Chapter 6

AN: Sorry for the interruption in service folks. I'd really been hoping to keep to a chapter a day update, but then Loafer gave me permission to take Sunday off and then Monday hated me. Hopefully, we are now back on track and that this chapter is worth the wait.

If… if I'd been honest with you from the beginning, Marlowe—if I'd told you about Karen and who she'd once been to me—would you have been okay with it?

I'd like to think I would have been, but honestly? I'm not sure. I know I would have tried. But the more I think about it, the more I suspect I would have just become more aware of her. More aware of the two of you together.

You wouldn't have trusted me.

Oh, Carlton—it's not about trust. It's just obvious that no matter how hard both of you tried, the people you were back then never completely went away—which is perfectly natural. After all, the people we've been in the past inform who we are now. But with the two of you working together—seeing each other every day… There's always going to be something between the two of you. I just think you need to figure out what that is, once and for all. And we both know I'm not part of it.

I… yeah. I know. I'm so sorry, Marlowe—you didn't deserve any of this.

No, I didn't.

You sound so freaking calm and reasonable. What aren't you throwing things and threatening to cut off my manhood?

Oh, trust me—I'm plenty angry. I'm furious and hurt and feel like the world's biggest fool. But I've spent a lifetime setting aside my own emotions. I know how to deal. But—and please don't take this the wrong way—after today, I kinda don't want to see you again for a really long time. Maybe ever.

God, Marlowe—I never meant to—

Of course you didn't. That's not who you are, Carlton.

And yet I seem to have made a career of hurting people I care about.

Carlton probably should have felt worse about the end of his relationship with Marlowe. Without a doubt he felt terrible about how it had ended, but the end of the relationship itself?

It probably said something genuinely negative about his character—not that this would be a first or anything—that what he felt, deep down past the guilt, was a sense of relief.

Had his past with Karen never been revealed, he was reasonably certain he would have gone on to have a happy life with Marlowe. Happy enough, at least. He might not think a cranky jackwagon such as himself deserved any more than "happy enough," but that really wasn't the point, was it? No, the point was, that single kiss shared with Karen had shown him that a world beyond "happy enough" was right there—within reach—regardless of whether he thought he deserved it or not. Maybe more importantly, it had shown him that "happy enough" not only wasn't enough—it wasn't fair. Not to Marlowe and not to himself.

If she hadn't ended it, he would have had no choice but to do it himself, because with Karen's sudden reemergence from the cocoon of Chief Vick… and that kiss… and oh, dear God.

It had been like throwing open the windows after a storm—a brilliant wash of light that illuminated colors and sharpened definition and left the air fresh and light and bracing. That left him feeling alive.

Carlton had forgotten what it was like to feel that way. And even if he'd remembered, he wouldn't have ever thought it possible again. Too much time past. Too many experiences rendering him cynical and jaded about the possibility of ever again experiencing that sort of dazzling, heady emotion.

Admittedly, he'd received a taste of it with Marlowe—enough to have struck a chord of wistful familiarity powerful enough to have him reaching out to hang on to it for dear life. When compared to the one who'd set the standard, however…

Really, he should be furious with Karen. Ruining him for other women the way she had.

What he was, however, was worried.

He glanced at her dark office—again—and resisted the temptation to reach for his phone—again. There were any number of reasons she might not be in yet on a Monday morning. An appointment. Meetings at City Hall. A court appearance, even. Except…

Generally if she was going to be absent, she sent an email to any personnel she deemed pertinent, keeping them apprised of her schedule as needed. As her Head Detective, he was always included in those emails.

He checked his inbox—again.

Nothing.

Maybe Iris was sick. Maybe she was sick.

That tight feeling in his chest increased and his fingers practically itched with the desire to reach for his phone. Or hell, just his keys.

For as much as he'd been dreading coming into work this morning—dead terrified of facing her and not knowing exactly who he'd find—would it be Chief Vick? Would it be Karen? Would she simply ignore him? Would she call him into her office and read him the riot act for running out on her—again? Would she exert her influence and fire him on the grounds that he was a complete asshat and always would be and tell him to get the hell as far away from her as possible?

Would she somehow miraculously grant him the second chance he so desperately needed but that God knew, he probably didn't deserve?

He just didn't know.

The one thing Carlton had never once considered, however, was that he'd come in to the station and she wouldn't be there. And once again his gut piped up, insisting she had no meetings or appointments and Iris wasn't sick and neither was she. At least, not physically.

Dammit, Karen, where the hell are you? Are you okay? Come on, sweetheart, I need to know you're okay.

And again, his gut made with the insidious whispers that no, she wasn't okay and well did he know it. Moreover, what was he going to do about it? Asshat.

With a muttered curse, he grabbed his mug and headed toward the coffee bar. At the last possible moment, however, he veered toward her office, coming to a halt just inside the entrance. Closing his eyes, he breathed, feeling his heart rate steady at the feeling of being surrounded by her. Even if it was in the most fragile, ethereal of ways, it was something. It was in this room they'd spent more time together than any other. Where their lives had so unexpectedly collided, becoming intertwined in ways he understood would be damn near impossible to unravel. If he even wanted to.

He stepped more fully into the room, crossing to the window behind her desk and assuming the pose he'd so often seen her take, angled just so and gazing out through the blinds. From here, he was able to take in a broad expanse of blue sky framed by the gently waving fronds of the regal palms that ringed the building. He breathed deep again, capturing a faint whiff of her perfume and feeling her more fully enveloping him in this spot even as something… off niggled at a corner of his mind. Something not quite right.

Probably the fact that he was in her office. Where he had no business being unless he'd been summoned or was working in her stead. Which he wasn't because she was supposed to be here, dammit. With an impatient sigh, he started to turn away, then paused as his attention was captured by an unexpected flash. Turning back toward the window, he once again assumed the position in which he'd so often seen her. Shifting the angle of the blinds to compensate for the differences in their heights, he stared, not at the scene outside, but at the window's reflection. Slightly fractured by the presence of the blinds, but by and large, a clear line of sight to…

His desk.

"God, Karen, did you even realize?" he said softly. Somehow, he suspected she didn't. Any more than he had realized, until this moment, just how often throughout the course of the day he'd glance up from his desk to catch sight of her, bent over paperwork or talking on her phone. He could always tell when she was talking to Iris—the expression in her eyes visibly softer, even from a distance, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. And whenever she'd hang up from speaking to her daughter, she'd sigh then look out over the bullpen and square her shoulders as if girding herself for a return to battle.

"Carlton?"

He turned to find O'Hara standing before Karen's desk.

"Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to be in here. I was just, uh…"

His voice drifted off as he met her gaze. Hell, he didn't really have to hide from his partner. Much as he might have wanted to, but for better or worse, she was part of this now.

As expected, first thing this morning she'd asked if he was okay and had hit him with an arched-brow gaze at the terse "fine," he'd fired off in response. He'd braced himself for the cajoling and bullying that was certain to follow—the assertions that he'd feel better if he just talked about it, Carlton—and had been left shocked and more than a little tense when all she'd done was nod and hand him his coffee before burying herself in paperwork.

"Yeah," he finished lamely and turned to look out the window again.

"I assume you've seen the email, then?"

He snapped his head around.

"Ohhh-kay, then. I take it you haven't."

"What email, O'Hara?"

After a pause that couldn't have been more than a second or two, but that felt like an eternity, she quietly said, "Karen's taken a leave of absence."

His gaze immediately lowered to the credenza. The framed photos of Iris were missing. A quick glance at the desk revealed gaps where more personal effects usually resided, including that stupid glass fish.

He flashed back to the moment he'd first stepped through the doorway—so desperate to feel some connection to her, he hadn't even noticed the door standing ajar, which should have been his first clue. If she hadn't arrived, the door was always closed.

She'd been there at some point—either yesterday or early today before anyone arrived—to clear her things out.

Without a word, he left the office and returned to his desk where he pulled up his email. There it was—high priority message from the mayor's office. Not even from her, dammit. She couldn't even be bothered—

"You're in charge," O'Hara said softly from behind him.

"I don't want to be in charge," he snapped. At O'Hara, at the screen, at the mayoral lackey who'd composed the dry missive that didn't tell him anything—at the mayor who'd lent his virtual signature to the stupid thing without demanding an explanation. At Karen, his brave Karen who faced everything with a steady resolve and who'd allowed some peon to speak for her.

"Come on."

"O'Hara, I don't want—" He tried to shrug her hand off but it clamped down harder. "Ow."

"Shut up, Carlton." She unceremoniously yanked him from his chair, barely giving him enough opportunity to grab his suit jacket and the keys that she promptly plucked from his hand.

"Hey—"

"I said, shut up."

She steered him out the door and into the Crown Vic without another word. In fact, once settled at a table outside one of their favorite beachside coffee shops, it was him who offered the first conversational gambit.

"You spoke to her, didn't you?"

She studied him as she blew on her coffee. "If you mean did I know about her taking a leave of absence, I found out just before I told you about it."

His brows drew together at her oblique response. "I expect obtuse answers from your nimrod boyfriend, O'Hara. Not you."

Turning to stare out across the water, she meditatively sipped her coffee. The hell? She was the one who'd dragged him from the bullpen and now she was going all silent treatment on him and making him feel as if he was in the wrong? He honestly did not understand women.

He wondered if it was too late to become a monk.

Stare still fixed on the water, she finally asked, "What's the situation with you and Marlowe?"

"Over."

She nodded and continued sipping her coffee.

"O'Hara, if there's nothing else—"

She glanced up at him. "Sit down."

Carlton was a seasoned, hardened veteran officer who'd faced death more than once. Who'd dealt with Spencer on a daily basis for seven years. Neither of those could hold a candle to Juliet O'Hara on the warpath.

He sat.

"I saw her Saturday night. Brought her dinner."

When he could breathe again, he asked, "How… was she?"

The look Juliet leveled his way should have, by all rights, reduced him to a little puddle of bubbling oil. Still, her voice was surprisingly mild as she responded, "Not a whole lot better than you by the looks of it." The expression on her face as she continued to study him seemed to suggest she was weighing what to say next.

Carlton held still under her scrutiny, fighting not to squirm, much in the way he had as a kid in Mother Superior's office. With no small effort, he kept his hands relaxed, one curved around his cardboard cup, resisting the impulse to shove them under his thighs in order keep them safely out of the ruler's range.

"Why did you ask Karen to marry you?"

Not what he'd expected.

And for him, not in the habit of revealing his innermost emotions, a deeply uncomfortable question for him to answer, even though the answer was real and immediate.

Taking his turn at staring out over the water, he focused on a distant sailboat. "Because I loved her."

She remained quiet for so long, he hoped that would be the extent of it, although instinct and experience both suggested she hadn't even gotten started with him.

"It was more than that, though, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

Luckily, she didn't seem to require more from him, which left him breathing easier, because how the hell could he even begin to put everything that had driven him to ask Karen to marry him into mere words? To try to explain how she was his other half—his better half? That not only was she an integral piece of his heart, that until her, he hadn't even known he had one? That being apart from her, even for a few days, had left him feeling as if he couldn't breathe.

That without Karen, he was just faking it, but with her beside him there wasn't anything he couldn't do.

"I've never felt that, Carlton. Ever."

He started at her quiet admission, worried he'd actually been babbling and he couldn't—not even to O'Hara. Some things were just too sacred to say aloud—except to the person for whom they were intended. But the subtle shake of her head let him know that no… he hadn't said anything. It was simply that, with their bond as partners, she knew, even if she didn't know the specifics.

"When Scott first asked me to stay with him, I'll admit, I experienced a very brief flash of, yes, that was immediately overcome with an overwhelming sense of no." Propping her elbow on the table, she rested her chin on her fist, a wistful expression on her face. "I was only twenty and there was just so much I wanted to do. There wasn't room there for Scott." Her eyebrow rose as she smiled faintly. "There's still a lot I want to do that doesn't allow for anyone else to be that integral a part of my life."

"Everything we wanted to do, we wanted to do together. There was no doubt. No hesitation." He shifted his gaze back to the water, his voice dropping as he added, "At least, not initially."

"There was no doubt. No hesitation—at all," she corrected. "Not between the two of you. The doubt you experienced was falsely created."

His gaze tracked the boat's path across the water, its sail a brilliant white banner. "But I still succumbed to it."

"You both did. You were inexperienced kids and Karen's father took advantage of that." After a beat she added, "I don't think you'd be led astray that easily again."

He willed his hand to be still as he lifted his cup to take a sip of rapidly cooling coffee.

"Carlton?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I point out one final thing?"

"Could I stop you?"

Even as a green rookie detective she'd never been one to be put off by his acerbic responses. He expected this time to be no different.

"I promised Karen I wouldn't push. In the interests of fairness, I have to make you the same promise."

Okay then. Not the response he'd expected. When Juliet had something on her mind, she usually did not hesitate to speak it, even if he was begging her to stop. Not to mention, usually, when she was that insistent, it was because she had a damned good point to make.

Now if she was actually backing off…

Hell.

"What is it?" he asked, keeping his gaze resolutely focused on the sailboat, turning now, to head in to shore.

"When Marlowe confronted you about Karen, your first instinct wasn't to stay and deal with Marlowe—it was to find Karen." She let that sink in for a moment before touching his hand and waiting for him to meet her gaze. Her voice so soft it was nearly lost beneath the sound of bell buoys and seagulls' cries, she said, "No doubt. No hesitation."

Trapped and helpless within the brutal truth Juliet's words exposed, he stared, swallowing hard as she nodded in understanding.

"I have to find her."

Juliet smiled and held up the keys.

"I'll drop you off."