Close Encounters (37 page)

“With you?”

“At home in Riverdale.”

“Oh.”

“You okay with that?”

“Sure, I don’t mind but… what do you think Mom’s going to say when she finds out?”

“I wouldn’t worry about your mother. She’s a cooler person than you realize.”

Next Lee called to find out about Barbara Peña. The autopsy showed that she had been killed instantly. Mario had been transported to a local hospital, where he’d undergone surgery to save his life. Lee didn’t wonder for long why Barbara had gone there to confront Mario without backup, although he’d begun to suspect that her connection to Mario went beyond that of cop and informant. But no one was ever going to hear that from him.

Finally, he called his lawyer and told the story of Carol’s attack and the ensuing events. The attorney understood the unique circumstances, but he pulled no punches in describing how Lee had hurt his own case by disobeying orders to stay away from Carol. Lee thanked him for his advice… and hung up. Nothing he was told would have made him do anything differently.

He let out a sigh, not so much from weariness as from relief. Then he put aside every other consideration and returned to the bedroom. He looked down on Carol as she slept, growing deeply angry at the physical evidence of her fight to stay alive. And to think it had all begun with their own encounter. He hunkered down next to the bed and watched the reassuring rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her lip and cheek were slightly swollen and discolored. The chemical concoction she’d made from bleach, cleaning fluids, and solvents had left a rash on her hands and arms.

He stroked her cheek, smoothed her hair, and leaned forward to kiss her bruised face. “I love you.”

Lee hadn’t realized how easy it would be to say the words. He was surprised at how good it felt to admit the truth. Carol slowly raised a hand, and he let his fingers entwine with hers.

“Me too,” she murmured.

The apartment seemed very quiet as Carol left the bedroom. Lee was nowhere in sight, though she knew where to find him. The sliding-glass door in the living room was open, and spring seemed to rush in at her with the fresh air and sunshine. Lee was leaning on the terrace railing, staring out into space. Carol watched him for a moment, needing to absorb his presence.

This might be the last time she would ever see him—

Which was probably why, at some time before dawn, Carol had turned to him. She’d suddenly needed the physical affirmation that the past weeks had not been an apparition between her and Lee. That together they had managed to make something real and special, despite impossible odds.

Lee might have been content to just sleep with her next to him, but he’d seemed to welcome the chance to love her. They gave to each other something that no one else could touch, and no one could take away.

As if sensing her there, Lee straightened from the terrace railing and turned. She was standing in the middle of the room, her expression pensive. He stepped back inside and joined her. He didn’t attempt to touch her, just stared into her dark eyes and saw reflected there all that he needed to see, taking it in to fortify himself against whatever would come in the next few weeks.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

“There’s still time for something to eat…”

Carol shook her head. “I’m not really hungry,” she said softly.

Lee nodded. He thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Do you have your things together?”

“Yes.”

“Carol…”

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

For a moment he was tempted to try and make light of it, but he realized that would be a disservice to both of them. They had shared more in six short weeks than either of them had been prepared for. One challenge after another—and the acid test was yet to come.

“Probably.”

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Carol lowered her gaze and frowned. “Is it because of the lawsuit? Or… because of me?”

“It’s because I broke with protocol. I let my personal feelings get mixed up with the job I was doing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Jesus, you’re the last person in the world who should apologize. Anyway, I make my own decisions. Right now, I think it’s better for both of us if we don’t get in touch until things settle down.”

“I know.”

“But that’s not going to change how I feel about you, Carol. Do you understand?”

She didn’t move, did nothing to reveal the giddy pleasure she experienced at Lee’s declaration. Or the fear she’d been denying since she’d first recognized the depth of her feelings for him. They were in an impossible situation not of their own making, on opposite sides of a political battle that might still spread. It was the raging hostility between law enforcement and the black community. Their love was not only ill-advised, it was potentially self-destructive.

“Nothing’s going to change the way I feel about you, either,” she said.

The buzzer sounded. For a moment they remained transfixed, each aware that they had run out of time. They reached for each other and embraced with longing and tenderness.

Carol reveled in the warm strength of his arms, savoring the lingering imprint of his body against hers.

“Listen, last night I thought about it, and I decided I had to call your brother. He was cool about our being together.”

“Was he angry?”

“Just worried. He said he’d give us twenty-four hours and then all bets were off. He’s told anyone who asked that you stayed with him and he wasn’t letting anyone talk with you until this afternoon.” Lee pulled back and looked into her eyes.

He shook his head as the buzzer sounded again. He went to the door to release the downstairs lock. When he returned to Carol she looped her arms around his neck “Wes won’t admit it, but that means he kind of admires you.”

Quicker than they were ready for, the doorbell rang. Again Lee made the caller wait while he took the time to embrace Carol and kiss her with a deep and slow sensuality, a parting gift they could both remember. The play of their lips and tongues generated only enough heat to reassure them, to solidify their feelings for each other. It was kiss that said, “Until next time.”

Lee opened the door to his police colleagues, Anthony and Jeremy. They looked first at Lee and then beyond him to Carol, who regarded the two officers with calm curiosity. The two men stepped into the apartment.

“Lieutenant,” Anthony murmured, nodding to Lee. He said nothing to Carol.

“Is she ready?” Jeremy asked Lee.

Lee shook hands with both men, then drew Carol forward to stand next to him. “Carol, this is Anthony and Jeremy. They’re from my squad. They’re going to take you to your brother’s place. He’s waiting for you.”

“I’m Carol Taggart,” she introduced herself. “You probably don’t remember me from that early morning back in January.”

“We know who you are,” Jeremy replied.

“Since you’re here, I know it means you want to do whatever you can for Lee.”

The two officers exchanged glances with Lee.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Anthony confirmed.

“You trust him?”

“Of course.”

“Then please believe that Lee wouldn’t ask you to help me if it wasn’t very important. His career and my dignity and credibility are on the line. We wouldn’t jeopardize either unless we believed in how we feel. So… I want to thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt.”

Still without comment, Lee transferred his attention to his men. Anthony looked genuinely surprised. Jeremy nodded as he stood aside for Carol to pass.

“Jeremy and I took some personal time so no one would know what we’re doing, Lee,” Anthony said. “Everyone’s pretty tied up making arrangements for Barb, anyway.”

“Yeah, the mayor’s been making statements to the press about how brave she was, how she helped capture a player we’ve been after for a long time. There was no mention of you, Lieutenant. We managed to keep that out of the report.”

“What about Carol? Did her name come up?”

“Yeah, she was mentioned—the story made the front page of today’s paper.”

Carol and Lee gazed at each other. “You’d better go,” he said.

The two officers stepped discreetly back into the hall to wait for her. She pressed a light kiss to Lee’s mouth and whispered, “Thank you for taking care of me. When do you think we’ll see each other again?”

Lee’s eyes filled with regret and resignation. “Probably in court,” he said.

“Are you nervous?”

Carol didn’t answer Wesley right away. Weeks ago, she’d stopped putting a name to how she felt. She was too numb. Too tired and impatient.

Carol was also grateful to Matt, in an odd way, for his interference which had set the wheels in motion for the suit with the city.

She was sure she had the epiphany from a near-death experience and meeting Lee to thank for other significant changes in her life. The assignment of blame or guilt was pointless. Any monetary compensation was irrelevant. She had learned a basic truth that no one owed her anything and that her life belonged to herself. The awareness may have set her free, but it was also a lonely place.

She sighed as she and Wes climbed the steps to the courthouse building on Centre Street in lower Manhattan. “Not nervous,” she said. “Just glad this will soon be over.”

“It will be. We got a real break when the judge decided to call it in a month early.”

“It was still a month too long.”

“The system moves slowly, but it does move.”

Wes took Carol’s arm to steer her through the entrance and to the security check which obscured what had once been a majestic foyer.

Carol had become familiar with the routine, the personnel, the surprisingly small and outdated rooms where the fate of people’s lives was decided. During the first two weeks of preliminary hearings back in March, she’d gotten used to the small group of ardent and persistent demonstrators who caused enough commotion outside the court to ensure daily press coverage of their outrage about police negligence and brutality. By now, they had given up their vigil. It could have been worse.

So far the public had made no direct connection between her and Lieutenant Lee Grafton. Perhaps it had helped that except for the first meeting, when everyone directly or indirectly involved in the case had been present, Lee had not attended any other hearings.

Carol had not seen or heard from him in weeks. She had not talked about him to Wes, and her brother had made only legal references to him, in relation to their case. But she had found a safe haven in her mind and heart, where her feelings for Lee remained strong.

“The good news, Carol,” Wes continued, “is that so far the police aren’t contesting that they are responsible for your being shot. The ballistics tests were gold in terms of evidence. You have a clean record as a law-abiding citizen. We don’t have to prove anything.”

“And the bad news?” she asked, as they got off the elevator and headed toward the judge’s anteroom for the meeting with police counsel.

“So far, there isn’t any,” Wes said cheerfully.

Carol was not inclined to agree.

The bad news was that the hearings, appearances, documents, and pretrial meetings seemed endless. The case had disrupted her teaching schedule and she’d had to postpone a trip out west to visit her parents and to meet Ann’s fiancé. She’d moved back to her own apartment, only to conclude that she would prefer to move out altogether rather than endure the daily reminders of what had happened there.

“Look, you’re doing good. I know this doesn’t mean all that much to you, but it’s the principle of accountability that I’m after.”

“And all I’m after is getting on with my life.”

Wes sighed as they reached the doors. “Me, too. But I don’t want you to have to worry about how you’re going to support yourself.”

As Wes reached for the door, it suddenly opened and a young woman stepped out. She looked back and forth between him and Carol.

“Good, you’re here,” she said. “I need to speak with you for a minute before you go in. Just you, counselor.”

Wes immediately turned to Carol. “Give me a minute,” he said, stepping aside to converse quietly with the woman, a city representative.

Carol strolled away, letting herself speculate on how Lee was handling the situation. Were the legal proceedings wearing him down? Had their lack of contact obliterated the feelings he’d declared for her? Despite what he’d told her, when all was said and done, would he still love her?

“Carol…”

Wes was calling out to her. There were now three more lawyers in the hallway with her brother, all waiting for her to join them. Carol did so, taking her time while she tried to read their expressions. But they were like her brother, who gave nothing away. A poker face, Wes called it. And Carol wondered whose bluff was about to be called.

Wes put his arm lightly around her shoulder as she stood next to him.

“Carol, they want to settle.”

“Settle?” she asked blankly.

“They want to suggest a specific compensation. You understand this doesn’t mean the police or the city admits to any wrongdoing, but we all agree that if this goes to trial it will take longer, cost more money, generate unwanted publicity… and you could end up taking them to the cleaners. No guarantee, of course, but I’d personally bet the farm on the outcome.”

Carol examined each of the faces regarding her. They were clearly waiting for some response from her, and she wasn’t going to give them one.

“Can we talk about this?” she asked Wesley.

“Absolutely,” he said, walking them away down the corridor. “This is what they’re offering,” he added, giving Carol a figure.

“That’s a lot of money,” she murmured.

“It sure is,” Wes agreed.

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s a fair offer. It’s less than I asked for, but you’re saved the aggravation and stress of waiting for a jury trial. If we go that route, the police and city will keep filing delays for as long as they can get away with it. This case could go on for another year.”

“Wes, I don’t want to be doing this next month, let alone next year.”

“I didn’t think so. So, shall we accept?”