Cop Out K.C. Burn

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.A wedding band.What the fuck?Why hadn’t Ben told him? Granted, Kurt probably talked more about his personal life than his partner had wanted to hear, but Ben deflected almost all personal questions.Kurt thought them friends, but he didn’t even know Ben had been married, let alone recognize the woman he should have at least met in the three years they’d spent partnered.Hell, most of the married cops he knew hung out with their partners off the job, frequently with their wives as well.Sure, he and Ben had never done more than eat lunch together, but Ben had met his parents and all of his siblings at least once, when they’d stopped by the station.A burning pain lanced up his arm.Looking down, Kurt realized he’d rested the cane across his lap and was squeezing the shit out of it with both hands.Fine for his right, but definitely too much activity for his still-stitched left arm.Taking a deep breath, he unclenched his fingers.He’d talk to the two strangers after the service.He had a duty as Ben’s partner, and he needed to know.As long as he could keep his bitterness contained.Why hadn’t Ben asked for a transfer if he hated Kurt so much? Because Kurt couldn’t imagine any other reason for him not to mention a wife, even an estranged one, to his partner.He couldn’t talk to Ben’s previous partner, find out if Ed had known.Ed had died of a coronary, after which Ben got partnered up with Kurt.The ache in his heart, knowing his partner hadn’t trusted him—at all—rivaled the emptiness inside where a friend had lived.It may have been a one-sided relationship, but Kurt missed his friend.God.Why hadn’t he known? Had he been too self-absorbed, or had Ben deliberately hidden the information from him? Guilt ate through him like acid, the burning pain in his gut returning.He had to have been at fault.The service ended abruptly, or so it seemed, since Kurt hadn’t paid attention at all.The two people slipped out a side door almost before the minister had finished speaking.Without thinking, Kurt was up and out of the chapel, hobbling as best he could around the side of the church, to try and catch up to them in the parking lot.“Wait! Wait!”Two dark heads swiveled toward him, the man murmuring something to the woman, who nodded.“Thank you,” he puffed out.God, he hoped he got his strength back soon.He stood before them, and shifted his cane to his left hand so he could shake their hands at least.They were undoubtedly siblings, but the woman was several years older and had that slight puffy cast to her jawline his own sisters had displayed in early pregnancy.Ben was going to be a father? He wasn’t sure if he could find words beneath the bitter guilt drowning him.“I’m Kurt O’Donnell.Ben’s partner.” The man gasped slightly and turned away.His sister elbowed him in the arm.“It’s nice to meet you, Kurt.I’m Sandra.This is Davy, my brother.” She would have made an excellent witness on the stand.Her words gave him only a modicum of data that he didn’t have before.“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Kurt took her hand and gently squeezed it.Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face had the yellowish pallor he associated more with illness than with grief.“I’m sorry for yours,” she replied.He stretched his hand out to Davy, glad that Sandra at least had a brother to aid her through this, but their body language warred with his expectations.Sandra had her left arm around her brother’s waist, shoulders tilting toward him in a protective gesture.It should have been the other way around.Davy turned red-rimmed eyes, like his sister’s, to him.But that was the only similarity.Sandra was sad.Davy was devastated.Davy’s chocolaty eyes were filled with all the desolation in the universe.The scleras were more than bloodshot, like he’d been crying for days, and his nose was as swollen and red as his eyelids.His face had the deathly white hue of shock that Sandra’s should have had, and he didn’t appear to be focusing too well.“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, Davy’s hand in his, shake forgotten.He had a sudden urge to hug Davy, but he was too busy trying to keep the shock and betrayal off his face.The world spun dizzily as all his preconceptions and conclusions vaporized, to be replaced by the new information now in his possession.Davy’s mouth worked, but nothing came out.He dropped his gaze, but he left his hand in Kurt’s.Sandra separated them.“We need to go now, Kurt.Thanks for introducing yourself.” She tried to smile.They got into a car, Sandra behind the wheel.“Wait!”Sandra twisted around in her seat.“What about Ben’s mom?”“Oh, well, she wasn’t having a good day.Sunshine Manors advised against bringing her.”Kurt stood back and let them—there was no other word for it—escape.He steadied himself on his cane while the taillights receded.Assuming Ben hadn’t lied about his mother, it was entirely possible she’d been too ill or too disoriented to attend the funeral.But Sandra had been lying.He’d been a cop too long.He knew.Chapter TwoTHAT night, his family tried to cheer him up.His eldest sister, Erin, brought over her daughters before his mom went to the restaurant.Now that all of their children were grown, both his parents spent the majority of their time at the family-owned Finn’s Frolic, a cross between a family restaurant and a pub.Since Kurt’s surgery, his mom had been home almost constantly, with other family members either taking him to doctors’ appointments, visiting him, or taking extra shifts at Finn’s to allow mom to stay home.He sat at the kitchen table, longing for the solitude of his sterile, joyless apartment.“Kurt, honey, the girls wanted to see their favorite uncle [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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