Hold Me in the Dark by Newbury Helena

Author:Newbury, Helena
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Foster & Black
Published: 2020-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

33

Calahan

AFTERWARDS, we went up to the roof and sat side by side on one of the stone benches. It was a clear night and, even with New York’s light pollution, there were still plenty of stars to see. But I couldn’t stop looking at her.

It was more than just her beauty and her spirit. I felt...awed by her. When you boil it right down, what I do—stopping people from hurting each other—is about the simplest, most earthly thing you can do: hell, people have been enforcing the law since people first started living in towns. I glanced down at the city. My job took place down there, in dirty alleys and dirtier boardrooms, wrestling with people, be it in a fist fight or a courtroom. But Yolanda...she was up there, doing things in her mind that I couldn’t hope to understand. I had to tell her.

The wind blew her hair and I reached across and tucked a stray lock behind her ear. “What you do,” I said, struggling to put it into words, “is amazing. You know that, right?”

She shook her head. “What you do matters. Catching killers matters. Math...most of the time, it’s just obscure papers being read by other academics. It doesn’t make any difference to ninety-nine percent of people. And then when I see what the killer twisted it into….” She shuddered and I put my arm around her and pulled her tight into me. “I think we need more people like you, less like me.”

“Bullshit,” I said calmly. She turned to look at me in shock and I gently lifted her chin so that she was looking up at the stars. “Without math, there’d be no space travel.”

I kept my fingers under her chin. When she spoke, her soft skin rubbed against me and it was difficult not to just grab her and pull her down to the floor for another round. “I never figured you for someone with one eye on the stars,” she said.

I shrugged. “With some of the stuff I’ve seen people do to each other, down here...I kinda like the idea of someone making a fresh start, up there.”

The wind was getting up and she shivered. I went downstairs, grabbed my raincoat, and wrapped it around her like a blanket. Then I pulled her sideways so she was cuddled up against my side.

I stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and she smiled, but her gaze was focused on an apartment building a few blocks away, its windows almost all dark. “They don’t know,” she whispered sadly.

I knew what she was thinking because I’d thought the exact same thing, hundreds of times. I hugged her even tighter and put my head next to hers so she could feel my nod.

There’s a weight that comes from being a cop. You see a city at night and it’s like watching a child sleep, unaware of all the danger that exists. They don’t know and that’s good, because they’d go crazy if they did.

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