She pointed to a bare space on the wall. “Do you know what goes there?”
Noah shook his head.
“A picture of me with my dog when I’m assigned one.” Her face shone with a sort of inner glow.
The bare space was next to a photo of Reed with his Jessie. The bloodhound’s saggy-skinned expression seemed to contradict the dog’s tenacious personality.
He knew from Lani’s file that she was twenty-nine, old for a rookie. His estimation of her abilities had changed, but he still had his doubts. Her background was not the normal career route for a cop. “That will happen soon enough.” It had been months since Lani had been accepted to the K-9 unit and a suitable dog had still not become available. She’d tried out several. The dogs were either not compatible with her or they washed out of the program. Jordan’s death and Noah getting used to being chief had slowed everything down as well.
“Tonight didn’t go like I expected.” She stared at the floor.
He stepped toward her, touching her chin so she lifted her eyes. “But you handled the unexpected. That’s what a good cop does.”
A little light came into her blue eyes. That spark of energy that he liked about her returned.
“Thanks,” she said.
She let out a heavy breath and sat down on the couch. Noah sat down beside her sipping his beverage. Scotty lay down so his butt rested against Noah’s feet and his head rested close to Lani’s feet.
Noah pointed toward the photos. “So you did a lot of plays?” It was important to keep her mind off the attack.
“Mostly off Broadway, and I did a couple commercials and even some stunt work,” she said.
“I know I’ve lived here my whole life, but I think I made it to the theater twice in my life and one time it was with my school.”
Lani laughed, “I know. There are people born and raised here who have never been to the Statue of Liberty.”
He reached down to pat Scotty’s head. “My family goes to the Mets games quite a bit.”
“Sounds like fun.” Lani took a sip of her cocoa.
They talked awhile longer. When the door opened and Reed stepped in with Jessie, Noah glanced at the clock. An hour had passed without him realizing he’d been so caught up in his conversation with Lani.
Jessie loped over to Lani, who leaned so the dog could give her a sloppy kiss.
“Long night?”
“Something like that. Had a couple other calls after we got stuff wrapped up at the refuge.” Reed took his coat off and hung it up on a coatrack. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped in to talk with Abigail for a little bit.”
Abigail was Reed’s fiancée and an outreach coordinator for troubled teens.
“Can I talk to you for just a moment?” Noah gestured for Reed to enter the kitchen.
“What’s up?”
“Keep an eye on her through the night. Not just to make sure she doesn’t lose consciousness. Wake her up a couple of times. The ER doc said to look for dilated pupils. I’m more worried about her emotional health. Maybe she’s just acting tough in front of me. I don’t know.”
Reed nodded. “We got this handled. I know my sister.”
“She’ll push to come into work tomorrow, but she needs to take the day off,” said Noah.
Reed nodded. “Will do.”
When they returned to the living room, Lani had fallen asleep on the couch. Jessie curled against her belly. The bloodhound was so huge she hung halfway off the couch. Lani’s blond hair, loose from the tight bun, framed her face and fell across her neck.
Scotty lay at Lani’s feet. He stared up at Noah while his tail thudded on the floor.
Noah commanded Scotty to come and he fell in line. “I’ll see myself out.” He glanced once again at the sleeping Lani. She looked at peace. “Take care of her. Maybe you can talk her into making a counseling appointment.”
“You can’t talk my sister into anything once she’s made up her mind.”
“So true.” Noah stepped to the door, swung it open and headed up the block toward his SUV with the dog padding softly on the sidewalk beside him. He looked back. The curtains were drawn in the living room. Still, he could picture Reed placing a blanket over his sleeping sister. She was in good hands.
As he loaded Scotty into the patrol car, he felt that tightening in his chest.
He only hoped that what had happened to Lani tonight was an isolated incident. He didn’t want another cop harmed...or worse.
Lani clicked the leash onto the collar of the six-month-old yellow Lab and headed out of the training center to walk the pup. She was glad to be back to work after a required day off. Oscar was one of eight puppies born to Stella, a yellow Lab, who had been a gift to the unit from the Czech Republic. The dogs had all been put into foster homes. Oscar had been brought back to the training center to assess if he would be good K-9 material and maybe assigned to Lani. She tried not to get too hopeful about Oscar. Other dogs she’d trained with had initially seemed like a good fit. She pushed aside the frustration she felt over not getting her own K-9 partner after so many months.
As she stepped out into the early morning to walk the dog, the sun bathed her skin. She turned the corner.
The idea of taking the dogs out was not only for exercise but getting them used to staying focused with a million distractions around them. This street usually had fewer people and less traffic than Ninety-Fourth Street where the K-9 offices and training center were.
All the same, the streets already bustled with activity, visual and auditory. Oscar heeled with his head up, taking in the buzz of the city. Pedestrians brushed past them on the sidewalks. Car horns blared as traffic rolled by. In the distance, she detected the intense rhythm of a jackhammer.
This was her city. Walking the dogs was part of her routine while on duty. Still, a fearful hesitation made her a little less confident in her step. The boat her attacker had escaped in was never found. She’d gone for a run on her day off which usually cleared her head, but not this time. Her sleep had been fitful.
Oscar’s tail wagged when a group of children walked past him. She gave the leash a slight jerk to let him know that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t interact with the children.
“We’re on duty,” she said.
The crowd thinned as they approached an abandoned building that used to be a multistoried department store. She could feel the soreness from the attack. She increased her pace. Oscar’s little legs kept up with hers. If she slowed, he responded. The dog was sharp. She loved all the K-9 recruits, but she liked how quickly Oscar picked up on her cues. They seemed to be dialed into each other, a quality that was essential in working with a partner, K-9 or human.
She’d requested that he be brought out of foster care to see if he’d be good K-9 material. Not all dogs had the temperament to be K-9s. In her first encounter with Oscar, when he was just weaned at eight weeks, he had sat back on his haunches and looked up at her, tilting his head to one side as if to say, At your service, ma’am.
Oscar seemed to have alerted on something across the street. She followed the line of his gaze. Noah Jameson stood beside a