WHEN THERE'S LOVE TO BE HAD
CHAPTER FIVE
It doesn't escape his notice: the irony that he's now the one spending hours in the precinct basement, pouring over old case files. But while Kate looked at just one file, he's surrounded himself with several, studying them, searching for other discrepancies, anything that could support his hunch about Royce.
But as the next several days pass without so much as a stray eraser mark, he finds himself getting more and more frustrated.
Maybe Espo is right, he tells himself one night the week before Thanksgiving, as he leans against the elevator wall, his eyes closed as he rides up to Kate's floor. Maybe the strange zero on the robbery-homicide report was just a fluke.
When he opens the apartment door and spots Kate, though, he knows that he may have come to that conclusion too late.
She's standing next to the couch, her arms crossed, and when his eyes fall to the papers strewn across the coffee table, he mutters a curse.
"Two things," Kate says by way of a greeting. "One, what the fuck is this? And two," she continues before he can respond, "are you really looking at old files for book research, or is there more to it?"
Rick sighs and shrugs his coat off. For the briefest moment he considers lying, or at least not telling her everything. But as soon as he gets a close look at the pure rage in her eyes, and the hard set of her jaw, he squashes that idea. Besides, she deserves to know everything.
"It's not as bad as it looks," he starts.
Kate leans down and picks up what he recognizes as scratch paper from his notepad. "You suspect Royce of stealing $90,000 from a crime scene."
Rick opens and closes his mouth several times before nodding. "Yep, that about sums it up," he agrees. "I guess it is exactly as bad as it looks. But Kate-"
She shakes her head when he begins to wobble towards her. "He obviously messed up when he wrote it," she argues. "Royce is a great cop. He wouldn't intentionally falsify a report, and he sure as shit wouldn't steal from a dead woman," she snaps.
Rick winces when he puts too much pressure on his injured ankle, and he shifts his weight, allows the crutches to support him more. "I know," he agrees. "I'm sure it was an honest mistake."
"So why do you still have the file? And why are you spending so much time in the records room?" Kate crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at him.
All the time she's spent buried in her mom's case, ignoring everything except the dusty file, comes back, her hypocrisy hitting him like a freight train.
"You're kidding, right?" He manages to move over to the kitchen, where he leans against the counter, relieving his ankle a bit. "How long have you spent looking at your mom's murder? How much time have you wasted?"
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back.
He sighs and scrapes a hand over his face. "I didn't mean-"
"Get out."
His eyes fly open at her words, at the deep, cold command. He starts to move forward; to do what, exactly, he isn't sure, but something to show her he didn't mean to use her mother against her.
"Kate-"
"How dare you," she almost growls. "My mother isn't ammunition you can throw at me to try and win an argument." She straightens her shoulders, and judging by the stiff set of her back and the muscle twitching in her jaw, any apology will fall on deaf ears.
Rick sees her throat bob with a swallow, and he sighs again, grips his crutches. "I'll stay at my place tonight."
She doesn't move as he makes his way to the door, and when he pauses and looks back at her, she hasn't moved an inch.
"I'm sorry, Kate."
Rick isn't on shift the next day, and although he has a bare refrigerator and his stomach starts to growl as soon as he wakes, he doesn't move from his bed until his bladder insists on it. He does grab an ice pack for his ankle, though, groaning in relief when the throbbing he's endured since the previous night finally begins to subside.
He's pretty sure that Kate is on shift, so when he's woken from a nap by the sound of his front door opening, he pushes himself up to a sitting position, grabs one crutch to use as a club.
Kate appears in his door a few moments later, a familiar folder tucked under her arm and apology written all over her face, and he relaxes.
"I'm sorry," she blurts, her voice cracking. A flush creeps onto her cheeks, and she steps forward. "I overreacted when I saw your notes about Royce. And when you brought up my mom-"
"I never should have done that," Rick interrupts. Kate levels her gaze at him, and he makes a zipping motion over his lips.
The corner of Kate's mouth quirks, but she quickly straightens her shoulders again. "Anyway," she continues slowly, "once I calmed down a bit, I looked at your notes. Aside from the fact that Royce wouldn't do something like that, I can see why you'd be suspicious." She shrugs a shoulder. "I let my admiration for him blind me, and I'm sorry I reacted how I did."
Rick holds his hand out, and although she hesitates at first, she approaches him, curls her fingers around his palm. He tugs her towards the bed, and she sits next to his hip. "I'm sorry, too," he murmurs. "Are we good?"
She offers him a small smile and leans over to press her mouth to his. "We're good."
Kate steps into the dark room, hesitating at the door to let her eyes adjust before she sees the dim light coming from the back corner. She walks towards the light, careful to keep her footsteps quiet in case the basement's occupant isn't who she's expecting.
When the desk comes into view and she spots the familiar sight of her boyfriend, with his broad back hunched, she pauses and watches him for a few moments.
She isn't surprised that he's asleep; between working extra hard during physical therapy, and his long shifts, he's been exhausted. He hasn't been sleeping much, either, spends much of his spare time pouring through old case files.
While he'd intended initially to research solely for the sake of his writing, several days after finding the discrepancy in the robbery-homicide from a few years prior, he'd found another. That one had been a mugging gone wrong in the early nineties, in which both the victim and perpetrator ended up dead, and a necklace attributed to the victim had somehow been lost.
They both know there's a very real chance that the jewelry is in the horribly disorganized unclaimed property room, but the fact that Royce's name was on that report was more than enough for Rick's suspicion to rise.
Kate thinks it's a coincidence. Rick isn't convinced. He wants to use his free time to look into it, and she knows she won't be able to stop him.
She places a soft hand on his shoulder, and he jerks awake with a grunt, his hands grasping at the papers strewn across the desk. "It's just me," she assures him with a comforting squeeze of his shoulder.
Rick sighs in relief, his head drooping as Kate moves her hand to the back of his neck and digs her fingers into the tense muscles. "I think I fell asleep," he admits with a groan, leaning back into Kate's touch.
Kate chuckles. "Yeah, you did." She moves to his side, props her hip on the arm of the chair, and drifts her eyes over the report. "Anything new?"
"No." Rick starts gathering up the report, straightening the photos and forms before tucking them back in their folder. He scrapes both hands over his face and grunts in frustration. "So far it's just those two things."
Kate opens her mouth to respond, but she hesitates. They've argued before about him focusing his attention on Royce, and they've consciously avoided using her partner's name. She doesn't want to believe that Royce, an officer she looks up to, who's showing her how to hone her instincts and become a better cop, could be dirty.
Everyone makes mistakes. The discrepancies Rick found are just mistakes.
They have to be.
"Maybe-" She pauses, hesitating when Rick's shoulders stiffen.
He lifts his gaze to hers, his jaw firm. "Don't."
But she has to. She has to make him see that he's wrong. Royce wrote down the wrong amount in the robbery-homicide, and the missing necklace just got mislabeled and is somewhere in unclaimed property. He wouldn't steal from one victim, let alone two.
"Maybe you're not finding anything because there's nothing to find," she insists. When Rick sighs and rolls his eyes, she sits on the desk, facing him. "Think about it, Rick," she pushes on, ignoring the set of his jaw and the hard look in his eyes. "Royce has been a cop for almost fifteen years. He's been part of who knows how many calls, and his signature's probably on thousands of reports. And there are, what, two mistakes?"
Rick crosses his arms. "One is a mistake," he argues. "Two suggests a potential pattern."
"And, what, you're going to go through thousands of folders to find more?"
"If I have to."
Kate sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. God, he can be so stubborn. "Fine," she concedes. "It's your time to waste. I'm going home." She starts to run her fingers through his hair, but stops herself, aware that they're still in the precinct. Instead, she squeezes his shoulder, then stands. "I won't wait up."
"Ow, shit!"
"You got it, Rick."
Rick grunts as he lifts himself back onto the parallel bars, and he holds onto them, lets his arms support most of his weight as he puts his foot on the ground. His injured ankle protests, but at the encouragement of his physical therapist, he takes a small step. A sharp pain travels from his ankle up his entire leg, and he mutters a curse, lifts his leg once again.
"It still hurts?" Jason asks, the concern obvious in his voice.
Rick grits his teeth, trying to will the lingering pain away long enough to get through this session. "Yeah," he manages, "worse than last week."
Jason helps Rick off the mat and hands him his crutches. "Have you had an x-ray recently?"
"Last week. I have another one tomorrow." Rick lowers himself to a chair against the wall and swipes his arm across his forehead. "Jesus. It seemed to be healing," he adds. "I did better last time."
Jason nods. "Yeah, you did. Tell you what. We'll do different exercises and try to keep the weight off your ankle. I want you to come back after you get your results, and we'll figure something out. Okay?"
Rick nods and takes a long swig from his water bottle. "Sounds good."
As soon as she sets foot in her apartment, Kate realizes something is wrong. Not because Rick's there - no, even though they've been arguing about what she sees as a vendetta against Royce, he's still staying with her - but because he's on the couch, obviously moping.
Spotting the beer in his hand, she takes a detour through her kitchen to grab one for herself before joining him.
"Rough day?" she asks after taking a long swig.
Rick grunts. "Had a checkup with the ortho," he explains. "They took a new x-ray. Turns out, my ankle isn't healing all that well."
Kate's tempted to reach out to him, to run her fingers through his hair or trail them along the back of his neck, but she can almost feel how tense he is, and she knows he wouldn't be receptive to her touch. So she settles for sipping her beer in silent solidarity, one leg curled under her.
"So what does it mean?" she asks after a long silence, when she decides that Rick isn't going to offer more.
He sighs. "It means I'm stuck with these damn crutches for a couple more weeks, at least. And it means surgery's still on the table." He sets his beer bottle on the coffee table with a loud thud. "It's so fucking stupid," he complains, raking his fingers through his hair. "I'm stuck at the fucking desk. Doing everything I'm supposed to. And it's not-"
"Hey," Kate interrupts, scooting closer and placing her hand on his knee. "I know it's frustrating."
"I just want to be able to go back to my apartment," he interrupts. "Why did I have to pick the walk-up?"
"You can be here as long as you need," Kate reminds him. "I know we both like our space, but we've been good." She pauses, their recent arguments about Royce creeping to the forefront of her mind. "Right?"
Rick glances at her and covers her hand with his. "Yeah," he assures her. The corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk. "Bet you didn't think we'd live together before we were officially a couple, did you?" he teases.
Kate rolls her eyes, but smiles regardless. "It's only been six weeks, Rick," she points out. "The fact that you're even going to PT is huge. You're not going to just ditch the crutches and run a marathon."
"You're right," Rick sighs after a long silence. He squeezes her hand before letting go, but he doesn't move away, instead trails his hand along her shoulder. He gives her shoulder a light squeeze, and furrows his brows, sits up a little further. "God, you're tense," he observes. "Long day?"
Kate's eyes flutter shut as he rubs her shoulder, digging his fingers into her tense muscle. It was a long day, and although it hadn't consisted of thrilling chases or bar fights to break up, she'd spent a large portion of it hunched over paperwork.
"Yes," she admits. She moans when Rick finds a knot between her shoulder blades, and his fingers still when her head falls forward. "Don't stop," she breathes.
Rick clears his throat, and she can't help but notice how low the noise is, laced with desperation. "Sit in front of me," he husks.
Kate glances at his lap, her eyebrows raising when she notices the growing bulge in his sweats. Out of caution for his ankle they've only had sex a handful of times since his injury, and her body quickly responds to his touch and his voice, not to mention his obvious desire.
Well, she can do something about that.
She moves to the floor and settles between his legs, kneeling in front of him, and she hooks her thumbs in the waistband of his sweats.
When she tugs the front of his pants down, he groans, lifts his hips into the curl of her fingers around him.
"I didn't mean-" he manages, the protest coming out in a barely intelligible growl.
She nudges his thighs further apart with a bump of her shoulders. "I know," she husks before lowering her head.
"I'm here," Kate calls out the next week, rushing down the hall, panting from the exertion from sprinting up two flights of stairs to Rick's hospital room. She skids to a halt inside the door and takes a few deep breaths to slow her racing heart. "Sorry," she breathes. "My shift went long."
Rick lifts an amused brow, no doubt thinking of plenty of quips about what else is long, but he just holds out his hands, smiles when her palm slides perfectly against his. "They're running a bit late," he informs her, "so you didn't miss anything."
"Good." She sighs in relief and pulls a chair next to the bed. She leans her elbow on the bed next to him, props her head in her hand as she studies his face. "How are you feeling?" she asks, noting the creases across his forehead.
Rick reaches out a hand and traces his thumb along her jaw, curls his fingers around the side of her neck. "I'm fine."
Kate's eyebrows lift into her hairline. "Liar."
"You caught me." Rick chuckles, the noise thick in his throat. He drops his gaze to his lap, his hand following. "I'm nervous," he admits after a long hesitation. He lifts his head, meets her eyes once again, the worry obvious in his bright blue irises. "What if surgery doesn't work?"
Kate nods. They've had this conversation before, after Rick had reported that his ankle hadn't set properly and he'd need surgery to fix it. "They're just setting the bone, right? And putting in a pin to help it stay," she explains, repeating the surgeon's words from the pre-op appointment she'd accompanied him to. "Pretty routine stuff."
Rick shrugs. "I know, but-"
"But nothing," Kate interrupts, covering his hands with hers. "It will work," she continues, "and you'll be back on both feet in no time, and out from behind that damn desk."
Rick's lips lift at that, and she smiles, leans in to brush her mouth against his.
She pauses, her next words on the tip of her tongue. She's had the idea for a few weeks, but the right time to bring it up hasn't appeared until now.
"Hey." She squeezes his hands, and his eyes search hers, his brows furrowing at her tone. She shakes her head and gives him an encouraging smile. "I had a thought about our living arrangements."
Rick sits up, his eyes wide. "If you want me out-"
"No," Kate interrupts, shaking her head. "I don't. In fact, what if you just…" She pauses, then takes a deep breath for courage. "What if we make it permanent?"
Rick's lips curl up in a slow smile. "Are you asking me to move in with you?" he teases.
Kate feels her cheeks flush and she lets go of his hand and pinches his earlobe. "Not if you're going to be a smart ass about it," she fires back.
Rick grins. "You love my ass," he jokes. When Kate just glares at him, he chuckles. "I would love to, Kate," he answers, his voice softening, the hand on his lap flipping over so their palms touch.
Kate mirrors his grin and leans forward, presses her mouth to his, moans when his tongue prods the seam of her lips. She's tempted to deepen the kiss, to take it farther, but she's aware of their location, that a doctor or nurse could interrupt them without any warning. So she briefly swipes her tongue against his, then forces herself to pull away.
Rick leans back against his pillows with a satisfied sigh, his soft gaze landing on her face. "I love you," he murmurs, reaching out to cup her jaw.
She closes her eyes and leans into his touch. "I love you too," she whispers.
The sound of a throat clearing has them both turning to the door with twin flushes on their cheeks, and the nurse standing there looks down at the clipboard in her hand. "Mr. Rodgers?"
Rick winces. "Yeah, please call me Rick," he insists.
The nurse smirks. "Rick," she echoes. "Ready to get your ankle fixed?"
"God, yes," he sighs.
Kate grins. "I'll be in the waiting room," she tells the nurse, standing up. She bends down to give Rick a chaste kiss. "See you when you wake up."
Kate spends the next week off work, mostly helping Rick post-surgery, bringing him food and helping him bathe.
And studying case files that she'd snuck out of the precinct.
Contrary to her insistence that he was off base, Rick's suspicions about Royce have been nagging her ever since he first brought them up. She still doesn't want to believe that her mentor would be dirty, but Rick has great instincts, and he's far from impulsive. He wouldn't make an accusation about a veteran cop on a whim.
She's only been able to bring home a dozen files from various points in Royce's career. But, as she pours over them with an open mind and a magnifying glass, she finds herself hoping, for the first time in their relationship, that Rick is wrong.
When she and Royce respond to a homicide the first week in December, though, she finds out just how right her boyfriend is.
They're first on scene to the call, a woman, deceased and sprawled out in an alley behind a restaurant. Although Kate wonders why the well-dressed woman would have been in the dark alley in the middle of the night, and why expensive-looking jewelry is scattered across the ground, she knows that as a uniform, she may never know the whole story. Her job is to contain the scene.
She makes a mental note to read the final report once the case is closed.
She glances back towards the body as she tapes off the entrance to the alley, notices Royce leaning down, presumably examining the victim. He's not a detective, but he has the experience to notice things she might miss, so she doesn't think twice when he squats to get a closer look.
When they hear the chirp of a siren, Royce stands, and Kate thinks she sees him tuck his hand in his pants pocket. She doesn't say anything, though, just greets the Medical Examiner with a curt smile.
Detective Johnson follows on the ME's heels, and as he surveys the scene, Kate watches closely, takes in as much of his process as she can.
Detective Johnson circles the body, his hands in his pockets, and looks up at Royce. "Either of you touch anything?" he asks, his voice gruff.
Royce shakes his head. "Everything's exactly how we found it." He nods towards Kate. "Right, kid?"
Kate starts to nod, but as her eyes sweep over the scattered jewelry, she hesitates. There had been a ring next to the bracelet, she's sure of it. She tries to replay it, to bring up her memory of the scene, not for the first time wishing that she had pictures. Then maybe she could say with absolute certainty that everything has remained untouched.
At that moment, though, she just isn't sure.
"Officer Beckett?"
She snaps back to attention and looks at Detective Johnson, a flush creeping up her cheeks. "Sorry. Um, no, everything's how I remember. I didn't touch anything."
When she looks at Royce, she has to stop herself from flinching under the intensity of his gaze. She's pretty sure he can't read minds, but when they leave the scene to canvass the neighborhood, Royce grabs her arm and tugs her to the side.
"What the hell?"
"You hesitated, Beckett," Royce hisses, his usual friendly gaze harsh, angry. "You can't hesitate at questions like that. It makes you look guilty."
Kate narrows her eyes, a retort on the tip of her tongue, an accusation not far behind. But she can't prove anything, and her gut is telling her to stay quiet about what she may or may not have seen.
Well, to stay quiet around Royce, anyway.
So she tugs herself from his grasp and straightens her shirt. "The only thing I have to be guilty about is wanting to be sure of my answer," she snaps, walking away.