Chapter 10
TEN
WALKER
At the end of an almost double shift, Walker saw Pilar and her partner at a park eating their lunch. The picnic table was just a hop, skip, and a jump from their cruiser and Walker shoehorned his SUV into the space beside them.
Climbing out of the SUV, he slid onto one of the bench seats and picked a fry off of her plate.
“Hey, leave her food alone.”
Walker gave Pilar’s partner a good hard stare.
“She’s basically my sister. I have scrounging rights off of her plate.”
“Well,” Crois shot back, “I’m her partner, so I’ve got her back. Let her eat.”
Folding his arms on the surface of the table, Walker looked at Pilar. “Are you gonna let him talk to your soon to be brother like that?”
Pilar moved her plate closer to her side of the picnic table and rolled her eyes. “I figure the two of you are big boys and can handle yourselves. If you want to drag me into the middle of this ‘issue,’ you can both count me out.” She picked up a fry and took a big bite of it. “My fries.”
“Fine,” Walker groused, “starve me.”
“Oh brother…”
He looked at her. “How is my brother doing these last days before the wedding? Is he ready to gnaw off his ring finger and jet off to Aruba?”
Crois reached across the table for Walker’s arm, but Walker didn’t shy away from the other man.
He could take anything the stick could dish out.
Pilar dropped her arm down between them, the movement dividing them, but talking to Walker. “We have twenty minutes left of our half an hour lunch, so if you’ve come here just to be a complete shit, don’t. If you have something to say, then go ahead.”
Walker sat up and gave her a measuring look. “I know I give you shit about Roan and getting married, but we’re okay, right? You and me?”
Crois groaned aloud. “ Merde .”
“Don’t call me shit, skinny boy.”
Crois narrowed his eyes at Walker. “Who said-”
“I was the bad boy between me and Roan. I know how to say shit in a half dozen languages.”
Crois picked up one of his fries and then pushed the tray closer to Walker. “Just a half dozen?”
Walker picked up a fry from Crois’ tray and bit off half of it. “Don’t push it.”
Pilar waved a hand between them again, drawing attention back to her. “Yes. You asked a question and the answer is yes.”
“Okay.”
He pushed the second half of the fry into his mouth while Pilar stared openly at him.
“That’s not all of it, Walker. Just ask me what you want to ask me.”
He avoided Crois’ curious gaze as he pulled another fry out of the tray. “I don’t have another question.”
Pilar shook her head and tapped her finger on the top of her Coke can. “There’s something else that you’re worrying about, you might as well spit it out.”
Walker reached out and snagged the little cup of ketchup that Crois had been using.
“Hey.”
Dipping the fry into the cup, Walker looked Pilar straight in the eyes. “If you know so much, why don’t you explain.”
Pilar sat back on the bench and shook her head. “Okay, Detective Ashley. Let me do your job for you.”
Crois gave him a big shit-eating grin. “This is going to be good.”
And it was.
“I think you’re struggling to figure out where you fit into everything now. At first it was you and Roan. Mutt and Jeff. Jekyll and Hyde.”
“Whatever.”
She shrugged. “Sherlock and Watson.”
Walker shrugged in return.
“And I think it’s not just you feeling like things are changing around you. I think that you’re changing, too. Either you’re worried that people won’t accept the change when you’ve always been a certain person, or you’re worried that you won’t accept the new you either.”
Walker realized that he’d been sitting there, listening to her, his fry dangling from his fingertips, dripping ketchup on the picnic table.
“I don’t think that’s what’s happening at all.”
Pilar shrugged and picked up a fry. “Believe it or don’t believe it. You’re the one with the giant question mark over your head, but your brother and Kate can’t see it.”
“Really, Sherlock Bravo? Why can’t they see it?”
“Because they look at you and they see what you see?”
Crois chuckled softly. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
Walker saw Pilar lift an elegantly sculpted brow at her partner. “Well, you should know this, since you’re in the same predicament.”
A small bit of fry fell out of Crois’ mouth into the tray and Walker cringed. “Now I can’t eat more of those.”
“Good.” Crois snatched the tray back and glared at Pilar. “Why are you bringing me into this?”
She took a sip of her soda. “You were the one who brought yourself into this,” she reminded him. “You want to act like you’re okay with what’s going on, but Harmony’s got you tied up in knots because she’s not acting like every other girl that you go out with.”
“What?” Crois dropped the fry he was holding between his fingers. “I never-”
“That’s the case,” Pilar gave her partner a look and Walker was thrilled that he wasn’t the one in the hot seat for a hot minute. “You’re used to having things easy with women. You ask them out to dinner and by the end of the meal she’s on her knees on the tile floor of the bathroom or you have her bent over the sink.”
“Or both,” Crois grumbled to himself.
Pilar nodded. “And now, when you spend time with Harmony, what do you two guys do?”
Crois met her eyes for a split second before he cast his gaze down on the aging picnic table. “First, she’s not a guy. Harmony is all woman.”
“And yet.”
“What? You want to hear that I haven’t slept with her yet?”
Pilar shook her head. “I don’t want to hear that, but I bet you’ve been wondering why.”
“Really?” Crois slid closer to Pilar so he could lift one of his long legs out from between the bench and the table. “What do you know that I don’t? I know that Harm would never talk about something like that.”
“Of course she wouldn’t, for the same reason why she’s not trying to climb you like a tree the way other women do.”
“Because she thinks he looks like Bullwinkle?”
Pilar turned to Walker and poked a finger into the air at him. “Shut it, Walker.”
Properly chastised, Walker held up both hands in surrender. “Sorry.”
Pilar went back to her partner. “Seriously, Crois. You know that Harmony is different than the other women you’ve been with, so you need to… you need to-”
“Shit or get off the pot?”
Pilar hit her open palm on the picnic table. “Damnit, Walker!”
Shit.
“Sorry, sis.”
Her face softened with the hint of a smile. “None of my brothers have ever been this obnoxious.”
“That’s why you needed me in your life.” He reached his arm across the table and put his hand over hers. “And I know I’ve been a shit to Roan about the wedding, but I’m really glad he’s marrying you.”
Even Crois looked a little impressed by his words.
“Some of his exes were crazy as shit.”
Pilar turned her hand under his palm and a moment later Walker flinched back, shaking his hand.
What the fuck?
Pilar was smiling when she pointed at her watch. “Now that I’ve gotten you back for all the stupid things you’ve said to your brother, when you’re ready to admit the truth to yourself, you’re going to be so much happier than you are at this moment.”
“Admit what?”
“My office hours are over. I need to finish my lunch or Crois’ going to end up running for the hills.”
Walker felt like his expression was closer to demonic than friendly, but Pilar was unphased.
“No,” she shooed him away with her hand. “Go away so I can eat or I’m going to tell your brother that you’re standing up on my side of the church on the day of the wedding.”
“He’d never believe you.” He nodded, assured of his own words. “Besides you already have a man on your side and Walker has a woman on his.”
Pilar beamed at him. “We’re a modern couple.”
Walker stood up from the picnic table and shook the numb feeling out of his legs.
“Is this the time that I warn you that if you break my brother’s heart, I’m going to kick you in the… well, umm-”
“You don’t have to worry about me hurting Roan, little bro.”
Walker cringed. “Hey, only family can joke about that.”
Pilar smiled at him. “I’m going to be your family, Walker. Remember that.”
He moved to her side and gave her a warm kiss on the cheek. “I’m counting on it.”
As he climbed into his SUV to head back to the precinct, Walker looked out of the windshield at Pilar and her partner.
“It’s like an infection,” he groused to himself.
Pilar and Roan.
Then Kate and Rock.
Now Pilar’s partner and Harmony?
Walker shook his head. The sweet blonde EMT was giving stick man a chance?
What was the world coming to?
A whole lot of crazy, because as much as he hated to admit it. Pilar was right about a lot of it.
And if she wasn’t careful, she’d make a hell of a great detective.
KENNEDY
Kennedy was working herself crazy.
Or just plain exhausting herself.
Either way she was burning both ends of the candle and there wasn’t much left.
She’d spent most of the morning recording voice overs on a series of new videos for the YouTube Channel and when she was done with that, she’d packed up her things into her little car and driven over to Carson Parks to talk with the women there.
No, she wasn’t filming or recording any of it, that’s why she was working so hard to put together content during the rest of her day.
Today, she had four women who had all been involved in the first story she’d done. They’d all had men from their families taken by the police on what ended up being bogus charges. No one could verify where the ‘tips’ came in from. It had all become a massive game of telephone where someone heard something and told it to someone and apparently, as the story now went, Detective Jerzek’s men had gone to arrest people on the say so of a lot of convoluted rumors.
Kimmy shook her head. “So that jerk isn’t going to get into trouble for what he did?”
Kennedy hesitated and the women reacted. She really needed to be more guarded when having a conversation instead of interviewing someone. Kennedy never had to worry about her own feelings creeping in before. “Serena’s still working on that. She’ll get back to you as soon as she can.”
She saw the reactions around the group. They wanted to believe that things were going to be okay, but Kennedy had the feeling that their hopes weren’t always fulfilled.
“I wanted to ask about other things, find out what could help your neighborhood.”
“Help us?” Carmen joked. “How about Superman?”
“Or the Equalizer,” added Desiree.
“Now, now,” Estrella, was one of the older women in the group. She’d emailed Kennedy after her story first hit the internet and she wanted to help ‘do something,’ “I don’t think she’s talking about pie in the sky, ladies. I think she’s talking about what’s really facing us.”
“You mean like the electricity?”
Kennedy turned to look at Carmen. “What about the electricity?”
“When we have an issue, like the power goes out.” Brandy turned and looked at the other ladies who nodded as she spoke. “We see people on the news complaining about power outages and how it doesn’t come on for hours.”
She slowed the last word for effect.
Kimmy agreed with a heavy nod. “Our power goes out and they can sometimes take days to bring it back. It’s hard to keep food safe if we don’t have power for days on end.
“No, kidding! Lord knows I don’t have a car to go out and buy ice for days on end.”
Carmen nodded her head. “It gets even more expensive because our market closed down a few months ago.”
“Now it’s one of those check cashing places.”
“As if we needed another one of those around here.”
Kennedy was taking notes on a note pad as quickly as she could.
Estrella leaned in and smiled. “You’re actually writing all of this down.”
“I want to help. I’m not sure what I can do but I can ask questions and at least we can get a conversation started.”
Estrella nodded, but some of the other women in the group looked a little hesitant.
Carmen turned her head a little to look at Kennedy. “We’re used to people talking to us.”
“You mean, talking at us.”
Estrella leaned in. “And she’s talking with us, so let’s talk.” The group quieted and Estrella looked at Kennedy. “We lost our closest market a few months ago.”
Desiree grumbled under her voice. “It feels like forever.”
Carmen sighed. “It’s not just the food that we got there but baby formula.”
“It’s already expensive enough.” Estrella interjected.
“But tack on the time it takes for the bus and then sometimes you’ve got to take the babies with you. It can be a whole bunch of hours and then you get home and-”
“And your evening is gone and so much money has been spent.”
Kennedy nodded. “I bet it’s tough, especially if you forget something, it’s not like you can just go back out later.”
Estrella shook her head. “It’s not like our concerns are unusual or even special because of who we are. We just want to take care of our children. To give them a safe place to live.”
The room got quiet again and Kennedy looked around the group. “This is something more than the raid?”
“Before that, we had a fire in the complex,” Carmen explained. “A few days before the trouble.”
“We don’t know who started it or why, but one of the firefighters thought it looked like it had been intentionally set.”
Desiree nodded. “It was the first time someone took the time to talk to us. We’ve had fires here before, but usually our firehouse comes in, puts it out and leaves.”
“Yeah. This guy-”
“Besides being hot.”
“Honey, they were all hot.”
“Well, it was a fire.”
Estrella rolled her eyes, “Come on now…”
“But they were!”
“No one’s arguing that they weren’t hot, Desiree.”
“Okay, fine, but it was nice to have someone explain it to us.”
“He even suggested that we remove extra wood or boxes from the grounds. Saying that it might be the kind of fuel needed to start fires in the future.”
“We would,” Estrella explained, “but the trash trucks… they hardly come on the right day. And a couple times in the last year they didn’t come at all.”
“And no one here has the money to pay for it to be removed-”
“It’s a part of the city utilities,” Kennedy felt confused. “Why would you have to pay?”
“Overage.” Estrella shrugged. “Because they didn’t pick it up before… when they do come, we had trash overflowing the cans. They said they’d only pick up the stuff that fit in the cans. Anything outside we’d have to pay extra for.”
“Well that’s wrong!”
The women smiled at her. “Welcome to our world.”
Kennedy stood up and looked at the front door. “Maybe we could walk around, and you ladies can tell me other things that need to be fixed.”
Carmen was the last one to move. Actually she was the only one who didn’t stand up when the others did. “I think I’ll head back to my place.” She looked at Kennedy, right in her eye. “I think it’s nice that you’re here and asking questions, but I’ve seen people try to be helpful before. It usually ends up with us as we were before, or a bit lower than we started.”
“Carmen-”
“No, it’s okay.” Kennedy felt her heart breaking at the sullen and disappointed tone in Carmen’s voice. “Let her say what she wants to.”
“Nothing against you, Miss Heart.”
“Please,” Kennedy felt like her heart had been cut out of her chest. “Call me Kennedy.”
Carmen nodded. “Nothing against you, Kennedy. I’m just tired of getting my hopes up to find out that we’ve been left behind again.”
As the rest of the group watched, Carmen left the apartment and Estrella took over. “Do you still want to take a walk around?”
Kennedy nodded, almost desperate to see what else was wrong. “Please.”
Almost to the door, Kennedy paused for a moment. “The firefighters who came and talked to you-”
“The hot ones?”
“Yes, the hot ones.” Kennedy confirmed. “Do you remember which station they came from?”
Estrella grinned. “They came from Fire Station Twenty-Nine. It’s the day after my mama’s birthday. February twenty-nine. Why do you ask?”