Chapter Two

It was the very next day, after the locker room fiasco, that I ran into Sasha Monroe at a little diner down the street from Haggerty's. She was having lunch with her partner, Brendan Finney, whose father was the infamous C.T. Finney. Although I hated to admit it, Brendan was nothing like his father. He had heart and honor and a kind of decency that was refreshing to see. No, C.T. had nothing on his son. I imagined that Brendan had taken after his mother, cause he sure as hell didn't get anything from that backstabbing asshole. I knew I could take being an outsider, but I felt really bad for Sasha. She was no longer welcome at Haggerty's let alone anywhere else that had to do with our precinct. I was having the same trouble. Over night, news of my so-called betrayal of Ty and the rest of the squad had burned a hole through telephone lines and mouths all around, I thought sourly to myself as I drove through town. Sully and Yokas had let it be known that I didn't agree with what they were doing to her and Finney and as a result, the rest of the 55 treated me as if I were a rat too, hence my decision to dine at the Apple Barrel with my partner Nikki Hickox.

Lucky for me, Hickox was a real good girl and she didn't want to have any part of what was happening in our precinct. She was a great police officer and easy to talk to. My guess was that she was too young to care about all of that stuff. She was fresh out of the academy and still had that 'we can solve everything because we're the police' attitude. It was amusing, at best, to listen to her talk about unity and justice for all. I didn't bother telling her that there really wasn't any such thing as unity, only people operating under the pretense of unity. Out there it was every man for himself and that included everyone, even the brothers in uniform and justice was something that everyone always wanted but never got. What did it really mean anyway? Justice? Killing and revenge for all those people who had been hurt or lost in some way. The only justice we would ever see was at the hands of God Almighty, when ever he decided to show his face. I think she got a kick out of my bemused expressions and snorts, almost as if she pitied me for not believing. It didn't bother her a bit to be partnered up with me. She was a lot like Brendan Finney. Maybe that's why they were dating.

"Cal?"

"Huh?"

"What's goin'on?" Nikki asked from beside me. She ran her hand through her long brown hair and squinted her eyes at me. She did that when she was curious about something, or just plain nosey.

"What? Nothin." I mumbled. Truthfully, I was thinking about Ireland and when I was a boy. Strange time to be jerked back into the past, but that's the way it was with me. A sound, a smell, a face; it would transport me back to Dublin and I would feel melancholy for my grandfather and grandmother.

My life wasn't always this way; so complicated and lonely. No, there was a time when I was happy and I felt like I had the world by the tail. I should have known that it would only be a matter of time before something or someone destroyed it. It came in the form of the latter.

To back up and tell all of the things that have ever happened to me would be too painful and heart wrenching for me to explain and I can only compensate by telling the secrets that have made my heart heavy and my conscience weak.

I was born in New York, but raised in Dublin, Ireland. My family owned a pub on Candor Lane that my grandfather looked after until he fell ill with meningitis. My grandmother called up my father and asked him to come back to help her take care of it. She was in her sixties and didn't want the responsibility of running a popular hangout by herself. And so, when I was two and my sister Shannon was five, my father packed us all up and took us to Dublin. My mother wasn't happy about our move and constantly complained to my father or my sister about how she missed New York. Always missing New York. Even as I grew up, she still referred to our little apartment and the happy times they had there. She missed her friends, her flower garden, her little rotunda where she would sit for hours and read a book. It went on and on and on. I couldn't count the times my mother begged my father to take us back to New York and it wasn't until I was fifteen that she got her wish.

By that time, I hadn't even given the States a second thought. I had spent thirteen years in Dublin and didn't remember anything else. I had a thick accent that would surely betray me when we moved to Queens and for some reason, I really didn't want anyone to make fun of me the way that they had made fun of my sister Shannon when she had first gone to school. If they had made fun of her for her 'yankee' accent, wouldn't they make fun of me for my 'mick' accent? Oh, all the things that you worry about when you're a teenager. Although, I was right. I did get made fun of when we moved. A lot. But, I learned to put up with it and pushed my way forward and became what I always wanted to be. A police officer was what I was destined to be. I had to right the wrongs. I had to honor her name.

" Nothin? Well you better start watching the road or we'll be calling Carlos and Grace to scrape us up off the sidewalk. Or maybe you'd like that." She quipped.

I rolled my eyes at her and shook my head. She knew about my little fling with Grace and took every opportunity to remind of it. Grace and I had dated a couple of times a few months back but it never amounted to anything. She was a great girl, but she just wasn't what I was looking for.

I pulled into the parking lot and we got out of our squad and headed inside. The Apple Barrel was a nice enough spot. The food was good and the prices were decent and the atmosphere was light and happy. It wasn't like we couldn't deal with having lunch at a place where happiness was a requirement. Their waitresses were prompt and friendly and I wondered why it had taken me so long to find this place and just why we didn't eat here more often. Now that I was ostracized from Haggerty's, it looked like it would be my new hangout.

We made our way to a back booth where Sasha and Brendan were chowing down on some burgers and fries. She looked troubled and melancholy, not that I could blame her for it, and he looked pensive as he shoveled fries into his mouth. All of that changed, however, when we approached their table and he saw Nikki.

" Oh, hey!" He greeted enthusiastically, jumping up out of his seat to let Nikki sit down. She kissed him on the mouth and slid into the far corner of the booth. He sat beside her, his arm around the back of the seat, lightly rubbing her shoulder.

"Hey guys, how's your tour goin' today?" I asked as I took a seat beside Sasha.

She made a face before speaking, wrinkling up her nose in disgust. " Oh, it's just great! We've been snubbed by every officer in the house and I found a dead rat hanging on my locker!"

I blanched. Why did they have to go so far? There was just no stopping these people. I had a good idea about who put that rat there but I didn't say. She didn't need any more to worry about.

" Don't sweat it, Monroe. They're just being assholes." I said as I grabbed a menu and opened it.

" Ya. They're just scared cause they all have something to hide." Brendan added.

Nikki leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "Sasha, I know that what they did was wrong, but isn't there anyway you could transfer for your own safety? I mean, it's getting dangerous out there."

" You want me gone too?" Sasha snapped defensively.

Nikki shook her head, frustrated. " No! I mean...I mean that I'm scared for you. Look what happened to Cal and....."

Sasha whipped her head around and stared at me. I shook my head slightly, trying to give Nikki the message that I didn't want to talk about it, but she ignored me and continued.

" I'm just saying that after what happened in the locker room yesterday that you should......."

" What happened yesterday?" Sasha fired at me.

" Nothin. It's no big deal." I grumbled, wishing Nikki had the sense to shut her mouth.

" No! You wait a minute, Cal! Don't try and pretend that it didn't happen. She deserves to know and then maybe she can talk some sense into your dumb ass, cause I sure as hell can't!" She spit at me.

She was getting riled up. And I hated when she got that way. Once she got something into her head she just couldn't let it go. I knew she was right, but damn, I didn't want to go into detail with Monroe about it.

" Cal, what happened yesterday?" Sasha asked forcefully. She grabbed onto my arm and dug her nails in. " I'm not letting go until you tell me!"

" Alright! Geez! Let go of me already, would ya?" I snapped.

" Ya. Cal. Why don't you tell your little friends what happened in the locker room yesterday?" Came a snide voice approaching the table beside me.

Just the man I was hoping to run into. He towered over me, a smug look on his face, obviously wanting to hear me tell my story again, but I had the feeling he had already heard it.

" Dad?"

It was C.T. Finney.