Page 2 of Floodgates

“Yes, it is,” I assured him. “I’m just glad Marta is out on maternity leave so she wasn’t in the office with me. I think—”

“I will come there.”

“No, don’t. I’m fine, I promise.”

“I want to see for myself.”

“It’ll be a whole thing,” I warned him. “Agent Brandt, right?”

“Your brother is no concern of mine.”

I sighed deeply. “I’ll come by around five.”

“It is ten in the morning now. Do you expect me to wait hours to see you?”

“I—”

“No,” he said gruffly. “When you are done, wherever you are, I will be there.”

“You really—”

But he’d hung up, and calling him back would be useless.

“Tracy?”

Looking up, I saw Katie Crenshaw, one of my ex’s best friends. They had come to the program at County together. I had thought we were also better friends, but when he and I separated, she had disappeared from my life.

“Hello,” I greeted her.

She rushed across the floor, but when she reached for my face, I tipped away from her touch.

“I don’t deserve that,” she said flatly, and I saw how wounded her eyes looked.

“I have a doctor,” I informed her.

She took a quick breath and thrust a cordless phone at me, probably the one from the nurse’s station that I had seen my ex use. I didn’t take it. There was no reason for me to do anything she asked. “Please, Tracy, just talk to him.”

I took the phone and put it to my ear. “Yes?”

“Are you all right?” Breckin Alcott, my ex, sounded scared. “What happened?”

I cleared my throat. “Bullet grazed me. It’s no big deal.”

He caught his breath. “No big deal?”

“Really. Dr. Lin says I’ll be perfectly fine, with a nice scar to tell the tale.”

“You should see Amir Kattan in plastic—”

“I think a scar sounds romantic.”

“You—”

“I’m fine. Thanks for calling. I’ll talk to you—”

“Wait.”

So I did. It was still a habit, listening to him. You didn’t stop doing something after two years even with a four-month moratorium.