She hands him the report.
He takes it without thanking her, gathers his papers, tucks all of it into a leather planner, then rises. “I’ll be in touch.”
Giving a final nod at Rasmussen, he makes his exit.
For the span of a full minute, the only sound comes from the buzz of the light overhead. Looking miserable, Mona pretends to study the tabletop in front of her. I glance down at my cell phone, check for calls, see six from Tomasetti, and I set it down.
Rasmussen gives me a tired smile. “He’s out in the hall. In case you’re wondering.”
Despite the stress of the last hours, I manage to smile back. “I thought he might be.”
He clears his throat, looks from me to Mona and back to me. “I think all of us are pretty tapped out. Anything we didn’t cover tonight, we can tackle in the morning if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure.”
The sheriff rises, sets his hand on my shoulder, and leaves the room, leaving the door open behind him. Without looking at me, Mona picks up her cell phone, tucks it into its compartment on her belt, and gets to her feet.
I rise, trying not to wince when the stitches pull. “Mona?”
She looks at me and raises her brows.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her.
Unable to hold my stare, she drops her gaze to the tabletop and shakes her head. “I don’t see how. I screwed up.”
I glance through the door, see Tomasetti standing a few feet away, staring at me. I sweep my gaze to Mona, letting him know I need a few minutes with her, and he nods, understanding.
I close the door, go back to the table, and lower myself back into the chair. “Sit down.”
Uncertainty infuses her expression, but she pulls out the chair and sinks into it.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask.
“You mean about the massive elephant sitting in the room with us?” She shakes her head. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
I wait, watch as she struggles with what she needs to say.
“I froze.” She looks down at the tabletop, then forces her gaze back to mine. “I saw Graber coming. I saw the crossbow. I knew what to do. And I just … I couldn’t. It’s like … time stopped. For me. I mean, he kept coming. And I couldn’t move. Even though I knew he was going to—” She bites off the sentence, chokes out a sound, fights back emotion. “I almost got you killed.”
“And yet here I am,” I say.
“No thanks to me.”
I haven’t yet decided exactly how to handle the situation; I haven’t had the chance to think about how to respond. As chief, I have to know she can do her job. It’s my responsibility to give her the tools she needs to do it and help her build back her confidence. On a personal level, I want to support her.
“It was a pretty terrifying situation,” I tell her. “It happened fast. There was a lot going on. A lot of adrenaline.”
“Chief, I froze. After all the training. I should have been able to handle it.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe you should have been able to perform your duty as a police officer.” I feel the sting of the words even as I utter them. Still, I let them hang, like needles sinking into a nerve. “But I think it’s also important for you to understand that this afternoon you were faced with the most difficult decision a cop will ever have to make. You had to decide whether to use lethal force. You had two seconds to do it. You were scared. And you don’t exactly have a lot of experience under your belt.”
“Bottom line is I made the wrong choice. I almost got you killed.”
“Mona, I’m not going to deny that you made a mistake. I’m not going to minimize the magnitude of it.”
“I feel like the only right thing for me to do is resign.” Tears shimmer in her eyes. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a cop.”
“Look, I’m not going to handle you with kid gloves. You made a mistake today. You’re not the first cop to freeze up and you’re damn well not the last. It’s not the end of your career.”
“How can anyone trust me now?” she says. “I wouldn’t trust me.”
I nod, let the statement ride. “When’s the last time you slept?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” Annoyed, she swipes at her eyes. “I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“You’ve been on for twenty-four hours. You’re exhausted.”
Sighing, she hangs her head.
“All I’m going to say is this isn’t the best time for you to be making a major career decision. We’re both on administrative leave for a few days. When we’re rested and back to work, we’ll talk. If you decide you want to stay on as a patrol officer—and I hope you do—let’s take a look at your training. Let’s put you with another officer for a few weeks. Let’s do what we need to do and see how it goes.”
She swallows, looking slightly less miserable. “Okay.”
“You’ve been a good cop, Mona. I think you have the potential to be a better cop, and I think you have a bright future with the Painters Mill PD.” I set my hand on her shoulder and squeeze gently. “That’s all I’m going to say for now. It’s been a long day. Let’s get some rest and talk about it when we get back to work.”
* * *
I find Tomasetti standing in the hall. His eyes sweep over me, then land on mine as I tread slowly toward him. The urge to run to him and throw my arms around his neck is powerful, but there’s a deputy nearby, so I settle for the best smile I can manage.
“You know how to give a guy a heart attack, don’t you?” he says.
“Someone needs to keep you on your toes.”
His gaze drops to the bloodstain on my uniform shirt and he looks away, sighs. “Kate—”
I cut in before he can finish. “I’m okay.”
His eyes flick to the door of the interrogation room behind me. “Mona?”
“She’s going to be fine.”
“Another close one.” He’s not an emotional man, but I hear a shudder when he blows out a breath. “What am I going to do with you?”
I do smile then. “Tomasetti, if I didn’t know better, I might just think you were smitten with the chief of police.”
“No doubt about it.” He looks down the hall to where two deputies are carrying on a conversation. “Pretty inconvenient that there are so many people around,” he says in a low voice.
“That we’re standing in a public hall at the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department definitely doesn’t help.”
“What do you say we remedy that?” He reaches into his pocket for his keys. “Need a ride home?”
“Agent Tomasetti, that’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
Drizzle floats from a misty black sky as we cross the parking lot to his Tahoe. He opens my door, but stops me before I can get in. Gently, he backs me against the side of the vehicle, presses his body against mine, then sets his hands on either side of my face.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he says.
“I’m sorry. I tried to call—”
He quiets me with a kiss that quickly deepens to … something else. As if of their own accord, my arms go around his neck and I pour everything I have into the kiss, into the moment, into him, and for a second I’m rendered incapable of containing the love I feel for him.