43.
Molly and Jesse were in the squad room, drinking coffee.
“I’m sorry, Jesse,” Molly said. “I can’t take her.”
“I know,” Jesse said.
“I have a husband and four kids. I can’t impose her on them.”
“I know,” Jesse said. “I guess I’ll have to take her.”
“Yourself?”
“Can’t have her living here,” Jesse said.
“You can’t bring a fourteen-year-old girl home to live with you, Jesse, alone.”
Jesse shrugged.
“I mean, what if she claims you molested her?” Molly said.
“I’ll claim I didn’t,” Jesse said.
“But even if you can prove you didn’t, that kind of thing will cling to you for life,” Molly said. “It’s not like this is a good kid. You can’t tell what she’ll do.”
“I know.”
“So, what about that female private detective you were dating?”
“Sunny Randall?”
“Yes. How about you get her to look after the kid.”
Jesse shook his head.
“That book is closed,” Jesse said. “Right now, I don’t want to open it again.”
“You cannot take her in alone,” Molly said. “What if she’s sick, what if…you just can’t be parenting a fourteen-year-old girl that’s not your daughter.”
“Got any ideas?” Jesse said.
“How about Human Services?”
“This is not just a runaway kid,” Jesse said. “Dangerous people are after her. You can’t ask some social worker to fight it out with the Horn Street Boys…or whoever her old man sends.”
“You think he’ll send someone?”
“Crow thinks so,” Jesse said.
“And you think he’s right?” Molly said.
“Louis Francisco doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who would let Crow double-cross him, or allow his daughter to leave when he wanted her home.”
“Maybe you should talk to that detective you met from Fort Lauderdale,” Molly said. “Kelly something.”
“Cruz,” Jesse said. “Kelly Cruz. I already talked to her. She, too, says Francisco is the man in South Florida. Says she’s going to talk to a Miami cop named Ray Ortiz about him, see what she can learn.”
“So helpful,” Molly said. “Did you sleep with her?”
“No,” Jesse said.
“Wow,” Molly said. “A rare exception.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t,” Jesse said.
Molly grinned.
“I like your spirit,” she said.
Jesse stood and got the coffeepot and poured some in Molly’s cup and some in his own. Molly stirred some Splenda into hers.
“Jenn,” Molly said.
Jesse put the coffeepot back and came and sat down. He poured some sugar from a yellow cardboard box and stirred it into his coffee.
“Jenn,” he said.
“It would be her chance,” Molly said, “to be personally involved in a real human-interest story, or a murder, or a gang war, or an arrest, or however it turns out…. Here’s Jenn Stone, Channel Three News, with the inside story.”
“She might be in danger,” Jesse said.
“Explain that to her, let her decide.”
“I don’t want her in danger,” Jesse said.
“Jesse,” Molly said, and paused, and then went on, “that would be for her to decide, I think.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. Molly and he each drank some coffee. The sun was hitting them both in the eyes through the east window of the room. Jesse got up and pulled the shade and came back and sat down and looked at Molly.
“I think you’re probably right,” he said.