Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Levi
The enthusiasm of the applause surprised me.
I didn’t consider myself a dynamic public speaker, yet somehow, I’d held the interest of the entire lecture hall during my presentation.
The questions that followed were thought-provoking, which led to more questions, and before I knew it, class was ending.
Tristan grinned and gave me a double thumbs up.
I glared at him. He was supposed to stop me twenty minutes before class ended so he could talk about his experience as a rookie.
I started making my way over to him, pausing whenever a student stopped me with a question or just to thank me for my time.
“Coward,” I said, taking a seat in the chair beside Tristan while Professor Exton stood nearby talking with a few students.
Tristan shook his head. “You were locked in, and the entire room was with you.”
“That was a great presentation,” Professor Exton said, walking toward us. “I’d love for you to speak with my master’s class sometime, Levi.”
“Aren’t most of them already cops?” I asked.
“They could still learn something from you,” Professor Exton said.
“It’s true, man,” Tristan said. “I learned something today, and you’ve been mentoring me for a year.”
“They’re master’s students, Tris.”
“And you already have your master’s,” he countered with a shit-eating grin.
“Have you ever considered teaching?” Exton asked me. “Several of my adjunct professors have full-time jobs and teach a class or two on the side.”
“Hold up there, Professor,” Tristan said, the smile slipping from his face. “I bet none of them are cops. Word is Levi’s being promoted to detective soon, so he can’t be tied to a class schedule.”
I hadn’t heard anyone talk about the detective spot except Chief Fitzwilliam, though Tristan was tapped into the station gossip far more than me.
It was nice to hear everyone thought I was getting the job, and Tristan was right that it could lead to more work hours.
Part of why I moved to Peace Falls was to find more balance in life, and if things kept going well with Everly, I didn’t want to be spending my free time grading papers, no matter how much fun the last hour had been.
Professor Exton held up his hands. “Had to try.”
“I’m happy to talk to your master’s class,” I said.
More than happy, really. I was curious about the differences between the classes.
What the undergrad class lacked in experience, they made up for in genuine curiosity and enthusiasm.
In a lot of ways, the class mirrored the more meaningful discussions I’d had with Tristan over the past year, moments when I felt like I was actually helping him grow into the incredible cop I knew he could be.
“Do you think you could email them about the event this weekend?” Tristan asked. “We could use all the help we can get the day of.” It was a question I should have asked. For someone who wasn’t an official volunteer for Springboard, my partner was sure pulling his weight.
“Of course,” Exton said, tossing his leather messenger bag over his shoulder. “I’ll send a reminder to today’s class as well. Have everyone sign in, so I can give them the extra credit we discussed. Thank you both. I have to get to office hours.”
After the professor left, Tristan laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shot down Exton’s adjunct offer. You should have seen your face when he invited you back to speak with his master’s class.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t have time for anything official,” I said.
“You sound disappointed,” Tristan said, studying me.
“Just tired,” I said, instead of admitting that I was.
I’d been going full speed for weeks with my job, plus evenings approaching places for Springboard.
Not to mention the hours I spent with Everly long after I should have been sleeping.
As incredible as the sex was, our talks were usually what kept me up at night.
Our childhoods. Our dreams for the future.
As much as we tried to avoid it, sometimes our careers slipped into the conversations.
Our work was simply too big a part of our lives not to, but we’d avoided any discussions that could involve her clients, including the narcotics operation on campus.
“Feels weird being back here in uniform,” Tristan said as we left the building.
For weeks we’d been in plain clothes, but we both decided uniforms made more sense for a presentation to a class.
“You don’t think it will hurt our cover any, do you?” Tristan asked as students moved out of our way on the sidewalk.
“What cover?” I said, laughing. “Anyone paying attention to our faces the first few months we were on campus would recognize us. The plain clothes are just so we blend into crowds.”
Tristan frowned. “I noticed you didn’t answer that one question about the Peace Falls police presence on campus.”
“Never comment on an active investigation,” I said, and because I was a cynical bastard, I added, “for all we know, that kid was part of the dealer network fishing for intel.”
Tristan’s mouth dropped open. “I hadn’t considered that.”
I nodded. “The most successful criminals know how the system works. You wouldn’t believe the number of criminal justice majors and lawyers involved with organized crime. Got to understand the system to beat it.”
Tristan shook his head. “That’s fucked up, but it makes sense.”
Several shouts for help rose from the other side of the quad. Tristan and I took off toward a gathering crowd.
“He’s ODing,” a young woman yelled when she saw us running toward her. The crowd parted and a young man lay motionless on the ground.
“Call it in,” I shouted to Tristan as I kneeled beside the guy. “Name?” I asked the woman who had spoken to us.
“Jack,” she said on a sob.
“Hey, Jack,” I said, shaking him. “You OK? Can you open your eyes for me?”
Even as I spoke, I checked his pulse and breathing.
It was slow, too slow, and his lips were turning blue.
I checked his airway, rolled him on his side in case he puked, and shot a dose of NARCAN up his nose.
Thank fuck we were in uniform. I carried doses in my Jeep but not always on me when I was off duty. “First dose 16:06,” I said.
Tristan repeated the information to dispatch while I spoke to the woman again. “Do you know what he’s on?”
She shook her head, her face filled with panic. “Some pills.”
“More than one?” I asked.
She nodded. “He had trouble swallowing the first one, so he asked to borrow my water.”
“Did he appear high before he took them?” I asked. No telling what combination we were dealing with.
“I don’t know,” the woman said, her voice going shrill. “Is he going to die?”
“ETA?” I asked.
“Seven minutes,” Tristan answered.
“Too long,” I said.
Tristan pulled the NARCAN from his uniform and handed it to me.
We’d practiced this scenario before but never performed it together.
I didn’t miss the slight shake in Tristan’s fingers when he handed me the spray.
Campus police arrived and started pushing back the onlookers and clearing a path for the paramedics.
“Hey, Jack.” I tried again. The guy remained unresponsive, his breathing and pulse still too slow. I kept trying to rouse him until enough time had passed to administer the second dose. “Second dose 16:09.”
Within moments, the guy’s pulse picked up, and I relayed the information to Tristan.
“Hey, Jack,” I said, shaking him. “Can you open your eyes for me?” His arm moved beneath my hand. “Jack,” I said again, and his eyes fluttered open.
“ETA three minutes,” Tristan said, the relief clear on his face.
By the time the paramedics arrived, the guy was talking, incoherent, but talking. Campus police had done a great job controlling the crowd, but there was still a massive group watching as Tristan and I followed the stretcher to the parking lot.
“How close was he to dying?” Tristan asked after the paramedics had loaded Jack into the back of the ambulance. “If we hadn’t been right there.”
“Campus police carry NARCAN, so he might have made it.”
“But if he’d been alone?”
I didn’t answer him.
Tristan muttered a curse.
“Hey,” I said, pounding him on the back. “You handled that like a pro.”
“I know him,” he said quietly. “Jack. Not well, but we had a couple classes together.”
“Which makes how you handled the situation even more impressive,” I said, softening my voice.
The memories flooded back. Adrenaline had kept me focused in the moment, but with the situation handled, images of Hayden’s last moments played out like a never-ending scene from a horror movie.
One second, he was fine. The next, he wasn’t.
Until he ODed, I had no clue he’d been using, and unlike today, I didn’t have NARCAN.
I’d searched him for a dose and only found more drugs.
When he stopped breathing, I did CPR until the paramedics arrived.
I’d replayed those minutes countless times.
Rationally, I knew I did everything I could. It didn’t stop the guilt.
No doubt the experience of watching a former classmate overdose had tweaked Tristan, which was the only reason I had the strength to say what I needed to instead of falling apart.
“It’s hard when you know the person you’re trying to help,” I said. I blew out a breath and forced out the words. “I was with my last partner when he overdosed. He wasn’t as lucky as Jack.”