Caitlyn Dunn had most surely gone out on a limb for him. She’d learned to play the system. Willing relatives took precedence over adopters. However Caitlyn had spoken to his sister, she’d done it well. Now his sister was Abby’s official guardian but with tacit agreement that her brother was getting a chance. His sister had insisted on meeting him again, to see if he’d really turned the corner. And that meeting would happen in the next few days. Either way, the rest of Abby’s childhood would happen a long way from Detroit.

And as for the woman who’d made it happen, well it was a crazy thought but maybe she’d give him a chance too. She’d devoted her vacation to giving Abby this closure. Time enough for him to make a good impression perhaps. He was glad he’d healed a little, glad he’d let a dentist in Antalya fix his broken teeth.

Six months later . . .

Six months later . . .

Captain Schaeffer looked through the internal office window at his department, wondering who’d hit the jackpot by predicting the date accurately. He’d kept the whole precinct guessing as to how long he’d hang on. They thought he was just being stubborn, but the truth was he was scared of retirement. He was more scared of it than of anything he’d faced in his life. Since his daughter had passed, he’d hated being at home. His wife refused to move to a new house and went around all day in a kind of half-there state. He’d been a police officer for over thirty-five years. He had no idea what he was going to do with himself after today.

There was a large box of personal effects on his desk. Gifts, certificates, paperweights. Stuff accumulated over a fairly illustrious career. All of it just seemed like clutter now. He looked at the police Medal of Valor poking out and gave a quiet sniff of derision. Valor. He was scared to go home.

His team, who were no longer his team, were getting back to work. They’d had the speeches and the toasts, the handshaking and the “So, how are you gonna spend your long vacation, Captain?” banter. A good luck banner stretched across the wall. He’d smiled and chatted through it all. And it had been as hard as he’d expected. He rose from his desk.

Just one more walk of the farewell gauntlet . . .

A couple of the guys carried the box downstairs and put it in his trunk. More painful small talk.

Schaeffer got in his car and started up. He drove out of the precinct lot onto Second Avenue for the last time. But he didn’t go home. He headed west for a rough part of town. He still had one last piece of business to take care of.