44 – This Gift, This Curse

 

"It's not Charlie," Mick said, the minute he walked into the apartment later that afternoon.

 

"Thank goodness, but what makes you think so?" Will replied, relief filling his voice as he looked up from the book he was reading.

 

Mick related the whole conversation he'd had with Charlie.

 

Will nodded when he was finished. "Now we have to find this ex-boyfriend of hers. I take it Charlie hasn't actually seen him hanging around?"

 

"It doesn't sound like it. At least, not recently, but to be honest, I forgot to ask."

 

Will smiled a bit, saying, "Some detective you are."

 

"Maybe not yet," Mick replied quietly. "But I will be. I'm learning from one of the best." He paused briefly. "Right?"

 

"Teachers are hardly…"

 

"Drop it, Will," Mick broke in. "Yeah for a while I was sure that's what you used to be but not anymore. I've seen how the cops we've been dealing with treat you. They respect you, even though you haven't been one for a long time. You must have been something damned special once."

 

"Not special. I just did my job." Will leaned back, hands behind his head as he stared off into space and back into the past. "I worked undercover most of the time, me and Danny. We made a good team when we worked together. Brought down a lot of people who deserved to be stopped in their tracks—dealers, gang members, pimps. We took them all on and won—usually. Until the end."

 

Mick eased down quietly on the other end of the sofa. Listening.

 

"Danny had a sister, a lovely woman, a cop too. Miranda. She wasn't undercover. Just a good street cop, like most all of them are. We met, through him, and fell in love. We were going to be married someday. We knew that." Will smiled softly. "Thus Kevin, though I never knew about him.

 

"Then," Will continued after a long pause, "I saw Danny walking into a trap and dying. Not ten minutes after I saw it, but sometime in the future. Maybe a day or a week, I didn't know. I just knew it would happen if I didn't stop him." He turned to look at Mick. "We were working different cases, both of us deep undercover, so I had no contact with him or Mira. I had to figure out a way to get in contact with him. Warn him. I managed to set up a meet with my captain. Told him I'd heard something, a rumor going around that the people Danny was investigating had found out he was a mole. I asked him to send me in, just long enough to warn Danny."

 

"But he wouldn't?" Mick asked, frowning deeply.

 

"No, he did, in a way. He told me what Danny was doing, but warned me not to break my cover. 'Who you're after is too important for you to blow it,' he said. He was right, but Danny was just as important. So I went hunting for him, where I was sure I could find him from what the captain had said."