Chapter 19
Bold of You to Assume
Clay
I don’t answer Mercer. I’ll take whatever consequences he wants to give me later.
Right now, there’s a little girl's mom in there, who might not make it out alive. Pulling my duty weapon from its holster, I square my shoulders and make my way inside the trailer. It’s a fucking disaster, reeking of stale beer and old food.
Trash litters the walkways. A puppy is sitting in the corner of one of the rooms, shivering. Another child pokes his head into the hallway. He points toward a closed door, where all the screaming is coming from.
I can hear the blows landing. The sound of fists thudding into flesh calls back one too many memories in my head.
I kick the bedroom door open, finding a man straddling a woman.
You can barely make out what she looks like; he’s hit her so many times.
Her face beaten to a bloody pulp. He rears his fist back again, and I see red.
Putting my gun back in the holster on my vest, I slam into him, expecting more resistance, but he clearly didn’t see me coming.
He topples like a house of cards, taking me to the ground with him.
While he had an easy enough time beating the woman on his bed, his drunk, sluggish movements are easy to bat away.
Flipping him over, I get one hand snapped into a cuff. He tries to buck me off, but it’s easy enough to wrench his other arm back and put that wrist into the cuff. He’s screaming obscenities at me, but the sound of sirens outside drowns him out.
“Traeger!” I hear Nathan Clark’s voice booming down the hallway.
“All good,” I call back, hauling the asshole up onto his butt.
“Traeger?” The balding man mumbles, his eyes barely able to focus because of how drunk he is. “You Caleb’s boy?”
I don’t respond, making my way to where the woman still hasn’t moved from the bed. Her chest is rising and falling, but her pulse is weak. “She’s going to need medics asap,” I bark at Clark, who gives me a curt nod. He steps out of the room, talking into his radio.
“Yeah,” the drunkard continues. “You’re Caleb’s. You got his curlicues, didn’t you, boy?” He tips his head side to side, like he’s flopping around a mop of curls.
“2799, 2700, what’s your status?”
“2700, 2799, all good here.”
“Roger that, bud.” Mercer signs off in the least official way possible, and I know he won’t come over for this. Monitor the radio a little closer? Definitely. But there’re bigger fish for him to fry. I can handle a domestic, especially when it’s as clear-cut as this.
“I thought he hauled off an’ killed you, way you disappeared.” I’m sifting through the wallet on the nightstand, looking for Mr. I-Hit-My-Wife-For-Fun’s ID when he continues running his mouth.
“Not dead,” I mutter back, holding the ID card up. Jerry Benedict. His ID’s been expired for years. When I run it back through dispatch, it turns out he’s wanted in a couple of states over for domestic abuse and child support.
Jerry laughs, a gross gurgling sound before he spits at my feet. “Shoulda done away with you like he did your mom.”
I feel, more than see, Clark enter the room again. A steady presence behind me as I haul Jerry up to his feet.
“The fuck did you say to me?”
“Didn’t you know? He went after her. Used to joke about it at the bar. Made her scream when he caught up to her.” He laughs in my face, spittle and stale alcohol churning my stomach into something hot and acidic. I shove his chest, head slamming into the wall, hard.
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Go ask ‘im,” Jerry cackles. “He’s probably over there rotting in a pile of vomit since his good-for-nothing son couldn’t bother to come check on him!”
He’s shouting at me as I leave him with Clark and stomp my way out of the trailer. I don’t bother getting in my truck. I already know I’ll have to come back here to get statements.
My feet carry me through the streets, boots pounding pavement as I haul ass to lot fourteen.
A weight drops into my stomach. My breath catches in my throat when I see the trailer.
It looks the same, only worse. It’s fallen into a state of disrepair, so bad I’d almost think it was abandoned, if my dad wasn’t sitting right there, nursing a beer.
“Did you kill her?” I storm up the little sidewalk that leads to his front door, my fists itching to pound into him.
“Son?” He looks up, bewildered. I grab the collar of his shirt, slamming him into the side of the trailer, the smell of beer and cigarettes wafting into my face when the air rushes out of him.
“Did you kill her?” I grit out, my voice low and lethal. I’m going to fucking kill him.
“Who? Your mom? I didn’t fucking kill her. She left us, remember that? She left. Couldn’t handle your whiny little—”
I wind my arm back, about to rearrange his face, when I’m jerked backward by my vest. A strong tattooed hand shoves my chest toward the street.
“Leave him,” Nate’s voice is low, menacing. “He’s not fucking worth it.”
My chest heaves, fingers flexing and contracting, making fists at my side. My heart is pounding. Hot, demanding blood pounds in my ears, his blood.
“Leave him to rot here, Clay. He doesn’t deserve any of your time or hatred.” Nate’s in my face, his wintergreen-scented breath blowing over me, centering me.
“Yeah, Clay,” my dad’s voice grates out. “Run along like the little pussy you are.”
I lunge for him, already knowing Nate won’t let me get any closer than I am. I need to put the energy somewhere.
“He wants you to hit him, Clay.” Nate shakes his head, looking at me with eyes that seem to know, like he’s been here before. “You are not him, so walk away.”
He gives my vest another shove before I turn around and head back to the call. To the other asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. I might not have been able to do anything about my dad, but I can lock this motherfucker up and make sure he can’t hurt his wife and kids again.
At least not today.
I’m finishing up my supplemental report when Mercer finally makes a physical appearance. He rolls an office chair over to the desk I’m sitting at, scrubbing a hand down his face when he plops down into it.
“You’re a dick.” He pins me with a glare, fingers tapping on the armrest of his chair. “I told you to wait.”
“She would’ve died,” I mumble, not even looking at him as I finish typing the last sentence into my report.
“You don’t actually know that.”
I take the report from the hospital and toss it at him.
I’ve already scanned it into my case file.
The ER determined she was minutes away from succumbing to her injuries.
If we hadn’t shown up and gotten her help, she would have died.
Leaving those two kids with their abusive father or foster care as their only option.
“Well, shit.” Mercer closes the file and puts it back on the desk, waiting until I turn to him. “I trust your judgement, Clay, I do. But stupid shit like this is how good cops die. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to bury you yet.”
“I get it, Merc. I was waiting. I waited outside until that little girl came stumbling out with a bruise on her eye, saying he was going to kill her mom.”
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Why’s it always the kids?”
“Fuck if I know.” I shake my head, leaning back in my chair.
trying to let my body decompress. My dad’s words ring through my head on repeat.
I’m the reason she left. I know that. I’ve always known that.
He beat that shit into my head. There’s no escaping it.
Mom knew I’d end up like him one day; it’s the curse of all the Traeger men. I wasn’t worth bothering with.
“You okay?” Mercer brings me back into the present, head cocked to the side. “I know it must have brought shit up, being in Cross Point, dealing with a domestic.”
I nod, my eye catching Nate’s as he leans around his desk to look at me.
I can see the question in his face; he’s wondering if I’m going to tell Mercer about my dad.
About Jerry goading me into a fight with him.
I will, eventually, but tonight, all I want to do is go home.
Forget about all this shit and pretend I never came from that place.
“I’m good, Merc. Swear.”
“Good.” His eyes narrow slightly, fingers tapping on the top of his knee. He’s looking for something, trying to read me. “Poker on Friday, if you’re not too busy with all your secrets.”
I roll my eyes, turning back to my computer.
“You’re coming too,” Mercer says to Nate before he leaves the room.
The deputy room falls silent, except for the keys of our keyboards tapping as we finish up our case reports. I log the rest of my photographic evidence and sign out. I stand pausing as Nate comes up next to my desk.
Nathan Clark is a big dude. I’d probably be a little intimidated by the guy if I didn’t know him.
Big square jaw, every inch of skin showing in his short-sleeve Sheriff’s uniform, covered in tattoos.
He’s got to be around my height, maybe even six foot four, but he’s got muscles stacked on top of his muscles.
I don’t even want to know what he can bench.
“Grab a beer with me?”
“I don’t drink much,” I offer. It’s not that I don’t like the guy, but I don’t feel like hashing out my trauma with someone I’m still getting to know.
“So, sip it,” he mutters, turning around to walk out the door.
“I’ll be there in ten,” he calls over his shoulder, making his way out the door.
I want to argue. It’s not a good look to park my patrol unit outside of the bar and go drink in my uniform.
Though I doubt anyone in Hillcreek gives a damn.
They probably wouldn’t be surprised, seeing another Traeger sipping a drink in uniform, like father like son.
I debate it back and forth on my way to the Rusted Rail.
Bertie’s bar has all the charm you’d expect in a small country town.
She’s renovated the whole place, installing a dance floor and new wooden tables.
Her kitchen is state-of-the-art and the best place to buy a burger.
If you want cheap beer and soggy fries, then the biker bar on the other side of town is for you.
I park in the back, near Bertie’s old truck, and shuck my uniform shirt off.
Normally, I’d have a t-shirt underneath, but with summer fast approaching, I prefer a tank top.
Now I really look the part of my father, stomping into a bar wearing a wife-beater tank and jeans.
Bertie whistles when I walk by her. “Got a hot date, Traeger?”
I flip her the bird, finding a table along the far wall that faces both entrances.
I watch Clark enter the bar, every single female head turning to the door when he enters.
Even Bertie checks him out when he saunters up to order a drink.
She points in my direction after handing him two bottles, then turns crimson with something he says.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Bertie blush before.
She’s got to be a good ten years older than him; looks like the kid might have some charm after all.
He sits across from me, painfully oblivious to all the attention he’s drawing with his gym shorts and cut-off t-shirt. The sides of his shirt ripped all the way down to the hem, combat boots hanging open at the laces. He’s like a bigger, stockier version of Adler.
“It’s NA.” He hands me a beer and tips his back to take a swig. “Bertie said you’d probably like it. Said she keeps it stocked for your brother. Didn’t know you had a brother.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “She means Brooks.”
“Ah, I see.” He tips his head to the side, considering.
“I met Mercer in high school, grew up a couple counties over before that. The Kanes took me in when they figured out how my dad parented.” I wrap air quotes around the word parented. What he did was technically child abuse. Tomato, tomahto.
“I know. Mercer told me,” he says, the side of his mouth tipping up into a smirk.
I narrow my eyes and cock an eyebrow.
He raises his hands, then drags one over his cropped blond hair. “Figured you might want to talk, is all.”
“Bold of you to assume.” I sip my beer, letting the cool, crisp liquid coat my tongue before I swallow it down.
“I killed mine,” he says, setting his beer down as his voice drops low, growing cold and emotionless.
My back straightens, eyes widening a little as I try to wrap my head around what he just admitted.
“Got big enough to fight back and pushed a little too hard. He hit the coffee table just right and broke his neck. Now my therapist tells me that it wasn’t my fault.
The court found me not guilty; it was an accident brought on by self-defense.
But I can’t tell you how many times I thought about it.
How badly I wanted to end him and me to be the one to do it. ”
The wooden chair beneath me creaks as I sit back in it. The front legs rock off the ground as I drum my fingers on the table between us.
“I stopped havin’ nightmares about him coming after me and started dreaming that I didn’t stop with him. That I was worse than him because I killed a man, and all he ever did was beat his kid.”
Air whooshes out of my lungs, chair slamming down onto the ground with a heavy thud.
“Jesus, man.” I look at him, and I think I can see it.
The way he’s hiding behind a Sheriff’s badge and combat boots.
He’s so fucking young, too. That couldn’t have happened more than ten years ago.
“Jesus,” I repeat, unable to find anything else to say.
“I’m not looking for your pity, Traeger.
I thought you should know the problems don’t go away when they do.
You seem like a good dude. I’ve heard a lot about you from the Kane boys, and everyone in this town respects the hell out of you, man.
You don’t seem like the type that would go off half-cocked.
I just wanted you to know that I’ve been there.
I get the anger. I get wanting to make him pay, but it’s not worth the stain on your soul. He ain’t worth it.”
I lean forward, my eyes never leaving his. “Are you secretly twenty years older than you look?”
“Fuck no.” He grins. “But I’ve seen some shit.”
“Clearly.” I lean back and offer my beer for him to cheers. He taps the neck with his own, and we shoot the shit about our fucked up pasts and non-existent parents. Guess I’m not the only one scared that it’s written in my blood.