Page 1 of Trust my Heart

Chapter 1: The Man Who Knew Him First

Ryan

The handshake went on too long. That was the first thing I had on Adam Wright, before he’d said a word I could hold against him: a grip that landed warm and dry and friendly and then stayed, a half-second past the place a handshake closes, while he looked at me like we’d already had this conversation once and enjoyed it.

“Carlson.” My name, said like he’d been keeping it somewhere good. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All of it slander, I hope. I’d hate to think the truth got out.”

He laughed before the line was all the way down, easy and a beat early, the laugh of a man who’d decided to like me and was letting me catch up. Cheap. It worked anyway.

Somehow, Murphy’s office felt stifling, and keeping a relaxed expression was harder than I thought.

Wright let go of my hand and turned a half-step, and the turn put his shoulder to Murphy and his whole face back on Luke, where it had been aimed from the start. Nobody else would have clocked it. I did.

Luke had gone still beside me. Not the still he wears into a scene, the one that takes a room apart and gives you nothing back. A worse one. His shoulders had come up and stayed, and his eyes had found a spot on the wall an inch past Wright’s ear and dug in, and he was holding his face so carefully the holding had become the only thing on it.

“It’s good to see you, Luke.” Soft, that, pitched down between the two of them like the rest of us had been asked to step out.

“Sergeant.”

One word, flat as the floor. I knew what it cost him to keep it there. I left my own hands in my pockets, which cost me something I’ll keep to myself.

“Word travels, you know.” Wright went on, warm, a gift he was glad to be giving. “People are saying good things about you. The Internal Affairs business. That ring you helped pull down.” He shook his head, fond. “I always knew it’d be you they noticed in the end. You did the work while the rest of us were learning how to look busy.”

Nobody picked the compliment up. It hung there with nowhere to go, and the only sound in the room was the printer chewing through somebody’s report.

“You look well,” Wright said, quieter.

“You said.”

“You don’t know how this place brings back memories. You remember the warehouse off Dufferin?” Wright said it light, like it had drifted up on its own. “You went to the side, I took the front, and we had him before he’d got an arm into his coat.” A small, private laugh, the kind you keep for one person in a room. “Best week I ever had on the job. I still tell it.”

“I remember.” Two words and Luke shut the door on them.

Wright let the door stay shut, easy, like it cost him nothing, and turned back toward the desk.

Murphy stood up.

“Sergeant Wright came over to us this morning,” he said. “Monday he’s on the floor. I’ll want him made welcome.” He put welcome on me and held it a half-second too long with nothing on his face, which out of Murphy is a paragraph.

“Naturally.”

“His own request.” He set it down flat, a stone he wanted me to feel the weight of. “He asked to come back to 51.” He didn’t say why. He squared a stack of folders that were already square and let the quiet finish it.

“I know how it looks.” Wright got out ahead of it, rueful, brave enough to name the awkward thing before it could be named at him. “Coming back where I’ve got history. I won’t make it the unit’s problem. I’m here to work.” He let it warm and aimed it at Luke. “We were a good team once. I’d be glad to settle for good colleagues.”

Clean. It put the history on the table and made him the big man for being the one to put it there, and it handed Luke a choice of two bad roads, gracious or grudge, in front of the boss, in his first hour back beside a man he’d buried years ago. Cruel, dressed up as generous.

“Generous,” I said, before Luke had to take either one. I came up smoothly, the old reflex, the one that’s kept me standing in worse rooms than this. “You’re in luck, Sergeant. We’re collegial to a fault around here. Practically a hugging culture. Ask anyone.” I let the grin do the lifting, and the room’s eyes came off Luke and onto me, which was the whole point of the exercise. “Welcome to 51. Burnt coffee, low expectations. You’ll be right at home.”

He gave me the smile at full power and held my eyes a beat, and I smiled back before I’d voted on it. By the time I noticed I was doing it he’d gone back to looking at Luke.

“He’s in good hands, I see.” A hand to Luke’s shoulder, brief, the way you’d touch a thing you used to own, and Luke let it land and didn’t lean and didn’t flinch and then it was gone. “Monday, then. It really is good to be back.”

He saw himself out, all warmth, and the door gave him to the bullpen, and the room got its air back.

Murphy looked at the shut door. Then at Luke.