Chapter Seven #2
He walked aimlessly, heading eventually for the closest Metro stop, intending to go home to his son, the one person who didn’t want anything he didn’t have to give lately.
On the way, he popped into a convenience store to buy a bottle of water and drank the whole thing.
Then he found a bench to sit on while he waited for the pill to kick in.
His phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket to glance at the caller ID.
Christina. Gonzo declined the call. He didn’t want to talk to her.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone. What good did talking do?
Trulo, the department shrink, had put him through hours of pointless talking after Arnold was killed, forcing him to attend regular sessions for months to keep his job.
He’d gone through the motions, given them what they wanted, simply because he needed the money, not because he gave a flying fuck.
The phone rang with another call from Christina. What the fuck? Didn’t she know he was working? But then he thought of Alex and took the call.
“Tommy.” She sounded frantic.
“What?”
“Alex has a hundred-and-four-degree fever! I’m taking him to the E.R.”
His chest contracted with fear. “Where?”
“GW.”
“I’m near there. I’ll meet you.”
“Tommy…”
She wanted him to reassure her that everything would be fine, but he couldn’t do that. He’d learned that wasn’t true. Sometimes it wasn’t fine. But his little boy… He had to be fine. “I’ll meet you there,” he said again because that was all he had.
“Okay,” she said, her voice wavering before the line went dead.
Legs pumping, lungs working overtime, he ran as fast as he could.
He hoped he wouldn’t run into Sam in the hospital.
He didn’t want to see her. Not now. She was probably pissed anyway, and with good reason.
But what did he care? Let her be pissed.
What was she going to do? Fire him? Right.
She needed him. Everyone needed him, wanted a piece of him, expected things from him when his well was empty.
He had nothing to give them. Couldn’t they see that?
What the fuck did they want with someone who had nothing to give?
Even his parents and sisters had been relentless lately, calling him all the time, asking how he was.
How did they think he was? They asked if he was feeling better.
Was he supposed to feel better? What did feeling better entail?
Not thinking about Arnold every minute of every day?
Not hearing the desperate, horrifying gurgling sound of him choking on his own blood as the life seeped out of him?
That sound was on a never-ending loop in Gonzo’s brain, torturing him with the reminder of how fast it had happened.
The poor guy hadn’t stood a chance. He was nearly dead before he hit the ground.
And it should’ve been him. Any other time, it would’ve been him.
He always took the lead. Always. Arnold was a kid, still learning the ropes.
He wasn’t ready to take the lead. Gonzo relived those last hours they’d spent together every day—sitting in the freezing cold car, waiting for their guy, Arnold bitching nonstop about the cold, the late hour, his empty stomach.
Until Gonzo had made him a deal—shut the fuck up and I’ll let you take the lead when he comes.
Arnold’s eyes had lit up with the kind of glee you might expect from a kid being given a surprise trip to their favorite theme park. They’d walked through the steps, practiced it until he was ready—or as ready as anyone ever was to confront a suspect who’d already shown his disregard for the law.
And then it had all gone so horribly, horribly wrong.
Gonzo’s chest began to hurt, badly enough that he stopped running and sucked in greedy deep breaths.
Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he angrily used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe them away.
Fucking tears. They sneaked up on him at the worst times, like in the middle of a shift with his colleagues all around him.
Like when he walked into the pit and had to once again absorb the blow of Cameron Green sitting where Arnold should be, where he would be if only Gonzo hadn’t been so easily annoyed and so desperate to shut him up that he’d let his partner walk into an ambush.
He’d certainly gotten what he’d wanted. He’d succeeded in shutting him up.
Forever. A sob choked him, and tears blinded him.
He fell to his knees in the grass of a park he’d never noticed before.
He had no idea where he was, but what did it even matter?
“Goddamn you, Arnold. How could you do this to me?” In a soft whisper, he said, “How could you leave me like this? What am I supposed to do now?”
All he could see when he closed his eyes was Arnold’s big goofy smile and his childlike wonder at getting to do the only job he’d ever wanted. From the time he was the littlest kid, his mother had told Gonzo, A.J. had wanted to catch the bad guys.
Overwhelmed by grief, Gonzo dropped his head and prayed for the sweet relief that should be coming any minute now. If he stayed perfectly still, the relief could find him that much faster.