Starting Point (22 page)

My heart rate spiked.

“Kira, did Matt ever tell you about the day his mother died?”

“Just that he was seventeen, almost eighteen. He had no other family. That he probably would have been taken in as a ward of the state, but the cops who came to check on him…” Kira’s words trailed away. “Was it Berkman?”

“Yes. Ross was one of the officers who told him his mother died.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“He checked on him every day until he turned eighteen.”

“Matt joined the police the day he turned eighteen.”

“He did.”

“Is that why you think Matt wants to help these kids so much?” Kira asked. “Why he’d prefer to help them rather than turn them over to authorities? Like what Ross did for him?”

“What do you think?”

Kira was quiet, and my heart was hammering. My stomach was in knots. I was just about to open the door so he wouldn’t have to answer, but then he spoke, “I don’t think it matters 
why
 he wants to help them. Just that he does want to help them. You might think it’s to do with his own mother’s death, and I don’t know about that. What I
do know
, is that Matt’s always going to be helping someone, whether it’s being a cop or not, it’s his nature to serve and protect.”

Tamara laughed quietly. “Yes, it is his nature. That’s a very apt description.”

Then Kira said, “It’s people like Matt that change the world. Like they’re born to help others. That’s Matt. That’s what makes him who he is. I can’t change that. I
wouldn’t
change that. For him, it was never about the fame or prestige of being a cop—it was about doing good and helping others.”

There was a long moment of silence. “I better go find him,” Kira said quietly.

“Kira,” Tamara said. “Matt has come a long way. I know he doesn’t think he has, and I know he leaves here some days frustrated and that can’t be easy on you.”

“Matt and I talk more now than we ever have.”

“And that’s great.”

“But?”

“But there’s still a long way to go. He’s doing really well, and even after days like today when, like he says, I make him angry and frustrated, but it’s all progress. He’s moving forward. He really is.”

“I know.”

“You love him very much,” she said simply.

“I do,” Kira replied. Then he said, “Even after everything we’ve been through, if I could do my time over, I’d still choose him.”

My hand pushed open the door, without me even realising it. Kira was standing behind our chairs, and when he turned to see me, he didn’t need to ask if I’d heard what he said. The tears in my eyes told him.

I didn’t trust my voice to speak, so using sign language, I said, “I love you.”

Kira glanced to Tamara then smiled as he looked back to me. He closed the distance between us, slid his arm around me and kissed my forehead. “I know you do,” he said.

“Matt,” Tamara said. She was smiling at us. “Here, please take this,” she said, thumbing through some business cards. She found the one she was after and held out one. “It’s the name and number of a woman who runs a house for at-risk kids on your side of town. I can’t guarantee she has vacancies, but she’s…
sympathetic…
to kids who have had a hard time with authorities like social services. I don’t normally recommend her for that very reason, but she might be better suited for your kids.”

I stepped away from Kira and took the offered card. “Thanks.”

“Tell her I sent you. She’ll probably fall over from shock, but she’ll know it’s a special case.”

“Thank you,” I said again. “I’m sorry about getting angry before. Maybe you should come down the family fundraising day so you can see what we do.”

“Maybe I will,” she said with a smile.

* * * *

After leaving Tamara’s office, we had gone a few blocks in silence when I slid my hand over the console to rest on his thigh. “I’m sorry about losing my temper,” I told him. “And I’m sorry for eavesdropping. I didn’t mean to, but the door was open a bit and I heard my name.”

Kira smiled at me. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t say anything to Tamara that I wouldn’t say to you.”

“It was Ross Berkman who came to check on me,” I blurted out. “He’s the one who told me my mom died…”

Kira squeezed my hand.

“I don’t know why I never told you that.”

“You always said he was like a dad to you,” he countered. He looked at me instead of watching the road. “Do you miss him? Berkman, that is.”

I shrugged. “I guess. I always moved up with him, through the ranks—he was always my superior.”

“Did he arrange it like that?”

I snorted. “I’d never thought of it like that. But probably.”

Kira smiled. “Did you want to call him? Or go in and see him?” He checked his watch. “We have some time.”

I grinned. “I have an even better idea. We need to find a local liquor store.”

Twenty minutes later, I climbed the side fence at Berkman’s house and put the carton of Corona beers at his back door. I wrote on the carton itself, “Because I miss your sorry face.”

“Do you think you should just leave it at the back door like that?” Kira asked.

“Yep, because when he opens the door he’ll trip over it,” I said with a laugh.

Kira rolled his eyes and walked back to the car. I followed him, pulled out my phone and sent Berkman a text.

You need to mow your lawn
.

As Kira pulled the car out onto the street, he smiled at me. “Feel better?”

I was still grinning. “I do.”

My phone buzzed in my hand. I saw the name and laughed as I took the call.

“What the hell did you do?”

I snorted into the phone. “And you should really put up a higher fence. I mean, seriously, Ross, what kind of security is that?”

He growled into the phone, “Elliott, do I need to—”

“You can thank me,” I cut him off. “Because you miss my sorry face.”

“You don’t even work for me anymore,” he said gruffly. “Tell me, how are you still a pain in my ass?”

“Didn’t want you to miss me too much.”

The call clicked off and I threw it into the console and laughed. “Yeah, he loves me.”

After pulling up at the FC, I grabbed the sportswear bag, and we went inside. Kira had the day off so we intended to help me with my class then grab dinner and have a quiet night at home. But first, I had to find Ruby.

He was sitting at a table in my office, laughing with Claude. I handed him the bag, and it was a buzz watching his face as he pulled the shorts out. He tried to play it cool, but his smile got the best of him. “Oh, man,” he said, now grinning. “Whatcha get me these for?”

“You need to look the part,” I told him. “Especially as we move into the competing phase. You can’t step into the cage looking like you don’t belong.”

Ruby chewed the inside of his lip, probably to try and stop smiling so hard, while Claude bounced on her toes trying to look at what he was holding. He handed her the shorts and she held up the black fighter’s shorts with a bright green UFC logo. “These are so cool, Rube,” she said. “They kinda match your new shoes! They got green on ’em too.”

“New shoes?” I asked, faking an excitement I didn’t feel, knowing what that meant.

“Yeah,” he answered sheepishly. “I did my session with Arizona, then Claude and me went and got me some new shoes. Mine were too small…” he finished quietly.

I guess in my excitement to give him the shorts, and the fact he was sitting down, I missed that he was wearing new runners. I’m not sure how I could have missed them, because they were bright green.

“Jeez,” I said, looking from his feet to his face. “I’m pretty sure the airport flight control could use those to land the planes.”

Claude’s eyes were wide with excitement. “Pretty cool, huh?”

I grinned at her. “Pretty cool.”

I considered grilling him on just how he had the cash to pay for the new shoes, but decided against it. He had come back to the FC to go through his schoolwork, just like I’d asked, and I didn’t want to start by making him feel bad.

“Well, we may as well get this hell started,” Ruby said.

Kira, who was still standing beside me, snorted. “Man, I hated school, too.”

I could have kicked him in the shins. As it was, I gave him a pointed what-the-hell glare.

Kira smiled and shrugged. “It’s true! I hated it.”

“But you still went, yeah?” Ruby said.

“Had to,” Kira said. “I hated English the most, and even though I was okay at math, I didn’t like it much better.”

“Oh, man, I hate math,” Ruby said as though the thought itself smelt bad. “I got math to do in my paperwork.”

Kira nodded sympathetically. “Did you want me to have a look at it with you? Maybe between the two of us, we can knock it over.”

Ruby shrugged one shoulder. “If you want.” He looked at the table in the corner where his schoolwork folder was. “I guess.”

I couldn’t stop my smile. So that was Kira’s ploy, and it worked. As he and Ruby sat at the table and started going through papers, I looked at Claude and nodded towards the door. “We’re just going to see Father Michael. Be back soon,” I said, leading Claude out.

“What is we seeing Michael again for?” Claude asked as we walked out onto the sidewalk.

“Well, I just want to finalize a few details about our fundraising day, that’s all.”

“Isn’t it all done yet?”

“Not quite.”

Claude looked up at me as we walked down the block. “Did you just want Kira to help Ruby without us bein’ there?”

I laughed at her. “You’re too smart, Claude.”

She grinned and her black curls bounced as she walked. “He does want to try, Matt,” she said. “Ruby told me he wants to be part of it, but he said it was hard. The school stuff.”

“You know what I think?” I asked. “I think Ruby is smarter than he gives himself credit for. Yep, it’s hard, but he’s doing great.” I stopped at the gate to the church. “He’s pretty hard on himself.”

Claude seemed happy with this, and smiled as she turned into the church yard. We went inside but were told by a small, elderly lady that Father Michael wasn’t in. She introduced herself as a long time parishioner and sometimes office administrator. “I’ll pass a message along, if you’d like,” she said. “Father Michael will be back tomorrow.”

I told her where we were from and that we’d come back another day. I reassured her it wasn’t urgent, and Claude and I went back out into the LA sunshine, heading back to the FC.

“How old do you think she was?” Claude whispered as we walked.

“I’d say…” I pretended to have to think about it. “Oooh, about two-hundred years old.”

Claude burst out laughing, and it was then I noticed a car on the street. It was a non-descript Ford, kinda banged up and it blended into the neighbourhood. There was one guy in the car, behind the steering wheel, he was talking on his phone. Well, it looked like he was pretending to talk on his phone, and it all seemed harmless. But something tripped my intuition. Something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Then I looked up the street and across the road. At the end of the block was a van. And across from the FC, on the other side of the busy street, was a homeless man. He was sitting on the pavement, leaning up against the building, with newspapers and cardboard his only belongings. He was unshaven, wearing ratted clothes and had a dirty cap pulled down, hiding half his face.

But he did something out of character.

He glanced at me from under the brim of his cap, and in that half a second, I saw his eyes were clear and sharp.

Fuck
.

The homeless guy, the car, the van.

I knew what that meant. Something, someone, on this street was under surveillance.

To anyone else, everything looked normal. There were dozens of cars lining both sides of the street, the van and the car were not out of place at all. The non-descript homeless man would have been invisible to anyone else. And maybe if I hadn’t have caught his eye, I wouldn’t have noticed either.

Hell, I didn’t notice them on the way to the church. I certainly did on the way back.

I swapped sides with Claude as we walked, putting her closest to the building—the safest place. We walked quickly back to the FC and I held the door open for her, acting completely normal.

Not so much for Claude’s sake, but also for the policemen out there. If whoever they were watching—Darius and Tyler came to mind—were watching me, suspicious behaviour on my behalf could alert them to the surveillance.

I smiled at something Claude said as we walked inside and as much as I wanted to turn around and scope the street, I didn’t.

I told Claude we’d leave Ruby and Kira alone and go and annoy Boss instead. As we walked into Boss’ office, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and sent a text to Mitch.

Some warning would have been good.

He responded almost immediately.

Go to church often?

I almost snorted.

I’ve got about fifteen kids coming here in about twenty minutes. Do we have a problem?

No. You’re all good.

Be careful,
I told him.

Always.

I pocketed my phone and smiled at Boss. He looked to the pocket I’d just put my phone in then to my face. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Everything’s just fine,” I told him. “Squirt and I just thought we had twenty minutes spare so we’d come to help you.”

Boss looked to Claude. “Is that right?”

“Well,” Claude said, “Matt said we’d come annoy you, not help you.”

Boss sighed then grumbled, “Figures.”

“Hey, Claude,” I said. “Can you check the supply cupboard for me? See what we’re running low on.”

She looked between me and Boss. “If you want to speak to Boss by yourself, just say so,” she said as she walked out.

I waited until the door closed and we were alone. “The street is under surveillance.”

His eyes bulged. “What? What for now?”

“I didn’t ask specifics, but it’s a narcotics detail. I noticed a few familiar sets on the street, sent my old partner a text and he confirmed it. Not the club, though. We’re okay.”