Chapter 7 #2
Diaz was in. We had a cop. And if Keene bit, a fed.
Now the real work could begin.
Garrett arrived at seven with a banker's box tucked under one arm, stuffed with folders—exactly what I'd asked for when I'd texted him after leaving Diaz's office.
"Hi," I said, stepping back to let him in.
He paused in the doorway, taking in my apartment.
I saw it through his eyes—the corkboard covered in index cards and colored string, the books stacked on every horizontal surface, the case files spread across my coffee table in a pattern that made sense only to me.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"What?"
"Nothing." He stepped inside, his shoulder brushing mine as he passed. "You haven't changed."
"My apartment is perfectly functional."
"I didn't say it wasn't." But he was still smiling. That rare expression that transformed his serious face into something warmer. Something I remembered from years ago, before everything fell apart.
He set the box on my coffee table, careful not to disturb my existing chaos. "Everything you asked for. Plus the incident reports I pulled—fires, injuries, near-misses in any of the targeted properties over the last five years."
I lifted the lid. My breath caught.
Photographs—dozens of them, all timestamped and labeled. Inspection reports with his handwritten notes in the margins. Incident summaries cross-referenced by address, by owner, by the officials who'd signed off on compliance.
And a fresh stack of printouts on top—the incident reports he'd compiled since our last meeting.
"You've been busy," I said.
"So have you." He sat on the edge of my couch, elbows on his knees. "How did it go with Diaz?"
"She's in. She's handling the arson case, but the FDNY corruption is beyond NYPD jurisdiction. It will have to go federal."
Garrett went still. Not alarmed. Processing. Running it through that tactical mind the way he ran everything, calculating three steps ahead.
"Federal," he said quietly.
"She has a contact. Special Agent who works public corruption out of Federal Plaza."
He nodded slowly.
"She wants everything you have," I said. "The more documentation, the better."
"That's the box."
"I told her you'd been trying to get someone to listen for years." I looked up at him. "She said to tell you someone's finally listening."
Something shifted in his expression. Not relief exactly, but close. The look of a man who'd been shouting into a void for years and just heard the first echo back.
"What did you find?" I asked, nodding at the incident reports. "Anything useful?"
"Three structure fires in the last four years. All in buildings owned by the same shell company network. All ruled accidental." He pulled a folder from the box and handed it to me. "Two injuries. One fatality."
I opened the folder. A list of names, dates, and addresses.
"You've been tracking the victims."
"If someone's burning these buildings for revenge, they lost someone.
A family member, a friend." He leaned forward, pointing to the list. "These are the people who died or were seriously injured in fires connected to the shell companies.
If our arsonist is on this list—or connected to someone on it—this is how we find them. "
I stared at the list. At the careful handwriting, the cross-references, the years of quiet, methodical work.
"You know," I said, "you would've made a good cop."
Garrett froze.
"Take that back."
"Take what back?" I grinned at him, not even trying to hide it.
The firefighter-cop rivalry was one of those things you didn't fully understand until you'd spent time inside a firehouse. It wasn't hatred—it was sibling warfare. Two departments pulling from the same city budget, the same outer-borough families, sometimes the same Thanksgiving table.
Cops resented firefighters for the better schedules, the universal adoration, and the fact that no one had ever protested the fire department.
Firefighters resented cops for the bigger budgets, the jurisdictional overreach, and the way ESU units kept showing up to do jobs the FDNY was already handling.
But underneath the budget fights and the turf wars, the real divide was simpler.
Cops enforced. Firefighters saved.
Telling a firefighter he'd make a good cop was like telling a chef he'd make a great microwave technician. Technically adjacent. Spiritually devastating.
And I’d just said it to Garrett's face.
He shook his head slowly, but he was smiling. The one that used to make me forget my own name.
He was looking at me the way he used to. Soft. Warm. Like I was something worth looking at.
The apartment went quiet around us, the case files forgotten, and for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me.
"So." I cleared my throat. Looked away first. "What do you want for dinner?"
"You're buying?"
"You bought last time."
"I didn't burden you with choice. Just order what you like."
"Fine." I pulled up the delivery app. "You'll eat what I order."
"Should I be worried?"
I grinned at him. "I remember what you hate. I could order it. Watching you try to be polite while choking down—"
"You wouldn't."
"Wouldn't I?"
I ordered real food. The things I remembered he liked, beef and broccoli from the Szechuan place on 47th, extra rice, those dumplings he used to eat by the dozen.
His expression when it arrived—soft, surprised, grateful—did something complicated to my chest.
We ate surrounded by evidence of corruption and seven years of one man's quiet crusade.
He never gave up, I thought, watching him frown at a spreadsheet while absently reaching for another dumpling. All this time, alone, fighting a battle no one else could see. And he never stopped.
It made me wonder what else he'd been holding onto.
The knock came at nine-thirty.
Pierce. The box. I'd agreed to Tuesday two weeks ago, back when Tuesday was just another empty evening. Before Garrett. Before the case files on my coffee table and the man reviewing them on my couch.
I'd completely forgotten.
Garrett looked up from the documents, instantly alert, that tactical awareness I'd seen in him at the firehouse clicking into place.
"It's fine," I said. "My ex. He's picking up his things."
Something crossed Garrett's face. Gone before I could name it.
I opened the door.
Pierce.
He stood in the hallway looking exactly the way he always looked—expensive haircut, designer jacket, the kind of confident stance that came from never being told no. His eyes swept past me into the apartment, landing on Garrett on my couch.
"Sloane." His voice cooled by several degrees. "I'm here for my box."
"Pierce." I stepped back, not quite an invitation, but not blocking his way either. "I forgot you were coming tonight."
"Clearly." He walked past me, gaze fixed on Garrett, who had risen from the couch with the careful stillness of someone assessing a potential threat. "I see you're busy."
"We're working on a case." I moved to the closet, retrieved the cardboard box I'd packed weeks ago. "Garrett, this is Pierce. Pierce, Lieutenant Garrett Stone. He's my liaison from FDNY."
"The firefighter thing." Pierce took the box without looking at it. His attention was still on Garrett, measuring him. "Right. The arson story."
"That's the one."
Silence stretched.
Garrett said nothing, but his posture had shifted, shoulders squared, weight balanced, watching Pierce the way he probably watched suspicious structures during a fire. Evaluating. Calculating.
"Well." Pierce tucked the box under his arm. "I'll let you get back to work."
"Good seeing you," I said, which was a lie, and opened the door wider.
He paused at the threshold. Looked back at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"You look good, Sloane. Busy suits you."
Then he turned and headed down the hall.
I closed the door. Leaned against it. Let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"You okay?" Garrett asked.
"Fine. He's harmless." I pushed off the door, started gathering the takeout containers because I needed something to do with my hands. "We dated for about two years. He proposed a few months ago."
Something flickered across Garrett's face. He didn't say anything.
"But he had conditions," I continued, dumping containers into the trash with more force than necessary.
"Marry him, quit my job, become a housewife.
Host dinner parties for his business partners.
Raise kids in the suburbs." I paused. "Never write another word that might embarrass his family's hedge fund. "
I tied off the trash bag.
"I said no."
Garrett nodded slowly.
I watched his expression shift, the tension in his jaw easing, the concern in his eyes giving way to something that looked like relief. And underneath that, something else. Something that looked almost like longing.
Like he'd been bracing for a different answer. Like hearing I'd chosen myself, chosen my work, my life, my freedom, meant something to him he wasn't ready to say out loud.
"I should go," he said finally. "It's late."
"Yeah." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "Are you on shift tomorrow?"
"Twenty-four hours. Starting at seven."
Tomorrow. I wasn't going to see him tomorrow.
The disappointment that settled in my chest caught me off guard. We'd been working together for barely a week. I shouldn't miss him yet.
But I felt like I was going to.
"Okay," I said. "Be safe."
Something softened in his expression. "I'll text you when I'm off shift."
He said it the same way he used to, back when we first started dating. Casual. Easy. Like checking in was just something he did, something that didn't need explaining.
I tried to shake the thought away. Smiled. Nodded.
He gathered his jacket. Paused at the door, hand on the frame.
"Good night, Sloane."
"Good night."
Then he was gone.
I sat in the silence for a long time after.
The apartment felt different now. Fuller, somehow, even though he'd taken nothing with him.
His presence lingered in the displaced papers, the empty dumpling containers, the faint trace of smoke and soap that clung to my couch cushions.
I thought about the banter. The way his smile had transformed his whole face when I'd called him a cop.
The moment the room had gone quiet, and I'd thought, just for a second, that he was going to kiss me.
I thought about the food. How he'd looked at me when it arrived, soft and surprised, like he hadn't expected to be known anymore.
I thought about Pierce showing up. The way Garrett had risen from the couch, not aggressive, not jealous, just present. Ready.
Like he'd step between me and anything that might hurt me without even thinking about it.
And his face when I told him I'd said no. The relief he couldn't quite hide. The longing underneath it.
I'll text you when I'm off shift.
Like we were in our twenties again. Like the years between us had never happened.
In my living room was a box full of his documentation, his obsession, his years-long fight for justice.
And I couldn't pretend anymore that this was just professional. Couldn't pretend that working beside him didn't feel like coming home after almost a decade of wandering.
Twenty-four hours. I was already counting.