Chapter 12

Still half stunned by the events of Saturday night, Sunday passed in a blur for most of the Reagans. Dinner after church was quite an affair with Pops insisting the entire stunt was Lauren's idea and Danny vehemently defending her. He and Linda had fought on the way home, and he'd slept on the sofa. When the sun came up the next day, everyone welcomed Monday morning for a change.

And for Erin, it was going to be a busy one. She had about an hour to herself in the morning and then her day was packed with witness preparation for the Leoni case, which was starting in three days. She unlocked the door to her office and dropped her briefcase in a chair. She'd barely sat down when Anna Fujita, who occupied the office across the hall, appeared in her doorway. Erin was friendly with Anna, although they didn't really socialize outside of work.

"Morning, Anna. How are you?"

"Good, Erin. I'm sorry to jump on you but I had to say before we all get swamped today: you look great on TV!"

"What? Oh, God…" Erin groaned. She'd been holding out hope that no one she knew had seen the Sandoval interview.

"You seriously went to school with Lauren Stone?" Anna was totally animated. "That's really awesome. What is she like?"

"Back then she was a normal teenager," said Erin. "She was always nice to me and my family. Not sure what else you want me to say…" She shrugged. She did have a few wild stories about Lauren, but it would have meant revealing some of her own moderately misspent youth with her co-workers, and that was something Erin wasn't willing to do. No one else needed to know about the sleepless nights she'd given her own parents.

"And she went out with your brother? For how long?" Anna fiddled with the cuff of her blouse.

"They met when they were probably 15, and were pretty inseparable until just after graduation. So, three years maybe? And no more questions, Anna. I'm not giving out any details. It is my brother's business, not mine."

"Oh, come on, Erin? Something?"

"No." Erin couldn't help but laugh. "Now go back to work. I have witnesses to prep."

At the same time, Jamie was out on patrol with his partner, Vinny Cruz. They talked sports for a little while, broke up a domestic argument before it escalated, and encouraged a group of young men to move on from the corner where they'd congregated. They stopped for a minute to grab a cup of coffee and when they got back in the car, Vinny turned in his seat and stared.

"What are you looking at?" asked Jamie.

"I'm wonderin' how long you're going to avoid the elephant in the room, well, the car," said his partner.

"What are you talking about?" Jamie took a drink of coffee.

"The show on Saturday? You in the audience? You know Lauren Stone! Man, how could you not say that? That is a pretty key piece of information to withhold from your partner, you know."

"I wouldn't say I 'know' her, Vin. I was just a kid back then."

"Doesn't matter. She hung out at your house. I don't care if you were in diapers. It was Danny who dated her, right? Come on, man, details. Did he tap that or what? He'd be an idiot not to…"

"Don't be a pig, Vin. Seriously."

"Geez, Mr. Sensitive. But seriously, wow, you actually know her. Holy shit, man." Cruz's grin split his whole face. "I mean, she's fine. She is all sorts of fine."

If he was being honest, Jamie had to agree. "Yea, she is pretty fine, isn't she?" He could totally understand what Danny had seen in her; Lauren was certainly easy on the eyes. And he was pretty damn sure that Danny still felt something. He saw the way his brother had looked at Lauren on Saturday night.

"And as for Danny 'hitting that' I don't know for sure, he didn't exactly confide in me back then, but I think it's a safe bet. I was just a kid when they were going out. Although, I did rat him out for making out with her once in our basement."

"Seriously?"

"Yea," Jamie laughed a little. "I was mad at Danny because he wouldn't let me do something; I don't remember what. I was only about seven years old. So I went marching upstairs and announced to my father – and my brother, Joe – that Danny was downstairs with Lauren kissing and hugging. When that didn't get the reaction I wanted, I told my father they were taking their clothes off."

Vinny gasped. "You did not!"

"I did. They weren't exactly getting undressed, they were just a little… I guess 'untucked' would be the best way to describe it, but I knew that saying they were taking off their clothes would do the trick. It did. My Dad went downstairs right away and a few minutes later, everyone came up. I remember Lauren blushing like crazy and hurrying out of the house. Boy, Danny was ticked off. If it hadn't been for Joe, I think he would have kicked the crap out of me as soon as Dad left the room, and not cared that he was 10 years older than me."

"Ever jealous of him? I would have been." Vin just shook his head. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his partner had hung out with a rock star, even if he'd only been a kid. He'd had a poster of Lauren and her band on the wall when he was growing up.

"Not really. Girls still had cooties then. But later, after they'd broken up and Lauren's first couple of albums came out? I was a little older then and it was suddenly much clearer to me why my brother wanted some privacy with her down in the basement." Jamie blushed a little. During high school and college he'd had more than one daydream about Lauren Stone that required a trip to the confessional at church.

Before Vin could ask any other questions, a call came in over their radio about an attempted robbery at a bodega a few blocks from where they were. Vin called in the response as Jamie started the sirens and pulled out into traffic, all questions about Lauren and Danny forgotten.

Erin and Jamie weren't the only ones being grilled about the Reagans' unexpected TV moment. The whole Sandoval show was, much to Danny's dismay, the focus of his Monday morning as well. As soon as he walked into the precinct the applause and the catcalls started. He was bombarded from all sides, fellow detectives and cops calling him a TV star and lobbing questions about his famous ex-girlfriend. He walked the gauntlet with gritted teeth until he reached his desk.

"Give it a rest, already!" he shouted as he sat down. "Don't you guys have anything better to do? Like solve a crime or something? Get back to work!"

His newest partner, Maria Baez, just leaned back in her chair and smiled. "You didn't expect anything less, did you?"

Danny had mentioned to her that they'd be at the show over coffee the week before while they were waiting for a suspect. He hadn't really told anyone else and Maria had stayed quiet about it, figuring if Danny wanted to advertise it, he would. But she'd heard a couple other detectives saying they were going to watch because they were either fans or they had kids who were fans. She knew that if anyone saw Danny in the audience it would spread through the squad like wildfire.

"I saw the show," she added.

"Figured you would; it was quite a spectacle, wasn't it?" Danny didn't look up from his desk while he answered.

"None of you looked really happy when they lit you up. How did Linda take it?"

"She's pissed. She says she's not, but she is." He frowned. Linda had been on a slow boil ever since Saturday night. He'd tried to get her to talk about it but she insisted on saying nothing was wrong, despite the fact they'd fought like cats and dogs on Sunday night after getting home from dinner.

"I can't say I blame her, and you seem to be taking it pretty well. That was a crappy thing for your friend to do to you guys."

"She didn't do it!" Danny barked at Maria.

His partner put up her hands. "Jesus, bite my head off."

"I'm sorry," said Danny. "But it wasn't her. It was her publicist who set the whole thing up. Totally surprised her and the Sandoval guy. I'm just tired of people who weren't there blaming her when it wasn't her fault."

"What a bitch," said Maria.

"Yea, the PR woman was a piece of work, but after the show ended it got interesting. Lauren went up one side of her and down the other and then fired her ass on the spot." He smiled. "And that was before she knew we were even still there."

"That must have been something to see." Maria had a lot more questions, like how Danny felt about the song Lauren had sung, but there was no time for that. Crime in the Big Apple wasn't on hold while she dug up gossip.

The Captain came out of his office. "Hey, rock-n-roll Romeo, get in here. You too, Baez."

"I'm never going to hear the end of this," Danny muttered under his breath.