Brazen Virtue

over his shoulder at Ed talking on the phone. He knew how it felt, how frustrating, how just plain scary it was to have the woman you loved in the middle of something you couldn’t control. You tried to be a cop, a good one, but holding on to your objectivity was like trying to cling to a wet rope. You kept losing your grip.
    “Morgan’s mother died this morning,” Ed said as he hung up. “The family’ll be out of town for a couple of days.” In Ben’s eyes Ed saw what he felt in his gut. They didn’t have a couple of days. “I want to pull her off.”
    “I know.”
    “Goddamn it, she’s got no business exposing herself this way. She doesn’t even belong here. She should be back in her penthouse in New York. The longer she stays—”
    “The harder it’s going to be to watch her leave,” Ben finished. “Maybe she isn’t going to leave, Ed.”
    A man didn’t evade his partner. “I love her enough that it would be easier to know she was there, safe, than here with me.”

    Ben sat on the arm of the couch and pulled out a cigarette. The eighteenth of the day. Damn Ed for getting him into the habit of counting. “You know one thing I’ve always admired about you—besides your arm-wrestling skills, that is—you’re a hell of a judge of character, Ed. You usually put your finger on a person after ten minutes. So I figure you already know Grace isn’t going to budge.”
    “Maybe she hasn’t been shoved hard enough.” Ed pushed his big hands into his pockets.
    “A few months ago I gave serious thought to slipping the cuffs on Tess and shipping her off. Anywhere, as long as it was away from here.” Ben studied the end of his cigarette. “Looking back, I can see a bit clearer. It wouldn’t have worked. What made her the person she is made her determined to do what she was doing. It scared the shit out of me, and I took a lot of it out on her.”
    “Maybe if you’d pushed harder, you wouldn’t have almost lost her.” Ed spit it out, then immediately detested himself. “Out of line. I’m sorry.”
    If it had been anyone else, Ben would have released his temper in whatever way seemed the handiest. Because it was Ed, he bit it back. “It’s nothing I haven’t asked myself a few hundred times. I don’t forget what it felt like when I knew he had her. I’ll never forget it.” After crushing out his cigarette, he rose to pace again. “You want to keep Grace out of this part of your life completely, totally separated from it. You want her untouched and unsullied by all the shit you wade through day after day. The gang hits, the domestic explosions, the prossies and the pimps. Let me tell you, it ain’t never going to work because no matter what you do, you bring pieces of it home with you.”
    “What you bring home doesn’t have to put her in firing range.”

    “No, but she’s in this one.” Ben dragged a hand through his hair. “Christ, I know what you’re going through and I hate it. Not just for you, but for me, because it brings it right back to the bone. But the fact that keeps slapping us in the face is that she’s reeling him in. No matter how much you might wish it otherwise, she’s the one who’s going to nail him.”
    “That’s what I’m counting on,” Grace said from the doorway. Both men turned toward her, but she looked only at Ed. “I’m sorry, by the time I realized this was a private conversation I’d already heard too much. I’m going for some coffee, but before I do, I’d like to add my two cents. I finish what I start. Always.”
    Ben picked up his jacket as Grace walked away. “Look, I’ll go on out and wrap things up with Billings for the night.”
    “Yeah. Thanks.”
    “Catch you in the morning.” He headed for the door, then paused. “I’d tell you to ease up, but I won’t. If I had it to do over again, I’d do the same thing.”
    Grace heard the door close. Minutes later, she listened to Ed’s footsteps come toward the kitchen. Immediately she began to fool with the coffeepot she’d simply been staring at.
    “I don’t know why in the hell Kathy didn’t get a microwave. Every time I go to cook something I feel like I’m on Plymouth Rock. I’m thinking about frozen pizza. Are you hungry?”
    “No.”
    “Coffee probably tastes like mud by now.” She clanged cups in the cabinet. “There’s probably some juice or something in the fridge.”
    “I’m fine. Why don’t you sit down and let me do that?”
    “Stop it!” She spun