But I truly believe that while love can hurt, love can also heal… and that’s why I’m enclosing another letter.
Please don’t read it. It’s not meant for you, or our families, or even our friends. I highly doubt that either of us has met the woman to whom you will give this letter. You see, this one is meant for the woman who eventually heals you, the one who makes you whole again.
Right now, I know you can’t imagine something like that. It might take months, it might take years, but someday, you’ll give that letter to another woman. Trust your instincts, just as I did on the night you first walked up to me. You’ll know when and where to do that, just as you’ll know which woman deserves it. And when you do, trust me when I say that somewhere, somehow, I’ll be smiling down on both of you.
Love,
Carly
After reading the letter again, Alex slipped it back into the envelope and returned it to the safe. Beyond the window, the sky was filled with moonlit clouds and it glowed with an eerie incandescence. He stared upward, thinking of Carly and of Katie. Carly had told him to trust his instincts; Carly had told him that he would know what to do with the letter.
And Carly, he suddenly realized, had been exactly right, about half of it, anyway. He knew he wanted to give the letter to Katie. He just wasn’t sure whether she was ready to receive it.
28
Hey, Kevin.” Bill gestured to him. “Can you come into my office for a minute?”
Kevin had almost reached his desk, and Coffey and Ramirez followed him with their eyes. His new partner, Todd, was already at his desk and offered a weak smile, but it faded quickly before Todd suddenly turned away.
His head was throbbing and he didn’t want to talk to Bill first thing in the morning but Kevin wasn’t worried. He was good with witnesses and victims and knew when criminals were lying and he made lots of arrests and the criminals were convicted.
Bill motioned for him to sit in the chair and though Kevin didn’t want to sit, he took a seat and wondered why Bill wanted him to sit because usually he stood when the two of them were talking. The pain in his temple felt as if he were being stabbed with a pencil, and for a moment Bill simply stared. Bill finally got up and closed the door before propping himself on the edge of his desk.
“How are you doing, Kevin?”
“I’m fine,” Kevin answered. He wanted to close his eyes to lessen the pain, but he could tell that Bill was studying him. “What’s up?”
Bill crossed his arms. “I called you in here to let you know that we received a complaint about you.”
“What kind of complaint?”
“This is serious, Kevin. Internal Affairs is involved, and as of now, you’re being suspended pending an investigation.”
The words sounded jumbled, making no sense at all, not at first, anyway, but as he concentrated, he could see Bill’s expression and wished he hadn’t woken with a headache and didn’t need so much vodka.
“What are you talking about?”
Bill lifted a few pages from his desk. “The Gates murder,” he said. “The little boy who was shot through the floor? Earlier this month?”
“I remember,” Kevin said. “He had pizza sauce on his forehead.”
“Excuse me?”
Kevin blinked. “The boy. That’s how we found him. It was horrible. Todd was pretty shaken up.”
Bill furrowed his brow. “An ambulance was called,” he said.
Kevin breathed in and out. Concentrating.
“It came for the mom,” Kevin said. “She was upset, obviously, and she went after the Greek who’d fired the bullet. They struggled and she fell down the stairs. We called it in immediately… as far as I know, she was taken to the hospital.”
Bill continued to stare at him before finally setting the pages aside. “You talked to her beforehand, right?”
“I tried to… but she was pretty hysterical. I tried to calm her down, but she went crazy. What else is there to tell? It’s all in the report.”
Bill reached for the papers on his desk again. “I saw what you wrote. But the woman is claiming that you told her to push the perp down the stairs.”
“What?”
Bill read from the pages. “She claims you were talking about God and told her, quote, ‘The man was a sinner and deserved to be punished because the Bible says Thou shalt not kill.’