“I know.”

“She’s pissed. She’s been in, like, every day for the last two months since it went down. Gettin’ in Colt’s face, gettin’ in everyone’s face and gettin’ nothin’. Colt’s sealed up tight. Sully’s sealed up tight. Everyone’s sealed up tight. Monica is persona non grata even more than she was persona non grata and pretty much everyone hated her before. Now she’s not gettin’ anything not just on that thing but on everything. She’s been locked out.”

“I know that too, Kath.” And I did, Colt told me all about it.

“Welp, did you know Monica and Colt had a showdown just two feet away from me not ten minutes ago? Apparently, that reporter from The Star’s got a book comin’ out and before it’s even in the bookstores he’s sold the movie rights.”

I knew what she was saying.

I couldn’t say I was pleased there was going to be a movie made about the Denny mess and I was also not pleased there was going to be a book but Colt warned me this was probably going to happen. We’d been through weeks of reporters hounding us anywhere they could get to us before they realized we weren’t talking, Sully wasn’t talking, the FBI weren’t talking. They finally figured out they were only going to get the information released as a matter of course and then the next story came along and they lost interest.

What I could say was I was pleased that Monica wasn’t going to make her career from it. Colt had told me about her and since the day Denny came back to town she’d been a serious pain in the ass. Calling Colt, calling me, stopping by the bar, coming to the Station, bothering me when I was at Mimi’s. She’d written three articles about us and made some shit up and it wasn’t nice shit. Colt lost his cool and talked to Eli Levinson. Eli was one year ahead of Colt at high school, the wide receiver on the football team who went to law school, opened up his practice in town and Eli owed Colt a favor. Eli paid up by slapping Monica and The Gazette with a cease and desist which included a threat of litigation should they libel us any further. The Gazette had gladly printed a retraction and also just as gladly used that as an excuse to dump Monica’s ass. We’d heard word they’d fired her yesterday.

Evidently she wasn’t too happy about losing her job and her promised (and reneged) exclusive on the story of the year.

“Who won the showdown?” I asked Kath, even though I knew the answer.

Kath was talking through her laughter as she answered, “Seein’ as Monica got physical and is currently in lockdown, I’d say Colt won.”

My mind filled with visions of short, pudgy Monica going up against tall, lean Colt and I swallowed back a giggle and looked up the stairs.

“She got physical with a police officer?” I asked.

“In the end, three,” Kath answered.

I swallowed more laughter before saying, “So, is he in a good mood or a bad mood?”

“Can’t say. Monica’s in lockdown, which is good, but she had her hands on him, which he never liked.”

I felt my lip curl and said, “I don’t blame him.”

“Prefers your hands on him, I reckon,” I heard from my side and I turned to see Marty standing there.

My eyes went to his neck, the scar still vivid and I felt that familiar tightness in my throat just as I fought it back and forced a smile.

“Hey Marty,” I said softly, reaching out and touching my fingers to his hand. His hand twisted and he touched my fingers back before both our hands fell away. “I hear you’re back in uniform.”

“Yeah, a week. Thinkin’ about takin’ a vacation.”

I laughed and Kath said, “You just had a month and a half off and then some.”

“Yeah, through April showers, now sun’s out and I feel the need to go fishin’,” Marty answered.

“Then what you doin’ at the Station on your day off?” Kath asked.

“Heard Monica’s in lockdown so I came to take a picture.” He lifted up a digital camera. “Wanna put one in the visor of all the cruisers, do my bit to keep morale up.” He turned to me. “Wanna copy?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. I’ve seen enough of Monica for awhile.”

“Reckon so,” Marty replied and I gave him a smile that said more than the fact that I thought he was funny. It was the smile I’d given him in his hospital room and more than a dozen times besides, in fact, every time I went to his house, with Colt, with Mom and Dad, with Dee and the kids, all of those times bringing casseroles or Mimi’s baked goods, all of them not ever going to be enough to say “thank you for taking a bullet to the neck in an effort to protect me”.

After I gave him my smile, I turned to Kath.

“Okay if I go up?” I asked, my eyes going to the stairs before I looked back at her.

“Sure,” she said.

I smiled at her, gave Marty’s arm a squeeze and then headed up the stairs.

Colt was at his desk, his back to me, his hand holding a phone to his ear and I got a tickle in my belly from both seeing him and from holding my secret.

He turned to me and I read right away he wasn’t in a good mood. He tipped his head to the chair by his desk and I headed that way.

“You got until Friday, Ned,” I heard Colt say as I sat down beside his desk and I knew he wasn’t in a bad mood just because of Monica but because we’d hired Ned to build onto the garage and he was jacking us around getting it finished. This was unusual. Ned was known to get his work done on time and on budget. Then again, Ned’s wife had chosen about two days into our job to do a runner with one of Ned’s workmen, leaving Ned with two kids not yet in kindergarten and, therefore, Ned’s mind was on other things.

“Yeah, I get it, I know you’ve hit the shit but you said it’d take three weeks. We’re workin’ on week six and I got a driveway full of crap. Both Feb and I are parkin’ our cars on the street and Feb’s car’s barely got its new plates,” Colt told him and I smiled to myself because my new car with new plates was a cute, little, blue, convertible Volkswagen Beetle.

I’d won that fight using my high-heeled black shoes, a lacy black teddy that Jessie and I picked up at Victoria’s Secret and the pool table. My strategy worked, by the time I asked him, Colt couldn’t say no.

This was well before his birthday. On his birthday, he got what he’d always had way back when. Mom’s pork tenderloin with her famous mustard sauce followed by an angel food cake and the whole family packed around our dining table. Dee had given him a framed picture of me and Colt that she took at the bar. It showed Colt at his stool, his legs spread, me standing between them. I had one arm around his shoulders, my other hand on his chest and my lips were resting on his hair. He had his forehead on my shoulder. We were both in profile but you could see we were both laughing. I didn’t remember why we were laughing, but I did remember how his laughter felt sounding against my body. It was a great present and at that moment that picture was sitting on his desk.