I took her to wait, which was probably a mistake in itself, but according to her teacher when I showed up at the school to pick her up, the radio had been on. She'd heard the names and had gone tearing out of class, in tears, without a word to anyone. She'd also refused to leave the so-called safety of the girls' bathroom down the hall from where her classroom was, until she'd been assured that I was on my way to get her.
In all honesty, I'd been tempted to send one of the others for her, because I didn't want to leave, but right then, in that moment, I didn't think she'd willingly go with anyone but me. So I left, and went to the school, and got her.
"You know, you could've answered the phone." The sound of her voice startled me, but there it was, and all of the eight years behind it, too. I sighed.
"Wasn't in the squad room."
She gave me a sideways look. "Were you there?"
I knew better than to lie to her about it. She'd heard Stan's name, already, because the damn press never knew when to keep their noses out of things. That alone had told her I was, and so I nodded.
"Oh."
Not the reaction I'd expected. Her feet swung above the floor mat, partly because she was, for once, sitting all the way back in the seat, like I was always telling her to do, and partly because she was too short to reach it anyway.
"You all right?" Stupid question. Sure enough, she gave me that sideways, scornful look that told me that a) I was once more an idiot, and b) she'd regained some kind of control of herself.
But I knew better than to believe that one, either, even if she didn't say anything, and I knew she wasn't going to. That's what you get for raising her in this squad room, the hell is wrong with you, Kay had said to me once.
I couldn't help but wonder if she'd say that again, but I couldn't tell Kai that. She was staring out the window, and hadn't turned the radio on, like she normally did. Then again, we were in one of the squad cars. And on the other side of that, it's what made it strange, because she was always the one who liked to listen to whatever was coming over the department frequencies and whatnot.
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
I hated telling her this. Almost wished that Abby or Rose would miraculously be there when we showed up, even though I knew they wouldn't be, because Rose was busy, and Abby hated hospitals.
"How come people don't like the cops?"
The traces of earlier tears were starting to disappear; hidden behind the glasses, her eyes wouldn't tell anyone anything, except for me, and that was only because I knew her.
"Because they think we're a pain, and that we only exist to ruin people's lives," I said, an answer she'd heard before, but I doubted she'd take it this time.
"Just 'cause you don't like someone doesn't mean you should try to kill them," she replied, in a nearly inaudible voice that made me glad we'd suddenly come to the red light, so I could turn to face her.
"This scares you, doesn't it?" I asked, another stupid question, because of course it did, she was eight years old, for heaven's sake, and the teacher shouldn't have had the damn radio on in the first place.
She wouldn't look at me. "Yeah," she admitted, finally, in that same inaudible voice. "It does." A long, awkward silence, and then, "I heard your name first. That's why I ran."
Damn the press, every single one of them. It figures they'd pull something like that, name the one who'd come out of it without a scratch and yet make it sound like they were dying. I turned, suddenly, abruptly, at the sounds of traffic behind us and the fact that the light had turned green.
"You didn't hear anything after that?"
It was a struggle to get the words out. Somehow, I found myself wishing that there was someone else there, someone else who could talk to her, and maybe ease whatever fear was still there, despite the fact that I was right there in front of her. But there was no one.
"Heard something about Kay," she mumbled, staring down at her feet and the lime green colored shoelaces that I told Abby not to get her, but she'd done it anyway, just like always, and the truth was, I didn't really care, because it didn't really matter anymore. "And Stan, but that was it, and then the door closed, and I couldn't hear it anymore."
A relief, in and of itself, to a child, who'd had no other way of knowing what was going on. I cursed, silently, at myself, for having let myself be talked into taking the run to find this latest idiot with Kay and Beau, even though I knew damn well that any one of the others could have gone in my place, but no. Hadn't thought about it, and I could just hear Rose in the back of my mind, lecturing me, a comment from years long ago gone by. It isn't just you anymore.
And it wasn't, either. We'd reached the hospital, and she saw Gee before I did, unbuckling her seatbelt and tumbling out of the car in that way she had before I'd even really come to a stop, but I didn't have the heart to lecture her this time. They disappeared inside, and a few minutes later, I joined them, vaguely aware of the fact that I still hadn't changed.
"You've got blood on you," Kai observed, when Gee couldn't hear her, because it always seemed to bother him when she noticed things like that, and I knew why, because it bothered me, too.
"I know." It almost scared me, how calm she was being about this, but I still knew better than to think that it was going to last. It had already been long enough. "You want to go home?"
"No."
Figures. She'd gone from zero to one hundred and back again all in the matter of an hour and a half because that's how much time had passed from when she'd heard to when I'd gotten there to when we'd gotten here, because it was the middle of the day, and Baltimore traffic was a pain in the ass sometimes.
There was another one of those awkward silences that was filled with the sounds of a hospital, sounds that even I as a cop never got used to, because every time I walked in, they sounded different. Someone else was dying, someone else was hanging in the balance…someone else was coming back to life.
Our day starts when yours ends, I thought, then, and said nothing, because Kai was still sitting there, sipping from the soda can that Gee had produced out of nowhere, her feet swinging a good six inches off the floor and her glasses slipping down her nose. She pushed them back up. I couldn't help but think this was a picture of an innocence that had been somewhat shattered, into pieces that weren't going to be put back together.
But the truth was that she was a lot more grown up than she was supposed to be, and part of it was my fault, and part of it was things like this, those things that we could never control, because it seemed fate always had something else in store for us. My child was in shock, and I knew it, and it would hit her later, the same way it had hit me.
"Why do the lessons that I don't learn in school always have to be so damn hard?"
I'd have asked her where she'd heard that kind of language if I didn't know she was being raised by me, my two closest friends, and an entire shift of murder police. Ordinarily, I'd have commented on it. This time, I didn't, because she was right.
"Because…" I started, and faltered, knowing that for once, I didn't know what I was talking about, the way she usually thought I did, unless it was one of those things where she wanted an answer from Abby or Rose, too, or even Kay or Tim, or Stan or Meldrick if they were around.
She waited. After a moment, I went on.
"Because what you learn at school is supposed to help you so you can figure out where you're going to go, and what you don't learn at school, you learn on the streets, and most of the time, it helps you figure out how to stay alive long enough to get there."
A hard truth, but in this city, I'd be damned if it wasn't one. It was also one that she needed to learn, as much as I hated having to be the one to explain it to her.
She pushed her glasses up onto her nose again, and looked at me. "Did you guys see him?" she asked, tentatively, as if she wasn't sure I was going to answer.
I shook my head. "No."
That was the worst part about it, too, I thought…the fact that someone could be so invisible that none of us would notice until three of us had fallen and one of us had their blood on his clothes.
"Invisible," she said, simply, in that way most kids her age had.
And I couldn't help but nod, because I knew it, and it hurt to know that she knew it, too.