Page 69 of A Gathering of Secrets

“Two of the women became pregnant. One committed suicide. The other married. Her husband doesn’t know. Both were still in their teens.”

My voice shakes with the final word. I should leave it at that. Shut the hell up. Enough said. Blame that telltale quiver on the painkillers or the fact that I’m hurting and angry and repulsed. But it’s as if some floodgate has been opened and a torrent of emotions whose existence I’ve refused to acknowledge rushes out.

“I know this isn’t solely about them,” I whisper. “But what happened to them is part of this.”

“Motivation.” Tomasetti holds my gaze, his expression contemplative and level. “You probably don’t want to hear this, Kate, I think there are some parallels mixed up in all of this, too.”

“Maybe. I don’t want this to be about me or my past.”

“For better or worse, our pasts are part of who we are. The things that have happened to us, good or bad, affect our perspectives, our outlook. They are our experience, and the tools we bring to the table. That’s not always a negative.”

“Duly noted.” When he only continues to look at me, I add, “I can handle it.”

“I know you can.” His eyes probe mine. “So how did all of this culminate in someone taking a shot at you tonight?”

“Someone thinks I’m getting too close to the truth. Someone who has something to lose. Or else they’re protecting someone.”

“They want you to back off.”

“Evidently, they don’t know me very well.”

“They have no idea,” he mutters, and then reaches over, closes my laptop, and slides it onto the night table beside him. “Didn’t the doc tell you to take the rest of the night off?”

I sense the tension coming off him. He’s being kind. Patient. He’s said and done all the right things since arriving at the scene on Hogpath Road a few hours ago. But I’ll never forget the look on his face as he’d run to me. The way his eyes swept over me, as if looking for some catastrophic injury I wouldn’t survive. I knew exactly the thoughts that were running through his mind. I’d hated doing that to him, and yet I don’t know how to make it right.

We fall silent, thinking, listening to the night sounds outside the window. After a moment, I scooch higher on my pillow and turn slightly onto my side, facing him. “One more thing we need to cover.”

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” The lightheartedness of the statement doesn’t match the gravity in his eyes.

Still, I smile. “I want you to know … I’m careful when I’m on duty. I don’t take chances. What happened tonight was … bad. But I’m good at what I do. I want you to understand … you don’t have to worry about me.”

Sliding down a bit, he turns to me, takes my uninjured hand in his, and kisses my knuckles. “That kind of comes with the territory.”

I start to speak, but he presses two fingers against my lips and I realize there’s something he needs to say, too. Something I need to hear that’s important to both of us.

“I’m not going to lie to you. When I got the call … it scared the hell out of me. On the drive over, I was already making deals with God. The devil. Whoever happened to be listening. But, Kate, that fear was tempered by the knowledge that you’re a good cop. I mean that.”

I stare at him, wishing my head was clear, realizing that as usual he’s one step ahead of me. That I’ve underestimated him.

Taking his time, he continues. “You’re a small-town cop. We both know there are times when there’s no one else. Times when you’re on duty and a call comes in, and you take it regardless of the hour or location or nature of the call.”

Of all the things he could have said, this is the most unexpected. The thing I didn’t anticipate. I’d been trying to find a way to downplay the shooting. Or skirt the issue altogether if I could. Find a way to apologize for worrying him without shouldering the blame for doing so. I was going to promise to be more careful. Make some kind of compromise, even. But I’d also been prepared to do battle had he asked me to do something I didn’t want to do.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him.

“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to tiptoe around me. I’m a big boy, Kate. Good or bad or somewhere in between, I can handle it.”

Because I don’t trust my voice, I nod.

“Would I have said that two years ago? A year ago?” He shakes his head. “Probably not. Instead, we would have been lying here, arguing about your future as a cop. There was a time when I would have asked you to choose. You can be a cop or you can be with me but you can’t do both.”

“I know what you went through with your wife and kids,” I say. “I understood it. I accepted it. And I knew we could work through it.”

“A few months ago, none of those things would’ve stopped me from asking you to give up something you love. I would have forced the issue. Tried to manipulate you in whatever way I thought might work. That would have been incredibly selfish.”

I start to speak, but he raises his hand and quiets me. “Someone tried to kill you tonight. They came pretty damn close to succeeding. And yet when you walked into our home with a bullet wound in your arm, your only thought was of me and my feelings. How screwed up is that?”

“No one said it’s easy being married to a cop.”