“Okay . . .” Remy said, waiting for more.

“Then in May, when that attorney Cat Flannery was suing the police department, a law firm came in to help. They worked pro bono against me and the department. You remember?”

“Johnson Hartley.” Remy nodded. “That’s how I remembered the name.”

“Lauten Hartley has made it personal with me, Rem, multiple times. And I don’t know why. In May, he tried to have me fired. Then I find out he owns this liquor store . . . ?”

Remy took this in, processing. “Could just be an attorney that hates cops. And him owning that store is coincidence.”

“Like I said,” I told Remy, “I don’t have much.”

“P.T.,” Remy asked, “you didn’t go investigating Johnson Hartley while you were suspended, did you? It’s a big law firm. Powerful clients, if I remember. Tell me you haven’t been spending your evenings stalking this guy.”

I pursed my lips. “I drove out to Hartley’s two or three times,” I said. “Sat on his house overnight. Followed him here and there.”

“Jesus,” she said. “What else?”

“Nothing.”

My partner leaned against the railing at the top of the front porch.

There is something poignant about the inadequacy of language to explain ourselves. The lack of words to make concessions that truly symbolize our transgressions.

I had lied to my partner: back then and again recently at the school. And while Remy was clearly a better person than me, she’d also abandoned me back in May. Now we were together again and walking through the messy swamp of it all.

“P.T.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry about the junkyard. I can’t imagine you finding out about the guy who killed Lena, and my response was that I was coming to take your badge.”

“Rem,” I said, “don’t apologize for that. You were doing your job.”

She stared at me, nodding.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” she finally said. “This Harrington thing was a good kill, and it’s no longer our case. Doesn’t matter what Monroe said.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I keep coming back to that.”

She put on her jacket.

“In between other cases, we’ll start peeling back the layers on Tarticoft. This attorney Hartley too. If someone put a hit out on your family, we’ll find ’em. But when we do—we discuss what to do. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

Remy gave me a hard look. “Promise me, P.T. You don’t go rogue.”

“I promise,” I said.

Remy turned without another word and walked down to her Alfa. Got in and sped off.

12

I awoke to the sound of a loud vibration: metal against wood.

My cell phone must have fallen off the side table in the middle of the night and was skidding along the hardwood floor.

“Marsh,” I said, leaning a long arm over the side of the bed and grabbing it.

“We got a hot one,” Remy said.

I rolled over. Guessed at how long I’d slept by the amount of light filtering through the curtains.