Livia Lone (Livia Lone #1)(62)

She shook her head. “I don’t.”

He smiled. “Okay, good. Then I can say without worrying about any undue influence that when I look at you—all that strength, all that compassion—if you decide you want to spend your life protecting the flock, I think you’d be great at it.”

She wiped her face with the napkin. She felt he had seen so clearly inside her. Like he had X-ray vision. Not for the first time, she wondered how much else he might know, or at least suspect.

Rick went back to his soup, giving her a moment. And when she felt a little more in control, she said, “Thank you, Rick.”

He smiled again. “No, thank you, Livia. But don’t rule out college, okay? Remember, it’s about options. And it might even make you a better cop. All I’d ask is, keep it in mind.”

She promised him she would.

Sean sent her letters, mostly news about Llewellyn High. She wrote back, telling him about her new life in Portland, but it was awkward. He explained he had an email account now, and asked if she could get one, too. She could have—unlike sick Mr. Lone, Rick let her use his computer whenever she liked—but she didn’t want to make it too easy to be in touch. What she and Sean had in common, she didn’t know how to express in writing. So they stuck with snail mail. His letters started to arrive less frequently, and she took longer to respond because being reminded of him made her sad. Eventually, the hiatus from his last letter grew so long that she sensed there might not be another. She told herself she could always write back, but the days passed and she didn’t.

Rick had a motorcycle—a 1999 Kawasaki Ninja ZXR that Livia loved the second she saw it—and he taught her how to ride it. He was a member of a machine shop, where he brought the bike to do all the maintenance and repairs himself, and he taught her how to do all that, too. She liked using tools, and working with her hands. It seemed to reconnect her with who she was before all the terrible things happened, to a time when she had caught and butchered and cooked her own food, when she was more self-reliant and felt so much more free.

Rick wanted to teach her to drive a car, too, but he couldn’t let her drive his, because it belonged to the Portland Police Bureau. She asked what car he had used when he drove to Portland—it wasn’t his police car.

The question seemed to fluster him slightly. “Ah, when I need a car for something like that, I borrow one from a friend.”

Livia had wondered before, and almost asked now. But Rick had always been scrupulous about respecting what she needed to keep private. It would be worse than rude, it would be a betrayal, not to do the same for him. So she said only, “I’m glad you have a friend like that.”

He looked at her for a long moment, almost nervously. Then he said, “Yeah. I think . . . you’d like him. And he’d like you.”

She shrugged as though it wasn’t a big deal. “You could introduce us sometime. If you want. I’m sure I’d like your friends.”

He smiled, looking both frightened and relieved. “Well, maybe he’d let me use his car to teach you to drive. I could ask him.”

They developed an easy rhythm. Livia did the shopping, the cleaning, and the laundry, too. Rick told her it wasn’t necessary, but she didn’t listen. She didn’t want to be a burden, something he took on because of a feeling of obligation, something he felt stuck with. She wanted to be valuable, and it made her feel good to know she was. She liked making the coffee, and had a cup every morning, with milk and turbinado sugar.

Sometimes she went to the port. She would stand and stare out at the water, the containers, the machinery, the ships. Then she would close her eyes and listen to the sounds—the thrum of huge engines, the cries of scavenger birds, the lapping of water on the docks—and try to imagine where Nason could have been taken, try to feel where she could be right that moment. She told herself if she concentrated hard enough, she would remember something, imagine something, conjure something that would help. But nothing ever came.

One day, on the way home from school, she came across a thick branch that had fallen from a tree. On impulse, she picked it up and carved it into a Buddha like the one she had made so long ago in the forest—legs crossed in the lotus pose, one hand down and the other out. She placed it by the window in her bedroom, next to the photograph of her and Nason. And every night, without fail, she looked out at the sky and whispered in Lahu, “I love you, little bird. I will never forget. I will never stop looking. And one day I will find you.”

Rick told her that because he always had his service weapon either on him or within easy reach, it was important for her to learn how to handle firearms safely. “You don’t just childproof your guns,” was how he put it. “You also gun-proof your child.”

Livia was thrilled. She wanted to learn about guns. About all weapons. To her, anything that wasn’t a weapon was a weakness. And she was never going to be weak again.

They went over the four rules of safety: Always assume a gun is loaded until you’ve checked it yourself. Never let the muzzle cross something you wouldn’t be willing to harm. Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. And know your backstop—what a bullet would hit if it were to miss or go through your target.

Safety was important, of course, but she told him she also wanted to learn how to shoot. So they went to the gun range, where he taught her the fundamentals: smooth draw, aggressive stance, firm grip, front sight on the target, press the trigger. She listened carefully and shot well, but afterward, in the parking lot, Rick told her the range was nothing like the street—that adrenaline, ambiguity, bystanders, someone shooting back . . . the street changed everything.