Conflict of Interest

Chapter Fifty Three

Kim

I put the phone back in its cradle, three calls later. "She didn't answer," I said mostly to myself.

"Yeah," Carrie said noncommittally. It didn't mean anything, but she probably felt compelled to reply.

I said her name softly because, hours later, I still couldn't gauge her feelings.

"Carrie," I said again. "Are you alright?"

She refused to look at me. "Fine," she said.

"Do you want a drink?"

She nodded and lightly moved her index finger about the counter. "Yeah," she said.

"What do you want?"

She shrugged, which should have been a red flag for someone who knew precisely what she wanted a thousand percent of the time. I poured her a double.

"How are you feeling?" I prodded. She drank.

"I'm fine, Kim," she pushed, just sounding tired more than anything. I looked around her apartment, which somehow told no story. No story, anyway, to someone who hadn't been through what she and I had. I wondered if for her, it told stories of sleepless nights and lamentable hookups and thrill and regret. She'd made it all look so normal, as though no bomb had ever hit it, which we both knew was devastatingly untrue.

"You know how I know something's wrong?" I invited.

She shook her head ambiguously.

"When you say you're fine, you're not fine," I reminded her. "When you really are fine, you find something to complain about."

"I'm finding something right now, but I'm trying to be nice," she quipped.

I smiled sadly, came up behind her and placed both hands on her shoulders, feeling acutely the tension that had built up within them as I began to massage them with my hands. "Trying to be nice? I know you a little better than that, Car," I tried to laugh it off.

"Then you know not to prod me," she pointed out.

"I feel like I did something wrong," I said honestly. I remembered the "I" statements. I'd been around the block with Grace enough times to know that much. "What can I do?"

"Nothing, okay?" she said, standing up and doing that thing she does with her hands where she dramatically puts them up then closes them to make a point. "Forget it."

"No," I said, urging her to sit back down. "Carrie, talk to me. What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything, okay? It's me. I just need to get away, or something."

"Car," I said quietly as I took her hand and focused really hard on doing that. "This probably isn't the answer you want to hear, but you're being investigated by Internal and you can't actually go anywhere."

"Thank you, Kim," she said quietly but bitingly. "That's extremely helpful."

I shrugged. "From one law enforcement personnel to another, I'm just staying realistic."

"Kim," she said again. "Be less realistic next time."

"Do you want to talk about it? I assumed you wouldn't want to, but if you do..."

"Don't bother," she said, this time succeeding in getting away from me and beginning to tidy her living room, if you could have called it tidying when there was nothing to tidy. It mostly consisted of the unfolding and refolding of a throw blanket. "Nine AM with the department shrink."

"I'm sorry you have to go back there," I said honestly, just looking back at her and wishing there were some way I could help her.

"Don't be, we're old pals by now," she said grimly. "What's another session with his friend, the bitch attorney who ruined Jenn Carver's life?"