Chapter 7
Elenie
It was a five-minute walk to the library and the sidewalks were quiet.
Pine Springs was rarely buzzing. The town didn’t attract tourists, other than those passing through. But somehow Diner 43 stayed busy, due to a lack of competition from anywhere other than the single coffee shop, next to the hardware store. Main Street wasn’t so much of a street as a row of buildings, with a gas station at the top end (which charged more than the one a couple of exits down the highway) and the library—Elenie’s home from home—at the other, next to the fire station. In between, there was a bank, post office, pharmacy and a small handful of businesses that made life comfortable for the townspeople.
She’d asked after a job at the library more times than she cared to remember, but they were never hiring. Or never hiring a Dax, more likely. The head librarian—Elfrida Alberty’s daughter, Josephine—had even turned down her offer of doing volunteer work.
Pushing open the large wooden door, Elenie stepped inside. She slid her backpack from her shoulder, unzipped the main compartment, and returned a couple of books. The only other person in evidence was a young woman with an enviable mass of long dark hair, sitting at a nearby table. She had her nose buried in a book and was scribbling notes on a pad resting alongside. Elenie craned her neck but couldn’t read the title.
It was so peaceful in here. No sound except the rise and fall of indistinct voices drifting in the air from across the room, one lower than the other, both hushed.
Elenie checked out the “New In”
section, found nothing she hadn’t already read and crossed to th.
“Crime and Mystery”
shelves. Sometimes a well-written police procedural could make even her own life seem mainstream.
“Hit me with your best plot twist,”
she muttered to herself, her head at an angle to read the spines.
“That’s a brave request.”
Elenie startled.
“My English teacher in tenth grade said it’s the unexpected that changes our lives. No idea why those words stuck with me when so much else didn’t. I must have been concentrating that day.”
Roman Martinez leaned casually against the end of the bookshelf, his legs crossed at the ankle. He tossed his car keys from hand to hand, toned arms flexing under rolled-up shirtsleeves, and Elenie straightened. The whole unnerving picture was too delicious to view on a tilt.
“It’s a good quote,”
she said, surprised at how measured her voice sounded.
“Makes the unexpected more inviting somehow.”
“It does.”
He studied her in silence.
Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. Elenie tried not to chew her lip as she automatically scanned the area for an audience and came up empty.
She had yet to decide what she thought of the new chief of police, other than him being the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. And possibly the most dangerous, too. But looks could be deceiving, and the jury was still out on whether the former Golden Boy would be an improvement on Chief Roberts in the long run.
“I came in to see Miss Alberty, but I’m glad I spotted you. We need to speak.”
Martinez straightened, and in a handful of fluid strides, he was towering above her.
“Why?”
Elenie couldn’t keep the worry from her question. His face seemed to soften a little, but it was hard to tell, backlit as he was by the afternoon sun streaming in through the windows.
“You’re not in trouble. It won’t take long. Do you mind if we sit?”
He gestured to a worn leather couch nearby.
Elenie gave another quick glance side to side but couldn’t think of a legitimate reason to refuse. “OK.”
Uniform impeccable, tanned and lean, a pair of sunglasses tucked into a breast pocket, Martinez dazzled her. As he had done every time she’d seen him. Elenie sat down carefully at one end of the couch, tugging at her skirt to cover her thighs. He took a seat as well, leaving as much space between them as the furniture allowed. A dozen possible reasons why he might be wanting a few moments of her time ran through her mind. None of them good.
“I think I owe you an apology.”
He looked around at the rows of shelves.
“Oh?”
Internally, she cuffed herself around the head for her pathetic conversational skills but surprise had stolen her words.
“I’m still familiarizing myself with my team and everything that’s gone on in the time I’ve been away. That’s going to take a while. Most of it doesn’t concern you.”
Elenie tipped her head to look at him, enjoying the chance to study the distinctive lines of his face, the incongruous imperfection of that narrow scar (a fight? An accident? Broken glass?), while he focused on something else. The breeze from an overhead fan ruffled his hair and Elenie itched to do it instead. Thick and messy, it fell where it wanted, unwaxed, soft and appealing. He smelled undefinably appetizing—of warmth, the outdoors, soap, and himself. His pheromones tapped her pheromones on the shoulder and asked if they’d like to dance.
When he turned and caught her staring, his eyes were too black to read.
“What’s not OK though is what I’m hearing about you. What I’m finding out about how you’ve been treated by Chief Roberts.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again, completely taken aback.
“You’d have a strong case if you wanted to file a complaint. There are officers who’d be willing to support you in that if you wish. And I will give you my backing as well.”
His voice was grim and rough.
“You deserve better, Elenie. Persecution does not sit well with me and I won’t stand by knowingly and let it happen.”
He sounded a little bit pompous, a little bit stilted, as if the words weren’t flowing too easily for him either. As if he’d maybe practiced them in advance but found it harder in person. It helped somehow. Some of the tension dissipated like dandelion seeds and Elenie considered how to reply. They both sat in silence. She flicked at the pages of the book in her hand. Sometimes, there was nothing to offer but the truth.
“Chief Roberts had no reason to be a fan of my family.”
Achingly uncomfortable, she couldn’t look at him.
“They’ve run rings around him for years. My stepfather’s just smart enough, just enough of a loose cannon, to make his job extremely difficult. Scarier men than Chief Roberts handle him with care. I guess it was easier for the chief to take his frustration out on me. I’m fair game.”
Martinez frowned.
“No, you’re not. The law is supposed to be impartial and objective. It sounds like Chief Roberts abused his position. You have options if you want to take this further.”
She wondered if he really meant that.
“My family is an unholy mess. I’m not after sympathy or revenge. I just want to be left alone.”
Elenie glanced sideways, caught his gaze, and immediately slid her eyes away again.
“Thank you, though. It means a lot that you would take the time to say what you’ve said.”
“We all make our own choices, Elenie. For some people, that takes a hell of a lot more courage and determination than it does for others.
“Quem n?o tem c?o ca?a com gato.”
He blinked.
“And that means?”
“‘He who doesn’t have a dog, hunts with a cat.’”
Elenie eyed him steadily.
“It basically means you do what you need to do with the resources you have. It’s Portuguese.”
Slowly, very slowly, the corners of his mouth curved into a cautious smile. It was hesitant, like something little used that had been dusted off and brought out for a special occasion. In the space of seconds, Roman Martinez went from distracting to devastating.
“If we remain on the same side, I will give you any support you need.”
“Great. That’s just—great.”
Elenie tore her eyes away from him, with a mental kick to reboot her brain and remove her heart from her throat. Safe topic. For God’s sake, find a safe topic and find it quickly. But she didn’t have the confidence to know where to start.
Chief Martinez climbed smoothly to his feet.
“I have a call to make at the fire station, so I’d better get on. I’m glad I caught you.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
Elenie murmured a goodbye. Her gaze followed his broad back until her view was blocked by a row of shelves. She fought the sensation of being reeled in like a lake trout, but it was a losing battle.
Over the next week, while she walked to work, took food orders, served drinks, and chatted to diners, she replayed the police chief’s words and killer smile on repeat. She had thought nothing changed in a small town like Pine Springs, but here he was—the unexpected—and suddenly her world held just a little more hope and a little more promise than it had done for as long as she could remember.
Elenie found herself hyperaware every time the door to the diner swung open. She absolutely wasn’t waiting for Roman Martinez to walk in and take those long, unhurried strides to the counter to order himself a hot tea. He wasn’t occupying her mind any more than should be expected—any more than any other customer.
Much.
Out of necessity, Elenie kept herself to herself. She’d learned it was better that way. Nursing a magnetic attraction toward the new police chief, of all people, was as sensible as offering to floss the teeth of a tiger. At best, she should be hoping for a genuine ceasefire in hostilities, but already she felt lighter. Energized. And it wasn’t all down to the relief of escaping from the oppressively sizable shadow of Chief Roberts.
Elenie knew little about Martinez other than the few snippets she’d overheard here and there, but she had begun to collect information about him. He’d grown up in Pine Springs, was a five-tool player on any baseball field that would have him (Nathan Reyes was still telling anyone who would listen) and seemed to send the temperature of almost every female within the town boundaries soaring—other than possibly Delia, whose veins Elenie suspected were filled with formaldehyde. The rest of his family were local. She’d served all of them in the diner, though not regularly, and his closest friend was an accountant with a small firm just off Main Street. Like she did most people in town, Elenie knew Milo Walker by sight, but had never said more to him tha.
“Here’s your Americano.”
Martinez had left Pine Springs in the same year the Daxes had arrived. He’d progressed through the ranks of the Detroit PD, was on track to make lieutenant at a young age, and now he’d returned, unexpectedly. There were few further details that could be gleaned by eavesdropping. Unless you listened to the more bizarre gossip, that is—and there was always bizarre gossip in Pine Springs. Most of it sounded so wildly improbable it couldn’t be true. As a seasoned victim of inaccurate chatter herself, Elenie felt a tentative kinship with Roman Martinez, which strengthened with every unlikely tale that reached her ears.
“Morning, Otto.”
She smiled at her favorite customer as she passed him with a tray of bagels and coffee.
“How are you today?”
“Definitely the better for seeing you.”
The silver-haired charmer twinkled over his cinnamon Danish. As always, warm bubbles of pleasure burst under Elenie’s skin at the way his face lit up when he saw her.
“I could join you for a go at the crossword in a minute. I’m due a break soon.”
“Praise be! I’m getting nowhere with it today. I think my brain cells are dying off quicker than I can stimulate them with sugar. Hurry, girl—hurry!”
Elenie was laughing as she grabbed the next tray. Facts were her thing. You knew where you were with a crossword. People, not so much, but letters in boxes—yup, she could do that. Carrying a couple of hot drinks and some fresh brownies over to a table by the door, she fumbled her grip as she recognized Dougie Taggart’s girlfriend, Summer Daley.
“Two coffees and two brownies.”
Elenie laid the plates on the table.
“Good choice. The brownies are freshly made. They have walnuts in them.”
Three cheers for Most Vacuous Statement of the Day.
Opposite Summer, fanning herself with a laminated menu, was Caitlyn Walker, wife of the police chief’s best friend. Fiery red curls spilled over her shoulders, her pale, rounded cheeks dotted with enough freckles to make cute war with sexy. Caitlyn gave her a measured look but didn’t smile.
The girls met several times a week at Diner 43. Summer’s open, friendly face had never been open or friendly toward Elenie, even if neither woman was outwardly rude. They were polite but reticent, and that was it. If sometimes Elenie’s chest ached from hearing them laugh, seeing their closeness as they swapped news and chatter, well, that was something she’d learned to deal with. Being on the outside wasn’t a new experience for her.
Summer cleared her throat, a flush high on her cheekbones.
“Hey. I want to thank you for looking after Dougie when he had his accident. He said you were so calm and helpful.”
Her fingers fidgeted around the handle of a teaspoon.
“I hope he’s doing OK?”
Elenie ignored the thanks, unsure of the right response.
“Better by the day—and a little embarrassed, I think, which is nuts. He says there’s nothing cool about being shot with a BB gun by kids.”
“Would have been worse if they shot him in the ass.”
Caitlyn’s dry aside made Elenie’s mouth twitch.
“Sorry.”
Summer gestured to her friend.
“This is Caitlyn. We were at school together.”
Elenie’s eyes flicked to the redhead, then involuntarily down to her stomach and back up again.
“Yup, due in the fall,”
Caitlyn confirmed with an eye roll and a lazy drawl.
“I’m praying for a baby so good it teaches me all the shit I need to know.”
Elenie relaxed a fraction, enjoying her easy humor.
“I hear parenting’s a piece of cake. I mean, how hard can it be to take one hundred percent responsibility for a small human?”
Caitlyn gave a guarded smile and took a huge bite of brownie.
“I guess Officer Taggart’s still off work?”
Elenie asked, for want of something else to say.
“Roman’s told him he can go in for desk duty next week,”
Summer said.
“Dougie’s not good at resting. He’s bitching about not getting the dressing wet yet and pacing around our apartment, threatening home improvements.”
She winced.
“Last time he tried to change a washer on our kitchen faucet, we had to clean the dishes in the bathroom for a week.”
“More than three hundred people each year are killed falling off a ladder,”
Elenie remembered.
“Tell him he should quit while he’s ahead.”
Summer and Caitlyn blinked in unison.
“Weird fact,”
stated Summer.
Delia yelled Elenie’s name across the diner.
“Hey! I’ve got orders stacking up here!”
“I’m so sorry. I’d better—”
“No, I’m sorry.”
Summer gave a grimace of understanding.
“We didn’t mean to keep you.”
“It was nice to meet you properly anyway.”
Elenie shared a small smile with the two girls.
“Maybe, if you were free sometime, would you like to come out for a drink with Cait and me? One evening—perhaps Friday next week?”
Summer looked like she even meant it. Caitlyn’s expression didn’t change.
Walking back toward Delia’s impatient glare, Elenie raised one hand in an awkward wave as a swirl of warmth spread through her chest.
“I’d like that, thanks.”
Would it happen? She doubted it. But an unfamiliar bounce stayed in her step for the rest of the day.
She heard the bite of strong words the moment she opened the front door and her jaw clenched. For a second, Elenie considered going somewhere else, anywhere else, but she was tired, and gray clouds, heavy in the sky outside, threatened an evening rainstorm.
An object hit the floor of the living room with a bang.
“I’m not asking, I’m fuckin’ telling you. If I don’t have it in forty-eight hours, I’ll be paying you a visit. And I won’t be bringing apple fuckin’ cobbler.”
Frank’s ominous monologue rolled through the small house, thick and dangerous. She couldn’t hear anyone else; he must be on the phone.
Gripping her hoodie close to her chest, Elenie moved soundlessly down the hall and darted up the stairs to her room, closing the door behind her. Dean’s bedroom door was also shut, but the lack of music told her he wasn’t inside. With any luck, they’d think she was out too. No one paid much attention to her coming or going. Being forgotten or ignored was usually the best-case scenario. And she still had one last new book from the library so the evening wouldn’t drag.
Getting anything from the kitchen was unwise in the short term. When Frank was kicking off, staying out of his way was essential. Fortunately, in the pocket of her hoodie, she’d tucked a napkin-wrapped pecan pastry from the diner.
Who needs a balanced diet anyway.
The irony never escaped Elenie that, despite smelling of fried food almost all the time—the combined scent of cooking fats and caffeine clinging to her hair and her clothes, stuck in her nostrils 24/7—her stomach was rarely full. And neither were the cupboards in the kitchen. They’d never been .
“wholesome meal around the table”
kind of family.
One day, she swore to herself, she’d have a place of her own. An oasis of calm, cleanliness, and fresh groceries. She’d get so far away from this house that it would only be a bad memory in a sea of contentment and exciting experiences. In the meantime, she’d plan, manifest, dream, and scheme her way toward financial independence and emotional emancipation. Things would change. She’d make them change.
Roman Martinez had not been wrong when he’d said she deserved better.
Elenie lay back on her thin mattress, staring up at the ceiling, and tried to think of two men who were more opposite ends of the spectrum than Chief Martinez and Frank Dax.
Shameless, cunning, and unpredictably vicious, her stepfather was always on the lookout for the next way to screw someone over, right a perceived snub, or bend a law in his favor. He took pride in breaking as many as possible when bending didn’t work. A barging ram of muscle, force, and noise. No subtlety, no nuances. He was a man of self-serving actions, almost all of them unethical.
Roman Martinez seemed to wear his scruples like armor. There was something innately dependable about him, as if he would show up whenever he was needed, deal with any problem thrown at him, and tie off all the loose ends. Hard to read on the surface, maybe. From their limited number of meetings, Elenie suspected he had more going on than he cared to reveal. He was clearly happier to listen than talk. But she thought he might be someone you could rely on. Sincere, honest, and utterly decent.
And hot, she added to herself. My god, the man was hot. A breathtaking mountain of sexiness, impossible to ignore. His body was ridiculously toned. Chief Roberts may have ruined her appreciation for a uniform until now, but only a dead person could fail to notice how Roman Martinez wore his like a made-to-measure suit. And Elenie was far from dead.
She was also a realist. Most likely, there was an equally attractive and intimidatingly successful girlfriend waiting at home for the police chief. Respectable and confident. Someone with qualifications, a career path, savings. Someone whose mother wouldn’t blot her lipstick on a lacy thong pulled from her jeans pocket.
Grabbing a pillow to prop herself up on the bed, Elenie reached for the E.V. Huxley book she’d just begun. A distraction was necessary; no good could come of pipe dreams. Once he’d been back in Pine Springs for more than a few weeks, she’d be lucky if Roman Martinez ever spoke to her again. Outside of a police cell, that was.
Footsteps sounded on the landing and Elenie’s eyes flew to the door handle as it turned. Athena didn’t bother to knock; she never did. Her mother sauntered in, a chipped mug in her hand.
“That for me?”
A smile lifted Elenie’s lips. She could kill for a coffee.
“I wasn’t sure you were home.”
Athena took a long sip and leaned against the closet at the foot of Elenie’s bed. It wobbled alarmingly. Ash from the cigarette in her other hand dropped onto the carpet. She rubbed the toe of her boot over it, blowing a stream of smoke through Cranberry Kiss–colored lips. Elenie sighed and studied her, wearily.
“Got any cash?”
Athena asked.
“I’m going food shopping.”
By food, she meant drink. And by drink, she meant vodka.
“I’m all out. Frank’s already had my wages for rent.”
She’d be damned if she’d give up the few tips she had in the pocket of her hoodie.
Athena eyed her suspiciously and pulled open one door of the closet. There wasn’t much inside but she jiggled the front of Elenie’s denim jacket in the hope of hearing coins, huffing when it made no sound at all. Elenie raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.
“They never tell you raising kids will be so expensive,”
her mother groused around the cigarette.
“This family keeps me poor.”
Sober Athena without access to a drink could be as self-absorbed as Drunk Athena.
“I don’t ask you for money, Mom. And I buy my own food.”
The emptiness in Elenie’s stomach swelled to fill her chest. Her mother’s comment wasn’t an original one. Nor was her own response.
“I just want some vodka. It’s not too much to ask for,”
Athena mumbled without heat. She stubbed her cigarette out on the side of the closet and dropped the butt onto the floor.
Elenie was tired, hungry, and done with this conversation.
“Nor is a carpet without burn holes and the chance to bring home a nice boyfriend, but I’m not doing so well there either.”
Her mother gave her a hard look. She muttered something dismissive about the male population of Pine Springs and drifted back out of the door.
Elenie closed her eyes, her book falling into her lap. She wondered what it would feel like to be part of a normal family.