Free Street Rules by Baxter Clare Page A

officer. Still they had more in common than not. And they’d all been young once, with more promise than not. But that had been before the junk got Claudia, before the streets got Placa, before Frank…
    She flipped uneasily on to her side, quite aware of the familiar dread trying to get a claw into her. J should just let it take me wherever it wants to go, she thought, have its little ride, then be done. She threw off the thin blanket she kept in her locker for nights like this and stabbed at the light switch. Her desk was irritatingly clean. She picked through a cold case, hoping to ease her discomfort. But she knew by now that work just postponed it. Nothing eased it.
    She closed the binder and sank into her old wooden chair. Rubbing one of the scarred, skin-polished arms, Frank thought, been a long way with you too. They kept trying to give her a new chair, one with wheels and springs and a dozen different positions, but she refused to give this one up. She wondered if maybe she should cave; how could she bring her head into the present if her ass was still firmly planted in the past? So much of her was in the past and she was bone weary of that.
    She tried to convince herself to think of everyone, even Maggie, then let them all go. She could do that. She was stronger now, thanks to Clay. And Kennedy had helped, too. Propping bare feet on the desk, Frank tilted the chair back, hovering on the narrow cusp between forward and backward motion. Picturing Claudia young and not yet beaten, and Placa, giggling in diapers, Frank was grateful for all of Clay’s instruction. Not only was he teaching her how to salvage the good memories, the best ones, but he was also showing her how to move on from the bad ones. She sat a while doing just that.

Chapter Ten
    Noah put down a box of doughnuts and gave Frank the once over. Spraying powdered sugar on his too short suit, he mumbled, “What were you doin’ here all night?”
    Her hair had given her away. It was still slick, dripping onto her shirt collar from the shower she’d taken in the locker room. Frank didn’t look up from the paper in her hand.
    “Pretty much camped here all weekend. Somebody capped Placa Saturday night.”
    The doughnut fell away from Noah’s mouth.
    “Oh, man. Who?”
    “Don’t know.”
    Noah shook his head and said, “Goddamnit.”
    “Hardly a surprise,” Frank responded curtly.
    Noah’s mouth dropped open. No one else was in the squad room yet and he said, “Jesus Christ, Frank! I swear I just wanna hurl this doughnut at you! I been workin’ with you nearly twelve years and I swear to Christ sometimes it’s like bein’ with a stranger.”
    Frank glanced up from the warrant in her hand, seemingly unmoved by Noah’s outburst.
    “Something bugging you?”
    “Yeah,” Noah said angrily, “You! How can you be so fucking blase about a girl half this squad raised?”
    Facing him squarely, Frank made Noah wait for his answer. The overheads accentuated the purple shadows under her eyes and she absently rubbed the back of her neck. Frank rarely verbalized a feeling, but for someone who’d had as much practice reading her as Noah had, words weren’t necessary. A sudden frosting and narrowing of the dark blue eyes indicated she was plenty pissed. If this was accompanied by bouncing jaw muscles it was likely someone or something was about to get broken. When she was engrossed in thought she often stroked the spot on her ring finger where a band used to be and squeezing the back of her neck was a dead giveaway that something was eating her. She tried to control her mannerisms but sometimes, like now, she simply forgot.
    Dropping his doughnut back into the box, Noah’s temper sputtered as quickly as it had flared.
    “Never mind,” he said, as Bobby and Ike came in together. Frank asked, “You want to talk in my office?”
    “No. Sorry. Just lost it for a sec.”
    Frank’s phone rang and she went to get it. Johnnie was calling in, said he had a