“So can I ask you how you wound up in New York from Wichita, Kansas, or will that inevitably lead to verboten subject matter?” he asked.
“That’s well within limits. I came here because I have a very funny and crazy and irresponsible big brother who dropped out of college so he could hit it big as a rock star. He’d call Mom and tell her he was opening up for big names at CBGB’s – as if she even knew what that was. But I knew my brother, you know? When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to do, my high school teachers laid it out for me: What’s it gonna be – KU, K. State, or WSU? I stuck it out at Wichita State for a couple of years but eventually it hit me: I’d only lived one place my entire life, and there was absolutely no reason for me to stay. My mom needed me, but most of what she worried about was my brother. So I finished the semester, then came up here.”
“And your mom’s still in Kansas?”
“Yep. I call her every night. Just spoke to her before coming here in fact.” Ellie had tried not to let her mother’s continued attempts to pull Ellie into a visit to Wichita get to her.
“She’s got a good daughter. You went to John Jay right away?”
The rhythm of the conversation should have been awkward. Here they were, having what was essentially a first date – at least for him to get to know the real her – but he already knew so much about her past, and they’d already been together physically. In a strange way that she didn’t understand, she felt completely at ease with him.
“No. I figured I’d get here, settle in, and apply to CUNY or something. I wanted to be a lawyer.”
“But then you realized you were carbon-based. Buh-dump-bum. Sorry, obligatory lawyer joke.”
“Thank you for that. So, yeah, I realized I was carbon-based, and I also realized I couldn’t afford to live here and pay for school. So I was waiting tables and hanging around with Jess’s crowd, and keeping his kind of hours, and I guess I realized I was a little more of a cop at heart than I realized. Like a hand-to-hand drug exchange would be going down in a club bathroom, and I’d notice in a way that most people wouldn’t. And I’d see all of these disturbing things every day on the street that would really eat at me. Then one night I saw a girl, way too young even to be out at that hour, wander off from Washington Square Park with some Wall Street cokehead after the bars closed, and I just wanted to stop him from even being near her.”
“Sure.”
“I even confronted the guy – like an idiot, you know? Like, ‘Hey, isn’t she a little young for you, buddy?’ He told me to mind my own business, and she swore she was eighteen. I couldn’t do anything about it. I just watched them walk away, knowing full well what was going on, knowing the kind of life that girl was going to have. That was the moment it all clicked for me. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew I’d be good at it. I enrolled at John Jay the next morning.”
“It sounds more like you needed to do it.”
“I guess. In training, one of the sergeants told us that being a cop should be a calling. That if you see it as just a job, you may as well go sell RV’s or tennis rackets. Anyway, I’ve never regretted it.”
“Not even after days like today?”
“Never. How about reporting? Is that your calling?” she asked dramatically.
He thought about it for a second. “No. Writing might be, but the reporting is just a part of it. I’d like to do more. I’ve been working on that novel for a few years now, but I’m never quite willing to call it done. It’s probably some deep-seated fear of failure, undoubtedly traceable to my parents. Someday, when I’m over it, I’d like to be able to say I’m an author, not just a reporter, but I certainly don’t regret the journalism. I just wouldn’t want it to get in the way of my friendships with anyone I might come to care about.”
Ellie knew he was trying to ease her fears, but she wound up laughing. Some whiskey trickled down her chin. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the dribble with a napkin. “Very attractive, I’m sure.”
“Delightful, actually, but I should be the one to apologize. A little over the top?”
“No, I’m sorry. It was incredibly sweet.”
“And sweet makes you spit whiskey?”
“No, it was just really funny to me.”
“Oh good. Funny’s what I was going for.”
“It’s just that, here we are, saying that maybe we’ll wind up being friends, and we’ve already slept together. I’m sure it’s perfectly normal, but if you had any idea what a nun I’ve been. My stupid idea about having one anonymous night of passion – I just realized how funny it is.”
Ellie found herself laughing uncontrollably. The stress of the case, her nervousness about seeing Peter again, and the surreal quality of this second first date all culminated at once. To her inestimable relief, Peter joined her.
Two hours later, lying next to each other in Ellie’s bed, they were both still smiling when Ellie’s cell phone rang.
“Ignore it.” Peter pushed a strand of sweat-dampened hair from her forehead and kissed the newly revealed spot on her face. For a second, Ellie was tempted. She could let it ring. She could pretend she was Ally the paralegal, who wasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation. But the thought lasted only a second. She flipped her phone open on the third ring.
“Hatcher.”
“Detective Hatcher, this is Officer Griffin Connelly, Tenth Precinct. I’m sorry to bother you after hours.”
“Not a problem.” Ellie sat up and pulled a sheet over her naked body. Peter smiled and pulled it off of her with one finger.
“They can’t see you over the phone,” he whispered.
Ellie was so distracted by the thing Peter was doing to her stomach that she almost missed what the officer said next.
“I’m at St. Vincent’s Hospital with a Jess Hatcher. He says he’s your brother?”
OFFICER CONNELLY WAS a thin man with fair skin and light brown hair. He waited for Ellie outside of a treatment room in St. Vincent’s emergency care center. Peter had initially insisted on coming with her, and to her surprise, she actually wanted him to. But she ultimately persuaded him to go back to his apartment. If whatever happened to Jess had anything to do with the case, she didn’t want to find it on the front page of the Daily Post, and she didn’t want Peter to be in the position of keeping it quiet before they’d reached an agreement about how to balance his job with hers.
“Thanks for waiting for me, Officer. I just wanted to make sure someone was with him until I got here.”
“I had a hard time explaining it to my sergeant. Is there something more to this than meets the eye?”
“Nothing but a protective little sister. Please thank your sergeant for me.”
According to the statement Jess had given to Officer Connelly, two men had jumped him outside of Vibrations before his shift. He didn’t recognize either of the men and was too busy getting his ass kicked to give a helpful description – two white men, average height and weight and, in Jess’s words, “apparently royally pissed off at me for reasons unknown.” She felt a knot in her stomach as Connelly related the story.
“Lucky for your brother you’re on the job. Bouncer at a strip club, random assault in the parking lot? We were searching him for drugs when he told us to call you.”
“You can finish up if you think it’s appropriate, Officer.”
“Not necessary. Just get your brother whatever help he needs.”
Ellie found Jess reclining on a narrow hospital bed. He tried to sit up when she walked in, but winced from the movement. The smile he forced onto his face seemed to pain him as well.
“Note to self: Cracked ribs hurt.” He eased himself back down into the bed.
“What happened, Jess?”
“It looks like I finally found a beating I couldn’t talk my way out of.”