49. Think About It
FORTY-NINE
Think About It
Harry
I t was dark.
The paperwork was done.
The nightshift was on.
The world was still spinning.
That was when she came.
Harry had already powered down and closed up, and he was pulling on his jacket, ready to head home to Lillian, when Karen appeared in his door.
They’d already had a discussion. She was on paid leave until the shooting was investigated, and until a counselor said she was good, after taking a man’s life, to get back to work with a gun on her hip.
She’d been calm when they’d talked, accepting, and she’d handed over her weapon without demur.
Harry tried, but he couldn’t read if she had a problem with what she had to do.
She seemed to be…just Karen.
“You’d take a hit so she had answers, Harry,” she stated. “I know you.”
“Karen—”
“I’ll do the downtime. I’ll do the counseling. But I can already tell you, I won’t lose sleep for taking him out.”
Harry regarded her thoroughly.
“It isn’t what he did to women,” she continued. “It wasn’t all the shit he did. I wasn’t playing judge and executioner. The reason why you couldn’t be involved is the reason why you didn’t take that shot. You wanted answers for Lillian, and you’d do anything to get them for her. You wanted him alive. I wasn’t about to let you get dead so she’d know all that happened to her parents. In the end, those answers don’t matter. What matters is, she knows who took them away, and he’s paid. And what matters even more is, you’re going home to her right now.”
Suddenly, he was reminded of the conversation he’d had with Megan.
“I’m running unopposed,” he told her something she knew.
“I know,” she confirmed she knew.
“Fresh perspectives after this term, Karen,” he stated. “If one of my investigators becomes sheriff, there’ll be an opening for an investigator, so I can go back to doing that.”
Her eyes widened in shock.
Harry walked the two steps to her and stopped.
“To do this job, you have to make tough decisions every day, carry them through, and be able to live with them,” he said. “Rus has had enough stress in his life, he won’t run. Think about it.”
With that, he cuffed her on the arm.
And then he walked out of his office to get home to Lillian.