But what if she didn’t sense his feelings?
And what if she didn’t feel the same way?
What if she got tired of him? Or doubted him?
Lying in the darkness, watching the crimson bars turn minute by minute, Gio decided there was only one way to know. He had to tell her.
0456 hours
Breakfast usually began around five in the morning. Units started asking if they were clear for a seven, and it was a rare morning when every unit that asked was not cleared. Cops were notoriously poor tippers, but they were generally loyal with their dining business. They arrested too many people who worked as cooks and dishwashers to risk going someplace they didn’t know, unless they wanted to risk someone spitting in the food. Or worse.
Mary’s Cafe was located at Birch and Rowan, both arterial streets. Long established as an officer-friendly restaurant, police cars crowded the small parking lot every morning. Baker sector officers crossed division and drove almost twenty blocks into Adam Sector to take breakfast there. If Hart had been the graveyard lieutenant, this never would have happened, but Saylor allowed it. The only stipulations were unspoken: a couple of units remained in service to shag the occasional call and units cleared to respond to anything that needed a response. The north-side troops happily adhered to these requirements.
Katie MacLeod didn’t care much for breakfast food. Sometimes, though, it felt good to get out of the car and do reports on a nice table with something hot to drink. Besides, there were two schools of thought on doing reports in the car. One held that it was good because you stayed in service and could answer calls quickly. The other held that it was dangerous because you were vulnerable while writing, or that you couldn’t accomplish much writing if you maintained the proper level of alertness.
Katie belonged to the first school, countering the danger factor by backing into a location where she could only be approached from the front or parking in the center of a large, empty parking lot. That way any movement attracted her attention.
Still, the coffee at Mary’s tasted good and there was company, if you wanted it. She didn’t, and signaled that to the others by sitting alone a booth away from the group already present. The stack of reports she was working on answered any questioning glances her direction. But the truth was, she wanted the solitude for other reasons.
Or reason.
Oh, hell, it was Stef.
She’d avoided him since that morning. Confusion flooded her senses whenever she thought of the situation. She paused while writing a burglary report.
Why do I keep coming back to this?
Because she liked him, she knew. He’d been a nice guy and there were some sparks between them, ever since the Academy.
But she was on the rebound. And he…well, who knew where he was on this?
Katie bit her lip. He hadn’t tried too hard to go out of his way to talk to her since that night. Yeah, maybe she’d avoided him a little, but she got the sense that he’d been avoiding her, too.
Maybe that was best. Love on the rebound. Dipping your pen in company ink. Cops working together and sleeping together. None of it sounded too smart to her.
She wondered if dating another cop would make it easier to deal with the stress of the job. After all, you wouldn’t have to describe it to the other person. They’d understand it perfectly. Then again, what if the stress wasn’t relieved but instead doubled? And what if he suddenly became protective, coming on all her calls, worrying about her all the time? Eventually that would happen, she knew. She hesitated, not wanting to acknowledge the next obvious question: What if they broke up? Working around an ex-lover would suck.
Jesus, Katie thought. Why am I worried about this? He’s obviously not. We had our little fling and it’s over with. There’s nothing else to it.
Right?
Katie shut off debate and dug into her report.
0615 hours
Just where everyone wants to be, Kopriva thought. Standing tall in the Lieutenant’s office.
He stood rigidly in front of Lieutenant Saylor’s desk as the shift commander read the complaint to him. He didn’t recognize the complainant until after the lieutenant read her name, then he had some memory of the stop. It was soccer mom in the mini-van, he was pretty sure.
Once Saylor finished reading, he raised his head to look at Kopriva. “Now, Officer Kopriva, I have to advise you that you have the right to have a Guild representative here with you during this proceeding.”
Damn. That meant he was going to get hammered. Well, if it stayed at shift level, that was better than seeing it go to Internal Affairs.
“I waive that right, sir,” he told Saylor.
“Sign here, then.”
He handed Kopriva the pen and the officer scrawled his name.
“Now, tell me. Does Ms. Wilson have a valid complaint?”
Kopriva considered. Saylor was a straight shooter. He would give him a fair shake, he decided.
“Was this woman driving a mini-van, sir?”
Saylor glanced down at the copy of Kopriva’s ticket in front of him. “Yes,” he answered.
Kopriva sighed. “Well, I don’t know, sir. She definitely blew the stoplight. I wasn’t too concerned in listening to how she thought the light was yellow. I suppose I was a little short with her. But I never said anything unprofessional.”
“Do you know where she was headed when you stopped her?”
Kopriva shook his head.
“Her twenty-five year old son’s birthday dinner,” Saylor said quietly. “Probably his last. He has terminal cancer.”
“Oh.” Kopriva suddenly felt like a heel.
Saylor didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he wrote something at the bottom of the complaint sheet. Without looking up, he said, “This will be considered a verbal counseling, as noted on the complaint form. Your actions were not improper.” His gaze locked on Kopriva. “You couldn’t have known, Stef, but maybe next time, listen a little?”
“Yes, sir.”
Saylor slid the paper across the desk to him. “Just sign that I counseled you, okay?”
Kopriva signed and returned the pen.
“We all get a little frustrated sometimes, right?” Saylor said. “Just take it out on the right people.”
Kopriva smiled in spite of himself.
Saylor gave him a wink. “And you did not hear that last part from me.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.”
Saylor nodded and glanced at the wall clock. About thirty minutes of the shift remained. “Why don’t you call it a night?”
Kopriva thanked him again and left the office. He changed quickly and hurried to his car. As he pulled out of the lot, he saw Katie parking her patrol car and securing it. He kept driving and did not meet her eye.
NINE
Wednesday, August 24th
Graveyard Shift
2120 hours
Katie MacLeod drove slowly down the side street, gazing at the houses she passed. She imagined the people who might live inside. Their stories. Their problems.
She smiled bitterly about that last thought. What did most of them know about problems? Oh sure, they had romantic problems, some of them. Things like her current situation. Getting dumped. Sleeping with someone you shouldn’t. Nothing unique about that.
But she was willing to bet no one in the houses she cruised past ever had to decide whether to shoot someone or not. They just trundled along in their little lives, working, watching TV and going to the mall and left those questions for the police to answer.