Girls Like Us(62)

“You deserve better.”

“Damn straight. You think it’s easy to manage a department? I have guys quitting all the time because they can’t live off what we get paid. How can you ask some kid to put his life on the line every day if he can hardly afford the mortgage on his house? Suffolk County is so damn expensive. Working folks can’t afford to live here anymore. These rich people, they want us to cater to them. But where are we supposed to live? Where can our kids go to school? The way I see it, this is what we’re owed. I’m just trying to even the playing field a little for my guys.”

I think about Luz’s house in Brentwood. About Elena living across from the cemetery in Riverhead. About Adriana and Ria, selling their bodies so their families can eat. In that moment, rage wells up inside me. I want to grab Dorsey’s neck and snap it. I want to hurt him the way he hurt those girls. He deserves it.

“The world is not fair,” I say carefully.

“No. It’s not. I have to make sure my best guys are taken care of. And then they stay. And everyone’s happy.” Dorsey shakes his head, like he can’t stand the inequity of it. “Anyway, it’s over. We buried your dad. Let the man rest in peace.” He rises to his feet. “I should be getting home. I think you should do the same.”

I stand, my legs trembling beneath me. Dorsey reaches out, puts his hand on my elbow. It takes all my strength not to pull away.

“Be safe, Nell. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. I’ve lost enough people I care about.”

“I think it’s time I head back to DC.”

Dorsey nods. “That makes sense. It’s for the best. I love you, sweetheart. Don’t forget that.”



* * *



—

DASILVA IS GONE. The parking lot is empty. When I start up my truck, the engine sputters. I panic and cut the ignition. For a minute, I sit still, paralyzed. I focus on my breath, trying to slow it to a normal rate. My head is spinning. The realization that Glenn Dorsey loved my mother—and that she might have loved him back—shakes me to my core. And yet, it makes a certain amount of sense. Dorsey was always around. Even when Dad wasn’t home, I would find him unloading grocery bags for Mom or fixing the boiler for her. After she died, he watched over me with the protectiveness of a second father. I used to think his attachment to me—to us—was born out of his love for Dad. Now I realize I was wrong. He loved my mother more.

How could Dad not have known? Did he ever suspect that Dorsey had feelings for my mother? Had he ever glanced across the room at a party and seen them sharing a laugh together and wondered? Had he seen my mother flex onto her tiptoes and kiss Dorsey on the cheek, her lips lingering just a half second too long against his skin?

It’s hard for me to believe that Dad wouldn’t have sensed what was happening between them. Dad was incredibly perceptive. He could sit in a blind for hours just waiting and watching the trees before he executed a deer with one single, perfect shot. His intuition made him a skilled hunter and a first-rate detective. So how could it have failed him so miserably at home? But then, if he had known about them, how could he have worked side by side with Dorsey for so many years without wanting to murder him? Dad, like Dorsey, was tough, cutthroat, and prone to rage. Wouldn’t the tension between them have eventually boiled over into violence?

Maybe it did. Maybe Dorsey cut Dad’s brakes himself. I picture my father getting on his bike for that last ride. Did he have time to realize what had happened? Had he felt it coming?

I take a breath and turn the key again. This time the engine starts up without a hitch. Still, fear rises in my throat. Breathe, breathe, I tell myself, fighting the urge to panic.

As I cross the Ponquogue Bridge, I call Lee. I can’t help feeling like he left me there on purpose. The thought enrages me. As angry as I am with Lee, I’m even more so with myself for trusting him. Maybe he wasn’t involved in Giovanni Calabrese’s enterprise. But there’s something Lee isn’t telling me about himself. Given that I almost died tonight as a result of his damn investigation, I feel like he owes me some answers.

“Nell?”

“Where were you?” I snap when he answers.

“I went to see Milkowski. She wasn’t at the lab, so I went to her house and—”

“It was just me, Dorsey, and DaSilva. Not exactly the celebration I was picturing. You left me there. I swear to God, Lee, I thought they were going to kill me.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“Dorsey admitted to everything. His involvement with Calabrese. How he forced a confession out of Morales. The ends justify the means in his world.”

“Nell.”

“I recorded it all. I want you to have it in case anything happens to me, okay? I know you probably think I’m being paranoid, but I have a bad feeling. The brakes on my dad’s bike were cut. His death was no accident.”

“Nell, you have to shut up. Please. Listen to me. Jamie Milkowski is dead.”

“What?” I slam on the brakes, and the tires squeal angrily on the road. I pull the car over to the side and put it into park. “When?”

“A few hours ago. A hit-and-run, not too far from her office.”

“Holy fuck. They killed her, too, didn’t they?”

“I think so. She and Dorsey had a shouting match this morning. She said there was no way Morales was the shooter and Dorsey was just sweeping her report under the rug. I heard her tell him she was going to the press.”