The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor) - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,9

of craziness going on down there, Payne thought, while I’m up here enjoying the company of this incredible goddess.

And God knows I do love her.

But do I love being out there chasing some murderer more?

He sighed.

The answer—right here, right now—is not no, but hell no!

And Amanda’s not complaining that they pulled me back off the street and stuck me at a desk in Homicide. There’s absolutely no question that deep down, all things being equal, she’d rather I do something other than be a cop, anything that didn’t risk me getting shot in the line of duty, like her father, or killed, like my father and uncle.

And that obit damn sure spelled it out.

[FIVE]

While Amanda Law had been in her first week of recovery, under the shrink’s orders simply to rest at home and to reconsider taking the anti-anxiety meds that he’d prescribed and that she’d steadfastly refused—“I don’t need to be popping Prozacs and I damn sure don’t need them turning my mind to putty so I just sit there and drool all over myself ”—her type A personality had her brain working overtime.

Dealing mentally with the abduction and the attempt at extortion had been bad enough. But then came the knowledge that the bastards who’d kidnapped her had made a regular habit of committing sexual assaults and, worse, their leader had just killed one teenage Honduran girl—an illegal immigrant whom he’d forced into prostitution.

Naturally, logically, all that had caused her to consider her own mortality—How close had he been to killing again? He certainly threatened me—and then that of Matt.

And in the process of working through what-if scenarios—What happens if we continue seeing each other? What happens if we get married and move into that vine-covered cottage with the white picket fence that Matt loves to mention? And then what happens if he stays on with the department?—she’d come up with, as her father the cop had taught her to do, a worst-case scenario.

Amanda explained all this—and more—to Matt in great detail. And then handed him the absolute worst case as it had manifested itself to her: as an obituary.

Amanda had written the obit as if she were Mickey O’Hara, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who was well respected by both police rank and file and brass. Over the years, Matt and the wiry Irishman ten years his senior had even become fairly close friends.

Amanda had gotten a great deal of the details for the obit from searches on the Internet, mostly from the Bulletin’s online archive of articles, many of which had been articles written by O’Hara. The rest of the details had been provided by Matt’s sister. Amy Payne had never liked that her brother was a cop, and had been more than happy to fill in any gaps for her old college dorm suitemate.

Payne thought that Amanda had done a helluva job putting together the obit. He hadn’t been able to shake it from his mind, which was no surprise, considering the subject:The Wyatt Earp of the Main Line:

KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY

Homicide Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, 31, Faithfully Served

Family and Philly—and Paid the Ultimate Price

By Michael J. O’Hara

Staff Writer, The Philadelphia Bulletin

Photographs Courtesy of the Family and Michael J. O’Hara

PHILADELPHIA—The City of Brotherly Love grieves today at the loss of one of its finest citizens and police officers. Sergeant Matthew Mark Payne, a nine-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department and well known as the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line, was gunned down last week in a Kensington alleyway as he dragged out a fellow officer who’d been wounded in an ambush.

Payne’s heroic act amid a barrage of bullets sealed, right up until his last breath, his long-held reputation as a brave, loyal, and honorable officer and gentleman.

Friends and family say that part of what made Payne such an outstanding civil servant, one that personified the department’s motto of Honor, Integrity, Sacrifice, was that he didn’t have to do it.

He chose to do so.

A Family That Served—and Sacrificed

When, almost a decade ago, Payne graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, he could have followed practically any professional path other than law enforcement.

He’d enjoyed a privileged background, brought up in upscale Wallingford, in all the comfort that a Main Line life afforded. After attending prep school at Episcopal Academy, then completing his studies at U of P, he was expected to pursue a law degree and, perhaps, join his adoptive father’s law practice, the prestigious firm of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo &