“I saw you in there when Stan first played it. You thought it was going to be Ryder. Do you know something I don’t know?” She waited, her patience endless.
“No.”
“Maybe you should step down from this one,” she said quietly. “Let Jean and me handle it.”
“I can handle it.”
“Even if Ryder is involved?”
No.
“Yes, even if Ryder is involved. I know how to do my job and keep my heart out of the equation.”
That look in her eyes, the one that was probably pity, told me she didn’t believe me, but was nice enough not to call me out on it.
“I’ve seen the bruises you think you’re hiding,” I said softly.
She frowned, then stared out the window at the rain. “I’m not hiding them.”
“Yes, you are.” I pressed my palm on her knee. “Myra. What’s going on? Where are you getting those bruises?”
Her eyes narrowed a bit and spots of red flushed her face.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You can tell me. Is it a man? Are you dating someone? In secret? Did someone hit you?”
“What?”
I’d never heard her voice so high. “Oh, my gods, Delaney! You think? You think I would just let...” She shut her mouth, eyes flitting back and forth, trying to read the worry, and yes, confusion on my face.
“I’m a trained police officer. Nobody hits me and gets away with it.”
“Then why are you bruised? On your arms. On your hip.”
She exhaled and laughed. “You really think I’d hide something like that from you?”
“Youarehiding that from me.”
“But not for those reasons. Come on. We’re sisters. You know I’d have you at my back the instant anyone tried to hurt me like that. We promised. We all promised each other when we were in middle school, and Jean took that head shot in dodgeball, remember?”
“I remember.” Jean had still been in elementary school. Little Tommy Richard had been a headhunting jerk when playing dodgeball. He targeted the girls and hit them with the ball as hard as he could when the teacher wasn’t looking. Usually in the face.
Myra and I stole our Dad’s police department T-shirts, made fake brass knuckles, and cornered Tommy after school. I recited police codes at him while Myra explained what they meant.
“You touch our sister again and you’ll be 12-16A.”
“A fatal accident.”
“You hit her in the head at dodgeball, or in PE, or the halls, or anywhere, and there’s gonna be 12-49A.”
“Possible homicide.”
We were really selling it, slamming our fake brass knuckles into our palms and closing in on him.
Since we were older and taller than him and he was only ten, he went pale and sweaty and made a break for it.
“You better run. You 12-19!”
That wasrequest for tow truck, but I’d been sort of in the moment and hadn’t memorized all the really cool codes yet.
