Then Price said, “I wanted to tell you something.”
Alana waited.
“I should have intervened sooner.”
The statement surprised her.
“You had only been on scene perhaps ninety seconds.”
“Ninety seconds can be a long time.”
“Yes.”
Price looked toward the street.
“I knew something felt wrong.”
“Why didn’t you step in?”
“Reeves had ten years. I had four.”
“Seniority.”
“Partly.”
“And the rest?”
Price sighed.
“I didn’t want to undermine another officer in front of a civilian.”
Alana absorbed that.
Price looked embarrassed.
“We were trained on officer safety. Scene control. Unified command.”
She shook her head.
“But nobody talked enough about what to do when the person escalating the scene is wearing the same uniform.”
“That has changed?”
Price nodded.
“Some.”
“Some is not enough.”
“No.”
“But it’s something.”
Price smiled faintly.
“Yes.”
Alana held out her hand.
Price took it.
“I’m glad you came.”
“I should've years ago.”
“Late does not always mean worthless.”
Price looked relieved.
They parted.
Alana walked to her car.
Not the Lexus anymore.
She had traded it two years earlier.
Not because of the incident, she told herself.
She simply wanted something smaller.
She still checked the rearview mirror whenever a patrol vehicle slowed near her.
Some memories lived in the body longer than reason thought they should.
She accepted that now.
On her sixty-first birthday, her niece gave her a framed photograph.
It had been taken unknowingly by someone in the Walmart crowd.
Alana stood beside her SUV immediately after the cuffs came off.
Wrists red.
Back straight.
Officer Reeves blurred in the background.
Alana disliked the photograph at first.
“Why would you give me this?”
Her niece answered, “Look at your face.”
Alana did.
She saw anger.
Fatigue.
Disbelief.
But not defeat.
Her niece said, “That’s how I remember you.”
Alana looked at her.
“You weren’t there.”
“I saw the video.”
“That’s different.”
Her niece shook her head.
“No. I mean after.”
She pointed toward the photograph.
“You could've made the story about being powerful enough to punish him.”
Alana waited.
“You made it about everybody who isn't.”
For once, Judge Alana Pierce had no answer ready.
She placed the photograph in her chambers.
Not prominently.
On a bookshelf beside a picture of her parents.
Visitors sometimes asked about it.
She told them the story.
But she always ended it the same way.
Not with Officer Reeves resigning.