Third Rail (28 page)

Candace walks in from the bedroom wearing Harkness's faded Black Flag T-shirt, shorts, and slippers. “Hey.” She leans up and her long, slow kiss almost derails Harkness from his shift.

Candace reads his mind. “Not enough time.”

Harkness reaches out to touch Candace's black hair with his left hand, most of the index finger missing. He's almost used to it now—adaptation.

“No uniform?” she says.

“On a raid. See that wharf over there?” Harkness points.

“Yeah?”

“Furniture importer's been bringing in bootleg Vicodin behind the back panels of bookcases.”

“How'd you find that out?”

“Got suspicious about someone importing thousands of bookcases from Indonesia. Not exactly a lot of demand. Gone the way of the CD rack.”

“Don't get killed today, okay?”

Candace's bluntness doesn't surprise Harkness anymore. “I won't.”

“Or any other day. May's getting kind of used to you, you know, stopping by.” Candace wanders into the kitchen and the coffeemaker starts burbling.

Harkness moves to the side window, facing east toward the city. He can almost see Chinatown from here. Sometimes when he's walking down Beach Street he'll sense someone watching him—one of Mach's goons, Thalia, someone. But there's never anyone there, at least no one he can see.

No matter what Marnie thought, Boston isn't rotten underneath. The latest rot waits in trashed-out Somerville triple-deckers and plush Marlborough Street townhouses, venerable North End social clubs and shimmering office towers on Route 128. Harkness knows he'll never find all the outliers with their drugs and big plans. But it's his job to keep looking.

Candace comes back in with two coffees and hands one to Harkness.

They stand at the window for a moment, listening to rustling sounds coming from the bedroom.

“Our little friend up?”

“Up with the sun,” she says.

May wanders in dragging a gray blanket behind her and takes a meandering path across the living room. She makes it all the way to Harkness, stumbles, and wraps her arms around his leg.

“Dada.”

“No, honey.” A darkness shades Candace's face.

Harkness picks May up and she nestles her head on his chest. The truth—that he isn't May's father, that he's the man who killed her father—can wait until she's older, when she can make sense of it all, if that's even possible. For now Harkness and Candace let the secret hover above them, safely out of May's reach.

It's joined by the memories of Dex lying in the muddy field and Captain Munro floating in the millrace. Because unlike memory, which circles like leaves caught in an undercurrent, life runs in one relentless direction.

You crawl from the murk and walk on down the street.

You find what's lost and put it back in the right place.

Harkness hands May to Candace and zips up his blue hoodie, ready to drive his unmarked gray Chevy to today's bust.

“Even without the uniform, you still look like a cop, Eddy,” Candace says. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Never.”

“Aren't you that Harvard Cop?” She smiles. “The one who shot that guy and messed up the Red Sox?”

“Not anymore.” Harkness gives Candace the look that says
Don't mention the curse.
It's early in the season, but the Sox are on a winning streak. There's already talk of winning the Series. Sportswriters are already calling this year's team the
Fenway Phoenix
.

He pulls Candace and May toward him for a moment to feel their warmth, to breathe their comforting scent.

In the burgeoning spring, the city's reward after a hard winter, bullets will cut down street-corner thugs in Mattapan and Mission Hill, pierce the chest of an unfaithful Cambridge husband, put a quick end to a convenience store robbery in Southie, and leave a player slumped behind the wheel of a black Escalade in front of a Boylston Street nightclub. But they won't find Harkness, made invincible by love—and the best Glock on the market.

He's safe, for now.

Special thanks to Andrea Schulz, Dan Conaway, and Megan Abbott for getting
Third Rail
out to the world beyond Nagog, Massachusetts—and to John Schoenfelder and Allan Guthrie for inspiring it in the first place during a couple of long nights in New York City and Edinburgh.

Thanks to Katrina Kruse, Emily Andrukaitis, Stephanie Kim, Naomi Gibbs, and the rest of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt team—as well as Tanya Farrell, Emily LaBaume, and Wunderkind PR.

Cheers to Russell Banks, Gregory Maguire, Castle Freeman Jr., Doug Johnstone, Wesley Brown, Ron Slate, Craig Moodie, Scott Phillips, Glenn Gray, Madison Smartt Bell, Hamilton Fish, Christopher O'Riley, Bill Cicciarello, Chris DeFrancesco, Lynn Landry, Esther Piszczek, Stephen Fredette, Verena Wieloch, Samantha Kane, Sandy Poirier, Julie Sorkin, William Mansfield, and all my friends and family.

 

R
ORY
F
LYNN
lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Third Rail
is his first crime novel.

 

Find him at
www.mrroryflynn.com
or
@mrroryflynn
.