She’d taken the check that Vaughn sent her out of guilt, mailed it off to the bank, and tried to forget about it. She wasn’t going to be one of those fools pissing away her bonus on a Corvette. On the plane home from Iraq she had all these visions of flowers, grass, strolls in the park, drinks out with old friends. After two weeks sitting inside her darkened apartment, her staff sergeant — whose brother was a Richmond cop — called her about an opening on the force.
“Come on, Gallagher. Get over here, Barstow.” They walked, shoulders nearly touching, over to where the other cops were clustered. Sergeant Harris — dark-skinned, neat mustache that would have been in style twenty years ago, gray around the temples — gave her a look, then Bobby. She stared right back at him.
“Any casualties?”
“Just a couple of stray bullets from Sugar Bottom. One of them went through a guy’s door down on short 30th.” At the end of the street, a few neighbors, coffee cups in hand, peered over the hill. “Can you get them the hell away from there, Barstow?”
Pristine restored row houses lined one side of short 30th. A tricycle in a yard, pink and green chalk flowers on the sidewalk out in front. On the other side, a tangle of brambles, weed trees. Bobby caught up to her.
“Is that all you want, a quickie in the supply room?”
“Let’s just get these jokers out of here.” She walked fast, already starting to bark out orders, her uniform feeling too tight, the air heating up, the damp cloth under her arms starting to chafe. Her voice mechanicaclass="underline" “Clear the site, please. Until we have determined that the danger is contained, we’ll take any statements over by the park.”
A middle-aged guy with a short white beard. Two girls in their twenties who could have been students. An older lady, shoulder-length hair, big glasses.
Through the tangle of honeysuckle and weed trees three cinder-block sheds were visible, one with torn plastic replacing the windows. Sergeant Harris came up behind her. “Shot went through this guy’s door about ten minutes ago.” He nodded his head back to where a splintery hole interrupted the varnished dark surface of the wood. “Then another one heard a few minutes after that. We got the guys down there searching the area.”
One of the girls, cute, long blond ponytail, said to the sergeant, “I only wish you all were here as much during the day as you are at night. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s GREAT to have you by the park, but then this happens.”
Rachel stared at the girl, inscrutable-cop look on her face, mainly so she wouldn’t have to feel Bobby watching her She didn’t think she was here all that much, anyway. But it was still too much.
“We do what we can to protect the citizens, ma’am,” Bobby told her, and Sergeant Harris, weary, shot him a dirty look. “It’s not safe right now,” he told the girl. “Go inside.”
A bullet pinged against a tree on the hill and Rachel felt that familiar energy surging through her veins, time slowing, colors brightening. Head down, she ran in a low crouch to take cover behind a red minivan, gravel crunching under her feet, Bobby breathing hard behind her.
“You come here at night to see him, don’t you?” he said. “You still sleeping with him?”
From down the hill, a single cry, and then a burst of fire. She could smell Bobby, his sweat an acrid mix of sex and fear, next to her.
“If you know so much—” she started to say.
“Where’s the fucking SWAT team?” someone yelled behind her. From down the hill, silence.
“You’ve been following me,” she said. A woodpecker drilling the tree above them, the whirring of wings.
“Nah, I just wanted to know where he lived. In case he gave you any trouble.”
“What were you planning to do, pay him a visit?”
“Something like that.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bobby: yeah, good in bed, quick with a joke, but what else? All the hours spent together bored on stakeouts, riding around the city, busting poor jerks for running stop signs. Had she been paying attention to anything these last months? She had spent all those hours looking out the window, letting the sights of the city entertain her like it was TV. I’ve got your back, he was always telling her. Whatever that meant.
Bobby peered behind the van’s rear bumper. “That blond girl? She’s the one he’s fucking.”
“Like I’m supposed to care.” Squabbles: high school again. Nothing from the bottom of the hill, then the sound of cop cars squealing to a halt down there. “Can’t we talk about this later?” Smelling herself now, that familiar sharp odor stronger than any of the spring flowers and damp earth. Who the hell was she kidding?
She looked past the splattered bumper of the van. On the left, quick low motion through the leaves. She turned fast, weapon at the ready: a black cat.
Bobby saying, “Surprised you didn’t know that, all the time you been spending here.” Sweating, urgent. In the side mirror of the van was a face framed in a glass transom, staring out, too dim to see. Rachel kept looking, hearing the rustling of a squirrel rushing through thick leaves and up a tree, her eyes adjusting. It was the girl with the blond ponytail, staring out through her door. Behind the girl, a man approaching. Vaughn. So why hadn’t his car been on the street? Was the Mercedes in the shop again? Situational awareness. It meant being right here, right now, the daily noise of life stripped away. Rachel wanted Vaughn to open the door, just so she could scream at him to get the fuck down, enjoy the startled expression on his face.
The window of the minivan shattered, and a shower of glittering fragments fell to the street. Absurdly, Rachel thought of her wedding day, holding hands with Vaughn, ducking their heads and laughing as they ran beneath a cascade of rice. In the mirror, she could see Vaughn staring out. She wanted him to stay there, forever stuck behind glass, watching. She wanted to be away from him, not caring. From the bottom of the hill, another gunshot exploded.
“I’m going down there.” Already on her belly, inching forward.
“Rachel, they’re drug dealers, who cares, the guys’ve got it covered.” She could picture the dark shapes moving through the cinder-block buildings down there, shadows. Picture herself closer now, uniform ripping on the thorny underbrush, her own breathing quiet, feeling alive, time slowed to that single moment. All those nights wasted up here, peering out at the lights of the city. Hip bones grinding against Bobby’s, his rough neck against her face, their muffled exclamations. That wasn’t wasted. She glanced back at him leaning toward her, looking hurt. She had liked it that he never asked, but now he was going to start. And there was so much, really, she just didn’t want to talk about. In the morning, she knew, she would call her recruiter.
“Jesus, Rachel, get back here.” His hand gripping her arm, a surge of feeling coming through her body. For a moment she paused, hesitated. She couldn’t afford to look back.
Then she pulled away and was moving again, already halfway across the street, her knees scraping against the gravel, heading for the impenetrable tangle of weeds ahead.
The Fall Lines
by Dean King