Chapter 1

I unlocked the deadbolt to my apartment and paused, letting out a long puff of air as I focused on the worn door in front of me. Like a gladiator preparing for a fight to the death, I steeled my nerves for the battle ahead.

Ok, so I was being a little melodramatic. But it’d been a hell of a long day and the last few months, almost every night ended in a fight. With one last deep breath I pushed the door open and walked in, almost relieved to find the lights off and the apartment quiet.

I switched on the hallway light and pulled off my uniform cap, setting it upside down on the table by the front door and dropping my keys into it. Kicking off my shoes and sliding them under the table holding my hat, I headed to the bedroom. From the moonlight streaming in through the blinds, I could see the bed was empty.

“Terri?” I called out and received silence in return.

Shrugging, I went to the nightstand on my side of the bed and pulled out the small gun safe I kept in there, punching in the code that unlocked it. Opening the lid, I set my sidearm into it and shut the lid back down, resetting the lock.

This had been happening a lot too, I thought, as I began to shed the rest of my uniform. I’d drag home after my shift and the house would be empty. I couldn’t decide which I preferred, the fighting or the absence. Of course, I was suspicious of my wife’s late-night disappearances, but the ability to relax after a long day without the evening devolving into a screaming match was a big plus.

To be fair, while I found these nights she wasn’t home troublesome, it’s not like I had proof that anything was going on. She always had an excuse for why she was home so late, and they weren’t even unreasonable excuses. She worked as a nurse at St. Barnabas on Third Avenue and the bus routes to our apartment on Arthur Avenue weren’t a straight shot. She was right that it could take a while to make it home once she was on the bus and she was right that the buses were always delayed. But she worked the seven to seven day shift, meaning she started work at seven in the morning and finished at seven in the evening on the days she was scheduled. I worked the four to twelve shifts at the forty-eighth precinct which actually meant I got done around eleven-thirty and made it home just about midnight.

Being on the job, I came in contact with nurses and paramedics on a fairly regular basis, so I knew it wasn’t uncommon for a nurse’s shift to get crazy, forcing her to stay late. And I knew that sometimes another nurse would call in sick, and someone would have to cover. But it seemed to be happening a lot over the last several months, and with increasing frequency.

I’d asked a few of the nurses I know and they all seemed to agree it would be weird for someone who just finished a twelve-hour shift to have to work another five or six hours to cover, and even weirder for that to happen once or twice a week. They all swore Terri was cheating on me, and I guess they were probably right.

What really surprised me was how little it upset me. I wasn’t crazy about my wife stepping out and the general idea of it pissed me off to no end. But when I thought about Terri, specifically, I found I just didn’t care that much. I had passed that at some point in our marriage and all I could manage these days was a weary apathy when I thought about her.

With a stop by the kitchen to grab a beer, I headed into the small living room of our one-bedroom apartment and flopped on the couch. It was late and the city was as quiet as it would ever get, but it always took me an hour or so to wind down from the job, no matter how exhausted I was.

And I was always exhausted. I’d only been out of the academy for two years and they still had me walking foot patrol. My beat wasn’t the worst in town, but it also wasn’t the best. It was rare to go a whole night without having to chase someone down for doing something stupid. Plus, there’s the walking for about five of the eight and a half hours of my shift. It’s an understatement to say my feet hurt when I finally got to sit down.

Thirty minutes later I had polished off three beers and was on the back end of a nice buzz. My head was resting against the wall behind the couch and I closed my eyes for just a moment, trying to relax. I’d planned on getting up and falling into bed in a few minutes, but I was feeling relaxed and didn’t have it in me to move right away. Of course, a few more minutes often ended in waking up three hours later with a massive crick in my neck, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

I was pulled out of slowly falling asleep by the sound of keys in the front door followed by the deadbolt sliding back.

Terri walked in, carrying her large purse and wearing scrubs, although with more makeup on than she normally wore to work and her hair done up, not in a ponytail like she wore most days.

“You’re home late,” I observed.

I didn’t really mean anything buy it. I mostly just felt like I should say something instead of just watching her walk past, but it came out a little harsher than I planned. Maybe the apathy was only on the surface and my subconscious was pissed and venting a little. Who knows?

“What does that mean?” she said, stopping in the middle of the room to glare at me.

“It seems pretty self-explanatory to me. It’s late and you just got home, so ‘you’re home late.’”

I might have been numb to our relationship but getting attitude from her after she’d almost certainly been out on a date with someone else pissed me off. I’d always had an anger problem, which was one of the things she complained about the few times we’d tried marriage counseling, so I was working hard to control it. Unfortunately, my way of keeping my temper in check seemed to always be passive aggressiveness instead.

“F•©k you, Henry. I’m going to bed. You can keep sleeping out here.”

And just like that, all of the techniques the marriage counselor had given me for controlling my temper went right out the window. I wasn’t one of those guys who went with the whole ‘this is my house’ routine since she worked just as long hours as I did and nurses had it pretty hard. That being said, I’d had a long ass day including trying to bring in a homeless guy who was harassing and assaulting passers-by that, when my partner and I stopped to talk to him, whipped out his junk and straight pissed on me. It had been almost an hour before I could get back to the station and get changed into my spare uniform pants, and the shoes would probably stink in the morning, since the best I could do with those was hose them off.

I’d only been out on the couch because I’d been too tired to go to bed, but our couch was uncomfortable and about two inches too short for me to stretch out, which meant I couldn’t get my legs all the way extended but I also couldn’t drape them over the back of the couch, making it all-around uncomfortable.

Mostly, though, was the fact that I’d been at home right after work where I was supposed to be, and she’d been out doing God knows what even though her shift had ended hours earlier. Pointing out she was home late without pointing out that everyone she worked with knew she was sleeping around was an act of charity on my part.

“The hell I will. I wasn’t the one whoring around all night. I’ll sleep where I God damn well want to,” I said, blowing right past de-escalation.

“What did you say to me?”

“You know God damn well what I said. I know you’ve been seeing other guys when you’re ‘working late.’ You realize half the people you work with hate you, right? They straight up told me what, or should I say who, you’ve been off doing when you’re supposedly ‘working late.’ If you think you’re going to get some kind of attitude with me when you’re the one in someone else’s bed, you’ve got another think coming.”

“You know what,” she said, grabbing her purse back up. “I’m glad you decided to be an asshole tonight. I was going to leave this until the morning so I didn’t have to be here when you whined and begged me to stay and try counseling again, but f•©k it. I’ve filed for divorce.”