Black Hills

field. We help train, help teach. They’re here for some hands-on experience.”
    “You keep drugs.”
    Weary, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes. The drugs are in Medical, locked in the drug cabinet. Matt, Mary, Tansy, and I have keys. Even the vet assistants don’t have access to them. Though you’d have to be jonesing pretty hard to want anything in there, we inventory weekly.”
    It was enough for now, he thought. She’d had enough for now. “It’s good chicken,” he said, and took another bite.
    “It really is.”
    “Want another beer?”
    “No.”
    He rose, poured them both tall glasses of water.
    “Were you a good cop?” she asked him.
    “I did okay.”
    “Why’d you quit? And don’t tell me to mind my own business when you’re trashing around in the middle of mine.”
    “I needed a change.” He considered a moment, then decided to tell her. “There was a woman in my squad. Dory. A good cop, a good friend. A friend,” he repeated. “There was never anything between us but that. She was married, for one thing, and for another, there just wasn’t anything like that. But when the marriage went south, her husband decided there was.”
    He paused, and when she said nothing, drank, then continued. “We were working a case, and one night after shift we grabbed a meal together to talk it through. I guess he was watching, waiting for his moment. I never felt it coming,” he said quietly. “Never got that hum, and she never let on how bad it was, not even to me.”
    “What happened?”
    “He came around the corner, firing. She went down so fast, fell against me. Maybe saved my life because of the way she fell back against me. He caught me in the side, barely caught me. In and out.”
    “Shot? You were shot?”
    “In and out, not much more than a graze.” He didn’t dismiss it. No, he never dismissed it. A few inches the other way, a whole different story. “She was taking me down with her. People were screaming, scattering, diving for cover. The glass shattered. A bullet hit the window of the restaurant.
    “I remember what it sounded like, when the bullets were going into her, into the glass. I got to my weapon. I got to it as we were going down, as she was taking me down with her. She was already dead, and he kept putting bullets into her. I put five into him.”
    His eyes met Lil’s now, and they were ice blue in color, in expression. She thought: This is the change. More than anything else, this is what marked him.
    “I remember every one of them. Two mid-body as I was falling, three more—right hip, leg, abdomen—after I hit the sidewalk. It all took less than thirty seconds. Some asshole recorded it on his cell phone.”
    It had seemed so much longer, eons longer. And the jumpy video hadn’t captured the way Dory’s body had jerked against his, or the feel of her blood flooding over his hands.
    “He emptied his clip. Two bullets went through the glass, one went into me. The rest, he put into her.”
    Coop paused, drank some water. “So I needed a change.”
    Her chest was full to aching as she put her hand over his. She could see it, so clearly. Hear it—the shots, the screams, the breaking glass. “Your grandparents don’t know. They never said anything about this, so they don’t know.”
    “No. I wasn’t hurt that bad. Treat and release. A few stitches. They didn’t know Dory, so why tell them? It was a good shoot. I didn’t get any trouble over it, not with Dory dead on the sidewalk, all the witnesses, and that asshole’s phone recording. But I couldn’t be a cop anymore, couldn’t work out of the squad, couldn’t do it. Besides”—he shrugged now—“there’s more money in private.”
    She’d said that, hadn’t she? Casually, carelessly when she’d seen him again. How she wished she could take it back. “Did you have someone? When it happened, did you have someone there for you?”
    “I didn’t want anyone for a while.”
    Because she understood, she nodded, said nothing. Then he turned his hand over, laced his fingers with hers. “And when I did, I thought about calling you.”
    Her hand flexed, a little jerk of surprise. “You could have.”
    “Maybe.”
    “There’s no maybe, Coop. I’d have listened. I’d’ve come to New York to listen if you’d needed or wanted it.”
    “Yeah. I guess that’s why I didn’t call you.”
    “How does that make sense?” she wondered.
    “There are a lot of contradictions and twists when it comes