“I know,” Jamie said. At first glance he was surprised she was living in Lancaster’s worst neighborhood. After a decade of living in Europe, he figured she’d be in one of the condos going up in midtown, trendy, access to the cool shops and restaurants. He should have figured she’d be back in the East Side, closer to the kids who really needed her, kids who reminded her of herself at that age, full of dreams and promise, teetering between a future full of hope and a one full of disappointment.
“You want her address?” Ian asked, reading his mind.
He wasn’t above asking his brother to run a name or a plate in search of information, but Plan A was still viable. “Why would you think I want her address?” Jamie countered, still paging through the trading cards.
“You’ve never come home for a full thirty-days leave before,” Ian said. “All the hoopla around the banquet would take a couple of days, maybe three. Another couple for a family visit, and then you’d be off rock climbing or surfing or sleeping or whatever it is you do with leave. This year, Charlie’s back in town.”
His brother didn’t make detective because their father was the former chief of police and now the mayor. His brother made detective because he was smart, quiet, insightful, a sharp judge of character and motivation. That’s exactly why Jamie was back.
“I never got over her,” he said, still not looking up. “I’ve spent the last ten years wondering what might have been, if things had been different.”
“Oh,” Ian said. “Does she know how you feel?”
“Then or now?”
“Either.”
“Then, yes,” he said, remembering the last days of spring before he left for boot camp—his pleas, her refusals. “Now, not yet. But she will.”
Ian was quiet for a while, absently sorting toys into the three piles. “I don’t think she’s been dating anyone,” he said.
“How would you know?” Jamie asked, genuinely curious. Ian might spend time at the high school if they busted a pot or steroids ring, but social gossip normally wouldn’t hold his interest for more than a couple of seconds.
“A couple of cops have kids in high school,” Ian said. “You know the old saying about gossip … you can telephone, tell a friend—”
“Or tell a cop,” Jamie finished. “She was probably pretty busy with the school year and the team. She wouldn’t let herself get distracted during the season.”
Not Charlie. He flipped to the last page of the binder and froze, remembering what he’d stored there, using the trading cards as an excuse long past their sell-by date for a teenage boy. Pictures of Charlie, snapped just after she’d bounced her wicked crossover and left the opposing player stumbling in the dust; in a tight circle with her teammates, chanting Whose house? Our house! before a game. Some he’d taken himself from the stands when he’d bullied the boys’ team into turning out to support the girls, others he’d cut from the local newspaper, now yellowed with age. He sorted through them, assessing the damage of a season’s playing time on Charlie’s body. Taped left ankle, taped right knee. She’d played the tournament with that knee so sore and swollen she’d had to ice it as soon as she was benched for a breather, or more likely, for foul trouble. Scabs on her elbows and knees from floor burns, fingers taped, a deep-purple bruise on her shoulder when she went to the floor chasing a loose ball in the quarterfinals, the muscles of her legs and arms toned curves against her frame. Her expression in his favorite picture from the paper was one of ferocious concentration. Taken just prior to tip-off, she’d been staring down the leading scorer of the North High Wildcats, letting the girl know that it was on, it was so fucking on, and that any points she got that day would be claimed through a metaphorical fistfight on the court.
Charlie had held the state’s leading scorer to eight points while racking up almost thirty of her own. It was that performance that got her the scholarship to Connecticut.
God. He’d been so in love with her. It hit him like a physical punch, freezing his diaphragm as effectively as having the wind knocked out of him. He’d been so in love with her, and if this didn’t work, he was totally, epically fucked.
“I always wondered if you kept your porn in there,” Ian said from across the room.
“Behind the Hardy Boys books,” Jamie said absently. “You knew that. You borrowed it all the time.”
Ian laughed. “So what did you keep in there?”
Jamie was past the point of pride about this. He passed him the picture of Charlie, yellowed with age.
“Oh,” Ian said, looking at the picture. “Damn. I’d forgotten what a competitor she was. Every time she was on the court it was all-out war.”
I never forgot, Jamie thought. “What brought her back here?” he said.
“Coach Gould had a heart attack right before school started,” Ian said. “Coach knew Charlie was retiring from pro ball and had a degree in education. I think they pulled some strings with the state to get her a provisional license, but she was here in a couple of weeks. That’s the whole reason for the banquet, Coach Gould retiring.”
“I knew that,” Jamie said. “I just didn’t know the details.”
“I don’t think anyone knew,” Ian said.
“Knew what?”