Callahan's Fate (23 page)

“But
Pop
said…”

His voice came out as a growl. “Forget
what he said. He’s an old man, he doesn’t know.”

“You asked his advice, and that’s what
he told you.”

“He said me or you as bait. I’m not
taking the risk with you, baby.”

Her lips slanted upward into a smile.
“I’m glad you feel that way, but you might have to, Callahan.”

“Not happening,” he told her. “Are you
feelin
’ better?”

Raine
wrinkled her
nose. “A little bit. I still have a headache, though.”

“If you’re ready to eat, I thought we
could order a pizza.”

She shook her head. “I’m not very hungry
at all.”

Callahan studied
Raine
with close scrutiny. She appeared paler than usual, and although he didn’t
doubt her head hurt, he didn’t think she suffered from any illness. A worry
line furrowed between her eyebrows, though. Her lethargy and lack of appetite
concerned him enough to ask, “Doll, what’s really wrong?”

Her lips pursed up into a pout, pretty
enough he wanted to kiss them.
 
Callahan
didn’t.

“I told you, a bad headache.”

“That’s not all of it.”

He waited, and after a few seconds, her
eyes filled up with tears. “I’m really scared, Callahan.”

“The fear factor’s nothing new, baby.
We’ve been living with this shit hanging over us for weeks now. What’s got you
so freaked out?”

Raine
exhaled hard.
“The way your grandfather talked about the situation and what could happen, so
matter-of-fact and without any doubt at all.
 
I guess it brought everything home to me.
 
I’ve been scared all the time, sure, but now
I’m terrified.”

Earlier, she had called the old man Pop,
now she said “your grandfather.”
 
Callahan noted the change. “He didn’t mean to upset you,” he told her.
“You weren’t meant to listen.
 
I know he
can be a handful, but I love him, you know?”

“I do,” she said. “I like him a lot.”

“That’s good to know.
 
But he didn’t say anything different from what
I have, so what got you spooked?”

She shivered, although it wasn’t cold in
the apartment. “I don’t know.
 
I just…well,
he made it sound like whatever happens will be soon.”

“Yeah.”
He’d thought
the same and didn’t care for it either. “But it’s good in a way, so it’ll be
over and done with.”

When she closed her eyes, he thought she
might be about to cry, and he wasn’t too far wrong.
 
Tears escaped down both cheeks, but she held
back any sobs. “Maybe I should have agreed to go home.”

If she left now, it would be like ripping
away part of his body or carving his heart into halves. Callahan would miss her,
but if she wanted to go, he would put her on a plane. “Do you want to, doll?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. But I can see
now why it might have been a good idea.”

Their fingers curled tighter together as
he tried to figure out what he could say to offer comfort.
Raine
spoke first. “How’s your eye?” she asked.
 
Her free hand lifted to touch it, light and easy.

“Aw, it’s not bad now,” he said. With
the swelling down, the multicolored bruising looked worse than it felt. “It’s
all right.”

“Your grandpa didn’t say anything about
it.”

“He noticed, believe me, he noticed.”

With sudden hindsight, Callahan realized
he’d had the perfect place to keep
Raine
safe, but
failed to think of it. “I should’ve left you with Pop,” he told her. “You
could’ve stayed there till this is over.”

Her eyes blazed with angry fire.
“No way.
 
We’re in
this together.”

He pretended not to understand. “Didn’t
you like him?”

“Your pop?”
Raine
asked. “Of course I did. But that doesn’t mean I
wanted him to babysit me like I’m five years old.
 
I’m going to work tomorrow, too, Callahan.”

His heart lost its rhythm, and his gut
clenched tight.
 
The stubborn jut of her
jaw warned him she had her mind made up. “I wish you wouldn’t, doll.”

“Well, I am.”

Callahan sighed long and deep. “Okay. At
least tell me where you work, then.”

She glanced down at the bed before she
answered. “In the morning, I’m in the Bronx at a juvenile detention center and
then a drug rehab facility.
 
Then I go to
the upper West Side for a homebound student, then down to Little Italy to a
halfway house, then to a hospital in the Financial District. Then I’m done.”

The fuckin’ Bronx?
Didn’t she realize she would be walking in Snake’s
home territory?
Callahan
counted to three,
then
said, “Okay. Just make sure I
have the addresses, just in case, you know?”

Her harsh expression lightened. “I will,
Callahan. I was afraid you’d be mad at me.”

He shook his head. “No, just worried,
that’s all.
 
If you’re working, you ought
to eat something. If you don’t want the pizza, I’ll make something.”

“I need a shower, and no, I’m not into
pizza right now.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Go clean up,
and I’ll make sandwiches.”

Raine
let go of his
hand and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She lifted an eyebrow. “What
kind? I don’t think there’s any deli meat left.”

God, he adored her sass, all the more
now after she’d been so pensive. “Doll, trust me, I can manage a
coupla
sandwiches.”

She blew him a kiss as she gathered up
her clean clothes and grabbed a towel.
 
Raine
paused long enough to strip.
 
Callahan watched with interest as she headed
into the bathroom, enjoying her rear view very much.
 
Then he checked the fridge and cupboards to
find something for a sandwich.
 
They were
out of lunch meat, but he had cheese, butter, and bread.
 
After searching, he found a can of chicken
rice soup, too.
 

Raine
emerged in her
pajamas with her hair still damp, just as Callahan flipped a pair of grilled
cheese sandwiches onto two plates.
 
Soup
steamed on the table in mismatched bowls.
 
He had even managed to set the table with paper napkins and spoons.
“Hey, doll,” he said. “Supper’s ready.”

Her smile rewarded him. “Wow,” she said,
pausing long enough to brush a kiss across his mouth.
 
She sat down. “It looks good.
 
I’m impressed.
 
Two meals in one day is quite a record,
Callahan.”

He liked her praise, so he downplayed
it. “Aw, it’s not much.”

“It’s perfect,” she said.
 
Then she reached for his hands and chanted
the traditional blessing before meals.
 
Callahan joined after a moment’s pause, touched by the gesture.
 
Sometimes they said the blessing, sometimes
not, but right now he appreciated the comfort of the familiar words.

****

In the morning they rode the Downtown Two
train together from Thirty-Fourth Street Penn Station to the Bronx,
then
went their separate ways.
 
Raine
, wearing a
knee-length camel-colored coat and a bright red scarf, set off without a
backward glance.
 
Callahan, after a
moment of indecision, followed.
 
He
remained behind her as she moved among the morning crowds, her golden hair a
bright beacon on the gray morning.
 
As he
trailed behind, Callahan scanned every
cross street
,
corner, and alley in case Snake should appear, but he didn’t.
 
Relief rushed through him when he watched
Raine
enter the juvenile facility.
 
For now, she was safe.
I hope she texts me like she promised.

Callahan turned around and all but ran
to the precinct.
 
His effort to still
be
on time failed, and when he strolled up to his desk, Joe
Lowry shot him a knowing glance.

“You’re late, Callahan.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry.”

“Uh-huh. You got another bellyache? No?
Maybe it’s a pain a little lower or an itch that needed to be scratched. Or did
she belt you a good one in the left eye?”

Any other time, he would have laughed at
his partner’s crass attempt at humor, but not now. Callahan tapped his chest.
“It’s more of a feeling here,” he said. “And yeah, it’s to do with
Raine
, but it’s not what you think.”

“So tell me.”

He did, in as few words as
possible.
 
Joe shook his head. “Jeez, and
to think I missed such excitement.
 
We
took the kids to a thing in Central Park.
 
I must be
gettin
’ old. Let’s hit the streets.”

Two arrests, three tails, and four slow
hours later, Callahan managed to spend his lunch break trailing
Raine
from the drug rehab to the subway station.
 
He considered alerting her to his presence
but decided he wouldn’t.
 
She might get
mad, and he didn’t want her to be angry, just alive. If she got pissed, she
might not text him, and when he had time to check his phone, he noticed she had
sent several. Most of them ended with a row of
x
’s
which he figured meant
kisses.
I’d rather have the real deal,
though.
After work, he hustled to hit the Thirty-Fourth Street Station in
time to meet her train, armed with a bouquet of fall mums he bought along the
way.
 

When she stepped from the train,
Callahan waited until the crowds dissipated in every direction before he
approached. “Hey, doll.”

Raine’s
face lit with a
huge smile. “Hi, honey. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” he said. “Here, I
bought these for you.”

He handed her the burgundy flowers, and
she pressed her nose close to the blossoms. “Thank you,” she said. “They’re
pretty. What’s the occasion?”

“Because I love you,” he told her.

Right there, on the platform, commuters
and other subway riders all around them, she hugged him, one hand clutching the
bouquet. “That’s reason enough,” she said. “I love you, too. Let’s go home.”

“Sounds good to me,” he told her. “I’m
beat.”

“Long day?”

“Aren’t they all?” He sidestepped the
question.
 
Concern for her safety created
a never-ending stress. Rearranging his schedule to keep up with her took effort
and wore him out. “Do we need to pick up something to eat?”

She linked her arm through his as they
climbed the stairs to exit the station. “No, I put dinner in the Crock-Pot
before we left this morning, remember?”

“Oh, yeah I do.” He did, vaguely.

When he unlocked the apartment, though,
the delicious aroma of simmering food smacked him in the face. “Something
smells good,” he said. “What is it?”

Raine
smacked his
arm. “Beef stew.”

Now he recalled she’d tossed some meat
chunks, chopped up an onion, diced a few potatoes, added some carrots, poured a
can of cream soup into the mix, and added seasonings.
 
At the time, he’d wondered what the hell she
might be making, but the raw ingredients had turned into a delicious stew.
 
Callahan couldn’t resist lifting the lid and
inhaling with pleasure.
 
Then he realized
she’d said something that he’d missed. “What?”

“I said I was going to make biscuits to
go with it if you want to get out of the uniform and take a shower,”
Raine
said. “I want to put my flowers in a vase if I can
remember where I put the ones I brought.”

A long, hot shower eased the tension in
his muscles and washed away some of his worry.
 
For now, tucked into his apartment, they were safe and cozy.
 
Snake had no idea where he lived or he would
have been on the doorstep by now.
 
Callahan relaxed and emerged wearing sweats and a plain white
T-shirt.
 
He padded across the floor in
his sock feet as she pulled a pan of biscuits from the oven.
 
Callahan slowed his step and waited until
she’d piled them on a plate, then leaned forward and moved her hair aside to
kiss the back of her neck with slow, tender lips.

By the time they’d eaten a bowl of the
hearty stew, teamed with buttered biscuits, he wanted nothing more than to
stretch out and enjoy the evening. “So,” he said after they’d finished the
dishes. “
Whaddya
want to do?”