A/N: Thanks for the encouragement, everyone! I'm so glad to know there are still Cold Case fans out there!
Disclaimer: Still not mine, but I'm having a lot of fun playing with them!
Chapter Four
Containing a Punching Bag, a Softball Bat, and Taylor Swift
The next morning, under a sullen gray sky, my phone trills with news of a case. Excavation at the quarry has unearthed a body buried there since at least the mid 1960s.
Selfishly, I'm relieved. I'd planned to go to Scotty's arraignment, but the idea of my friend, my partner, my—my Scotty, in front of a judge? Being treated like a common criminal? That was too painful for me to even think about, let alone witness. Nick and Will offered to go in my stead, with Will promising to keep me updated. I could've kissed them.
Feeling guilty, though, I shoot Scotty a quick text while Miller drives us to the scene. Can't make it this AM. Caught a case. Good luck.
A minute later, the phone buzzes with his reply. K, thx.
I stare at the screen for what feels like an eternity, puzzling over all the possible inflections and meanings and ramifications of those four terse little letters. 'K, thx'?!' Even for a man not given to wordy texts, this is astonishingly short. What could it mean? Is he angry that I'm not there? Disappointed, but understanding? Relieved that I won't be there to see his perp walk? Completely indifferent?
And…why the hell do I care so much?
"Earth to Rush," Miller says from the driver's seat. "Everything okay?"
Startled, I slip my phone back into my coat pocket and offer what I hope is a convincing smile. "Yeah. Fine."
Miller levels me with her trademark withering stare as she exits the freeway. "Oh, please. Your partner's bein' arraigned in ten minutes, and you're fine? Don't give me that crap."
A quiet sigh escapes my lips. "I'll just be glad when it's over."
"Yeah." Kat's expression softens. "Me too."
We reach the quarry right at 9:00, the same time Scotty's arraignment is scheduled to begin. Dread sits like cement in my gut; my heart pounds like a jackhammer. Frannie's getting us up to speed on what they've learned so far, and all I can do is hope my mouth is formulating intelligent responses without the assistance of my brain, which seems incapable of focusing on anything except the lead-like lump in my pocket that serves as my only connection with what's going on in the courtroom. The phone's silence is so deafening that I can't keep from taking it out every so often just to make absolutely sure it's working.
"Girl," Miller mutters to my right, "you are actin' like Veronica the day Taylor Swift tickets went on sale."
My cheeks growing warm, I avoid her penetrating stare, banish my phone to my pocket, and try like hell to follow what Frannie is saying.
A few moments later, just after the victim's remains have been loaded into the coroner's van for transport, my phone buzzes for real, and I nearly jump out of my skin. My heart racing, I wrest the phone from my pocket, flit a suddenly-shaky finger across the screen to open the text…
…and just stare.
Judge says charges are too serious for ROR. Bail at 25K.
"What?!" Miller exclaims from a few feet away, and I tear my attention from my phone to see her staring, open-mouthed, at her own.
After a moment, she recovers and shakes her head. "Nicky's fat fingers and those tiny little keys? That's gotta be a typo."
My stomach plummets. "The $25,000?"
"So you got the same text." Miller looks crushed. Not trusting myself to speak, I merely nod.
Her eyes sparking, Kat stabs the button on her phone and jams it back into her pocket. "That's bullshit."
Frustration sears my chest and burns my eyes with tears. All Scotty was doing was trying to help. That's all he's ever wanted to do. He followed his training, he responded to a perceived threat…and now, unless he can come up with twenty-five grand, my partner will be spending tonight in jail. Tonight, tomorrow night, and God alone knows how many more.
A hot tear escapes, mingling with the icy cold drops of rain that have just started to fall. Angrily, I swipe at my face and storm back to the car.
I've been staring at the number on Scotty's apartment door for so long that it's practically tattooed onto my retinas. I left work half an hour ago, made the short drive here, and have been standing in the hallway ever since, my stomach a macramé of knots, trying to work up the nerve to knock.
Angry-sounding rock music has been bleeding out into the hallway for the last few minutes, so I know he's home. Boss says he made bail, news that rendered me weak-kneed with relief, but I have no idea where my partner came up with that kind of money.
I also have no idea what kind of reception I'll get from him, or if he'll even answer the door. I tried calling him earlier, sent a text or two, but the only communication I've had from him all day was that terse, four-letter text before his arraignment started. Since then, silence.
He's only shut me out like this one other time, and that was after Elisa died. Back then, I was willing to let it slide, but now, I just…need to see him. I need to tell him, face to face, that I've still got his back, that nothing will change what we have, no matter what.
Not like he hasn't done the same for me.
Remembering my mission gives me the extra ounce of courage I need to square my shoulders, take a deep breath, and give a few quick raps to the back of the door.
I guess I'm a little surprised when, after a few seconds, the music shuts off. A couple seconds more, and I hear footsteps approaching. There's a pregnant pause, one in which I sense my partner gathering himself much as I did a moment ago. Then the locks click and the door opens to reveal Scotty, wearing a pair of track pants and a faded Phillies T-shirt. His skin is glazed with sweat, his expression guarded, although I'm relieved that it relaxes a bit when he sees me.
"Hey," I say softly.
"Hey." He sound a little winded. "C'mon in." Turning away from the door, he tears a pair of black fingerless boxing gloves from his hands and tosses them to the floor next to a heavy crimson punching bag.
My eyes widen as I take in the scene. His usually neat apartment is littered with newspapers and a handful of fast-food containers. A couple of beer bottles perch amid the clutter on his coffee table, which, like the rest of his furniture, has been shoved haphazardly against the wall. A jump rope and a few hand weights are scattered on the floor; the TV, tuned to one of those ever-present talking-head sports shows, flickers mutely in the far corner.
Plucking a ratty gray hoodie from the back of the couch, Scotty yanks it over his head, then turns to face me, his lips quirked in a sardonic smile. "Y'know, I'd offer you a drink, but they might say you're impaired."
I tilt my head to the side. "How are you, Scotty?" Really, Rush?
"Oh, I'm great," comes the sarcastic reply. "Never better. I'm front-page news in not one, not two, but three different papers"—he indicates the pile on the coffee table—"and I had to put the Mustang up as collateral to make bail." He trails off with an uncomfortable laugh, the one he always uses to try and cover up how close to breaking down he really is. "On the plus side, I don't gotta be someone's bitch in jail tonight, so I guess I got that goin' for me."
"Scotty, I'm so sorry..."
"Don't." He holds up a hand. "I don't need your pity, Lil."
"It's not pity, it's-"
"It's my fault, okay? I'm the one who screwed up."
"How?" I fling my arms wide. "You did everything right!"
"Yeah, and now a fourteen-year-old boy's never gonna walk again." Emotion tatters his words and brings a brilliant sheen to his eyes. "I paralyzed a child, Lil. How the hell is that 'doin' everything right?'"
"Scotty, you're a good cop. You did what we're all trained to do." My chest burns with frustrated anger. "McKenna's the one who screwed up. She rushed the suspect! Tripped over her own gun!"
"But it ain't McKenna they're goin' after, is it? 'Cause McKenna ain't the one who shot an innocent kid!" He drags a hand through his hair.
"It's...it's bigger than this." My conversation with Boss from earlier flits through my head, underpinned with a sense of trepidation. I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to tell Scotty what I know, but I'm so desperate to yank him out of the black hole of self-flagellation that I'm willing to take the risk.
His head jerks up, flashing eyes now locked on mine. "Bigger? How? Hmm? How can it possibly be bigger than this?"
"Boss says the new mayor's cracking down on excessive force." My suddenly cottony mouth struggles to get the words out. "They want a poster boy, someone they can hang out to dry. It coulda been anyone."
"But it ain't just anyone, is it, Lil?" He grabs one of the newspapers from his coffee table and holds it up for me to see.
A grainy photo of the scene, probably a still from that damned Eyes on Cops video, covers the entire front page, with Scotty's official police photo superimposed over the lower right-hand corner. The banner headline screams it all. "Drunk Cop Cripples Kid."
"They want a poster boy?" He swallows hard, and the pain shimmering in his eyes is more than I can bear to look at. "Well, looks like they found one."
"Scotty, that's just the tabloid."
"Yeah?" Another bitter bark of laughter. "Well, the Inquirer ain't much better."
He's just turned to retrieve another paper when the crack of gunfire and shattering of glass send me diving to the floor. A split second later, Scotty's on top of me, and we huddle there, waiting in strained silence.
After a long, breathless moment, we dare to sit up. Scotty picks a couple shards of glass from my hair and pings them to the floor, then pulls me to his chest. I can feel the frantic pounding of his heart even through the thick fabric of his shirt.
"Y'okay, Lil? Y'okay?" His voice is as shaky as the hand that races through my hair, searching for additional glass.
Am I? My limbs are trembling, my heart is hammering, and there's a metallic taste in my mouth…but I'm still in full control. The flashback I expect to have never comes. Deep down where it counts, I really am okay. I guess all those hours on my therapist's couch have done some good after all.
"Yeah, Scotty. Yeah, I'm okay."
"Oh, thank God." The relieved sigh shudders through his whole frame.
I lift my head and pull back to look at him. "Are you okay?"
He doesn't answer. But the swirl of emotions in his eyes, the twitch of his lips, and the tightly clenched jaw tell me all I need to know. Physically, he's fine. Otherwise, well…that's another story.
A gust of frigid air comes through the shattered window, sending the scattered shards skittering across the hardwood floor, the sheaf of newspapers fluttering to and fro. The cold air clicks my brain back into cop mode. Whoever shot at us might still be out there. We have to go chase them down. We have to...
No. Not we.
Scotty seems to have come to this realization at the same moment I have; his hand freezes over the spot where his gun usually sits holstered at his hip. We lock eyes for a moment, his glinting with something dark and dangerous, and then he bolts for the bedroom, muttering to himself in Spanish. I don't know what he's doing, and I don't have the time to wonder.
Momentarily dismissing him from my mind, I yank my phone from my pocket and call for backup. This done, I draw my gun, sneak along the perimeter of the room, take half a second to collect myself, and gently climb out what's left of the window.
From the fire escape, I scan the streets below, where three shadowy figures walk away from me, their feigned casualness evident even from my vantage point.
As soon as I identify myself, they try to scatter, and I scurry down the fire escape after them. When a backup squad car squeals to a stop half a block away, one of them tosses something away and takes off running, while the other two freeze at the realization that they're trapped.
One of the backup officers jumps from his car, and I yell at him to follow the runner while I train my gun on the twenty-something, cocky-looking pair of black men in front of me.
"Don't move!" I order. "You two keep your hands where I can see 'em."
Dutifully, they raise their hands, but I can tell by their demeanor they're not nearly as afraid of me as they should be.
"Y'all gonna shoot us, too?" the one on the left asks. He's clad in a black puffy overcoat and a Yankees baseball cap, while the one on the right wears a ski cap, a red jacket, and a blue bandanna around his neck.
"Hands where I can see 'em," I repeat, looking from one to the other and back again. "Now, you wanna tell me what happened?"
"Nothin'," Yankees Cap replies. "It's just a quiet night."
Defiance sparks in Red Jacket's eyes. "Yeah, we didn't see nothin'."
"Oh, keep talkin'! Keep talkin'!"
I don't have to turn around to know who that voice belongs to, but I'm so startled that I do anyway, careful to keep my gun on the suspects. Sure enough, Scotty's storming toward us, with—oh, God, is that a softball bat in his hands?
He looks like a bull about to charge, and Yankees Cap is stupid enough to wave a red cape. "Maybe someone saw you wit' a gun."
Swearing viciously, Scotty lunges toward them, bat at the ready. I slam into him with my shoulder, desperate to stop him before this gets any more ridiculous than it already is.
"Scotty, I've got this. Back up!"
"Do ya?" He turns a venomous glare on me. "Then cuff 'em! Now!"
"Back up!"
"Yeah, you heard your girlfriend," Yankees Cap pipes up. "Go inside."
I can't remember ever being so furious. With them. With him. With the whole damn situation. But one of us needs to be calm and level-headed right now, and it sure as hell isn't going to be Scotty. He's waving the bat in the air, pointing it first at Red Jacket, then at Yankees Cap.
"Where's the gun?" he demands.
"Scotty..."
"You sure there was a gun?" Red Jacket retorts with an arrogant smirk. "Maybe you were just imaginin' it."
"Hey, you wanna shoot me, do it like a man," Scotty challenges. "Shootin' blind through the window, that's just chickenshit."
"Scotty..."
He's either so furious he can't hear me, or he's choosing to ignore me. Spreading his arms wide, he offers his chest as a target. "Go ahead! I'm standin' right here."
In Academy, I heard over and over that what I'd notice most on the streets was how fast everything can happen. That warning comes to mind as all three of them start talking over each other, Scotty once again brandishing the bat. There's a cacophony of shouting and cursing and then the whiff of the bat through the air just a couple inches above Yankees Cap's head. He blinks in surprise, and the look in Scotty's glittering black eyes tell me he missed on purpose. But I'm just as certain that next time, he won't.
Shifting my gun to my left hand, I grab at my partner with my right. I only manage to catch a fistful of his sweatshirt, but it's enough. With a strength I didn't know I possessed, I haul him out from between me and the suspects and send him hurtling toward the squad car that's just pulled up behind me.
"Goddammit, Valens, I said step back!"
My gun is still on the suspects, but my focus is on Scotty. We stand there glaring at one another for a moment. His eyes are flashing fire, he's breathing hard, and he's gripping the bat so tightly his knuckles are turning white.
I want to scream at him. To throw him onto the hood of the car and tell him what a complete and utter idiot he's being, how he's throwing fuel on the already-raging inferno of his crisis, how he's making a laughingstock of himself and me and the whole department…
…but I don't. Because his fiery fury is just a cover for the ocean of pain that's threatening to swallow him up. That pain is calling the shots right now. Not my partner.
"Put the bat down," a comparatively calm voice orders behind us. I turn around to see two uniforms flanking us, weapons at the ready, though they don't look entirely certain whether to point them at the two suspects or at us.
"It's okay." I show them my hands. "We're on the job."
"On the job," Scotty echoes.
"Wit' a bat?!" Red Jacket sounds incredulous. "Y'all hit us, that's police brutality."
My partner's grip on the bat tightens.
I shoot him a warning glance. "Scotty..."
A dark glare flickers in my direction, then he turns and vents his rage with a home run swing to a nearby garbage can. It goes airborne for a couple seconds, the lid flying off and contents scattering everywhere, then clatters to the pavement and limps to a stop, nearly doubled in half from the dent Scotty inflicted.
It's then that I notice that a small crowd has gathered like birds on a wire, twittering amongst themselves as they hold cell phones aloft, gleefully recording the whole embarrassing scene.
I stifle a sigh. Eyes On Cops is gonna love this one.