Nowhere To Run by Carolyn Davidson

me with a list of clients who lost money through Harmon. Terry claims to have left all records and client details at the office.”
    “I’m sure he did,” Ankor snorted derisively. “There have been three different occupants in that office since Terry left; it’s a high turnover position. But our files are an open book, I’ll give you the number for internal audit and they can get you what you need.”
    “Thanks,” Susan responded, ending the call. Lucky her; it looked like a visit to the city was in the cards. If someone had a vendetta against Terry Harmon it seemed more likely they would target him than his daughter, but it was a potential motive, and it bore looking into. She looked thoughtfully at the paper in front of her, imprinted with her scribbled circles within circles. It would be her first time back to the city in what must be three, probably closer to five years. No more than a few hours in decent traffic but it felt like a lifetime away.
    Never in her wildest dreams growing up would she have imagined ending up in a blue uniform. She’d always had plans, alternate routes mapped out in her child’s, and then teenager’s mind, that would lead her to a streamlined suit in an air conditioned office, a crisp white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck. Or, first choice for a long time, to a chair in a wide windowed air control office, overseeing plane routes, ensuring each aircraft followed its preordained path to a safe landing. As long as it was something foreign to the faded apartment couch her father spent the large portion of his days on, worlds away from the numbing background babble of other people’s lives on the television that was always on.
    It was the policeman from Dawes Street, although she’d have to be pressed hard to admit it. His movements had been purposeful, while the group gathered around the boy prone on the sidewalk appeared stuck in time, a frozen image describing tragedy. Women’s faces stretched into masks of pantomime horror, and the two boys, almost men, turned feral and unrecognizable by the violence overtaking sense in their eyes.
    Susan had been a part of the passing crowd, with little investment in the players she didn’t know. Shocked along with the rest of the crowd at the speed with which violence could erupt through the commonality of a weekday morning routine.
    Of course she was concerned for the boy, whose face paled as his shirt stained a darker red with blood. And of course she felt horror that human nature could result in such violence on an ordinary blue skied day. But it was the policeman she had fixed on; he alone was doing something, making things happen to bring order to the chaos, to put things back to right.
    So it was a blue police uniform and a badge, much to her teachers’ surprise, her father’s ridicule, and her friends’ consternation. Not that there were many friends; somehow an absent mother and a father attached to a bottle didn’t bode well for the light-hearted giggles of girlhood confidences.
    It was a choice she had never regretted. It didn’t come without its own hurdles and barbs along the way. If she had a coin for every, ‘giving away a man’s job to keep the politicians happy’, ‘sleeping your way to the top’, flat out butch, bitch, lesbian labels she’d been given in the span of her career she’d have far more savings that an officer’s salary had afforded her.
    But here she was. Twelve years on the city beat, a lucky transfer to the OPP north of the city, and then a luckier stint honing her skills with Andrews as her mentor. She’d made it to Inspector and she had no regrets. And would keep it that way as long as they nailed Sarah’s killer.
    *
    It wasn’t enough for her. It wasn’t enough that she had Tommy’s full attention. The way he hung off every word she breathed in her light as air voice. The way he put his arm around her at the hint of a chill in the air as though the slightest breeze might blow her