Fine.
“It’s not my usual beat,” he said as they moved slowly forward, the camera in their faces but more or less ignored. “My precinct is in midtown, but I’d come down to the Battery for another call…false alarm, as it would turn out.”
“What was the other call?” she interrupted.
“Cop business,” he said with a little wink.
It had been another charming indecent exposure call, but the perp was long gone by the time Luc had arrived.
Luc figured the fewer details the better.
The entire country didn’t need to know quite how often New York dealt with naked weirdos.
“So you were just strolling along…”
“Can’t say we on-duty cops do a lot of strolling,” he corrected, although he added a smile to soften it.
She laughed softly, and in an instant he knew why she was so good at her job. Her voice called people in. Her laughter made them want to stay.
“Okay, so you were walking. With purpose,” she said, making a jokingly macho move forward with her hands.
“I was,” he said, playing the game.
They came to a stop, and both of their smiles faltered a little.
“It was here?”
Luc pointed a few feet to the right. “She was there. Wearing a red dress and singing the chorus of some terrible pop song, but she was messing up all the words.”
“And it was cute,” Ava said with a smile.
He smiled back. “It was cute.”
“Tell us what happened next. Because in that YouTube video, all we see is you diving headfirst over the railing and coming up with a little girl soaked, wearing a red dress.”
Almost done, Luc told himself.
“Well she had, like this…doll,” he said. “A little one.”
Ava’s brow furrowed. “A little doll?”
“Like a…Barbie. Or something.”
“The NYPD cop knows what a Barbie is, folks. Do you have daughters, Officer Moretti?”
She knew that he didn’t, obviously, but the audience didn’t, so he played along. “I do not.”
“Nieces?”
“No nieces, although I think my brother Marco might be working on that.”
Marco absolutely was not working on that, but it served the bastard right for moving to Los Angeles.
Ava leaned forward slightly, her mouth in a teasing smile. “Then pray tell, Officer, how do you know what a Barbie is?”
“I’m a man of the world, Miss Sims,” he said mysteriously. “A man of the world. Anyway, the little girl had her Barbie dancing along the railing, and I’m still really only half paying attention, but then I hear her cry of distress, and the doll is gone.”
“She dropped her Barbie into the water.”
“Yes. And she’s full on crying by this point, because, I mean, who doesn’t hate to lose a Barbie, and I look around for her parents, but before I can figure out who she belongs to, she’s managed to get herself on top of the railing.”
Ava walked to the railing and put her hand exactly in the spot the little girl had gone over. “Here?”
Luc nodded.
“And then she went over,” Ava said.
“And then she went over.”
“How soon after her going in did you follow?”
Luc shrugged. “Instantly, I guess. I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember making the choice? Thinking, do I really want to throw myself into the river for a little girl I don’t know?”
Good Lord, she was milking this. He gave her a slightly withering look he hoped the camera would miss before continuing.
“When a child’s life is in danger—any life is in danger—you don’t stop to think.”
“Because you’re a police officer. Because it’s your sworn duty.”
Fuck no was on the tip of his tongue but he bit it back. “Because I’m human.”
Ava tilted her head. “So you’re saying anyone would do this.”
Luc gave a little shrug. Anyone decent. “I would hope so.”
Ava let that sink in a moment before she turned and looked over the railing. “So this brings us up to the moment that the tourist started filming you. Right as you kick off your shoes. Were you aware of the tourist?”