’t answer right away. He studied her. She could feel his gaze on her. Finally, he said, “I think you’re too brave for your own good. Why did you have to come here?”
“I wanted to get some paperwork to look at while I’m convalescing.”
His sharp eyes swept over the desktop. “So where is it?”
“I forgot it’s in my briefcase,” she lied.
“You know, you’re good,” Kovac said. “But I’m better. Let’s try this again, and maybe you can tell me the truth this time. Why did you have to come here?”
Carey looked down at the desk drawer where she had stashed her file on David’s hobbies. She should probably have given it to him. But what was really in it? Evidence that her husband was unfaithful. Kovac already knew that. And the note-$25,000-could have been anything. Maybe David was thinking of buying a boat. Maybe twenty-five thousand dollars was the lottery prize that day. Maybe he was putting a down payment on a house for another one of his hooker girlfriends or for himself. Maybe he was thinking of moving out.