He meets her on a case when he's still in Chicago. She's after the same dirty councilman, albeit for an entirely different reason. She's all red lips and red nails, a junior reporter after her first big story.
Nick tells himself its purely professional when he sidles up alongside her at the bar, unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"Lookin' for a light?" She asks.
"If you're offerin'."
She opens her handbag, rummages around. "Haven't seen you around here before. Doesn't seem like your kinda joint." Flicking the lighter open, she turns to face him. "If you don't mind me sayin', that is."
He bends down to take the light. "Could say the same for you, Miss …"
"Jenny. And it's more business than pleasure."
Nick's eyebrows shoot up.
"Oh! No!" She backtracks. "I'm not … uh … not … I'm a reporter." Her cheeks flush, almost the color of her lipstick. There's a nervous giggle and Nick realizes hers is a practiced cool, an acquired nonchalance.
It's his turn to chuckle. "Writing a profile on the local dives, are you?"
"Gotta keep up that muckraking tradition somehow. I was actually supposed to meet a contact here, but looks like that's a bust."
"Contact?"
"Yeah. For a story …" Her voice trails off. He can watch the panic set in on her face. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, and he sees her eyes drift towards the shoulder holster concealed under his jacket. She's young. He realizes. Hasn't learned to keep her guard up until it's too late.
"Gus Gorsky?"
She nods.
He tips his head low towards her. "I'm not gonna hurt you, and I'm not going to see you get hurt, but I think we oughta get out of here."
She nods, eyes wide and disbelieving.
Under the cover of the crowd, he fishes out a business card and passes it to her, hoping she'll have enough light to read by as they walk. By the time they're out, standing beneath gaudy neon lights, she's relaxed some.
"Nick Valentine," she starts. "I've heard about you. Good guy detective, finder of the lost, defender of the weak."
"That's quite a title."
She shakes her head. "Yeah, they always said I had a flare for flash."
"Newspaper life not living up to your expectations?"
"Danger sounded a lot more glamorous in the radio plays," she shrugs. "It's never boring, at least."
There's a softness to her, even under the neon lights. He tells himself it's just another possible source when he offers to buy her dinner.
It's pouring. Fat drops land on Michigan Avenue and on Nick's hat. He draws his trench coat closer, and squints, trying to see through the raindrops.
He spots her umbrella first. It's cherry red and two sizes too small, something you'd give a kid. Her lipstick is faded and she looks like she hasn't slept. There's an excitement to her, an energy he hasn't seen before.
"You're gonna wanna see this."
"Hello to you, too, Jenny."
"You got somewhere safe we can go?"
"Safe?'
"Yeah," she says. "I think I found something. Something potentially big."
He nods. "My office."
She hails a cab and they climb in.
They pass the ride in silence. Jenny alternates between fidgeting with the worn leather of the attaché case on her lap, and the hem of her skirt.
She waits until they're inside and the door is shut before she opens her mouth again.
"The body they found in the dumpster behind Adam's Ribs…"
"They think it's Gorsky, I know."
"They confirmed it this morning," she says, snapping open the case. "Shot in the back by some kind of laser pistol."
Nick lets out a long, low whistle. "Not an easy weapon to come by."
Jenny shakes her head. "Not in the least. I checked out the only legal dealer in town. He's sold one and only one in the past six months, and that purchase was made in the last six weeks. "
"You find out anything on who he sold it to?"
She shakes her head. "He wasn't big on giving me anything about our mystery client, but he did tell me how much it would have cost to purchase such a …. fine weapon."
"Alright, I'm with you."
"On a hunch, I went through and ran the numbers on Councilman Calloway's expense reports. He's smart, only skimming off what he needs and doing it in small amounts. There's always room for plausible deniability, human error, in the math. But still, since he's been elected, he's skimmed an amount equal to the cost of a top of the line laser pistol and the ammo to match."
"You've got proof he skimmed?"
"I've got proof someone skimmed." She brandishes the expense reports and her notes proudly. "It's goin' out in Thursday's paper, but I wanted to give you the drop on it."
Nick takes the papers from her, reading them over carefully. Her own tight, tidy numbers lined up next to the printed figures bear out her case. "Well, it doesn't tie him to the gun, but that's a hell of a thing you've got. You may have a flare for flash, but you've also got a nose for this investigation business."
She beams at him and he'll be damned if it isn't the sweetest thing he's seen.
"Jenny," he says, face growing worried. "Who else has this information?"
"Just you and my editor."
"You trust'im?"
"Her? Yeah, she's good people."
"Good people?"
She shakes her head. "You can take the girl out of Boston, but you can't take the Boston out of the girl."
"Still, you might want to lay low the next couple days. Take a trip outta town. Somewhere nice."
"You think this is gonna go pear shaped?"
"I think, if you're right, Calloway's a lot more trouble than we gave him credit for."
The article hits and hits hard. Calloway's on damage control from the get go. Human error only gets you so far in the face of siphoning off $9,000, after all.
Nick's headed out of the office the Tuesday after when the phone rings. It's late and he's tired, but it doesn't feel right just leaving it be.
"Valentine."
"Nick?" A hushed voice on the line whispers. "Nick, it's Jenny."
"Jenny," he says, sitting down. "What's going on? Why are you whispering?"
"There's a guy, Nick. He's been following me since I left the office. He's wearing all black. I think he's bad news."
"You're sure?"
"I'm positive. Every corner I've turned, every stop I've made, he's been there. Far enough away to be discrete, but…"
"Where are you?"
"Not far from your office, actually. I'm sorry. I should have called earlier on. I'm sure you were planning to go home."
"What's the life of a detective without a little trouble?" He asks. "You somewhere well lit?"
"Yeah. There's a sandwich joint across the road. Henry's."
"Head there. I'll meet you."
She's at the counter when he gets there, wrapped in a red sweater he's seen her wear a dozen times before, staring into her coffee cup. Her friend is there too, dressed in a dark coat and pork pie hat, not far from the door.
He slides onto the stool next to her. "Got a light?"
She flinches, startled. "Jesus, Nick."
"Sorry for the scare," he offers. "See you've still got your shadow."
She nods. "I'm sorry for draggin' you out here like this. I didn't know what else to do."
"You've got nothing to apologize for. You ready to head out?"
"Yeah." With shaking hands, she fishes out the money, passing it to the perpetually cheerful Mr. Handy manning the register.
He rests a hand on the small of her back and she leans against him. It's nice, Nick thinks. Or, it would be - in different circumstances.
Unsurprisingly, the man in black follows out soon after.
The street grows darker as they get closer to the precinct and he can feel the tension in Jenny's back. She leans closer into him and tries to steady her breathing.
Turning the darkest corner, their friend finally decides to speak up.
"Alright, you two. Hands up!"
Nick's hand falls from her back and reaches for the revolver in his holster. He turns around slowly to face the man in black, his own gun already pointed at them.
"You don't have to do this," Nick says, weary. "Just put the gun down and leave the lady alone."
"The lady went and stuck her nose where it didn't belong. My employer didn't care for that."
"Your employer's a crook. Sending a tough after a reporter isn't exactly subtle, pal, and you can tell your employer I said that."
"Enough talk! Gimme the broad and we can all walk away from here. Well, almost all."
Nick doesn't hesitate, just aims for the man's shoulder, and shoots. The tough drops the gun, crumpling to the ground. Behind him, Jenny yelps.
"Jenny," Nick starts. "Jenny, listen to me. There's a phone down the street a little. I need you to go call this in. Can you do that?"
"Yeah," she says, though her voice sounds less certain. "Who do I call?"
"911 will do."
She scrambles off, leaving Nick with her would-be assailant. He's too busy clutching his shoulder to be any real threat, but Nick takes no chances. It's only once backup arrive that he relaxes, and turn his attention to Jenny.
"You have some place other than your apartment to stay the next couple of nights?"
She shakes her head no. "I 'll look into a hotel, I guess."
"I've, uh, got a spare room," Nick offers. "Not much and nothing fancy, but you'd be welcome."
"That'd … that'd be nice. I'd like that. If you'll have me."
And with that, she offers him the first smile he's seen out of her all night.
A few days turns into a few weeks. They tell themselves it's just until there's enough evidence to put Calloway away. They tell themselves it won't be much longer.
But, they fall into a routine. He wakes up first and goes for a run and puts the coffee on. She makes breakfast while he showers. They eat together and he puts her in a cab to her office before walking to his own.
She takes a car home and brings him dinner if he's working late. He comes home and they'll leave the radio on, humming along while cleaning the kitchen.
They go out, sometimes, to the jazz clubs on the nicer end of town. He wears a suit and she wears the red dress she wore the night they first met. They listen to the bands and dance. Sometimes, Jenny comes home with her shoes in her hand. Sometimes, she kisses him on the cheek to say goodnight.
One time, he kisses her back.
He's not sure why and he's not sure what he's expecting, but it certainly isn't for her to pull herself closer to him, shoes dropped haphazardly to the floor in favor of being able to rest one hand on his cheek and another on the back of his neck.
Before long, her fingers are working at his tie as he feels for the hook at the top of her dress.
"Bed?" She asks.
"Bed."
She breaks the lease on her apartment the day the Calloway indictment comes in.
The two years he's with her in Chicago, he never gets used to waking up next to her, her head on his chest, legs tangled with his. She's the most gorgeous woman he's ever known, and every day, he grows more resolute in that knowledge.
They're halfway through a sleepy, post-work slow dance one summer evening when he realizes what he has to do.
It's eight months salary for a ruby the color of her lipstick from that first, smoky meeting. It sits in his dresser drawer for two weeks, nagging at him, until a sunny Sunday on the shores of Lake Michigan, Jenny radiant in the light of day.
At dinner that night, he gets down on one knee. Jenny can only nod, caught somewhere between crying and laughing as he slips the ring on her finger.
It's only a few weeks later that the call comes in about the job in Boston.
It pays almost double with a sign-on bonus that makes Nick's eyes pop.
"Take it!" Jenny tells him. "Task force trapping a mobster? It'll be an adventure."
"Easy for you to say," Nick grumbles good-naturedly. "You're not the one in the line of fire."
"Nah, but I am the worried wife-to-be at home."
"What're you gonna do about work?"
"They do have newspapers in Boston, Nick. It's a regular bastion of civilization."
He lets out a short laugh, then grows serious. "You sure about this?"
"Yeah," she says, voice softening. "Let's go get the bad guy."
Winter's worse than anything he's ever faced. He thought he'd seen it all in Chicago; he was wrong. He's better organized and with less of a conscience than anything Nick's ever seen.
Somewhere around the fourth kidnapping is when it starts keeping him up.
Their kitchen table is covered in papers and manila folders, his case notes and his maps. Jenny maneuvers around it deftly, worry in her eyes.
He tells himself that he's fine, that she's out of the line of fire. He tells himself that there are thirty men on the task force, easily. That he's nothing special. That Winter's got nothing on him.
He's wrong.
He's elbow deep in financial records when the call comes over the radio. He doesn't hear it, or maybe he does, and doesn't pay attention. It isn't until Widmark comes to him, face drawn, that it really registers.
He doesn't believe it at first.
She's not dead. She can't be dead.
It's not until he sees her, pale and cold, so un-Jenny-like, stretched out on the table in the Medical Center's morgue that it really hits.
Jenny.
There's a single bullet would, right through her heart, a gaping exit wound in her chest.
"It was quick, Nick. She didn't suffer" is the best the doctor can offer him.
They hand him her personal affairs, and leave him alone to sort through them. There's her engagement ring, and her watch; her purse and what's left of her clothes, the familiar red sweater now stained with blood. There's a small gift bag too, stuffed with tissue paper and adorned with curly ribbon. There's a baby bottle inside and a note from Jenny: Surprise! Guess we better get on that marriage thing, huh? Get ready for some more sleepless nights. Love you – J.
Nick sets the box aside, walks over to the nearest trash can, and throws up.
The headstone says Jennifer Lands-Valentine. He puts her ring on a chain and vows to put Winter in the electric chair.
This is the promise he makes to himself, to Jenny's parents, to the world at large. It's what he promises her ghost when she shows up in his dreams, bright red lipstick and that dress and a hole in her chest.
Winter will pay. Justice will prevail.
Except it doesn't.
They were stooges, all of them. Winter was a federal informant, granted immunity from all misdeeds in exchange for incriminating all known associates. He walks free. Case closed. Nothing to be done.
It's all he can do not to throw his desk phone at Widmark, smash something, anything against a wall, start shouting about system that lets a murderer walk free and clean.
He sees Eddie everywhere, in everyone.
Widmark puts him on administrative leave and loads him in a squad car to CIT.
Nick doesn't remember just the procedure, just that it doesn't help.
He survives the bombings and, really, wouldn't that just be his luck?
The entire world is gone, lost in a haze of fire and rage and radiation. Boston lies in ruins. Chicago and New York too. The entire world a graveyard, and here he is, a ghost-to-be walking the rows.
The cemetery is badly irradiated and he knows it. He figures, though, that it doesn't make much difference. He's going to die anyway; he might as well be with her. He brings a pillow and a sleeping bag, and the last holotape he has of her; he can still hear the smile on her voice.
His Geiger counter clicks angrily as he downs the pills. See you soon, J, he thinks. Sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I'll make it up to you, sweetheart. I promise.
He lies down, Jenny's holotape playing on the Pip Boy he scavenged from some burned out electronics store on his way.
And, finally, under a blood red sky, Nick Valentine finds his peace.
Title from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"