Chapter 02
The precinct’s door slammed behind me as I walked in, leaving my thoughts somewhere back at the local middle school’s front office. It had been roughly three hours since I had met Rebecca Wareman and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I had tried to worm more information out of Monica, but she’d informed me that it had been the first time she’d met Becks herself.
“Lucas, I have no idea. I just know her name. She was cute though, right?” Monica had looked up at me hopefully. This woman had been trying to hook me up with someone for years. Ever since she’d married my best friend, and partner on the force, Paul. “Sounds to me like she’s a single mom with a teenage daughter,” Monica informed me as she wiggled her eyebrows at me.
Becks was taller than most women, and yet I still towered over her with the way she looked up at me with those big brown eyes. A protective instinct had flared inside of my chest, making no sense because it was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on her. Yet, when she’d backed into me and I’d reached out to grab her arms, it was like an electric jolt had shot through me. That had never happened before. I’d found myself wanting to pull her back against me to press her softness against my chest again. She’d smelled like coffee and something fruity I couldn’t place. It was intoxicating.
I could still picture her flustered expression after she’d gotten a good look at me. The momentary panic at seeing my uniform, eyes widening and skin paling slightly. It was enough to drive a man crazy, the way she looked. The cop in me was curious, wondering what those eyes had seen that had them so haunted. Even in some ridiculous Christmas pajamas and a black hoodie, she’d taken my breath away. The way she’d unconsciously straightened her glasses and turned as red as a cherry. It was adorable.
“Lucas! How were the helions today?” yelled Paul. I plopped into my desk chair and glanced up at him, having no choice but to smile at the redhead’s infectious grin.
“Monica was just fine, my man,” I joked in return.
He laughed uproariously at my joke, “I’ll have to tell her you think of her as a juvenile later,” he returned with an ornery glint in his eyes.
“The hell you will! That woman is tiny but she’ll have my ass!” I retorted.
Paul and Monica had been married a little over fourteen years. He had taken Monica’s older daughter, Lacey, as his own. They had a friendly, co-parenting arrangement with Monica’s first husband, Trevor. Those two men would do anything for the other’s child. It was a beautiful thing to witness.
He and Monica had consistently been trying to get me to agree to double dates with them and set-ups throughout the last decade, but I wasn’t interested in anyone in this town. I wasn’t jaded or anything like that. I had a normal high school experience and had dated. I had a serious girlfriend in college that just didn’t work out. I hadn’t really done more than date around since then. No one inspired the level of commitment that I saw between Monica and Paul every time they had me over for dinner.
“So…there’s a new woman in town, huh?”
I jumped, staring up at Paul who was staring down at his cell phone.
“News travels fast,” I said dryly.
“Someone says you seemed interested in this Becks? Mon said she was really pretty,” Paul trailed off.
“Said you even went out after her to ask her name, that’s new for you,” he glanced up at me questioningly..
Avoiding eye contact, I gazed back at the computer screen. I was fighting every instinct within me to run a background check on the woman. She'd only been on my radar for a few minutes, but was still on my mind hours later for some reason.
“She seemed nice,” I finally said, hoping he'd let the topic go. I was wrong.
Paul’s eyebrows rose. “Nice?” he laughed. “That’s it?” he asked, standing to come sit at the desk across from me. He plopped down in the seat across from me, making himself comfortable in the old, worn out leather chair.
I sighed, “Fine. She was beautiful,” I admitted.
Paul grinned at me then, nodding, “Now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me more.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Monica’s rubbing off on you, man.”
“Shut up. Going after a woman to find out her name? Usually you just do the casual hook ups after bar nights. Half the time you don’t even know their name!” He unfortunately wasn't wrong and I hated that he knew me well enough to use it against me.
I glowered at him, clenching my hands together on my desk, when I finally let it out, “Dude, listen. I can’t explain it. There was something about her that tugged at me. There’s something about her that got my cop senses tingling though,” I continued, trying to brush it off.
His face changed from light-hearted humor, to concern at the last part. “Sure. Single mom, one kid, jumpy. I mean it would make a man wonder. I’m more interested in your man senses tingling though!” he said, standing and allowing his expression to relax back into teasing mode. “I’m going out on patrol, following up on a few things. I’ll be out the rest of the day before heading home. You still coming over for spaghetti tonight?”
“Yah. Your wife will never let me hear the end of it if I back out,” I grunted.
“You’re damn straight,” he chuckled, walking out the door.
Sitting back in my desk chair, resting my elbows on the arms of it, I set my chin on my hands. Rebecca Wareman had a past. I just knew it. I couldn’t have been a cop this long without sensing something off about her. The question was, how to go about finding out what it was?
And maybe getting a date out of her as well.
I wondered where she’d come from and what her story was. I wondered if her kid’s dad was involved. Was there something there that had made her so jumpy about simply bumping into a person of the opposite sex. My fingers were literally itching to type in her information and go digging. I'd done it with other females I’d dated, but this time it just seemed wrong. Dishonest.
I was a cop, but I had skeletons in my closet too. I was a hell of a punk in school. My mom had run off leaving me with my dad when I was younger, and he wasn’t well-equipped for single parenting. He’d been in the military since he’d turned eighteen and had no idea what to do with me. He dropped me on Nana’s doorstep and hadn’t looked back. When we were notified of his death, caused by a roadside bomb when I was fourteen, I hadn’t even cried. I hardly knew the man. It was just Nana and I from there on out since Pops had passed on about two years before Dad from a heart attack.
When I started getting into trouble in high school and college, she’d finally knocked some sense into my stubborn ass. She loved me with all her heart but she had told me she wasn’t going to watch me screw my own life up. When I graduated college, I decided to enroll in the police academy and that’s where I found my passion. I’d seen a lot in my line of work, but I felt like it made me a better man. A stronger man. I could see why my father had been the type of man he was, since the military is all he really knew.
I made a mental note to call Nana again that night to see if she needed me to bring anything to the senior housing on my visit tomorrow. I tried to get there to see her every other day. I hadn’t even wanted her to move out of our home. This was the woman who’d taken me in and raised me when my own parents didn’t want me. But she said I had a life to live and she didn’t want to be a burden. Like I’d ever think that.
The senior housing allowed her a lot of freedom. She had so many friends. She even had a boyfriend. To think of her finding love after all these years was adorable and slightly terrifying, but she was happy and that was all that mattered to me.
I sighed and bent my head to get to work. I needed to focus on cases for the rest of the day. Then I had to go to spaghetti night and face Monica’s line of questioning about what she’d witnessed earlier this morning. The woman was like a dog with a bone. Paul was right, I was screwed.
“Listen, man. I’m sure you could understand why I would want someone to help me out here. Man to man.”
This fucking oily son of a bitch. I could tell he was tweaking out on something. He had a lot of nerve walking into a police station high as shit. I had to really work to hide the distaste I felt staring at him across my desk. It was Thursday night, right before the end of shift, and I’d been ready to head home before this asshole had walked in off the street. When he’d opened his mouth, I’d immediately known something was off about him and whatever he wanted couldn’t be good.
“I just want to find my brother’s wife. I just need to know if you’ve heard or seen a woman that could be her, dude,” he said when I didn’t answer. He told me his name was Larry, but who knows if that’s even his real name. Slimy blonde hair and bloodshot green eyes stared at me, like he was hoping to implore to some sort of demented bro code. I glanced across the station to my fellow officer, Nick, sitting at his desk eavesdropping.
“Listen, Harry was it?” I asked, staring him down, just hoping that pissed him off. I heard Nick snort softly. “Unless I have probable cause of some kind, I don’t have any reason to go digging into someone’s life or giving their information out. Let alone with a vague description like you gave me. Not to mention I don’t believe any woman should be described as a fat bitch. Ex or not.”
Larry seemed to shrink inside himself at my reprimand and tone. His bony shoulders curled in on themselves, sinking down in his seat. His eyes began darting back and forth frantically, searching everywhere but my hard gaze.
“You said she left your brother years ago?” I questioned, cracking my knuckles slowly, Larry’s eyes tracked my every movement with some trepidation now.
His eyes began twitching and he stuttered out, “Yeah, but he never stopped loving her. He wants to forgive her, tell her it's okay to come home. She’s not right in the head. Always making stuff up about him. He didn’t even trust her enough to knock her up,” Larry laughed again suddenly like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever said.
The more this guy talked the more I wanted to dislocate his jaw with my fist. I couldn’t imagine his brother could be much better.
“It's your duty as a cop to help people. Not to mention, bro code,” Larry said with a bit more bite to his voice this time. I saw Nick glance up, narrowing his own eyes at the man in front of me.
I stared at him again, gripping the edge of my desk so hard that it was starting to bleach my knuckles. There it was, the damn “bro code” he thought he was entitled to. “Something tells me it would be the woman I needed to help out in this scenario, Harry,” I tilted my head, his eyes narrowing in irritation at my continued misuse of his name, and I smirked.
Anger rose in me in a way it hadn’t since middle school. I’d probably need to call Marcus tonight for some tattoo therapy to release this tension. This asshole was getting under my skin. I’d spent enough time in the force to recognize cycles of abuse. Either this guy was lying about who he was or really was a brother enabling an abuser.
“Come on,” he whined. “My boss is gonna kick my ass.”
Nick rose from his desk now, walking across to lean against the coffee station beside me, to join me in staring at Larry.
“Boss?” I replied, “don’t you mean brother?” I continued, watching his face go ashen as he looked between myself and Nick wearily.
“Tell you what, Harry. How about you give me your ID, I take your information, your ‘brother’s’ information, and I'll do some research of my own before I decide to offer y'all my detective services?”
I smirked as Larry’s face continued to pale. This wasn’t something the asshole was counting on.
“Nah. Just forget it. He’ll just have to get over it,” he stammered, suddenly eager to leave the station.
“Oh, and Harry?” I asked, biting back laughing in his face.
“Yeah?” he responded, turning back around to look at me.
“If I ever see you in my town again, I’ll follow through on that background check.” I glared.
The door slammed on his way out.
Nick barked out a short laugh, “What an asshole,” he said heading back to his own desk.
I sighed, nodding my agreement. I hated that abusers couldn’t let their victims out of their lives when they ran.
“I hate assholes like that,” I agreed.
I tilted my head letting my neck crack on both sides, anger still radiating out of me. My skin felt too tight and my pulse rate picked up. This wasn’t a small town, but it wasn’t a big city either. We had quite a few new citizens moving here within the last year, which was normal because of some of the factories in town. People would move for seasonal work and then leave when they moved onto the next job.
“We probably need to keep an eye out for a single woman who’s recently moved here. No kids,” I said off-handedly to Nick and he made a sound of agreement.
I rubbed my chin, scratching at my close-cut beard. A tingling feeling was telling me there was one specific new resident that just may be in trouble. I shook my head. It couldn’t be Becks. Larry said it was a woman without kids. Monica told me at the school Rebecca had a kid, a daughter. That put her on the safe list. I scrubbed my face with my hands. I’d have to ask the other guys if they knew of any single, unmarried, childless women who’d recently moved here.
Standing I went to get a bottle of water from the break room dialing my friend Marcus on my cell phone.
“My man. What’s up?” Marcas asked picking up after a few rings.
“Hey. It's been a rough evening at the station. Got my blood pressure up a bit.” I said, tersely.
The noise on the other end died down, my friend obviously stepping somewhere quieter to talk. “You good? You need a session later tonight? I can keep the shop open for you.”
Sighing in relief, I tilted my head back staring at the ceiling. “Yes, please, and thank you.”
“No problem, bro. We don’t need old Marshall making a reappearance with that temper.”
“Shut up, asshole.” I laughed, already feeling better.
“See you in a few hours.”
“Bye.”