Hidden Riches

step—perhaps the hardest. The police commissioner had argued, refusing to accept the resignation and putting Jed on extended leave. It didn’t matter what it was called, Jed mused. He wasn’t a cop anymore. Couldn’t be a cop anymore. Whatever part of him had wanted to serve and protect was hollowed out.
    He wasn’t depressed, as he’d explained to the department shrink. He was finished. He didn’t need to find himself. He just needed to be left alone. He’d given fourteen years of his life to the force. It had to be enough.
    Jed elbowed open the door to the apartment and braced it with one of the boxes he carried. He slid the second box across the wooden floor before heading back down the narrow hallway toward the outside steps that served as his entrance.
    He hadn’t heard a peep from his neighbor across the hall. The eccentric old man who had rented him the place had said that the second apartment was occupied but the tenant was as quiet as a mouse.
    It certainly seemed that way.
    Jed started down the steps, noting with annoyance that the banister wouldn’t hold the weight of a malnourished three-year-old. The steps themselves were slick with the sleet that continued to spit out of the colorless sky. It was almost quiet in the back of the building. Though it fronted on busy South Street, Jed didn’t think he’d mind the noise and Bohemian atmosphere, the tourists or the shops. He was close enough to the river that he could take solitary walks when he chose.
    In any case, it would be a dramatic change from the manicured lawns of Chestnut Hill, where the Skimmerhorn family home had stood for two centuries.
    Through the gloom he could see the glow of coloredlights strung on the windows of neighboring buildings. Someone had wired a large plastic Santa and his eight tiny reindeer to a roof, where they were caught in the pretense of flying day and night.
    It reminded him that Brent had invited him to Christmas dinner. A big, noisy family event that Jed might have enjoyed in the past. There had never been big, noisy family events in his life—or none that could have been called fun.
    And now there was no family. No family at all.
    He pressed his fingertips to the ache at his temple and willed himself not to think of Elaine. But old memories, like the ghost of past sins, snuck through and knotted his stomach.
    He hauled the last of the boxes out of the trunk and slammed it with a force that rattled the reconditioned Thunderbird down to its tires. He wasn’t going to think of Elaine, or Donny Speck or responsibilities or regrets. He was going to go inside, pour a drink and try to think of nothing at all.
    With his eyes narrowed against the stinging sleet, he climbed the steep steps one last time. The temperature inside was dramatically higher than the wind-punched air outside. The landlord was generous with the heat. Overly generous. But then, it wasn’t Jed’s problem how the old guy spent his money.
    Funny old guy, Jed thought now, with his rich voice, operatic gestures and silver flask. He’d been more interested in Jed’s opinion on twentieth-century playwrights than in his references and rent check.
    Still, you couldn’t be a cop for nearly half your life and not understand that the world was made up of a lot of odd characters.
    Once inside, Jed dumped the last box onto the oak table in the dining area. He dug through crumpled newspaper in search of that drink. Unlike the crates in storage, these boxes weren’t marked, nor had they been packed with anysort of system. If there had been any practical genes in the Skimmerhorn blood, he figured Elaine had gotten his share as well as her own.
    The fresh thought of his sister made him swear again, softly through his teeth. He knew better than to let the thought dig roots, for if it did it would bloom with guilt. Over the past month he’d become all too aware that guilt could give you night sweats and a dull, skittering sense of panic.
    Sweaty hands and panic weren’t desirable qualities in a cop. Nor was the tendency to uncontrollable rage. But he wasn’t a cop anymore, Jed reminded himself. His time and his choices, as he’d told his grandmother, were his own.
    The apartment was echoingly empty, which only served to satisfy him that he was alone. One of the reasons he’d chosen it was because he’d have only one neighbor to ignore. The other reason was just as simple, and just as basic: It was fabulous.
    He supposed he’d lived with the finer