Chapter Text
If there’s one thing Lassiter knows, it’s this: O’Hara wasn’t always this way, even if she pretends she has.
It’s less that they met, more that they found each other, him on the side of the highway, her in a dusty pickup speeding like the devil’s chasing her, but she slams on the brakes and puts the car in reverse and backs up until she’s level with him. “Need a ride?”
Lassiter pauses, turns and looks at her. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you picking up hitchhikers is dangerous?”
The woman leans across the passenger seat and opens the door. “More dangerous for you to be on your own without a vehicle or a weapon.”
Lassiter pulls open his jacket and shows her the gun tucked in his shoulder holster. “Got that part covered.”
“Even better. Get in.”
Her name is Juliet O’Hara (call me O’Hara, she says in a voice that forbids argument) and she’s a cop from Florida. She moved to California a few years before it all started, and that’s all she says.
Lassiter offers to her that he’s a cop too, and something in her relaxes a little, in that way officers relax around one of their own.
“You been alone all this time?” Lassiter asks.
O’Hara sighs, moves the sunglasses off her eyes to rest them on top of her head. Her eyes are on the road. “No.”
Lassiter nods. “Me either.”
That first night they find an abandoned motel to stay in, a Super 8 that clearly hasn’t been open in months, but there are beds and there are vending machines and the water, miraculously, still runs. They both manage to shower and O’Hara goes to sleep without a word to him. She sleeps like she hasn’t slept in days.
In the morning Lassiter finds one of the dead wandering the halls of the motel and shoots it between the eyes. O’Hara comes running and sees the corpse on the ground. Something in her face tightens and Lassiter isn’t sure if she’s about to vomit or cry or just walk away. Finally, she just says, “I wish you’d used a silencer if you had to use your gun. The sound is going to attract more of them.”
She turns and walks back towards the room they slept in. “Come on,” she says over her shoulder. “We have to leave now.”
She’s not sorry to leave the motel behind. As far as Lassiter can tell, she’s trying to put California as far in her rearview mirror as she can. Lassiter doesn’t mind tagging along. After all, he doesn’t have anything to go back to or anything on the horizon. So he’ll stick with O’Hara. At the very least, she’s quiet, practical, and safe.
The sun puts lighter streaks in O’Hara’s dark blonde hair, and every time Lassiter glances in a mirror (at a gas station, at an abandoned house, a glimpse in the rearview of O’Hara’s dusty pickup) he recognizes himself less. The flecks of silver in his dark hair have become more than flecks lately and oh, he still shaves when he can, just to keep up appearances, just to keep up the illusion that he’s still Detective Carlton Lassiter, SBPD, but those opportunities are fewer and farther between. Anyway, point is, his beard is gray. He’s not even that old, he thinks to himself, but maybe dead people walking around does something to you.
He hasn’t even asked O’Hara her age. From the look of her, she’s anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five, he’s never been a good judge of that kind of thing and more often than not if he tries to guess he offends somebody. So he doesn’t guess.
The nomadic lifestyle they’ve adopted suits their current world pretty well. O’Hara’s car is a blessing, though Lassiter knows fuel is going to get harder and harder to come by. As long as they’re on the move, it’s hard to run into trouble. The dead look for easy prey, and in a car they aren’t easy. Lassiter is concerned about running into people who might make trouble for them on the road, but they get stopped once by looters, asking for the car, and O’Hara gets her gun and puts a bullet in the leader. Not in his head, but his foot.
These days, that’s almost more ruthless.
O’Hara floors the gas and speeds away before the sound of her gunshot draws the dead.
“He’s going to die. You know that, right?” Lassiter says to O’Hara. A bad foot in a world like this is a death sentence; the dead will take him, and even if his friends have a chance to save him it’ll hardly be worth it.
O’Hara shrugs. “Yeah. I know.”
Lassiter knows he shouldn’t try to get to know her when she’s so obviously resisting the notion, but he’s a detective, and old habits die hard.
She keeps her hair in a bun at the base of her neck. She always wears a pair of aviators to shield her eyes from the sun, and sneakers that once were white but are now coated with dirt and grime. She doesn’t have much in the way of possessions, just the car, her gun, a couple changes of clothes and a manila envelope tucked in the pocket behind the driver’s seat. Lassiter catches her looking at the contents of the envelope once in awhile, when she thinks he isn’t looking.
So O’Hara has secrets. Who doesn’t, these days? Secrets and memories so bad they’re unspeakable. Lassiter won’t pry O’Hara’s out of her.
All that’s ahead of them is more dusty roads and deserts and blistering heat. The great American Southwest. “Maybe we should have gone north instead of straight east out of California,” Lassiter mutters.
“If I had gone north I never would have found you,” O’Hara says sharply. “And then you’d be dead on the side of the road somewhere. Is that what you want, Lassiter?”
“It’s not an indictment of your sense of direction, O’Hara, it’s an observation,” Lassiter snaps back.
“I’m not interested in going north,” O’Hara says. “All I want is to get out of this part of the country as fast as possible.”
Lassiter quietly nods. He doesn’t care much where he’s going or how they get there. He contemplates how he’d rather die, by dehydration or by a bite from the dead, causing him to reanimate and develop a taste for human flesh. “O’Hara, promise me something,” he says abruptly.
“Depends on what.”
“If I ever get bit by one of those things, you’ll shoot me in the head before the sickness kills me.” God, he doesn’t want to be a dead man walking. There are theories that a bite won’t necessarily kill and turn you. Lassiter has known people who have successfully survived a bite to the arm – by amputating the arm. He supposes if it came to that, and O’Hara were confident in her abilities to stop the bleeding, he would be all right with that too. But a bite to the shoulder, the neck, face, anything like that, Lassiter would prefer to take the quick way out.
O’Hara takes a long moment before answering. “Wouldn’t hesitate. As long as you’d do the same for me.”
“O’Hara, I’d put a bullet in your head in a heartbeat before I let them turn you.”
O’Hara’s lips curl upward ever-so-slightly.
“O’Hara, is that a smile?”
She’s back to stone-faced so quickly Lassiter could almost believe he imagined it. “I’m just grateful I won’t have to shoot myself when it comes to it. Don’t think I’d have the guts.”
They find a town. They find a neighborhood of two-story houses, which Lassiter prefers because the dead seem to have a difficult time with stairs. They set up camp in one of the houses and then go on a supply run.
There’s a strip mall with a grocery store and O’Hara sweeps anything canned or boxed that hasn’t been already picked over into her basket. “Do you ever feel strange doing this?” O’Hara asks Lassiter. “You know. Looting.”
“I don’t really do it.” Because of how strange it feels.
O’Hara snorts. “What the hell did you do before I found you?”
“Ate what I had left in the house. Hunted. You know.”
“Lassiter, sometimes I wonder about you,” O’Hara mutters, turning a can to read the label. “How do you feel about green beans?”
“No particular way.” Lassiter grabs a bottle off the shelf. “How do you feel about scotch?”
They drink the bottle, and then some, because whoever lived here was clearly a whiskey connoisseur. There’s a balcony off the master bedroom of the house they’re squatting in and that’s where O’Hara takes her hair down from her bun, sun-lightened waves cascading down her shoulders. With a sigh, she leans over the edge of the balcony, mostly-empty bottle in her hand. “Lassiter,” she slurs, “I really fuckin’ killed that guy, didn’t I?”
Lassiter leans over the railing with her, unsteady on his feet but less drunk than she is. “Yes,” he says bluntly.
“Oh God, I shot him in the foot.” O’Hara lowers her head to rest it on the railing. “He won’t stand a chance if the dead came and you know they came because I fired my weapon – “
“Now, O’Hara, you have no way of knowing that,” Lassiter says firmly. “And he was trying to take our car, and where would we be without that? Getting by on foot?”
“Oh God. Oh my God, Lassiter, they would have torn him to p-pieces, do you think his friends watched or ran away and let him – “
“O’Hara, enough!” Lassiter says loudly, but it’s too late, O’Hara breaks down sobbing with her head in her arms.
There’s a lot Lassiter could say to try to make her feel better – it was us or them, you didn’t have a choice, if you hadn’t done it someone else would have – but he doesn’t think any of it will do any good. O’Hara used to be a cop, and Lassiter can tell from the little glimpses he gets when she lets her guard down that she was one of the good ones, one of the one who took Protect and Serve seriously and put the lives of others ahead of her own. Lassiter guesses she probably never even fired her gun while on duty, maybe once or twice at most.
She’s pretty green, he thinks. Or was, before all this.
There are a few of the dead wandering the neighborhood streets below. Nothing dangerous, not yet, but dimly Lassiter thinks maybe the both of them getting drunk isn’t the safest idea they’ve ever had. He wraps his arms around the weeping O’Hara and pulls her to the door. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
She’s crying so hard her entire body is shaking, crumpling in on herself and between that and the alcohol she can hardly stand. “I killed him. I killed him, Lassiter, I should be dead, too – “
“No,” Lassiter says, sounding almost petulant. “You shouldn’t be dead, because then you wouldn’t be here with me. You shouldn’t be dead because then I’d be dead.”
“Maybe we both should be dead,” she mumbles. It’s dark inside the house, the two of them just silhouettes against the doors to the balcony.
“Maybe the people who are still alive are alive for a reason,” Lassiter says.
“I didn’t peg you as somebody to believe in fate,” O’Hara says.
“I don’t.” Lassiter guides O’Hara to the bed. Whoever owned this house before obviously had money, and everything is still pretty much intact, so at least O’Hara has someplace comfortable to sleep before she wakes up with a splitting headache. He lets O’Hara fall onto the bed, where she keeps crying, and then he goes and gets a bottle of water from one of their bags.
“Here,” he says, handing the bottle to O’Hara. “Drink some of that.” He’s pretty sure O’Hara is about to either pass out or cry herself to sleep.
This is about more than just the carjacker, he knows that, but he’s not going to ask her to elaborate.
O’Hara clumsily opens the bottle of water and chokes down a little of it, spilling some down her chin. “I’m sorry,” she gasps, still seemingly unable to get a grasp on her tears. “You didn’t sign up for this when you got in the truck.”
“O’Hara, it’s fine,” Lassiter says. “We all have to let it out once in awhile.”
“Where you gonna sleep?” O’Hara asks, hiccupping, still slurring her words.
“There’s a guest room down the hall, but I saw some dead still walking the streets, so maybe I’ll stay up and keep ‘em away.”
“Don’t fire your gun,” O’Hara says emphatically.
“I won’t.”
“Mean it, Lassiter.”
“I won’t. You go to sleep.”
O’Hara nods her head, and as if her strings have been cut, she collapses back onto the pillows, asleep. Just in case, Lassiter nudges her onto her side so she can’t choke if she throws up, and leaves the room.
He slides to the floor in the hallway outside the master bedroom. He’s dead tired himself, but there’s something in him that says he should stay awake. If O’Hara’s threatened, she’s in no condition to defend herself, so he’ll do it for her if he has to.
Lassiter wakes the next morning with a stiff back from sleeping against the wall, and he finds O’Hara chugging water from the bathroom sink. She looks awful and smells worse.
O’Hara apologizes for her conduct the night before and cautiously asks Lassiter if she’d talked about anything but the carjacker. Lassiter shakes his head, and she’s visibly relieved.
This isn’t a bad place to stay awhile, Lassiter thinks, if O’Hara wants.
He’s not trying to make them into something they’re not, really he isn’t. They’re both just trying to survive. However, O’Hara’s been running since the day he met her, and he has to wonder if there’s anything that could make her stop.
“I think we should stay here,” Lassiter says to O’Hara as the two of them eat boxed mac-and-cheese that O’Hara looted from the grocery store and Lassiter heated up over a fire he started in a backyard fire pit (again, he thinks, this neighborhood had money).
O’Hara pauses, lowers her fork and looks at him, expression ever-so-slightly worried.
“Just for a few days, at least,” Lassiter says. “You’re dehydrated after last night and I don’t like the idea of not knowing the next place we’ll find running water.”
O’Hara rolls her eyes. “Have you never had a hangover, Lassiter?”
“Not at the end of the world,” he answers.
O’Hara shrugs and mumbles something that sounds like assent.
It’s better if they can stay inside if they can today, anyway. They’re somewhere in New Mexico, Lassiter is pretty sure. Outside in the heat the air reeks of the dead.
O’Hara goes upstairs after they eat and Lassiter finds her flipping through the contents of her manila envelope, which she quickly tucks away when she notices him, shoving it under the mattress in the master bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower,” she says, getting to her feet and hurrying past Lassiter without a second glance.
Lassiter sits down on the edge of the bed and eyes the corner of the envelope poking out from under the mattress.
He shouldn’t look. He should be a better person than this, but – it’s true that O’Hara is hiding something. That would have been more than enough justification for Lassiter to snoop, pre-apocalypse.
If he just takes a peek, that’s not that bad, right? He won’t rifle through everything, he’ll just reach in and grab the first thing he touches and put everything else back.
Lassiter has the envelope in his hand before he can think about it, and then he flicks it open and pulls out a square piece of cardstock – a postcard, actually, with a picture of the Golden Gate bridge. Stamped from San Francisco and addressed to O’Hara in Santa Barbara. The message is written in a bold, expressive hand.
Jules!
S.F. lovely this time of year! Apartments lovely, and expensive! Wish you were here but your job is very important. Thanks for taking care of Gus and my dad while I’m away, I know Gus frets so when I’m gone. Anyway, hope you like the postcard. I’ll be back in a few days. Until then, be careful out there, detective! See ya soon.
Love (love love love)
Shawn
Lassiter feels dirty having read it, and he slides the postcard back into the envelope.
It’s just an envelope of mementos. Keepsakes. It’s smart, actually, to hold onto things like that, Lassiter should have had the sense to do what O’Hara clearly did, and grab a few things before he left home for the last time.
There are other things in the envelope, other papers, but he won’t read the rest – though he does feel what seems to be a photograph, and he can’t resist pulling it out.
It’s a photo of O’Hara with a young man, her hair down and a flower tucked behind her ear. Her arm is around the shoulders of the man and her cheek rests against his shoulder. Her smile is wider than Lassiter knew her capable of. The guy with her is dressed in bright colors, grinning just as wide as she is. There’s a ring on O’Hara’s finger, and Lassiter knows she doesn’t wear one now.
Suddenly it strikes Lassiter that this is what most people would probably consider a gross breach of privacy and he quickly stuffs the photo back into the envelope and shoves it under the mattress. O’Hara comes back a few minutes later, dressed in her worn-out jeans and a faded t-shirt, toweling her hair dry. She furrows her brow. “What’s you doing?”
“Nothing,” Lassiter says too quickly, which only makes O’Hara frown at him.
“Did you go through my stuff?” O’Hara says in a disappointed voice that tells him she already knows he did. It’s that she’s disappointed, not angry, that surprises her.
“I may have opened the envelope,” Lassiter says. He doesn’t look at her.
O’Hara sighs. “I’m surprised you haven’t before. Unless you have and I didn’t notice.”
“I haven’t,” Lassiter says emphatically. “And I only looked a little!” He pauses. “I’m sorry, O’Hara.”
O’Hara sighs again, closing her eyes and putting a hand to her forehead. “Lassiter, it’s fine. I just – I don’t want to know what you looked at and I don’t want to talk about it. Okay? Maybe someday…but not now.” She lowers her hand and gives him a tight-lipped smile. “What, did you not trust me or something?”
Lassiter shakes his head. “No, I trust you. You’re a very capable and competent woman. I guess….old habits, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” O’Hara sits down next to him, her arm barely brushing his. “I’m glad I met you. It’s been a shitshow, sure, but at least we met each other.”
“Yeah,” Lassiter says. “Rather be here than somewhere alone. I’d probably be dead in a ditch.” He laughs. “You wouldn’t be, though. You’ve got good survival instincts.” He looks sidelong at O’Hara and sees her face as gone hard again, and she’s worrying her lower lip. Impulsively, he places an arm around her. “Well, even if you didn’t, I’d still have your back.”
O’Hara smiles a little. “Thanks, partner.”
Lassiter likes the sound of that. Been awhile since he was part of a team.
One early morning during their stay in the quiet subdivision, Lassiter jerks awake to the sound of a car driving slowly through the neighborhood. Immediately he seizes his gun and checks the ammunition – he’s low, they’ll have to make a run for more – and creeps out of the bedroom. As he makes his way down the hall he raps his knuckles on the door of the room where O’Hara’s sleeping. He pushes the door open enough to sharply say, “O’Hara, get your gun,” and he keeps moving.
Moments later he hears O’Hara behind him. “What happened?” she asks softly, enough sense to understand that Lassiter is being quiet for a reason.
“I heard a vehicle,” he says tersely. There’s every chance the people in the car aren’t any different from them, good people doing their best to survive in the new world, but Lassiter and O’Hara have both seen enough to know that there’s also a chance they’re dangerous. Despite it all, Lassiter still intends on keeping his life.
Lassiter and O’Hara silently move down the stairs into the dining room, and Lassiter throws back an arm to keep O’Hara away from the window. Her pickup’s in the driveway, there’s nothing to be done about that, though Lassiter wishes he’d thought to have her park some distance down the street.
A dirt-encrusted Toyota is rolling to a stop across the road from the house. It’s filthy, covered in grime, but streaks of brilliant blue are visible underneath the layers of dust and muck. Before it even completely stops, the passenger door opens and a man leaps out, darting across the street to where O’Hara’s car sits, looking – Lassiter hopes – for all the world abandoned there in the driveway.
Lassiter’s detective instincts activates, reading the man like he would a suspect – older white male, late fifties, balding and dressed in short sleeves. The man peers through the window of the truck, then motions to his companion across the street, a younger Black man Lassiter guesses is closer to O’Hara’s age. The young man runs to his companion and the two of them confer urgently next to the pickup. They’re too far away for Lassiter to hear them, so he turns to O’Hara, crouching behind him out of sight from the window.
“Two men,” he relates. “They’re in the driveway. I can’t tell if they’re armed, but if we wait – “
“Juliet!” the young man outside suddenly bellows, and O’Hara’s eyes go wide.
“Jules!” yells the older man.
Lassiter looks out the window, then back at O’Hara. He grabs her by the arm and tugs her close enough to see through the blinds. “Do you know them?”
O’Hara’s face is frozen in shock. “Oh, my god,” she murmurs, and holsters her gun.
“What are you doing?” Lassiter demands. Outside, the two men have split up and begun walking opposite directions around the house, still shouting O’Hara’s name.
“I know them, Lassiter. It’s okay.” Without another word, O’Hara pushes past him and goes to the front door.
“O’Hara, get back here!” Lassiter hisses as she unbolts the door.
She glances back at him. “Come on. It’s all right.” She steps outside, and Lassiter, in a split-second decision, rushes after her.
O’Hara dashes down the steps into the driveway. “Henry? Gus?” She pauses next to her truck, turning her head right and left to glance in the directions the men have gone.
The young man is there first, barreling back from around the corner. “Juliet!” He throws himself at her, engulfing her in a hug. The other man is back a split second later and the second O’Hara is free, he hugs her too, and Lassiter can see O’Hara’s face crumple.
“Do you know how worried we’ve been?” demands the older man.
“I left a note,” O’Hara says, letting go of him and wiping her eyes.
“Oh, you left a – hear that, Gus? She left a note.” His voice is dripping with sarcasm.
“A note,” the other man says, “like once we found it we were gonna be okay with her running off on her own. Like we don’t care about her or something.”
“I haven’t been on my own.” O’Hara finally glances over her shoulder and motions to Lassiter. The two men look at him warily, like they’ve only just noticed him. “This is Carlton Lassiter,” O’Hara continues as Lassiter approaches. “Lassiter, this is Henry Spencer and Burton Guster - Gus. Henry was a cop, like we were.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and folds her arms, looking down at the ground.
After a moment of hesitation, Henry extends a hand to shake Lassiter’s. “Good to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Lassiter says warily. The name Gus rings a bell – thanks for taking care of my dad and Gus – well, Henry is certainly old enough to be the father of someone about O’Hara’s age.
“Juliet, what were you thinking?” Gus says sharply. “Why did you run away?”
O’Hara huffs and doesn’t meet his eyes. Lassiter has never seen her looking so vulnerable. “I – you know why, Gus. Wasn’t it clear?”
“Oh, the note was clear.” Gus’s voice is ferocious. “What I don’t understand is why you thought we wouldn’t understand, or want to be there for you, or need you to – “
“All right, all right,” Henry breaks in. “Listen, Juliet. We’re just glad you’re all right. Okay?” Henry meets Lassiter’s eyes. “And I’m glad you haven’t been alone. It’s not good for you, after everything.”
“I’m sorry I took your truck.” O’Hara’s eyes are still on the ground.
Henry shrugs. “It’s okay. Glad you had it, and we’ve made do with the Blueberry. I rode Shawn’s motorcycle for awhile til it ran out of gas. Figured it was easier to….” He trails off, apparently seeing something in O’Hara’s face. “Anyway. Good to see you.”
“You too, I’m glad you’re both okay.” She finally lifts her eyes and clears her throat. Then her eyes widen as they alight on something behind Henry and Gus and she reaches for her gun. Lassiter follows suit, following her gaze.
One of the dead is slowly hobbling up the street, the walking, emaciated corpse of a young woman. Lassiter gets it in his sight, prepares to fire, then Henry quickly says, “Don’t shoot!”
Lassiter doesn’t, and watches as Gus draws a hunting knife from his belt, strides quickly to the dead woman, and stabs it through its brittle skull, black blood spattering his shirt. It lets out a choked cry, and collapses. Gus looks a little sick, but shoves the knife back into the leather sheath at his hip. “It’s so quiet here,” Gus says. “I don’t think we should draw their attention with, you know….”
Guns. Lassiter pauses a moment and holsters his gun. “We know.”
“I know Juliet knows,” Gus says, a little pointedly. He’s still eyeing Lassiter a little suspiciously. Lassiter can’t blame him; he hardly likes being around strangers these days either. But O’Hara seems to trust these two, and Lassiter trusts O’Hara.
Henry speaks up. “Gus and I have been on the road all night. I saw we passed one of those big Target stores a few miles the other direction. Why don’t I take Lassiter here on a supply run, and I’ll leave the two of you?” Gus looks at Henry quizzically, but Henry just nods. “If it’s all right with you, Jules.”
O’Hara hesitates. “Of course.” She looks at Gus’s blood-splattered shirt. “Whoever lived here left some clothes behind – we can find you something new and…talk, I guess.” Another pause. “I’m sorry, Gus.”
Gus shrugs. “I was angry for awhile. Not really at you, though, just….everything. Grief is strange.”
“I’m still angry,” O’Hara says softly. “At everything, but mostly me.”
Gus goes to her and hugs her again, tightly. “Don’t be,” he says, almost too quietly to hear. “It wasn’t your fault, it was – “
Henry touches Lassiter on the arm, and tilts his head to the dirty blue car. “We should give them some time.” He turns and walks across the street.
Lassiter flounders a bit. O’Hara is deep in conversation with Gus. “O’Hara.” He clears his throat, then raises his voice a little. “O’Hara!”
She stops talking and looks at him, a little worried. Lassiter falters again. “Hey, I’ll be back, all right?” he finally says.
O’Hara nods. “Be safe, okay?”
It feels strange to walk away from O’Hara and leave her behind. He hasn’t done anything without her in months; their relationship has felt purely professional, but Lassiter likes her – more than he’s liked anyone in a long time.
The car ride with Henry is silent for the first couple of minutes, then Henry says, “Look, I don’t know you, but if Juliet trusts you, that’s good enough for me. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“How long have you known O’Hara?” Lassiter asks.
Henry shrugs. “Three years, I guess. Before the dead started walking again, at least. Everything blurs together nowadays. I met her not long after she moved to California from Florida. She’s a sweet girl. Good detective.”
Lassiter hums in agreement, though he might not have used the word “sweet” to describe O’Hara. She’s tough as nails, though the hard exterior has seemed ever more brittle lately.
“How much has she told you?” Henry asks haltingly.
Lassiter shakes his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. She hasn’t wanted to talk about whatever happened before she met me and I figured – well, I wouldn’t push her.” He pauses for a moment. “Does she – I mean, does she have anyone else? I don’t know if she was even trying to get anywhere in particular, she always just….drives.”
Henry shrugs, clearly at a loss. “She didn’t tell us anything. Gus is a little upset about it, but cut her some slack. She obviously needed some time. I know she’s got family back in Florida, a brother in the military, a dad she doesn’t talk to….I don’t know. She’s been through a lot lately.”
Lassiter could have told Henry that much. He’s no doctor and he doesn’t think much of psychiatrists, but anyone can see O’Hara’s coping – or not coping - with something. He asks, even though he probably shouldn’t, because he probably already knows, “Who’s Shawn?”
Henry is silent for a long moment, navigating the mostly-deserted suburban roads, then finally answers, “Shawn was my son.”
He did know – of course he did, he’s a detective and the postcard and the photo made things pretty clear. “I’m so very sorry.”
“Thank you,” Henry says shortly. “Thought she didn’t tell you anything.”
Lassiter clears his throat. “I saw something of hers. A note. By mistake.”
Henry scowls. “Come on, really? You read it?”
“I’m sorry,” Lassiter says, feeling hot shame pool in his stomach. This man’s son is dead, probably a terribly unkind death, and Lassiter’s casually piecing together his life like there’s no one left who still cares for him. “I can’t imagine.”
Henry grunts. “You got kids?”
“Me? Oh, no.” Thank God. Not because he necessarily didn’t want them, but navigating a divorce and an apocalypse with children in tow sounds like actual hell, instead of the metaphorical hell the divorce already was. “No, divorce got finalized right before the world went to shit, so never really had the chance.”
“Another divorced cop, very original,” Henry says dryly. He glances at Lassiter sidelong and adds, “My marriage ended almost twenty years ago, so I get it. Sorry.”
The divorce doesn’t hurt half as bad as losing one’s child must, and frankly the onset of the end of the world curtailed any residual emotions related to his marriage ending. Or maybe Lassiter’s just like that. Out of sight, out of mind.
“How long have you and Jules been hiding out in that subdivision?” Henry asks him abruptly.
“Few weeks. It seemed safe enough. Water still runs, so that’s a perk.” A thought occurs to Lassiter and he asks, “How’d you find her?”
Henry shakes his head. “We weren’t looking! Only thing we knew is she probably tried to leave California, but we didn’t know where she’d go. Gus’s parents were on vacation out east when everything started, and my ex-wife was in Boston for a conference, so…we thought we’d head that direction. Took a lot of back roads, I wanted to steer clear of highways. We just happened to pick the same god damn middle of nowhere town she did. And then I saw the truck. My truck, by the way, she did steal it.”
“I don’t normally condone felonies but I’m glad she did,” Lassiter says.
“I am too, but my God. I didn’t know if we were about to find her or her body or somebody else in the truck who’d tell me they stole it from her – thank God. Thank God she’s okay.”
Okay is relative, but O’Hara is certainly breathing
The Target Henry spotted on his way through is mercifully empty and somehow not yet picked clean, with a moderate selection of canned products. The abandoned self-checkout machines still display a cheery “hope you had fun on your Target run!”
Halfway through the houseware section they run into a pair of the dead, which Henry doesn’t hesitate in shooting. He gets a look on his face after, like his mind is somewhere else, and Lassiter nudges his arm. “We should go before the sound – “
“Draws more of them, yeah,” Henry says shortly. “God, they don’t move very faster but they’re sneaky motherfuckers, aren’t they.”
They load canned food into the back of the little blue car – as much as they can around Henry’s truly impressive gun supply – and start back to the house.
They’re about halfway there, taking the back roads Henry prefers, but as they round a bend Lassiter sees a pair of cars ahead blocking the road – a pickup truck and a beat-up van. Henry hits the brakes, slowing to a stop several yards away from the blockade. “What now?” He frowns, looking deeply troubled. “You have your gun?”
Lassiter reaches for his shoulder holster. “You shouldn’t even have to ask.” There are people milling around the vehicles ahead; Lassiter can see about four men and one woman, all of them armed. It’s no army, but they’re certainly outnumbered. His gaze drifts to the far side of the pickup truck and he actually jumps. Two of the dead are tied as if on leashes to the car door handle, their hands and feet shackled, but they strain and growl and snap their jaws at anything that comes near them. Like attack dogs.
Lassiter touches Henry on the elbow and points wordlessly. Henry groans when he sees. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
They exit the car together, both with their guns at the ready. The group of people ahead of them move to the front of their vehicles. There is no sound except the growling of the dead. Henry lifts a hand placatingly. “Hello there.”
“Hi, friend.” The speaker is a man, medium height, with dark hair and a red sleeveless shirt, holding a hunting rifle. He smiles in a way that doesn’t look friendly. “Where ya headed?”
“Just looking for somewhere safe to hunker down for a day or two,” Henry says, guarded. “Same as you, I imagine.”
The man smiles and puts a hand to his chest. “My name’s Matt. My buddies here are Tim, Emma, Charlie, and Bryan.”
“What about the two on leashes?” Henry asks sardonically.
Matt laughs. “Hey, even these days you gotta have pets. Do I get to know your names or what, friend?”
“Henry,” he says, and gestures to Lassiter. “My friend Carlton.”
“Been traveling together long?” Matt asks conversationally, like they’re meeting at a bar and not on a back road with two reawakened dead men straining at their leashes.
“Awhile,” Henry answers.
Matt’s smile widens. “Just you two?”
“Yeah,” Henry says shortly. “We both lost somebody some time back. Sort of stuck together ever since.”
“So sorry, man. Who’d you lose?” Matt’s voice drips with false sympathy.
“My son and his wife died around the same time.” Henry’s voice is tight. Lassiter’s impressed. Henry’s thinking on his feet and coming up with a story with just enough truth to it to be convincing.
“Condolences,” Matt says. “That’s tough. Too much loss these days.”
“No kidding.” Henry glances sidelong at Lassiter. “Now – we’re just trying to get past here, I don’t suppose you’d mind letting us through?”
Someone behind Matt giggles – Emma, a pale young woman with long dark hair. Lassiter looks at her, and she’s looking at him. She tips him a wink and addresses Henry. “Does he talk or what?”
Lassiter glares at her. “I talk.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she says cheerily.
Matt’s gaze falls on Lassiter and his eyes widen a little. He holds up a hand, silencing the woman. “Quiet a minute, Emma.” He takes a step closer to Lassiter. “Haven’t we met?”
“Can’t say I remember you,” Lassiter says. He wants to raise his gun, but the only thing that’ll do is probably get him and Henry shot.
Matt keeps his eyes on Lassiter and motions to somebody behind him. “Bryan, come here.”
Bryan’s sitting on the bed of the pickup, a hunting rifle over his shoulder. He’s shorter than Lassiter by several inches, a stringy-haired punk with dark eyes. When he walks over to Matt, he moves with a pronounced limp.
As Bryan comes closer, there is something familiar about him, but Lassiter can’t place it. Still, he has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Bryan, we’ve met this man before, haven’t we?” Matt says, and his smile is much more sinister. He’s almost giddy at the prospect.
“Not very kind of you to forget about me.” Bryan speaks in a slight Southern drawl that sounds almost friendly, but his eyes are cold. “Though maybe you had to, to live with yourselves.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Where’s the little blonde you had with you before?”
Everything falls into place. The limp, the dark eyes, the rifle – this is the man who O’Hara shot in the foot and left for dead. Lassiter can’t keep his face blank in this moment; he knows they’ll be able to read his surprise.
Bryan’s lips curl into a smile. “Now you remember.” Bryan saunters forward, as smooth as he can despite the limp. “Did he tell you the story, old man?” Henry doesn’t say anything, and Bryan tuts. “Last time I saw this guy,” he jabs a thumb in Lassiter’s direction, “his lady put a bullet in my foot. Lucky for me the only things that came when they heard the gunshot were Tweedledee and Tweedledum over there.” The two dead chained to the truck struggle and snap. Bryan turns back to Lassiter. “Still, not a very nice thing to do.”
“You tried to steal our car,” Lassiter says stonily. No, it wasn’t nice what O’Hara did, but it also wasn’t nice for Bryan to try to steal their vehicle and leave them stranded without transportation.
Bryan tilts his head to Henry. “You said his wife’s dead. That mean her? If it’s her, I sure am sorry.” Bryan slowly walks closer to Lassiter – slow, because that’s all his foot will allow. “Sorry ‘cause I really hoped I’d see her again. I think if I saw that little bitch again I’d put a bullet in her foot, see how she likes that. Do you know how much it fucking hurts to get shot in the foot?” Bryan’s voice rises in volume, spittle flying from his mouth as he grows more and more manic. “See how she likes being left for dead, huh! Maybe I’ll stand back and watch her try to crawl away while the dead close in on her. Watch the fear on her face.”
Lassiter can’t help laughing derisively. “I’d like to see you fucking try. You’re stupider than you look if you think – “
“Oh, you think you’re gonna save her, man? You think I wouldn’t blow your brains out first?” Bryan laughs. “No, man, I’ll let her watch me kill you, then I’ll let my pals back there off their leashes, you get me?” His eyes are wild, manic. “I’ll let ‘em kill her, and I’ll let her come back, and then I’ll put her on a chain like these other two. And then I’ll win.”
Lassiter seizes the man by the front of his shirt and slams him against the side of Henry’s car. “Listen, you little creep, if I catch you anywhere near her I’ll break both your fucking kneecaps. I’ll make sure you never walk again.” He gives Bryan a little shake. “Get me?”
Behind him, Lassiter hears the clicks of the safeties on several guns. He sighs, and reluctantly lets go of Bryan and lifts his hands. Bryan straightens up and smooths his shirt. He casts his eyes toward the backseat of the car. “Nice little arsenal you got.”
Henry does, indeed, have a lot of guns in the little blue car.
“Come on, gentlemen!” Matt says, sounding altogether too thrilled by the proceedings. “Let’s keep things civil!”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Henry says firmly, grabbing Lassiter by the arm and pulling him away from Bryan. “Look, obviously there’s some bad blood here. Why don’t you let us head on our way and we won’t bother you again?”
Bryan points at Lassiter. “Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot him right here.”
“Come on, Bryan,” says one of the other men – Lassiter thinks it’s Charlie, who looks to be the youngest of the group. He laughs a little. “It was a carjacking that went wrong, not a murder.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Bryan looks at Lassiter coolly as he saunters past. He pauses to spit at Lassiter’s feet, and Lassiter’s instinctive reaction is to reach for his gun, which is the wrong move because it’s apparently all the motivation Bryan needs to lunge at him.
Bryan catches Lassiter around the neck and knocks him backward into the hood of the car. Lassiter’s head bangs against the hood and he’s momentarily dazed. Luckily enough for him, Bryan doesn’t have a good grip on his throat, and Lassiter manages to knock his hands away and kick him in the knee, sending him to the ground. Bryan grabs him by the ankle and tries to drag him to the ground; Lassiter manages to keep his footing. By now everyone is yelling, crowding around them and trying to separate the two, and it’s only when a gun goes off and Henry lets out a yell of pain.
“Get off me!” Lassiter gives Bryan a final shove and draws his gun. “Nobody fucking move!”
Henry is on the ground, clutching his bleeding left shoulder. The shoulder isn’t the worst place to get shot, but Lassiter certainly can’t take him to a hospital. “Everybody stay back!” Lassiter shouts again as Bryan moves like he’s about to come closer.
Charlie is white as a sheet, holding his handgun. “It went off by accident, man.”
“I don’t care.” Lassiter reaches down and grabs Henry by his good arm, hauling him to his feet. “We’re going. If I see any of you following us there’ll be hell to pay.” He helps Henry into the passenger’s seat, gets in the driver’s seat himself, and throws the car into reverse. They peel away from Bryan and his crew and head for the highway.
Henry groans from the passenger seat. His hand is red with blood. “Keep pressure on it,” Lassiter tells him sternly, pressing his foot to the gas pedal.
“No shit, Detective, thanks,” Henry snaps. “Thought I’d rather not bleed to death!”
Lassiter slams on the brakes there in the middle of the empty street. He’s wearing a flannel button-down over a t-shirt, and he takes the flannel off and thrusts it at Henry. “Use it as a compress.”
“Thanks,” Henry says grudgingly, and presses the balled-up shirt to his wound. “You got a plan to deal with this?”
“O’Hara has a first aid kit,” Lassiter says as he starts driving again. “I’ve seen a gunshot wound or two before. We’ll deal with it.”
“Can’t wait.” Pain and blood loss are clearly making Henry cranky. “Speaking of Juliet, what the hell was that about?” When Lassiter glances at him quizzically, Henry elaborates, “She shot a guy in the foot?”
“Well, yeah.” Lassiter’s a little surprised he didn’t recognize Bryan and Matt immediately, but he supposes it had been dusk the last time he and O’Hara encountered them. It had been clear at that time that Bryan had no intention of letting them drive away in their truck, and it had also been clear that Bryan didn’t care whether he left Lassiter and O’Hara dead or alive. O’Hara had drawn her weapon, and Bryan taunted her, saying he didn’t believe she had the guts to kill him. Lassiter still remembers the stony look on her face when she fired at his foot. The distraction was all they needed to get away.
Henry shakes his head. “You haven’t known her as long as I have. I don’t know if she even discharged her weapon once when she was on the force.”
“With due respect, you’ve known her a long time, but not these last few months,” Lassiter says dryly.
“I’m just saying it’s not like her,” Henry says, and he eyes Lassiter inscrutably.
Lassiter knows O’Hara well enough to get that vibe too, but he doesn’t care for the way Henry’s asking about it. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I forced her to pull the trigger.”
“Hmm.” It’s more of a snort than anything else; Henry’s clearly in pain and Lassiter is glad they’re not far from home base.
Lassiter restrains himself from arguing with Henry while he’s bleeding. “It’s nice of you to worry about her, but O’Hara can take care of herself.”
“I know she can,” Henry snaps, and then grimaces in pain. “What do you say you step on the gas, huh? Not like I’m bleeding out here or anything.”
“You’re not bleeding out.”
“Dawdle long enough and I will be.”
Lassiter bites his tongue and floors it.
The neighborhood is, mercifully, as quiet as it was when they left, and O’Hara’s truck is still in the driveway. On the ride back, Henry and Lassiter did what they could to patch up Henry’s wound, which mostly means Lassiter took off the button-down he was wearing over his t-shirt and Henry’s been using it as a compress. The bullet didn’t go through his body, which Lassiter supposes is a good thing, but that does mean Henry has a bullet in his shoulder that somebody needs to get out.
“O’Hara, get the first aid kit!” Lassiter yells as he and Henry stumble through the front door. He guides Henry to the living room. “Lay down in here.” He lowers Henry to the floor and grabs a pillow from the couch just as O’Hara and Gus run in.
“What happened?” O’Hara demands, handing him the first aid kit she’s been carrying since he met her.
Lassiter flips the case open and digs around for what he needs. “Ran into an old friend of yours.” He glances up and meets O’Hara’s bewildered eyes. “The man you shot in the foot is alive. Congratulations, O’Hara, you’re making enemies!” He flashes her a quick grin, but stops when she doesn’t smile back. “Uh, I think there’s a bottle of vodka in the liquor cabinet, would you mind grabbing it?”
“I’ll get it,” Gus says, touching O’Hara on the shoulder as he hurries off.
“Great,” Henry says, sounding pained. “I could use a shot.”
“It’s to disinfect the wound,” Lassiter says. He’s found a pair of medical scissors and is using them to cut away the sleeve of Henry’s shirt.
“I know that, Lassiter,” Henry snaps. “God, you act like I’ve never been shot before.”
Gus returns with the vodka and hands it to Lassiter. While Henry is distracted, Lassiter splashes some on the bullet wound, which makes Henry cry out in pain. “Sorry,” Lassiter says. “Talk to O’Hara. I’m gonna get this bullet out of you.”
“Fantastic,” Henry says through gritted teeth. O’Hara comes and kneels on Henry’s right side.
“I can’t believe he’s alive,” O’Hara says, almost under her breath.
“This is good news for you, isn’t it?” Lassiter begins to dig into the wound with a pair of tweezers, looking for the bullet. “Now you don’t have to feel bad about dooming somebody to a horrible death. Relax,” he snaps at Henry, who’s tensed up considerably.
“Oh, sorry, Doctor,” Henry growls. “You imagine having somebody you just met perform surgery on you.”
“It’s barely surgery,” Lassiter shoots back. “Quit acting like you’ve never been shot before. O’Hara, distract him.”
O’Hara squeezes Henry’s hand. “I’m sorry my shooting a guy got you shot.”
Henry laughs breathlessly. “Hey, do what you gotta do, Juliet.”
“Yeah,” O’Hara says doubtfully. “Maybe it wasn’t my finest moment.”
“If you hadn’t done it we could’ve lost the truck, and we’d have been the ones who could’ve died. I don’t know about you, but I prefer not getting torn apart by dead people.” Lassiter’s found the bullet now; he’s just working on getting it out without damaging Henry’s shoulder even worse.
“Right.” O’Hara exchanges a look with Henry. “We’re alive, so that’s what matters.”
Lassiter removes the bullet with a final swift motion. “Got it!”
“Ouch,” Henry says.
Lassiter gets to work on bandaging the wound. “Not quite out of the woods yet. Need to get this wrapped up so the bleeding stops.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Gus announces.
Lassiter points. “Bathroom’s down the hall.”
They get Henry patched up as best they can. Lassiter feels like they might have to make a run for more medical supplies; they don’t have anything in the way of painkillers aside from half a bottle of Tylenol. Henry growls at him that he doesn’t need painkillers, which makes Lassiter roll his eyes, because, yeah sure. There’s a small room off the downstairs hallway that has a pullout sofa, and O’Hara gets Henry set up in there so he has somewhere comfortable to rest. Henry complains about it the entire time, but they’re clearly not going anywhere until Henry’s healed up a bit. Lassiter wants to get out of this house as soon as they can after their encounter with Bryan and his crew, so all the more reason to want Henry to recover quickly.
Lassiter washes Henry’s blood off his hands and catches sight of O’Hara, standing on the front porch. Lassiter dries his hands and goes outside.
“I think your friend thinks I’m a bad influence on you,” he says.
O’Hara looks up at him. “You? On me? Henry said that?”
“Right, I should’ve told him it’s the other way around.” Lassiter grins, but O’Hara once again doesn’t smile back. “No, look, all he said was he was surprised you shot somebody in the foot and it sounded like an accusation.”
That actually makes O’Hara laugh. “Yeah. Well, Henry would think that.” She rubs a palm over her eyes with a sigh.
“You okay?” Lassiter asks.
O’Hara drops her hand from her face and smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. It’s good to see Henry and Gus. Really.”
It doesn’t sound like it is. Lassiter jerks a thumb toward the truck. “If you wanna pack up and make a run for it, say the word.”
O’Hara laughs again. “Maybe you are a bad influence.” She shakes her head. “No, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t.”
Lassiter knows that. He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “Hey, just so you know, I know about Shawn.”
O’Hara stiffens. “I know you looked at my stuff,” she says. “That’s not news.”
“I know. Henry told me a little more.” A very little more. Enough. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I just wanted you to know I know, so you don’t have to…..” Have to what, hide it? Walk on eggshells? “You don’t have to worry,” he finishes a little lamely.
“I’m not worried,” O’Hara says shortly. “I’m glad you know. If you want to know more, I’m sure Henry and Gus will tell you.”
“O’Hara, I didn’t mean – “
“I know you don’t mean to do anything, but I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Okay, good.” O’Hara turns away from him. “I’m gonna go check on Henry.”
Lassiter closes his eyes. He’s said something wrong again. “O’Hara.”
“It’s fine, Carlton.” She smiles at him again, though it doesn’t reach her eyes, and hurries back into the house. Lassiter resists the urge to yell after her.