“I should have.” Of course there would be no wheelchair ramp at the troopers’ entrance. His gaze moved toward the front of the building, where there was surely an Americans with Disabilities Act–compliant entrance since citizens with disabilities filed police reports and applied for gun permits as often as anyone else.
“You want to go around?” Vinnie asked.
“Why don’t we just forget it and go home?”
“Who’s the prima donna now?” But Vinnie was looking back and forth between the door and Shane’s chair as if weighing his options. “Have a problem with popping wheelies?”
“Why would I?” As a matter of fact, he did have a problem with that, but he refused to tell his friend that. He might have had to give up his dignity to accept help since the shooting, but there was no way he was surrendering his man card completely. “But it might not work—”
“Guess we’ll see.” Vinnie pushed the buzzer for entrance, pulled the door wide and popped up the chair onto two wheels, wedging it through the opening before the door could fall closed again. “You see? It wasn’t that high.”
“Guess not.”
But Shane tightened his arms across his chest. With a few bumps and a loud scrape along the steel, they got his chair parked on the large textured mat inside the door.
“You see, the place hasn’t changed much.”
Shane bristled, not entirely because his friend was hovering the way he did too often these days. Vinnie was also dead wrong. Everything about this place felt different now. Foreign. As if someone else had changed into that uniform in the locker room just to his left. As if a stranger had joked with the others before daily announcements at the beginning of each shift, had called on them for backup and had met with them to decompress after work hours.
That man had been willing to give his life in place of any of his fellow officers. Nearly had.
“Smells the same,” Shane said finally. “Like stale subs and gun oil.”
“Our signature scent. We’ve been trying to bottle it for years, but so far distributors haven’t bit.”
“I wouldn’t be waiting by the phone for that one.”
Even the banter didn’t feel right tonight. Shane rolled toward the open area at the squad room’s center, a line of desks with desktop computers forming its perimeter. His chair bumped the first desk, the monitor rocking before settling back into place. Vinnie pretended not to notice.
Coming here today was a mistake, all right. It only emphasized the truth that he might never have any of this again, and just the possibility of it bore down on his shoulders so hard that he could barely sit straight in the chair. He shouldn’t have let Vinnie talk him into coming. But Vinnie had been so desperate to do something that Shane had taken pity on him. Now he only had to endure a few more minutes until he could get out of there and return to his house—a sanctuary that most days felt like a prison.
At the sound of heavy footsteps, Shane turned toward the hall that led to the superior officers’ offices. Trooper Nick Sanchez, a black-haired ladies’ man who’d switched from the midnight shift just after Shane was shot, started toward them.
“Well, look who took time out from his vacation to pop in.” He crossed to them and shook Shane’s hand.
“Yeah, great vacation. I’d show you my tan, but I’ve been sunbathing nude, and it’s pretty cold out today.”
“Thanks for not sharing.” Nick cleared his throat. “But seriously, man. How are—”
“He’s great, Trooper,” Vinnie answered for him.
Apparently, there would be no downer talk tonight.
“He nearly broke my arm, twisting it to make me bring him to Casey’s tonight,” Vinnie continued.
Shane shot him a glance, but Vinnie refused to look his way. They’d made no such plans. “Yeah, Vinnie’s here to file assault charges. He brought me along to save time.”
“You going?” Vinnie asked Nick.
“I’ll be there if I get that report finished.” Nick pointed to a desk with a travel coffee mug on top.
At the sound of voices behind him, Shane turned to find midnight-shift troopers Dion Carson and Clint McNally emerging from the locker room, one patting his duty belt and the other touching his breast pocket for his badge and nameplate. Both glanced over at the same time and crossed the room to them.
“Hey, look who’s here,” Clint said.
“Good to see you, man,” Dion said as he took his turn patting Shane on the back.
Other officers trickled from the men’s and women’s locker rooms, each stopping to greet him, but Shane could feel their gazes on him after they stepped past, sensed their unspoken questions. Could he blame them? Wouldn’t he have the same questions if one of them had still been in a chair like this one? Wouldn’t he wonder if they would ever be back?
Lieutenant Scott Campbell emerged from his office as he was coming off his shift. “Didn’t know there was a party going on back here. I would have brought balloons and root beer.”
“You don’t have anything stronger here?” Shane asked him.
“Nothing I’ll admit to. What are you two doing here? Did Leonetti kidnap you?”
“Damn near.”
Scott shrugged. “You have to forgive him. He needs work on his sweet-talking skills.”
“I’m trying.”
Shane exchanged a meaningful look with the lieutenant, one he hoped Vinnie would miss. They might joke about forgiving Vinnie, but the sergeant was nowhere near forgiving himself for not arriving at the scene quickly enough to prevent Shane from being shot. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but nobody could convince Vinnie of that.
Vinnie had just been talking to Liz Gallagher, the midnight shift’s only female trooper, about road conditions, but now he turned back to Shane.
“Ready to go?”
“Sure.” He glanced to the door. The trip down the step would be jarring, though not as difficult as going up.
But before they reached the door, it flew open, with several troopers stepping inside and bringing the frigid air with them. They crowded around Shane, telling him how they couldn’t wait for him to return to duty. Shane only wanted to get outside and away from all of them. He couldn’t breathe.
As if Vinnie finally recognized his distress, he opened the door and moved in front of the chair to guide it over the step. Shane’s back teeth crunched as the wheel bounced to the asphalt below.
“You okay?”
Shane nodded. Still, he paused for several long seconds, breathing in the chilly air until his lungs ached. He started toward Vinnie’s SUV, but when he reached it, he couldn’t help glancing back at the unimpressive, single-story brick building.
Why did it feel as if he was seeing the place for the last time? He pushed away the thought, but the sense of loss remained. It was like saying goodbye to a place that had felt more like home to him than anywhere he’d ever lived. The loss hurt more than any bullet wound ever could.
“You don’t look okay,” Vinnie continued.
Shane stared at him until it sank in that he hadn’t answered Vinnie’s earlier question.
“I’m fine.” His laugh sounded strained. “Anyway, you’ve seen me far worse than this. Bleeding like a stuck—”
“Don’t!”
“Not funny yet?”
“It