“Graham Reece,” Rodman said into the phone, turning and starting to walk away, “this is Special Agent Maurice Rodman of the FBI. You’re not in trouble and I need you to call this number the minute you get…”

Colt stood there alone in the bullpen which was filled with activity all around and he didn’t have a fucking thing to do but wait.

* * *

An hour later Cheryl Sheckle sat in a chair across the room, her purse in her lap, her arms wrapped around it, her head turned to the side, her face set in stone.

She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail and she’d taken off all her jewelry, every last piece. If she could, he knew, she’d change her clothes, erase the Feb Impersonation that’d been forced on her, start finding the way back to herself.

Colt saved the file on Amy Harris he was finishing, got up and walked over to Cheryl. She didn’t indicate in any way that she knew he was approaching except her body grew stiffer with his every step.

“Got a ride home?” he asked, standing over her. The Audi had been impounded.

“Mom’s comin’.” Short, precise, neither word she wanted to say.

“She gonna be awhile?”

“Probably.”

“Want coffee?”

She looked at him, tipping her head back, her eyes hitting his before she clipped, “No.”

“Get up, Cheryl. There’s a place a coupla blocks away from here. I’ll buy you a coffee and you’ll want a brownie from there. At least a cookie. You can call your Mom and tell her to pick you up there.”

“So, what? You’re Mr. Nice Guy?” she snapped.

Colt shook his head and said, “Same guy done us both wrong. I thought least we could do since we share something like that, somethin’ neither of us wanted to share and it was neither of our choice, we could share a great coffee and a fuckin’ good brownie. That would be our choice and, trust me, it’s worth the walk.”

He saw her jaw work as she clenched her teeth through making a decision.

“Better’n sittin’ around here,” she finally mumbled as she stood, hitching the purse on her shoulder.

“Place’s called Mimi’s Coffee House,” Colt said as he passed a Sully who had his brows raised and his eyes on Colt. “Call your Mom. Just a couple blocks up from the Station.”

Colt walked by her side as they made their way out of the Station and down the sidewalk. She called her mother as they went and he listened as she drew out the conversation with her Mom in order not to have to speak to him. She flipped the phone shut just as they hit the counter where a wide-eyed Mimi stood. Colt had already shaken his head to Meems in order to shut her up. He needed her ribbing him about February right then like he needed a hole in the head.

“Caramel latte, a large one, and one of those turtle brownies,” Cheryl ordered.

Mimi nodded and smiled then she looked at Colt. “Regular for you, Colt?”

“Right, Meems.”

“Take a load off, I’ll bring ‘em out,” Mimi told them.

Colt led Cheryl to a table at the window not wanting her near Feb’s place or the scratches that declared it so. Cheryl had enough to deal with, she didn’t need to see that Feb belonged in a warm, welcoming coffee house with a proprietress who smiled and made orgasmic fucking brownies though he suspected she already knew if she watched any of the tapes. But she didn’t need to know the fact that Feb belonged in a place like this so much, her name was etched into the furniture.

Cheryl sat with a view to the street. Colt sat with a view to the door.

They were silent until after Mimi left their order on the table and walked away.

“I know you think I’m a moron,” Cheryl told Colt, her mouth hard, her eyes though, now on him, held hurt.

“Trusting someone nice to you doesn’t make you a moron. It makes the person who fucked you over an asshole,” Colt replied.

She jerked her eyes from him and looked out the window.

“Feds talk to you about protection?” Colt asked and Cheryl didn’t acknowledge his question so he went on. “Denny’s behaving erratically, Cheryl, be good for you to take your son and disappear for awhile.”

“Got a friend in Ohio, he doesn’t know about her,” she muttered, eyes at the window, “already called her.”

“Good,” Colt said and leaned forward, took out his wallet, pulled out a card and slid it across the table to her before he put his wallet back and leaned back in his chair. Cheryl eyed his card but didn’t touch it.

“You take that card, Cheryl,” he said quietly and her eyes came to his but her body didn’t turn to him. “You find another man, you call me. I’ll run a check on him, see he’s clean.”

She rolled her eyes, not like Feb, not with humor at the foibles of the world, but with disgust, before she shook her head twice and said, “Right.”

“Cheryl –”

She turned bodily to him and wrapped her arms around her chest, grabbing her biceps, protective again but her voice was fuelled with acid. “I know what he did. Denny,” she spat out the name, “killed folks. You think I’m gonna find another man? You’re fuckin’ crazy.”

“I know it won’t seem like it now but you’ll find a time when you change your mind.”

“Bullshit,” she hissed, voice quiet but both furious and terrified, leaning toward him. “He’s been around my kid! I been fuckin’ a murderer!”

Colt leaned forward too and said, just as quiet but with no fury or terror, just force, “No, you thought you were fuckin’ me.”

“Makes it better?” she asked, brows going up, disbelief filling her face. She thought he was nuts.

“Yeah. It does.”

“You that good?” Now she was sarcastic.

“No complaints, Cheryl,” he told her honestly, “the thing is, I work hard to be a good cop, a good friend and that’s what he was playin’ at. That’s what he showed you. That’s what he wanted you to believe. You believed it, lick your wounds but let ‘em heal and move on. When you do, you come to me and I’m tellin’ you now, I’ll do what I can to make sure you move on to the right guy.”

“So, this a new service cops provide to gals like me?”

“No, this is somethin’ I’d do for you because we both been fucked over by a sick fuck who threw you into hell and has been makin’ me and my woman live in one for twenty-two years. Anyone finds out I offered it, much less did it, I’d be fucked. But still, I’m offerin’ it to you. Throw away the card, I don’t give a fuck. But it was me, someone fucked me over and another person showed me a kindness, I’d take it. I’m guessin’ you don’t get much kindness thrown at you. Ryan, me, not much else, am I right?”

She looked away. He was right.

“Learn one thing from this, Cheryl,” Colt advised. “Learn to see a kindness, a real one, when it’s handed to you and learn to take it.”

She closed her eyes and twisted her neck, her face exposing pain before she opened her eyes and stared out the window again.

She wasn’t giving him anything more.

Colt took a sip from his to go cup and called to Mimi, “Meems, wrap up a couple more of those brownies and a few cookies. Cheryl here has a kid.”

“You betcha, Colt,” Mimi called back.

Colt turned to Cheryl and started to stand, saying, “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

He was on his feet before he heard her ask, “Twenty-two years?”

He looked down at her to see she was still staring out the window. “Yeah.”

She shook her head and the tears hit her eyes. The wall of hardness she’d built was flimsy, likely how Denny got in.

“You really All-State? Play at Purdue?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the window.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go pro?”

“Good enough for Purdue, not near good enough for pro.”

“You want that?”

“Nope. I wanted to be a cop.”

She tipped her head back to look at him and he noticed for the first time she was very pretty. Not because she looked like Feb. All on her own.

A tear slid down her cheek and she said, “I wanted to be a dancer. Looks like we both got what we wanted, hunh?”

The words had the edge of bitterness which coated an underlying sadness.

“Card works a second way, Cheryl,” Colt said softly. “It works for kids who wanna learn to play football.”

She closed her eyes and new tears slid down her face.

“Got a friend named Morrie who’s got a boy, Palmer,” Colt went on. “We toss a ball around a lot. Ethan would be welcome.”

She nodded but looked away without a word.

“Feb would want to meet you,” he pushed it, speaking quietly.

“Why?” she asked the window.

“Because she’s a woman who’s led a lonely life forced on her by a number of shitty guys and she’s found her way through. She’d know what you’re feelin’ and she’d listen, or not, you don’t feel like talkin’. She owns a bar, least she could do is make you a drink.”

Cheryl put her hand to her ponytail, tugged it and said softly, “Right about now, I could use a drink.”

“J&J’s, two doors down, you can’t miss it and you’re welcome.”

She said no more, Mimi came up with a filled white bag and said to Colt, “I’ll put it on your tab.”

“Catch you on that tomorrow,” Colt told her as she set the bag beside Cheryl’s untouched brownie and quickly took off.

“Later, Cheryl,” Colt said and turned to the door.

“Lieutenant Colton?” she called, he stopped and looked at her.

“Friends call me Colt.”

She swallowed before she nodded and went on. “Colt,” then she whispered, “thanks for not bein’ an asshole.”

He smiled at her. It wasn’t the best compliment he’d ever had but, from Cheryl, it was likely one of the better ones she had to give.