White Night

Chapter 26

The key wouldn't turn in the lock tonight. Connors' leg was sore, heat radiating from the joint, and all she wanted was to get the weight off it and ice it, but the damn lock wouldn't let her in.

Jay.

After the run-in the night before and the call at the precinct, she'd forgotten she had the locks changed today.

Her shoulders sank as she hobbled across the hall to Anna's apartment and knocked on the door.

Anna appeared in seconds. "Whoa. You look like crap!"

Anna didn't look much better herself, with bird's-nest hair and an insidious blob congealing on her sweater.

"Nice to see you too. I just need my ke—"

"Come in, come in." Anna pushed the door open, taking her arm and starting to haul her in.

"Not tonight, Anna, I'm done." She didn't need her friend's bracing honesty now.

"Just for a minute." Anna ignored her protests and pulled Connors further into her apartment.

"Wow, you're walking like crap as well," Anna said as she limped past.

"Are priests supposed to swear like that?"

"Technically, as long as we're not using the Lord's name in vain," Anna replied with a smile. "Sit down."

"Anna, I have to be back at the precinct in six hours."

"Five minutes won't kill you. I need to talk to you." Anna poured them each a glass of wine and tossed her a bag of frozen peas for her leg. "How's it going?" she asked as she sat down.

"How's what going?"

Anna tilted her head and frowned. "The case? The leg? The new partner?"

"How the hell did you know about Ross?"

"Interfaith council breakfast meeting this morning. I had a chat with the chaplain at your precinct. Asked him how you were doing."

"I thought priests were sworn to secrecy?"

"Ah, the 'Seal of the Confessional.' Doesn't apply here as you didn't confess." Anna smiled and took a sip of wine.

"Confess to what?"

"To the new partner. I hear he's good but has some baggage."

No kidding. Ignored warnings of 'gun', then a switch flipped in him and he became angry and belligerent.

"He's okay."

"You should never lie to a priest," Anna said, feigning seriousness.

"Even a priest with hair like a bird's nest, and whatever the hell that is on your shoulder?"

"Vomit. I have two baptisms on Sunday and apparently one of the little darlings didn't like me. Can't wait to see what he does when I pour water over him..."

Connors smiled. Her mind flashed back to the Argon case and the day she met her friend. Anna had been called in by the family to help them through the nightmare of burying their child.

Expecting a priest to be a foreboding silver-haired man with steel-rimmed glasses, Connors hadn't been prepared for the bold Annapurna. But she'd been exactly what the Argons needed, organizing everything, helping them with decisions that no parent should have to make. It was difficult to imagine that anyone else could have gotten them through that day.

When the second child was murdered, Anna stepped in again. After the service she pulled the lead detective aside, grabbing Detective Drey's dress shirt and almost butting her head against his. "Don't you dare let that bastard get another one!"