No Center Line Read online

  WARNING: This is written for an adult audience.

  (Contain violent scenes and references to male rape [non-explicit])

  If you are under 19, please go back and read some other stories. This one isn’t for you.

  No Center Line

  By

  LRH Balzer

  *

  Prologue

  *

  Cascade Washington,

  Monday, June 15, 1998

  “— So that’s when Joel decided to give up riding horseback,” the detective said, with a shrug, draining the last of his pint of beer.

  “You’re kidding. That’s freaky, man. Then what happened?” Sandburg grinned across the table. “Well?”

  “Then he joined the bomb squad.” He pretended to ignore the resulting howl of laughter and casually raised his hand to catch the attention of the waitress, motioning for her to bring him another beer.

  “I’m almost done with this glass,” Sandburg said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Make that two. That story was hysterical. Joel really was on the mounted police squad? I never knew that.”

  “Yeah, well.” His eyes focused on Blair’s hands, wrapped around the beer glass, and panic hit him with irrational speed, superimposed with remembered images of the kid on life support, of oxygen, morphine, and all the other drugs and devices used that had been used to keep the pain away and the young man breathing. “Are you sure you’re allowed to drink this stuff?” Rafe asked, his voice harsher than he had intended.

  “Yes.” Sandburg finished off the last of his glass with a defiant tilt of his chin. “Or do you need to check with my doctor to verify that?”

  Rafe looked up from Blair’s tanned hands, past the browned arms showing beneath thin white cotton shirt, to stare at the police observer’s face, concentrating on the faint sunburn on his nose and forehead from his days in Mexico. There was little trace of his own nightmare in the man sitting across from him. Blair was very much alive. Not dead. “Sorry.” He shifted, uncomfortable for the first time since they reached the restaurant, and he let the action turn into a glare in the direction of the kitchen. “What’s taking so long with our food? We don’t have all day.”

  “Relax, man. It’s only been ten minutes since we ordered.” Sandburg leaned across the table and touched his forearm for a moment, conveying his understanding of what had just happened. Once the tension had drifted away, the younger man withdrew his hand and glanced around the restaurant, changing the topic. “This place isn’t half bad, you know. Nice atmosphere, with all the plants and everything. I’ve never been here before. Is the food good?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been here before, either. It just opened up two or three weeks ago.”

  “Amazing what can happen in three weeks,” Sandburg said, with a laugh. “One minute this place is empty. For lease. Then suddenly it’s full of people and the hip place to be. Kinda weird, man. Kinda—” The carefree voice broke off as he suddenly became aware again of his lunch companion’s pale face. “Now what did I say?” Blair asked, exasperated, edging toward anger.

  “Sorry,” the detective mumbled. “This was supposed to be a pleasant lunch to celebrate you coming back to work at the station. I didn’t mean to remind— It just sneaks up on me sometimes.”

  “I thought nothing sneaked up on you cops. Aren’t you supposed to leave your emotions at the door?” Sandburg’s flippant attitude faded when he saw his friend’s jaw tighten. “Sorry, that was out of line. It’s my turn to apologize, okay? Listen, I know it’s been a strange couple of weeks, but it’s all behind us now. Alex got away from us initially, but she’s safely locked away now, right? I’m okay. Everyone’s okay. Even the nerve gas has been found. Everything is fixed.” As though it completed his thought, Sandburg picked up a bread stick and bit into it, absently wiping the crumbs off the table.

  “You were dead.”

  He heard himself say the words and wished fervently he could recapture them when he saw the young man across from him flinch.

  A soft exhalation. “Yeah, I was. Just for a little while.” Sandburg chewed the bread stick slowly, not meeting his eyes.

  “We haven’t talked about it. Not really. We’ve talked around what happened, but we haven’t discussed..” He was feeling braver now. The waitress put the refills in front of them, and he took a healthy swallow of his beer. Then a second swallow while he waited for Blair to answer him.

  “Up until now, every time we’ve had a chance to talk, you’ve steered the conversation away from what happened. I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it.” The reply was so quiet he could hardly hear it.

  “I figured you would tell me whatever you were comfortable in telling me, whenever you were ready. I’m not even sure how much you remember of it.”

  “I remember most of what happened. Why are you asking me this now?”

  “Why not?” he pressed on. “We’re friends, right? Friends talk, right? That’s what you’re always telling me.”

  Sandburg nodded, then looked up at him, intense blue eyes pinning him back against the fake leather seat. “That’s right. Okay then, what do you want to know?”

  It was all suddenly back in his court, and he wasn’t sure how to frame his questions. He took another gulp from his glass, and Sandburg interrupted before he could speak.

  “Hey, how come you’re drinking on duty?” The chewed off bread stick was pointed at his glass.

  “Huh?”

  “You never drink on duty.” Sandburg was studying him thoughtfully, and he didn’t like the feeling. He never liked it.

  “I’m not on duty. The captain gave us the rest of the day off. Weren’t you listening? We were just in to do some paperwork.”

  “Oh.”

  “The Brighton case is wrapped. So are the robberies at the Springcrest mall.”

  Sandburg looked puzzled for a moment, as though he couldn’t place that case.

  “The jewelry stores? The emerald display?” he prompted. “It’s been an ongoing case for several months.”

  “Oh, right. The clerk died at one store.”

  “Yeah.” He died, but you’re alive. The detective picked up his glass, taking the few swallows that were left. He studied the empty glass, frowning. He should have ordered another pint instead of a glass. He looked back toward the kitchen, willing the swinging door to open and the waitress to bring their food.

  “You can have mine. I’ve had enough.” Sandburg slid his untouched second glass of beer across the table.

  “No, that’s okay. I can get another later.”

  “Really, take it. You’re right, I still have medication I’m taking. Technically I can have alcohol, but I think I’ve reached my limit on an empty stomach.”

  Again the nervousness hit him, and the detective could feel a tightness across his chest. If it was hitting him like this, how was Jim handling it all? How did Ellison sleep, remembering his friend — his own roommate — lying dead on the grass at the university? What had happened?

  Rafe found himself shivering suddenly. He had seen something that morning. He wasn’t sure what it was — a light. A shimmer of something from Jim’s fingertips as his hands cradled Blair’s face.

  He wasn’t sure what was plaguing his dreams at night the most: remembering that Blair had died or remembering that little spark of electricity that had brought him back to life. The cough. The water dribbling from his mouth. Blair Sandburg dead. Then, not dead. Pronounced dead by the paramedics. Pronounced alive by Jim Ellison.

  Brought back to life by …

  By who? By what? How?

  How?

  As if out of nowhere, shocking him back to the present, the waitress appeared with their meals, putting the Thai noodle salad in front of Blair and t
he chicken pita sandwich in front of Rafe. He stared at if for a moment, trying to remember where he was and why he was having lunch in a restaurant with a formerly dead man.

  “What’s wrong?” Sandburg asked quietly. “Something in your pita?”

  “No. Uh, maybe I will have your beer, if you don’t want it. My throat’s dry.”

  “Sure.” Sandburg passed it back to him.

  Rafe took a quick sip, then dug into his meal quickly, letting trite comments about the quality of the food replace other topics. Despite his consuming curiosity, he really wasn’t sure he wanted to know what happened. And Sandburg didn’t bring up the subject again, so he assumed that it was still too uncomfortable for him to talk about. The last thing Rafe wanted to do was force the kid to relive that morning. He had made the offer, at least. He had let Blair know that he was willing to talk about it, if he wanted to talk about it with someone.

  When the two partners had entered the bullpen that morning after a three week absence, there had been actual silence in the room. No one knew what to say. How to you say ‘welcome back’ to someone who had died and come back to life? It sounded so trite. ‘Hi, Blair. Glad you’re not dead anymore. So how was your holiday in Mexico?’

  Something had happened in Mexico. The captain knew about it. So did Megan Connor. Neither were talking, outside of a few rehearsed statements about Alex being caught and Ellison and Sandburg staying behind in Mexico to vacation for a week or two. Apparently they had ‘earned it’, but it wasn’t clear what they had actually done. Simon Banks had immersed himself in paperwork and brought out some cold cases that had been shoved aside while they had worked on more urgent matters. Megan had taken a month holiday and gone back to Australia to make a few long term arrangements, since she was going to stay on in Cascade for a while longer than originally intended. Convenient.

  Whatever had gone wrong before Sandburg had died, was now right. Life had backed up two months, picked up some stitches, patched up some rips, mended the fences, and Ellison and Sandburg were back. Presto. Case closed.

  “You’re making me nervous, man,” Sandburg said, softly, the noodles wrapping and unwrapping around his fork.

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s the third time you’ve said that since we got here.”

  “Well, I mean it.”

  “Okay.”

  Rafe took a bite of his pita sandwich.

  “I’m fine, now.” Sandburg put down his fork. “If you need to know this, then I’ll tell you. No—” he said, waving down Rafe’s urgent apology, “I want to tell you. You and Henri were there. You were in the bullpen when we were fighting a month ago, when Jim really started losing it. You knew he had kicked me out of the loft. You were there at the university, at the fountain. You were there when I came to. You saw what happened when I went to the station a day after I got out of the hospital. You have a right to know.”

  “But I don’t need to know, Blair. I don’t even think I want to know.”

  “Well, I can only tell you part of it, anyway. The rest is between Jim and me. We are—”

  “Oh, don’t tell me, please. I don’t need to know this,” Rafe said, burying his face in his hands.

  Sandburg grinned at him. “I won’t ask what you thought I was going to say. Rafe, Jim and I have been through a lot the last few months, but I think we’re okay now, if that’s what you’re asking. We spent the last two weeks in Mexico just talking about what’s happened, trying to fill in all the pieces for each other. Last month … It’s difficult to explain, but Jim had a breakdown of sorts, and I didn’t help matters any by refusing to acknowledge it. I’m supposed to be his friend, his partner. But I messed up and so did Jim. Alex— she was unfinished business for us. He and Simon went down to deal with it, and as soon as I could, I followed.”

  “With Megan,” Rafe said, the quiet anger heard by both of them.

  “She just happened to be there. It could just as easily have been you. Or Henri or Joel, for that matter. I was in the hospital for a twenty-four hour test when Megan came by to bring me Jim’s message that he and Simon had gone to Mexico. I asked her to check into it, then we followed them down.” Sandburg became pensive, lost in memories of whatever had happened down there.

  Rafe cleared his throat. “I guess we all couldn’t go. Someone had to stay up here in Cascade and take care of the home front.”

  Sandburg nodded, suddenly wiping a tear from his eye. “I better start eating this or we’ll never get back to the station.”

  Half an hour later they wandered out into the mid-June afternoon sun and began their walk back to Cascade Police Department where their partners were interrogating one of the accomplices to the Springcrest robberies. The police department was four blocks away, the tinted blue windows reflecting the buildings around it. Rafe’s eyes automatically sought it out now, almost as though checking to make sure it was still there. That nothing had happened to it while he was off at lunch.

  He smiled at his own compulsion. Strange how central that building was to his life. He focused on the seventh floor, knowing Brown would be there, and he wondered how they were doing. They hadn’t joined them for lunch as originally planned. Yet, it had worked out well, just him and Sandburg. It was actually the first time they had done something together, usually part of a larger group, playing poker, watching a game, catching a beer after work. Like tonight. He frowned, trying to remember if there were extra tickets to offer Ellison and Sandburg.

  Rafe had dressed casually today, accepting the ribbing of his partner about slumming it. Faded jeans, comfortable tennis shoes, and his Cascade PD cap. A light jacket over his T-shirt, hiding his holster and gun. There was a baseball game that night he was going to with some of the guys at the station, and he didn’t feel like going back to his apartment and changing first, especially since Brown’s wife had offered to make them dinner before the game. That woman could cook!

  Beside him, Sandburg walked silently, obviously enjoying the day, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his face raised to the sunshine. The light breeze rippled through his untucked Mexican shirt and blew his hair back from his face. It was so rare that the kid wore his hair loose these days. It was almost always drawn back into a ponytail, as though that would make him appear older. Trouble was, when you were the youngest, you were always the youngest — until someone else came along to fulfill the role. Rafe was only a year or two behind Jim and Henri, but he had still been the kid of Major Crimes for long enough. When Sandburg had arrived, he had gladly handled the title on.

  “How’s Jim doing?”

  Sandburg glanced over at him, but didn’t seem surprised by his sudden question. “Jim? He’s okay. I’m glad Simon gave us the time off. Jim really needed it. Especially after what happened in Mexico. You know, with Alex and everything.”

  “Yeah, I read their reports.”

  “Oh. Right.” Sandburg glanced at him, eyes wary. “I haven’t had a chance to read them yet.”

  “I’m sure they left out all the good stuff,” Rafe said, enjoying the uncomfortable glaze on the other man’s face. “So how was Mexico?”

  “What do you mean?” Sandburg asked, the words striving for casualness.

  “Your holiday.”

  Sandburg stared at him for a moment, then smiled and shrugged, as though he knew he’d been left off the hook. “Mexico is Mexico,” he said, kicking at a pebble as they walked. “We stayed at one of the beaches on the west coast. Mainly just slept and recouped. I was kinda tired at first. Guess I wasn’t as healthy as I thought I was — I swear I slept the first forty-eight hours straight. My ribs still hurt a bit from the CPR. I thought about going to see some of the archaeological sites, but I had already seen the ones in that area and Jim wasn’t really interested. Guess we were both burned out. We talked a lot, like I said.”

  “Everything okay between you, two?”

  “Yeah.” Sandburg smiled to himself, then shrugged again. “It’ll take a while to work it all out, but at least we
’re together again.” He laughed suddenly. “We sound like an old married couple. Together again.”

  “I knew what you meant,” Rafe said. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “It was strange going back to the loft,” Sandburg admitted, softly. “After what happened at the university—”

  “When you died?”

  He nodded. “Afterwards, I was just back home from the hospital for a few days when Jim and Simon left for Mexico. He insisted I stay behind, since I was still under doctor care. I couldn’t do it, though.”

  “Do what?”

  “Stay behind. I thought I was going to go out of my freakin’ mind. The loft seemed to close in on me.” As though something had just occurred to him, he looked back to Rafe quickly. “Did I ever thank you for your part in putting the furniture back in the loft? If I didn’t, then let me say that was really cool. I really appreciated it, man. So did Jim.”

  “No problem. My pleasure.” Rafe said nothing when Sandburg turned down a side street, detouring slightly, stretching out the walk back. He still had the feeling the kid wanted to talk, needed to talk to someone who wasn’t going to give him a lot of advice. Simon Banks, Joel Taggart — and even Jim Ellison — all three would probably leap to solve any misgivings Sandburg had. But sometimes a person just needed to talk, needed someone to listen to them. Rafe let the silence stretch out over several minutes, then nodded to himself when Sandburg spoke.

  “I was scared when I left the hospital. So tired, and yet afraid of what it would look like, what I would find there. What I wouldn’t find there. Jim’s been … well, I guess I’d have to say that he’s been my best friend for a few years now. I couldn’t — I can’t — even imagine him not there in my life. There was some other stuff going on at the time …” The voice trailed off.

  “Like that business with your dissertation?” Rafe prompted after a minute or two. The entire station had heard Ellison’s rant about the paper.

  “Hmm? Yeah. That, too. Yeah. And other stuff. It’s hard to explain. Jim was …” Sandburg sighed impatiently, running one hand anxiously through his hair as he tried to put into words what he was feeling, what he had felt then. “Jim was, like, majorly stressed out, I guess you might say. He’d been on edge for a while, for a few weeks, and I guess that whole business with the dissertation and that case we were working on with Alex, it all sorta pushed him over the edge. Just for a while. He’s okay now,” Sandburg added quickly, looking up at him, anxious.