The Once and Future Father

Detective Marcus Alexander was startled by Dylan’s question and almost dropped his coffee mug. He steadied it at the last moment, glaring at Dylan.

“Jeez, McMorrow, don’t you know better than to sneak up on a man like that?”

There was no expression on Dylan’s face. There usually wasn’t. It made it harder for people to second-guess him that way.

“I didn’t sneak. You were standing next to my cubicle. Talking rather loudly.” Dylan’s voice, like his manner, was low, with an edge to it that warned the listener not to test him. “How do you know his name?” he asked again.

Reaching into his pocket, Alexander took out a clear plastic pouch. Inside was a single sheet of wrinkled paper.

“It’s on this bank statement. We found it crumpled up in his inside pocket.” Alexander held the pouch out for Dylan’s examination. “Killer must have missed it when he took the victim’s wallet.”

The other detective, Mick Hathaway, turned around the chair he was sitting in and looked up at Dylan, curious. “Why? You know him?”

Dylan regarded the bank statement. It was to notify one Ritchie Alvarez that his checking account was overdrawn. Again. That was Ritchie to a T, Dylan thought. He gave the evidence back to Alexander. “Might.” His eyes shifted to Hathaway, the more experienced of the two. “You have the crime scene shots on you?”

“Right here.” Brushing his jacket aside, Hathaway reached into his inside pocket. One by one he lay down on the desk the four instant photographs taken of the victim. Hathaway slanted a glance in Dylan’s direction.

“Damn,” Dylan commented.

“Then you know him?” Hathaway asked.

Dylan dragged his hand through his unruly black hair, wishing he’d been wrong. “Yeah, I know him. Knew him. The name’s right.”

“Know if he has a next of kin?” Hathaway questioned.

Dylan blew out a breath, and tried to blow back memories he didn’t want crowding him. It didn’t work. “A sister. Last I remember, he was staying at her place. Always did when he was down on his luck.”

Hathaway shook his head. “Looks like he got even more down.”

“Looks like.” Dammit, Ritchie, why weren’t you more careful with your life? Dylan wondered.

Disgusted at the waste, bright shining moments shimmering in his mind’s eye, Dylan let the photograph drop back amid the others. He fought a brief tug-of-war between his conscience and his need for self-preservation. It wasn’t much of a contest.

He looked at Alexander. “Look, I know it’s your case, and I’m not trying to horn in here, but if you need someone to break it to his sister—”

Alexander looked relieved beyond words. “Hey, be my guest. I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Belatedly, he looked at Hathaway. “Okay with you?”

Collecting the photographs, Hathaway carefully tucked them away again. “More than okay. If you want to take down her statement—”

Dylan nodded. Lucy wouldn’t have had anything to do with whatever it was that had brought Ritchie to this miserable juncture. But to say so might arouse further curiosity, and the two other men were already looking at him as if he’d just bared his soul to them. Though partnered, Dylan kept to himself most of the time, and he made a point of never saying any more than he had to. It gave the other guy too much ammunition that way.

He glanced at his watch, but he knew what time it was even without checking. He was on his own time right now. He’d come in early to finish up the expense report, but that would have to wait until he got off later. “I’m not due for my shift until another couple of hours. The sister’s statement probably won’t be much to take down.”

As Dylan began to leave, Hathaway rose to block his path. Dylan saw the questions beginning to form in the other detective’s eyes. Maybe Dylan shouldn’t have said anything, but to leave this kind of news for a stranger to break to Lucy just didn’t seem right.

“Where do you know him from?” Hathaway asked.

Dylan sidestepped the older man. “We shared a couple of classes.” It was far more than that, but he didn’t want to get into it. Into the friendship they had enjoyed and what had come after.

Surprised, Alexander called after him. “You mean he’s from around here?”

“Born and raised” was all Dylan said as he walked out the door.

He knew the way to Lucy’s place by heart.

Lucy would probably say he didn’t have a heart. Not that he could blame her. But he’d done what he’d done more for her than for him. Someday, she’d appreciate that.

Or not, he amended. Eventually, it would all be one and the same. Time would see to that. Maybe it already had, he mused. Over the last nine months, he’d purposely lost track of her, purposely stayed away from all the old haunts where he thought he might run into her.

The only place he couldn’t escape her was in his mind. But he would. Eventually.

He’d known Ritchie a number of years before he ever met the sister that Ritchie was so fond of. There had been something different about Lucy from the first moment Dylan saw her, but he’d tried not to notice, tried not to pay any more attention to her than he would any one of a number of beautiful women who passed through his life. But she’d been more, right from the start. And for a while, for eight precious months, he’d deluded himself that he could have a normal life, the kind he’d only heard about.

Part of him figured he had to be crazy, seeking Lucy out after nine months of a self-imposed moratorium. Dylan knew he wasn’t in a place where he could say he was over her. He doubted that he would ever really be over Lucinda Alvarez, but at least it had gotten to the point where she didn’t start and end each day, lingering in the perimeter of his thoughts like the deep scent of roses. He’d managed to get through whole chunks of the day without so much as thinking of her.

Or what they could have had.

If he had been someone else.

But another part of him knew he had to do this. Owed it to her for the history they had. She didn’t deserve to hear about Ritchie from either Alexander or Hathaway, good men both, but not exactly sensitive when it came to something like this.

Yeah, right, like he was Mr. Sensitivity, he silently mocked himself as he waited for the traffic light to change.

She didn’t deserve to hear the words at all, he thought impatiently, but that was life and he hadn’t written it. All he could do was try to change some of the footnotes.

Dylan realized that he was gripping the steering wheel as if he were engaged in a life-and-death struggle and loosened his fingers. He wished he could change this particular footnote. Ritchie had been a good guy. Just incredibly unlucky.

Weren’t they all? he thought.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he whispered under his breath as he turned down her street and saw the neat dove-gray-and-blue-trimmed stucco house.

So where was Ritchie, already?

Impatient, Lucy Alvarez glanced at her wristwatch, the one with the band she had yet to replace. But she was still stupidly sentimental about the watch. It had been a gift. The first gift. When there had been promise in the air.

She sighed, squelching the temptation to look out the window again. It wouldn’t make her brother appear any faster.

Ritchie probably forgot, she thought. She’d asked him to take her to the doctor just this one time, because it was so hard for her to find a comfortable position behind the steering wheel these last few weeks. Two weeks overdue, she was painfully aware of every second that went by beyond her delivery date.

He’d promised to be here.

But Ritchie’s promises were always the same—made quickly, with enthusiasm, and then forgotten. Not from any malice, but just because that was Ritchie. He had the attention span of a gnat.

Lucy nibbled on her lower lip, debating whether or not to call a cab. She didn’t want to be late for her appointment.

However, by the time the cab finally arrived, she would probably miss it altogether.

Still, if he wasn’t here… Lucy picked up the receiver and began to dial.