Five
Cole
Now
* * *
I dropped my phone to the desk and buried my face in my hands. Life, man. It certainly had a way of kicking you while you were down. Some days I couldn’t believe where I was, other days, I didn’t dare look back.
“You all right?”
My partner, Eddy Ferentz, dropped into his chair, the creaking sound making his moves obvious.
I let out a groan and pushed back into my chair. “June’s mad at me. Again.”
June had been mad at me for the last two years. I kept hoping she’d adjust.
She kept wanting her dad and mom back together. Couldn’t blame my four-year-old daughter, but life didn’t give you what you wanted all the time. June was just learning it earlier than most.
And she was not happy about it.
“What was it today?”
I huffed. My little Junie bug’s tantrums were well known in the police department where I worked and had proudly served for the last eight years. “She wants ice cream and thinks it’s stupid I can’t take her out for some tonight.”
“They just went back to Marie’s yesterday.”
“And I’m sure Marie will take her out. She didn’t even ask for it when I had her.”
My custody arrangement was simple, much like my marriage had been, much like the divorce had also been. I didn’t blame Marie for leaving. The blame rested solely on my shoulders. I’d never fully loved her and we both knew it. She was the one smart enough to admit it out loud first. I had a week on, a week off, and if I was called in for a case while I had the girls, either Marie helped out or my family did.
My girls didn’t lack for family in their lives, but Junie wanted her dad. In her home. With her mommy.
“It’s not cool of Marie to keep calling and telling you these things.”
It wasn’t. When I had Ella or June for my week and they got sad, I handled it. Marie had always been softer than me, more of a pushover. She couldn’t help herself from trying to please everyone, and nothing broke her more than alligator tears on one of our girl’s round cheeks.
“June’s a daddy’s girl,”
I told him and then blew out a breath and shook my head. “It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. She’ll adjust.”
Parents divorced. Kids adjusted. Junie needed more time. She was my mini-me in all the ways. When I’d have football on, Ella and Marie would paint their nails and read books or go shopping. Junie would fling her tiny body at mine while we played indoor football with me on my knees. The game usually ended with her on my back, me running around the house, while she single-handedly declared herself the winner.
She had no idea I was the true winner. I had two beautiful girls I couldn’t live without. I won hands down. Every time.
But I wasn’t about to pop Junie’s balloon and tell her that.
“Paxton.”
I turned toward our chief, Tim Lannister. He was leaning half out of his office.
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Need you. Come here.”
I shoved to my feet as Eddy oohed, “Oooh someone’s in trouble.”
I chucked a pencil at him and hit him square between the eyes. “Do something useful with yourself while I’m gone.”
“I hear Heather Samson is single again. I could go do?—”
“Don’t.”
I shivered. I didn’t want to know anything about anyone doing anything with Heather. “Do your job, idiot.”
“Aye-aye, captain.”
I snorted. “Not yet.”
Not even close. I was perfectly content being a sergeant and getting to stay out on the streets with the men and women I supervised. Someday, when I was ready to give that up, I’d be aiming for that job, though.
“Yes, Chief?”
Tim sat in his chair, leaning back in it, while waving me into his office. “Come in. Come in. Have a seat.”
I scanned his cluttered office, stacks of papers piled high, including the two chairs on the opposite side of his desk. The man was an honorable and excellent chief of police, had lived in Deer Creek his entire life, and was staring down the retirement age. He had shining white hair, what little was left, a robust stomach from both age and a fondness for
American beer and had the respect of every man on the force.
He also couldn’t organize his office if his life depended on it. “Where? On the floor?”
“Smart aleck,”
he muttered. “Move that stack.”
He waved his arm toward the chair closest to me. I grabbed the files, set them haphazardly on top of the chair and in their own pile next to me, and said a quick prayer that the whole thing didn’t topple before sliding into the chair.
“So, what’s up?”
“There’s a conference next month I want you to attend. Think you can work that into your schedule?”
Benefits of being in a small town and having a good boss, was the understanding of having to share custody time with my children. “What’s the conference? And when is it?”
“It’s the National Detective’s Conference in Atlanta. Think it’d be good for you to be the one to represent us this year.”
He handed me a flyer for it, and I took a quick glance. “This is for lieutenants and higher ranks.”
“And both Bo and Jack nominated you to be the attendee.”
Bo Parker was our captain and had been for the last three years. Jack was a lieutenant and like our chief, was closing in on retirement age.
“Is that because they hate me?”
Atlanta was my least favorite city on the planet and anyone who knew me for longer than ten years knew exactly why. I’d vowed to never step foot in the state of Georgia if I didn’t need to, and so far, I’d succeeded. Outside of a few bathroom stops on family vacations on the way to Florida, anyway.
“No. Jack said he thinks it’d be good for you to get the experience in the training, and Bo said if he attends another conference this year, he’s going back to being a street cop. So, you’re next.”
Atlanta. If it were anywhere else, I’d jump at this opportunity. It was ridiculously stupid to boycott an entire city, but my impulse was to say no.
“It’s three days,”
Chief continued, like I wasn’t having a crisis of morality mixed with stupidity. “Can you clear your calendar?”
I scanned the pamphlet again. He’d probably already reserved my spot since the deadline was near. Probably had my hotel room booked too. I didn’t actually have a choice in this unless Marie would refuse to help with the kids, and that wouldn’t happen.
Besides, some of the sessions would be helpful. We were a small town, but we tried to stay up to date with the newest technologies. A sprawl from larger, neighboring towns and a boom at a nearby university hit Deer Creek about six years ago and since then our population doubled. So did our crime. Most of it was petty crime. But domestic violence was on the rise, as well as drugs. Learning more de-escalation techniques was always helpful. As well as community building.
“I’ll go.”
I folded the pamphlet. “Anything else you need from me?”
“Update on the call we got about the Humphrey boy?”
A call came in from a teacher at the middle school for possible child abuse. “I’ve put Nix on it. She’s meeting with Thomas at the school first.”
“Good call,”
Chief said and nodded.
I didn’t quite need the approval. I’d been in this town my whole life, in the police department as soon as I graduated the academy, entering after my second year of college and decided doing the four-year thing wasn’t for me. At twenty, I went to the academy and several months later I was back here in Deer Creek, driving a patrol car and writing traffic violations. I’d worked hard since then, though, and I knew the chief respected me. But Sarah Nix was the best officer for cases like this, mostly because she was one of the few female detectives we had and the school resource officer, Bill Thomas, tended to overwhelm the middle school kids with his booming personality.
The kids loved him, and he was great with them, but he was employed through the county sheriff’s office, not the local police.
“Thanks.”
“Good. Now if you don’t have questions for me, you’re excused.”
“None at this time, sir.”
I shoved to my feet, crumpling the pamphlet in my hand, and headed back to my desk.
Eddy was tossing a stress ball in the air, feet kicked up on the desk when I reached mine. “You fired?”
“Worse.”
I tossed the pamphlet in his direction. “I have to go to Atlanta.”
His brows popped high on his forehead, and he kicked his feet to the floor. “There’s a half a million people in that city.”
“Yup.”
When Trina Mills decided to get rid of our baby, break my heart, and skip out of town with a smile on her face twelve years ago, saying I struggled was putting it mildly. It was half the reason I dropped out of college. I couldn’t focus. Could never stop thinking of her. She made it worse by occasionally sending me letters, hoping things were going well for me. She rarely apologized, at least not after the first couple of times.
I should have burned them all, but I didn’t.
It didn’t matter where she’d been or what magazine cover she eventually starred on, I couldn’t get rid of her.
And now I was going to Atlanta… where her husband was the General Manager of the Georgia Gators, their professional football team, and former CEO of one of the largest, and most well-known technology companies.
“There’s not a chance you’ll see her.”
“Probably true, too.”
It didn’t matter that I wouldn’t see her.
She’d still be everywhere.
“You still don’t want to go.”
“Not a chance.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
Eddy moved to Deer Creek eight years ago, a couple years after I started on the force. We were partnered together because he had more experience, but I knew the town and people. Chief figured the locals would trust him faster if he was seen with me, and I could learn from him.
It hadn’t taken him much time at all to learn the historical gossip of my high school crash-and-burn relationship with Trina. Over time, I’d filled him in on the rest, which meant he was one of three people in my life I’d ever told.
“That really sucks for you.”
“Thank you,”
I deadpanned. “So very compassionate.”
“What can I say?”
He smirked. “I’m a compassionate man.”
“Right.”
“Now about Heather Samson…”
I flung a pen at him.
Atlanta…here I come.