let his arms fall to his side, still gripping the pen and pad.
“Officer, please!” Smith skidded to a halt in front of Martin. “I’m just—wait a second. Are you even a cop?”
“I’m writing you a ticket, aren’t I?” Martin asked.
“Where’s your uniform?”
Martin shrugged his shoulders. He pulled his sports jacket open and flashed the badge on his belt.
“I’ve been around a long time. Wearing a suit on the job is a perk for me.”
Smith opened his mouth, closed it. Then said, “You can’t give me a ticket.”
Here we go.
“Why not, son?”
Smith ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair. “Because I was just coming back to feed the meter.”
“But you’re three minutes late.”
The kid looked behind him, then back at Martin. “I dropped my quarter back there, but I have the cash.”
“Cash for the next half hour.”
Smith nodded. “Come on, I have an exam. I’m going to be late.”
“But you didn’t pay for these last three minutes.”
Smith shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling around for another coin. Behind them, a campus bus rumbled by. Martin figured it was headed to Busch Campus. That one seemed to be on schedule.
He went back to writing.
“Come on, man, don’t be a dick.”
Martin shook his head. “I’m not. I’m doing my job.”
Smith exhaled. “Is this fun for you? Torturing college students?”
Martin tore the piece of paper away and handed it over to Smith. The kid took it and read it over. He shook his head.
“This is a blast,” Martin said.
He turned around and went back to his car. As he crossed the street, he heard Smith call him an asshole.
“Don’t forget to feed the meter in another thirty minutes,” Martin called out.
Another stream of curses followed. Martin couldn’t hold the smile back any more. Great start to the week.
Just a year after his promotion, after the shakes started, they demoted him to this job. They wanted him to retire.
And miss out on all the fun?
Hell, no.
Time to go back to the office to drop off all the tickets he’d written.
DONNE HEADED back toward home. Off to the north, some thunderclouds hung over Piscataway, threatening a midday storm. It felt like it was too early in the year to be expecting a heat-breaking thunderstorm, but it was already early May. Time passed quickly when you weren’t paying attention.
Jeanne had already been gone six years, cut down in a car accident with a drunk driver. She was coming home from work, only a few weeks after Donne had left the force and started his own private investigator business. Someone came too hard around a curve and slammed into her. She was dead before the ambulance got on scene. The driver of the car had run off, leaving the car and several liquor bottles behind.
Now, as he passed the theater district, he tried to remember the days that followed. They were fuzzy, blurry—no, that was wrong. They were nonexistent. The weeks following Jeanne’s death were a black hole of alcohol and drugs, exactly what he’d promised his fiancée he’d give up for her once they decided to get married.
A sober man may have gone on a quest, tracked down the drunk driver. But he just let it go. He let Jeanne’s parents handle everything. Never asked if they found the guy. Never asked if they’d checked the plates to the car and caught anyone.
And then, just three years ago, her parents told him they never wanted to see him again.
Now, somehow, Jeanne was back in his life and Donne had nowhere to turn. His phone vibrated again, and his fingers tingled as he reached for it. He expected another warning from the blocked number, but all it was only Kate asking where he was. A few clicks of the keyboard later, and she knew he was on his way. But Donne had to make one more stop. Only one place left to turn.
If that car accident was faked and Jeanne was in danger, there was only one other person who could help him. It was not a place Donne wanted to go, not a place he ever wanted to walk into again.
THE NEW Brunswick police station was a big, modern brick building off the beaten path of downtown New Brunswick. Kirkpatrick Street was buried behind a parking deck and was considered a small side road. Donne hadn’t walked down that side road in many years.
When he pulled the glass door open and stepped across the threshold, it felt as if a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his neck. Air caught in the back of his throat.
He walked up to the reception desk, and the cop on duty looked up and did a double take. Maybe there was a picture of Donne in the break room and all the new recruits had to curse it out.
“Can I help you?” The cop sounded like he’d swallowed a thornbush.
“You know who I’m here to see,” Donne tried.
“Because I’m psychic?”
Donne closed his eyes. A tough guy act wasn’t going to work in the building where it was perfected.
“My old friend, I know he’s still here.”
“Well, I’m not about to announce you, so go find him yourself.”
Clearly this guy knew Donne wouldn’t be able to walk two feet without being stared down by six or seven other armed men. He just crooked his neck and nodded Donne toward the back. Didn’t even check his ID.
Sometimes being hated makes things a lot easier.
Donne walked past the desk and into a series of cubicles. The police department always reminded Donne of a small-town business.
Cubicles, coffee, and water coolers.
The clicking of computer keys and mumbled chatter.
He expected all that to stop as he made his way through the office, but it didn’t. He heard a few people mutter sounds of surprise, but the world didn’t end. The boa constrictor left, but a rat had nested in his stomach.
He and Kate liked to joke about this when they went out for dinner. In New Brunswick, it was easy to walk to a restaurant, especially in the spring and summer. Kate knew about Donne’s history with the police, and knew if they had a few drinks and there was a beat cop around, he’d be out to bust Donne for disorderly. So she would whisper “beer goggles” to him as they walked back to his apartment. It meant “Keep your eyes open” when the cops were around.
She’d be screaming “beer goggles” right now.
He came to the corner he’d rounded three or four hundred times when he worked here. The office was at the end of the hallway. As he strode, the doors to other offices closed. In the age of texting, word travels fast. He felt like he was in a bad, old comedy and had walked in to the wrong bar. The only thing missing was the scratch of a record stopping.
Donne reached the doorway and hesitated, his hand hovering over the knob. He used to have a key to this office, spent hours drinking coffee, reading files and sniffing cocaine. It was in this office that Donne had finally decided to go snitch, to give them all up.
It’s also where he tried to protect his partner.
The same partner who wanted nothing more than to see Donne