Public Secrets

MARIANNE PHONED an hour later, Emma was on her way out the door. She closed it, locked it again before she answered.
“Hi there.” Marianne’s voice was drowsy and content.
“Hi, yourself. You just getting up? It must be nearly noon in New York.”
“I’m not up yet.” She snuggled back against the pillows. “I’m in bed. The dentist’s bed.”
“Having a tooth capped?”
“Let’s just say that he’s got talents that extend beyond dental hygiene. I called my machine for messages and got yours. So, how are you?”
“I’m doing okay. Really.”
“Glad to hear it. Is Michael going to the beach with you?”
“No, he’s working.”

Marianne wrinkled her nose. If she couldn’t be around to look after Emma, she counted on the cop to do so. She could hear the shower in the next room and wished lazily that her new lover would come back to bed instead of heading off to fight plaque. “Tooth decay or bad guys, I guess a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Look, I’m thinking of coming out in a couple of weeks.”
“To check up on me?”
“Right. And to finally meet this Michael you’ve been keeping to yourself all these years. Have a good time hanging ten, Emma. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

M ICHAEL LIKED BEING out in the field. He didn’t have any real gripe with paperwork, or the hours it sometimes took talking on the phone, going on door-to-doors. But he liked the action on the streets.
He’d had to ignore a good deal of ribbing in the early years. The captain’s son. Some of it had been good-natured, some of it hadn’t, but he’d weathered it. He’d worked hard for his gold shield.
In the station now he stole a doughnut from a nearby desk, eating it standing up, while paging through the paper an associate had left next to the coffee maker.
He went straight for the comics. After a night like he’d put in, he needed all the laughs he could get. From there, he went looking for sports, turning the page with one hand and pouring coffee with the other.
J ANE P ALMER D IES OF O VERDOSE
Jane Palmer, forty-six, ex-lover of Devastation’s Brian McAvoy, and mother of his daughter, Emma, was found dead in her London home, apparently a victim of a drug overdose. The body was discovered by Stanley Hitchman late Sunday afternoon.
Michael read through the rest of the article. It contained only the bare facts, but suicide was hinted at. Swearing, he tossed the paper aside. He grabbed a jacket and signaled McCarthy.
“I need an hour. There’s something I have to take care of.”
McCarthy put a hand over the phone receiver he held at his ear. “We got three punks in holding.”
“Yeah, and they’ll hold. An hour,” he repeated and strode out.

H E FOUND HER AT THE BEACH . It had only been a few days since she had come back into his life, but he knew her habits. She came there every day, to the same spot. Not to surf. That was just an excuse. She came to sit in the sun and watch the water, or to read in the shade of a little blue and white cabana. Most of all she came to heal.
Always she set herself apart from the others who sunned or walked along the beach. She wasn’t seeking company but was comforted by the fact that she wasn’t alone. She wore a simple blue tank suit, no flighty bikini or spandex one-piece cut provocatively at the thigh. Its very modesty drew eyes toward her. More than one man had considered an approach, but one look from her had them passing by.
To Michael it was as if she had a glass wall surrounding her, thin, ice-cold, and impenetrable. He wondered if within it she could smell the coconut oil or hear the jangle from the portable radios.
He went to her. Her trust in him allowed him to get closer than most. But she’d built a second line of defense that held even friends at their distance.
“Emma.”
He hated to see her jolt, that quick, involuntary movement of panic. She dropped the book she’d been reading. Behind her sunglasses fear darted into her eyes, then subsided. Her lips curved, her body relaxed. He saw it all, the change from serenity to panic to calm again, in a matter of seconds. It made him think that she was becoming much too used to living in fear.
“Michael, I didn’t expect to see you today. Are you playing hooky?”
“No. I’ve only got a few minutes.”
He sat beside her, in the partial shade. The breeze off the water fluttered his jacket so that she caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster. It was always a shock to remember what he did for a