Traffic in New York was legendary. Eva Marquez drummer her fingers on the steering wheel of an unmarked police car. In the passenger seat, John Amsterdam killed the time by playing with his phone. Interviewing the family of a victim didn't require lights and sirens, but Eva was tempted to flash her lights and make some room. Except that twenty minutes ago she'd had to stop John from doing just that, since somebody in the car had to play by the rules.
"Do you know how long a person spends stuck in traffic during their lifetime?" she asked him. "It's a lot, about a week, I think. I'm spending a week of my life sitting in a car like this."
"That's not so bad," John said, flipping his phone shut. "I remember my first car. When you got stuck in traffic, you—"
She cut him off. "I don't want to hear about how you had to crank your model T," she said. He dutifully obliged, and they rode in silence for the next block.
"What was his name?" Eva asked, out of the blue. "Your son."
For a horrible moment, John froze, unsure who she was asking about. "Omar" sprang to his lips, but that wasn't right. Eva was staring at him, waiting for an answer that should have been automatic.
She looked at him as if he was crazy. "Your son. Who died? You said he was six," she said, trying to jog his memory. Eva wondered if he had ever been an astronaut in one of those past lives, because he spent an awful lot of time in space.
He let out a breath he'd been holding. That son. "Abraham," he replied. "His name was Abraham." Abraham Holland, son of the blacksmith John Holland. 1774 had been a bad year, the start of many.
Eva throttled forward in traffic, advancing the car and taking advantage of the distraction to avoid asking the inevitable question. If John wanted to tell her more, he would. Their conversations usually resulted in an overabundance of information about John's life. So she gunned the engine more than necessary, hiding her curiosity by moving the car an inch at a time.
"It was an accident," he supplied, possibly saving them from running out of gas. "You know how kids are. They've got to explore the world, push their boundaries. And… things happen." Eva waited for more, but John was staring out the window now. She wasn't going to push.
He must have been young, she realized. He'd never mentioned kids, not since that one time. Not even Omar had said anything about a family. And it was clear that John had been single for a long time. His frequent and desperate voicemails to that ER doc were a sign that he should get out more. Had it been his first wife? His second?
Amsterdam broke her out of her reverie. "Turn right," he said. "Just up ahead. It's a shortcut."
She pushed herself off the seat to see above the cars in front of them. "That? It's an alley. It doesn't go anywhere."
"Trust me," he said in that smug tone, and Eva growled and flipped on her blinker. John guided her back through the alley, and twenty minutes later she was parking the car.
"I hate you," she shot over the roof, slamming the door.
He gave her his best crooked smile. "I know."