“The rookie and I kind of pieced it together.”
I walked closer. “He’s awake? He’s okay? You saw him?”
He nodded. “Last night. They just moved him from the ICU.”
A funny little sob of relief passed through me, and then my eyes filled with tears—but I squeezed a tight blink to push them back. “How is he?”
“He’s on the mend,” the captain said. He shook his head at Diana. “Youth.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around my waist. “You talked to him?”
“Yep. He asked after you.”
“He did?”
“He wanted to know if you’d been to see him.”
I felt my expression harden. “Did you tell him why I had not been to see him?”
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said DeStasio’s account of what happened at the fire was—his words here: ‘an utterly false pack of bitter-old-man lies.’ Then the rookie ranted and raved on your behalf and accused DeStasio of lying and being a sleazebag reptile. He got so agitated he gave himself a coughing fit.”
I smiled a little. “He called DeStasio a sleazebag reptile?”
The captain smiled a little, too. “He’s on a lot of medication.”
“Sounds like he’s feeling better.”
The captain went on. “When he’d settled down, I told him the department was handling it, that there would be a full investigation, and that we’d get to the bottom of everything, for sure. I meant to reassure him, but he kept pushing for information, and when it came out you’d been suspended, he quit.”
“He quit?”
The captain nodded, impressed with the gesture. “In protest.”
Good thing the captain didn’t know he’d been about to quit anyway.
“Anyway, I thought you were nuts when you confessed”—he cleared his throat—“your, uh, special feelings for the rookie. But now I’d say, just based on our conversation and, uh, his body language, it seems pretty mutual.”
That was it. Time to go. I needed to get dressed.
I turned toward the stairs.
“Wait!” the captain said.
I kept walking. “I’m going to Boston,” I said. “I’ve waitedmore thanlong enough.”
“But that’s why we’re here,” the captain said.
I stopped and turned around. “Why?”
“To take you to Boston.”
I angled back toward him. “Wait—why are you here?”
“To apologize to you,” the captain said, “and to your mother. And to try to make things right.”
