Chapter 5 Asher
Chapter five
Asher
My office isn’t fancy—just a door with my name painted on the glass and a desk that’s seen better decades—but it’s quieter than the bullpen. Most mornings I hide here long enough to attack paperwork before the day decides what it wants to be.
Out in the squad room, my deputies are trading stories over coffee that tastes like scorched earth. I sign one last line on an incident report, set my pen down, and lean into the doorway.
“Little quiet today, huh?” I say.
Chairs freeze. Mugs hover midair.
Deputy David Joel slaps a palm to his forehead. “Boss, you did not just say the Q word.”
Across the room, Deputy Gary Quick starts packing his bag. “Nope. I’m going home. Grab me if the frogs start raining.”
I blink. “It’s an observation, not a summon.”
David points his coffee at me. “You never say it’s quiet, Sheriff. You’re begging the universe to throw a pie.”
“Pretty sure the universe is indifferent to our pie.”
“Tell that to the raccoon-in-the-bathtub call last week,” Gary mutters. “And the monitor lizard in the basement. I still have nightmares.”
I’m about to make a crack about them being dramatic when the phone on my desk rings. All three of us look at it like it bears the mark of doom.
I sigh, retreat, and pick up. “Sheriff’s office, Vaughn.”
“Sheriff, this is Nora Alvarez at Town Hall.” Nora’s been the town clerk since before half the signs in Golden Heights were painted. Her voice is brisk, but today there’s something frayed under it. “I’m calling with a favor. Personal.”
I straighten. “What do you need?”
“It’s Melissa Edwards. She’s got chemo in forty minutes, and she’s dug her heels in.
Her son Will’s up at the county offices and can’t get here in time.
She trusts deputies about as much as she trusts turnips, but she does trust…
well, okay, she doesn’t trust anyone. But she respects sheriffs. ” Nora exhales. “Would you try?”
“I’ll go,” I say, already reaching for my jacket.
“You’re a saint, honey. She’s at 312 Warbler. Good luck and Godspeed.”
I hang up and stick my head back out. “Running an errand. Radio if you get anything you can’t triage.”
David cups his hands around his mouth. “You summoned this, Boss.”
“Tell the universe I’ll bring it a donut,” I shoot back, and head out.
***
Melissa’s house at 312 Warbler is a tidy ranch with geraniums and a wind chime that tinkles like it’s laughing at me. I knock.
The door opens an inch, then slams.
“No,” says a voice behind it.
I blink, then knock again. “Ms. Edwards? I’m Sheriff Vaughn. Nora asked me to give you a ride.”
“Tell Nora I’m not a sack of potatoes,” the voice replies. “And tell my son he can’t bully me with badges.”
“Ma’am, your appointment is in—” I check my watch. “—thirty-five minutes.”
“Then they’ll have to wait thirty-six.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “If I don’t get you to the hospital, Nora will drive to my office and yell at me in two languages.”
Silence. A beat. Then: “What’s your name again?”
“Asher Vaughn.”
“You’re new.” She says it like a charge.
“Two weeks.”
“That explains the audacity.” The lock clicks.
The door swings open to reveal a woman maybe five-six in a bright scarf and crisp cardigan, chin up, eyes the warm, stormy amber of brewed tea.
She studies me like I’m a questionable appliance repairman.
“Ten minutes. Then you can chauffeur me, Sheriff.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me to death.” She turns. “It makes me feel like a walnut.”
I wait on the porch while the wind chime smirks. Ten minutes later she steps out with a tote and the air of a queen allowing an escort. I open the passenger door. She gives me a look that says points for manners, boy, and climbs in.
We make it two blocks in silence before she says, “You got a kid?”
“I do,” I say. “His name is Brick.”
“Age?”
“Eleven.”
She hums. “You’re just starting out.”
“Feels like it. He eats pancakes like it’s an Olympic event.”
“Then you’re parenting correctly.” She sets her tote on her lap. “And his mother? She must be the happiest woman on earth.”
My hands tighten on the wheel before I can stop them. I keep my eyes on the road. “She passed.”
The car fills with soft, respectful quiet. Melissa doesn’t apologize or rush to fill it. She just nods once. A small mercy.
“What’s he like?” she asks after a moment.
“Gentle. Tough when he needs to be.” I blow out a breath. “Stronger than he should have to be.”
“That’s how they save us,” she says, voice going far away. “My Will kept me upright when his father died. He doesn’t know it. But he did.”
We drive the rest of the way with a peace that isn’t comfortable, exactly, but isn’t unfriendly either.
Inside the hospital, a nurse at the ER desk looks up and smiles like she knows us already. Small towns. “Ms. Edwards? Right on time.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Melissa says, but the edge has dulled.
“You can wait here, Sheriff,” the nurse tells me gently.
Melissa glances at me, and under the steel I catch it. Fear. Small, but there. She clears her throat. “You’re coming.”
I nod. “Yes, ma—” I catch her look. “Yes.”
Behind a curtain, they hook her to an IV. I take a chair and pretend to read a three-year-old magazine about cactus gardening.
Outside the curtain, noise swells—rubber wheels, clipped voices, the crackle of urgency.
“Male, eleven years old. Fall at the school gymnasium. In and out of consciousness,” someone calls.
My brain blanks. The magazine slides from my hands.
“Name?” another voice asks.
“Broderick Vaughn.”
The world tunnels.
I’m moving before I know I’ve stood, shouldering through the curtain. There—on a gurney—white sheet, gray skin, my boy.
“Brick!” My voice breaks on his name.
A paramedic steps in front of me. “Sir, please—”
“He’s my son,” I rasp. “He’s supposed to be at school—what happened?”
“Sir, we need space,” the medic says, firm but kinder now that I’ve said son. “He’s stable, but we’ve got to work.”
I stumble back because I must, because they have him now, because my hands are useless at my sides.
“Sheriff.” A woman in a bright scarf and a sensible bun appears at my shoulder, breathless. “I’m Riley Jenkins, the assistant principal. We called the ambulance.”
The name is familiar. Jasmine’s friend. My throat is sand. “What…?”
“Climbing unit in P.E. We think the harness failed.” She swallows. “He fell. We think maybe a leg fracture. Possible concussion. He was in and out, but he knew his name.”
I nod because if I speak, I’ll shatter.
The ER doors swallow my son.
Behind me, a voice that can only be described as formidable clears its throat. “Go,” Melissa says from her chair, IV taped to her arm, eyes fierce. “You’re a father first.”
“I—your appointment—”
“I’m not made of glass.” She pats the chair beside her with a faux-impatient flap of her hand. “I’ve done this dance. Sit when you have to. Pace when you must. But don’t you let that boy think he’s alone.”
I sink, because whatever pride I had doesn’t matter, and whatever ritual she’s in the middle of doesn’t scare me as much as standing still does.
Time turns strange in hospitals when you’re waiting.
The lights hum. The monitors speak their secret beeps.
The whole place smells like lemon and sterility and the ghost of coffee.
I pace. I sit. I stand again. Riley stays close—fielding calls, touching my elbow once, bringing a bottle of water I don’t drink.
“He’s tough,” she says, steady. “I’m so sorry this happened at school.”
I nod. Words feel dangerous.
At some point, Melissa reappears at the edge of the curtain, paler, scarf askew, but standing. “Don’t look at me like that. I asked for a pause to use the ladies’ and just didn’t unpause for a minute.” She lowers herself carefully into the chair beside me. “Do not tell Nora.”
“Yes, ma—” I catch myself. “Yes.”
She studies me with those amber eyes. “How long?”
“Two years,” I say, because the question’s there even if she hasn’t asked. “Car crash. Miami… got too loud after. We needed… quiet.”
“Mm.” She grimaces in a way that isn’t pain so much as empathy. “And the quiet chased you here.”
“Maybe I chased it.” I rub a hand over my face. “Brick’s the one who kept me upright. I expected a meltdown. Acting out. Instead, he just… stayed. Steady.”
“They do that, the good ones.” Melissa’s mouth tucks at one corner. “And then they expect us to keep up.”
“Trying.”
“You’re doing better than you think,” she says, and the certainty in it is a warm blanket thrown over a shaking dog.
Something in me cracks open. “If anything happens to him—”
“He’s coming back to you,” she says, iron and prayer laced together. “Believe it.”
I do, because I have to, and because when a woman who stares down chemo like a grizzly tells you to have faith, you borrow hers.
Riley slips back in, breathless but smiling. “They’re setting his leg. Mild concussion. He’s awake, asking if he still has to take the math quiz tomorrow.”
The air leaves my lungs like I’ve been punched and hugged at the same time. My knees go loose. I sit hard and laugh once, helpless and wet-eyed.
“See?” Melissa says, like she’s just won a bet with God.
They let me in when the room stops being a flurry. Brick’s propped up on pillows, skin pale as paper, head wrapped, right leg in a temporary cast, and somehow he still looks like a mischievous kid who will ask for fries on the way home.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, voice gone soft without permission.
His eyes find me and crinkle. “Hey, Dad.”
I take his hand. It’s warm. Mine is shaking.
“You didn’t… turn the siren on… when you came, right?” he mumbles.
I choke on a laugh. “Not this time.”
He squeezes my fingers. “Good. That’d be… embarrassing.”
“Understood,” I say, and for a second the room blurs.
Riley appears at the foot of the bed with her clipboard. “Nurse says he’s going to be fine, Sheriff. Splint today, proper cast after the swelling goes down. A few days taking it easy. We’ve already flagged his teachers.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it like a prayer.
She ducks her head. “We’ll do better with the equipment checks. That’s on us.”
I want to tell her that accidents happen, that I know prevention and luck live in the same house and don’t always talk. All I manage is a nod that I hope reads as mercy.
They shoo us out after a bit. Brick drifts, eyes heavy. I kiss him and tell him I’ll be back later. The nurse has my cell phone and promises to call if he needs me for anything … ANYTHING.
I step back into the hall where Melissa stands beside her chair with stubborn dignity, IV pole beside her like a scepter.
“You need to sit,” I tell her.
“You need to breathe,” she counters. “I’ll go back to my drip if you promise to drink that water and call whoever you call when you have to pretend you’re fine.”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“Then call anyway,” she says, and tips her chin at my phone.
I text David: Son took a fall. At hospital. Hold the fort.
I add: Don’t say the Q word.
His answer pings back instantly: Already did. A goat got loose in the Dollar Depot. Send help.
Despite myself, I smile.
I walk Melissa back to her bay, settle her in, and sit with her for the last stretch of her chemo because it feels wrong to leave. We don’t talk much, just breathe the same air and share the same silent, stubborn belief that the people we love will make it.
When her nurse unhooks the line and tapes gauze over the site, I take her tote. Outside, the sun is doing that late-afternoon desert gold that makes even the hospital parking lot look tender.
In the car, Melissa watches me start the engine. “You did all right today, Sheriff.”
“Not sure that’s true.”
“It is.” She aims that look at me again, the one that x-rays. “Also, don’t say ‘quiet’ to your deputies. They’re superstitious chickens and it amuses me when men who carry guns fear vocabulary.”
I huff a laugh. “Noted.”
We drive. She stares out the window for a while, then says, “Your boy is going to be fine. And he is going to need to see you fine, too.”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” She points at the road. “Now take me home before Nora decides to mother both of us.”
Back at Warbler, I walk her to the door. She pauses with her hand on the knob. “Tell Nora I went like a lamb.”
“I’ll tell her you went like a lion.”
“Better,” Melissa says, and disappears inside.
I sit in the cruiser for a second, hands loose on the wheel, and let everything hit. Relief is a physical thing, heavy and dizzying. When it settles, I key the radio.
“Dispatch, Sheriff Vaughn back in service.”
Static crackles, then our dispatcher’s voice: “Copy, Sheriff. And, uh… if you happen to be near Main, Ms. Baxter reports a feral goat in Dollar Depot, aisle five. It’s eating pool noodles.”
I close my eyes. Somewhere, David is cackling.
I put the cruiser in gear.
“So much for a quiet day,” I tell the windshield—and don’t dare say the word out loud again.