"Is that it?"
Adam dropped the box on the floor beside the front door. "Yep."
"Huh, I thought it would be more. Not much to show for ten years hey?" Kim mused. She was doing her own packing. They were moving house on the weekend, finally freeing themselves of the invisible strings that were holding them back in this place.
The first room Kim packed was Makayla's room. Adam came home one night after a long few hours in a surveillance van to find Kim sitting in the middle of the empty bedroom, her face stained with tears and surrounded by boxes and a bed in pieces. It was impressive that she'd got it all done so quickly and she admitted that she had been supercharged by anger and tears.
"Can I just say, you had way more crap than me."
"I like to keep everything."
He glanced around the apartment with half packed boxes everywhere. "Don't I know it." Heading towards the fridge he grabbed a beer and popped the lid, offering it to Kim she shook her head and nodded towards the half empty glass of wine on the bench. "It felt a bit weird."
"I bet."
"No regrets?"
"Not one." Leaning over she tapped the neck of his beer bottle against her glass. "Thank you."
Adam shook his head. "No need to thank me. It feels kinda good."
Kim took a sip of her wine and smiled at little painfully. "The shit's gonna hit the fan isn't it."
It certainly was. Adam pulled on her arm until she stepped closer and let him arm snake around her waist and waited as she relented and rested her head on his shoulder, tucked up under his chin. They had reached yet another level in their relationship. Just another step forward where physical contact was becoming more relaxed and welcomed. Adam now felt confident that he could instigate the contact when for a while it had always come from Kim. "I'm proud of you, and I'm a little proud of myself too."
"Why is that?"
"That I listened to you and didn't lose my shit all over the place. This way feels better and I never thought I'd say that."
And while that had been true it wasn't that easy and had caused a lot of angst.
Sitting in the same café every morning for a week they just watched. Same time every day he came in, bought his coffee, chatted to the staff and left. After a week Adam stood behind him while he ordered his coffee. "Hey! Agent North isn't it? How are you?"
The man looked like he had swallowed a bug. "Oh Officer…." It was clear he couldn't remember Adam's name.
"Ruzek. Intelligence."
"Right, right." He turned back to the counter, willing his coffee to be ready. He opened his phone and started scrolling, focussing on anything but the presence of Officer Ruzek behind him. It had been months since he'd even thought about that case.
Adam stepped a little closer. "You must be busy. Gotta big case on?"
"Yeah."
"Pity you couldn't figure out the Walton case."
"Yep. Other things to focus on now."
"Cool." Adam stepped back. That was enough for today. They just wanted him to know that they were around. He was clearly skittish and it was just the briefest moment where his mask slipped and Adam saw it. He knew something, of that they had no doubt but it was going to take a while to get to the bottom of it. They had time and a plan. "Well good luck. Good to see you."
And they were back the next day, and the one after that.
It took four days before North approached them in the café. It was hard not to notice that they were there every morning at the same time. He was such a creature of habit that despite knowing that they were clearly waiting for him, he couldn't change his pattern of behaviour. Perhaps he didn't want too. "You guys don't give up huh? The case is closed. Did Halstead send you? Making sure I've toed the line."
"Maybe?" Kevin folded his arms across his chest and leant back a little in his chair. He had no idea what that meant but was quick enough to play the game. One thing that both of these two were was good at their jobs, they knew when to speak and when to listen and how to give people enough rope that they would hang themselves. "Care to share?"
Agent North chuckled and shook his head. "I'm sure Halstead filled you in. I mean that's why you are here right?"
"Why don't you tell us why we are here?" Adam sat back and tapped his index finger against his coffee cup. "I mean Halstead said some interesting things about you, like very interesting?" He lied smoothly.
"Look, I don't know what this is about, I don't want to know. The case is closed, Walton is dead. Let's leave it at that hey? You don't want to open that can of worms."
"You know, we do, We do want to know, especially why weren't we told?" Adam argued. "Or more importantly why wasn't Officer Burgess told? You know the one Roy shot and left for dead?"
"You were. If people who knew chose not to share it with you, well then I guess that's your problem not mine." North ended the conversation by walking away. He'd always felt a little bit of guilt for the way it worked out. Officer Burgess was clearly suffering because of the whole incident, and who could blame her, what she went through was brutal so the fact that people close to her didn't want her to know what went down never sat well with him and he was gutless. He let himself be blackmailed to protect his own family and now had to live with that. Turns out that that was proving easier said than done, particularly now he had to face it because up until now he was happy to pretend it never happened.
He turned back to the table. "Oh and sorry for the confusion over driving by Officer Burgess's apartment, I didn't mean to freak her out." He cocked his head to the side. "Just wanted to check out who was on her side, who was looking after her." He half smiled. "I guessed right because you two came. The only two you didn't have fingers in the pie."
He gave the two Officers enough and hoped they were smart enough to work the rest out themselves.
It left them both a little stunned. "But we knew he was dead right?" Kevin looked at Adam who was strangely silent. He'd see this look on his face before and it never ended well. Although he was less of a hot head these days it was still part of his make-up, he was just better at controlling it at the moment. Well, right up until it involved Kim.
Something inside them knew he was dead but they hadn't confirmed or clarified it nor the timing of it. They didn't expect to find out that everyone but them knew.
"Yeah, but when did it happen and that was always the question, and that…" he pointed vaguely in the direction of where North had disappeared to. "… along with that video tells me it happened that very night and people knew and covered it up."
"Yea." Kevin drummed his fingers on the table. "Halstead? Surely not? Jay was with me when we found her, he carried her out of the car."
"And…" Adam leant forward and tapped the table angrily. He felt his rage bubbling up and he was seething and had barely heard what Kevin had said. "… they let Kim twist. They let her fall apart day by day, they watched her and they let her daughter be taken away from her…. I can't…."
Kevin shook his head. He agreed with everything Adam was saying. He was stunned but he also knew he had to talk him off the ledge, for his own sake as well as Kim's.
"I hear you, but Bro, let's get our ducks in a row. We still don't know it all." Kevin tried to calm his voice hoping it would make Adam at least catch his breath. Not that he blamed him for being furious, he'd sat in the front row of Kim's disintegration and he knew they were starting to come out the other side now. Would this help? Or Hinder? Or be the final nail in the coffin?
"We know enough." He bit back.
"So you are going to tell Kim?"
"Tell her what exactly? Oh, North said people knew he was dead and didn't tell you, that there is damming footage from some dirty warehouse that same night?"
"Exactly." Kevin nodded. "Something is still missing."
Adam exhaled. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He just never expected this. Yeah, they probably knew Roy was dead. He had fallen off the face of the earth but he never expected that half their own team were involved. Did they kill him? Who were they protecting? It definitely wasn't Kim.
And that didn't sit right with either of them.