Page 85 of Falling For You

I walked back through the two sets of doors and out into the parking lot. The sun was bright and the air was dry. I sat in my car for a full minute before I started the engine.

Every thread of Sydney's case was closed. Five men accounted for. One sister who finally knew the truth. A program that meant the next Sydney wouldn't disappear into a file number.

I pulled out of the lot and drove to the precinct.

Zeus was at his desk when I got back. He waved me in before I knocked.

"Walsh. Good work on McCarthy. That was clean police work."

"Thank you, Sir. I can't take all the credit. Jeremy Murray did most of the legwork."

"Still. The case started with you. It ended with you." He leaned back in his chair. "Good work."

I thanked him again and turned to leave. But then I stopped.

"May I ask you something, Sir?"

"What is it?"

I'd been carrying this question for a long time. I never had the standing to ask it, and I never had the moment. I had both now.

"While I was a patrol officer, you always came straight to me at a scene even though Sergeant Handler was right there. Why?"

Zeus looked at me for a long time as though he was deciding where to start.

"You gave me accurate observations. Every time. Other officers gave me the surface. What they saw, what dispatch told them. You gave me what didn't fit. The detail that was wrong, the thing that shouldn't have been there. I stopped going through Handler because I got better information going directly to you.

"I also didn't like Handler. I've been doing this a long time, Walsh. You learn to spot the ones who are in it for the work and the ones who are in it for themselves. Handler was rotten fruit. I knew it early." He paused. "I'm glad you didn't quit after everything that came out. A lot of people would have."

I smiled. "I worked too hard to get where I am to let Elliot Handler take it from me."

Zeus nodded and rubbed his chin.

"Cassandra Allison Walsh." He said it slowly. "Are you by any chance related to Thomas Andrew Walsh?"

My breath caught.

"He was my father, Sir."

"No wonder I thought you looked familiar." Zeus leaned forward. "Tom Walsh. I worked a few cases with your father back when we were both starting out as detectives. Different precinct. We were young and green and he was the smartest person in every room." He looked down at his desk. "He had this habit of staying late to reread his own case files. Said the answer was always in the details, you just had to look at them enough times."

He looked up at me.

"I just know your father would have been very proud of you, Andy."

The tears came before I could stop them. I pressed my fingers to my eyes and breathed through it. Zeus waited.

"Thank you, Sir."

He nodded.

I walked back to my desk. My chest was full, my eyes still burning. I sat down in my chair and looked at the wall in front of me until the room stopped swimming.

My father never got to see the shield. He never got to see me at this desk, in this chair, doing the work he taught me to do by reading his books at his kitchen table.

"Detective Walsh?"

Jeremy was standing at my desk with a folder in his hand. "I just need your signature on the McCarthy file."