Chapter 2
Chapter two
Levi
“I’m not drunk, officer,” the girl slurred. “No drinky-drinky for me.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Tristan fighting a smile.
He needed to get puked on or punched a few times before drunks lost their comic appeal.
A DUI crash would do it too. Thankfully, this girl wasn’t driving.
She was still trashed out of her mind and stumbling through campus.
Hopefully, a citation for public intoxication would prevent her from doing something so risky again.
“Can I see your ID?” I asked.
She blinked at me as though that would sober her up enough to stop swaying. “You’re really hot,” she said, placing her hand on my arm.
Tristan couldn’t hold back his laugh this time. I sighed and gently removed her hand from my bicep. I had no one to blame but myself for my current situation.
A year ago, I was working as a narcotics detective in Richmond.
The move to Peace Falls pushed me back to patrol.
It was a demotion I’d been willing to take, in the short term.
I figured a detective spot would open in town or one of the reciprocal districts within a few months.
Instead, I’d spent my days answering calls about fence disputes and fights at the one decent bar in town.
Then there was campus duty, which had become a regular in my rotation since my partner looked young enough to be a student, and I had more narcotics experience than everyone else on the force combined.
“Your ID?” I asked again.
“I’ll give you my number,” she said, staggering closer.
The girl was a decade younger than me, minimum, and I’d seen enough shit in those ten years to make me ancient.
“How about your address?” Tristan asked, taking hold of her arm as she nearly face-planted.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re cute too.”
The guy actually blushed. “That’s real sweet of you to say. Can I walk you home?”
When Chief Fitzwilliam partnered me with a rookie, he’d said it was because I had a lot of experience to share with Tristan. After a few months working together, I realized Tristan had a lot to teach me about being a cop in the small town where he’d grown up.
The girl looped her arm in his and pointed toward a dorm across the quad. “My name’s Lila,” she said, leaning against him as they walked. I started writing her name on a citation, but Tristan shook his head.
I glared at him and shoved my ticket book into my pocket. After we walked Lila to her dorm and tracked down her RA, who looked about as done with the day as I was, we handed the problem off to her.
“Explain to me what just happened there?” I asked as Tristan and I walked back to our patrol car.
“We’re here for drugs, not drunks,” he said.
“That was a freshman dorm,” I said, pointing over my shoulder to the building we’d just left. “No way that girl was twenty-one, and she was drunk off her ass at two-thirty in the afternoon.”
Tristan nodded. “The RA will write her up. She’ll have to take a course or do community service and hopefully learn her lesson. Today, we got her home safely.”
I felt that like a punch to the stomach.
Images flickered through my mind, each one tragic.
The countless young women who came into my last station to file rape charges with little to no memory of the event.
The informant I found at our meeting spot with his throat slit.
The fatal overdoses, lives shattered by something as small as a pill.
I pushed the memories down and focused instead on the current investigation.
Drug use on campus had skyrocketed in recent months.
Thankfully, no one had ODed or been seriously injured, but it was only a matter of time.
More drugs also meant more crime. People desperate for their next hit.
Others were in no condition to protect themselves from an assault.
Though, as Tristan had pointed out, alcohol did that as well.
“I don’t envy the night shift today,” Tristan said as a group of guys ran by wearing nothing but bedsheets wrapped around their bodies.
“They have to be freezing. Why would anyone have a toga party in January?”
Tristan shrugged. “It’s tradition. Everyone goes hard the weekend back after winter break. It will ease up when classes start Monday.”
I unlocked the patrol car and took a final look at the chaos on campus. “You’re telling Chief why we didn’t issue any tickets today.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tristan said, looking completely unbothered as he buckled himself into the passenger seat.
Chief Fitzwilliam was probably his distant cousin or something.
The moment Tristan stepped foot inside the department, it was clear everyone knew him, or his dad, or had dated his sister back in the day.
Richmond might as well be New York City compared to Peace Falls.
I had yet to find anyone who wasn’t somehow connected to someone else I knew.
It felt claustrophobic at times and made my position as an outsider more apparent.
“Got any plans this weekend?” Tristan asked as the clock ticked down to the end of our 3PM shift.
“Just relaxing,” I said, turning into the station parking lot. “You?”
“My sister and her husband are going away for their anniversary, so I’m on niece duty.”
The grin on his face put a smile on mine. “If you need something to keep her entertained, Sherly loves kids.”
His eyes widened slightly, but the smile on his face grew. Yeah, I was a grumpy bastard who never invited anyone to my house. He didn’t need to look at me like I’d offered him a million bucks.
“What time tomorrow?” he asked, schooling his face. One thing I liked about Tristan was how well he read people, including me.
“Whenever,” I said, putting the cruiser in park. “Just text me first to make sure I’m home.”
“Thanks, man. She'll be excited to play with a pig.”
He launched into all the other things he had planned for his niece, and I nodded along. I didn’t mind his chatter the way it irked me with other people. Tristan and consistent shift ends were the best things about this job.
“Stan,” someone shouted the second we walked into the bullpen.
“Stan the Man,” someone else called out.
“Nice of Levi to bring the kid home from school,” Detective Gunterson smirked.
Tristan blushed and shook his head. Most of the guys were old enough to be his father and had known him since he was toddling around the playground in Centennial Park.
Tristan tolerated the gentle teasing better than I did, in part because I knew how much he wanted to prove himself as an equal and not some wet-behind-the-ears rookie.
I glared at Gunterson until he turned his attention back to his computer, but the “Stan the Man” chant had picked up speed in the bullpen.
“Knock it off, guys,” Chief Fitzwilliam said, sticking his head out of his office. “Stafford, Jones, get in here.”
“So much for you doing the debrief alone,” I said as we walked toward the chief’s door.
A couple guys dipped their chins at me, and I returned the greeting.
I wasn’t beloved like Tristan, but everyone in the bullpen trusted me to have their back because I had proved myself on the rare occasions shit got dicey.
“How’d it go?” Chief asked me, taking a seat behind his desk.
I looked at Tristan and waited. Chief shifted his attention to my young partner, who sat straighter in his seat.
“Pretty much like we expected,” Tristan said.
“Lots of inebriated students, but no open-container drinking. At least that we saw. Levi and I walked a girl home who seemed vulnerable. We didn’t write her a ticket because I figured it’s better if women seek us out for help instead of worrying they’ll get in trouble. We handed her off to her RA.”
Chief nodded. “Good call.”
And yet again, Tris saved my ass.
“Was she high?” Chief asked me.
I’d gotten a reputation for not only sensing if a suspect was on drugs but predicting with about ninety percent accuracy what they were on.
It was the ten percent I got wrong that haunted me.
Most of the narcotic detectives I knew in Richmond could do the same; however, the small-town force had far less experience.
Experience they were unfortunately gaining now.
“I checked her pupils,” I said. “As far as I could tell, she was just drunk. We watched for exchanges but saw nothing suspicious.”
“OK, guys. Head out and enjoy your weekend.”
As usual, Tristan got stopped in the bullpen by someone telling him about a poker game or a church potluck. Instead of waiting for him, I headed to the parking lot alone.
My shift ended just as I started my Jeep.
No question, the reliable shift ends was a perk.
I drove a couple blocks down Main Street and found a spot by Paradise Unlimited, which in Richmond would have been a shady massage parlor or strip club.
Here, it was an all-purpose store for anything outdoors, including homesteading.
I grabbed a sack of pig pellets and headed to the register, snatching a bag of sunflower seeds on the way.
“How’s Sherly?” the cashier asked as he rang up my items. I doubt the guy knew my first name, and I sure didn’t know his, but he never failed to ask about Sherly.
“Dramatic as usual.”
He chuckled and nodded. “The ladies can be like that.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking my bag after I’d paid.
He gave me a friendly wave. “See you next time.”
As I put the bag in the backseat, I decided Sherly wasn’t the only one who deserved a Friday afternoon treat.
The brew at Karma was hard to pass up, especially since it was only a couple stores from Paradise Unlimited.
As usual for the time of day, the place was packed with a motley crowd of high school students, moms with kids, and retirees.
The barista behind the counter, however, was a welcomed surprise.
“Wyatt,” I said, smiling at the only person I considered a friend in Peace Falls. “What are you doing here?”
“Long time no see,” he said, walking around the counter and pulling me into a one-armed hug.
“I thought you quit,” I said as he made his way back around the counter.
“I fired him, but he won’t stop working,” the owner, Lauren, said as she pushed through the swinging door behind the coffee bar.
Her infant son was nestled in a wrap on her chest, and I felt a pang of disappointment that the little guy was asleep.
We’d shared a smile the last time I was in the café that had made my day.
“The usual, Levi?” Lauren asked.
“Let me,” Wyatt said, walking past her to the espresso machine. “I got off early, so you could go home. Leave.”
Wyatt’s schedule was odder than any shift work I’d ever had. He somehow juggled a construction job, classes at the college, and apparently unpaid shifts at Karma. No wonder I hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“I’m going,” she said. “I just need to unpack the new inventory.”
“Go home, Lauren,” Wyatt said, looking annoyed.
“Fine,” she huffed. “I don’t want you unpacking it either.”
“I won’t touch it,” Wyatt said.
He was lying. I’d never known anyone as genuine as Wyatt. He couldn’t fib to save his life, which, judging by the eye roll Lauren gave him, she knew.
“Bye, guys,” she said, disappearing again into the back.
“So, what are you up to? Other than unpacking books later?” I asked as Wyatt steamed the milk for my drink.
“I’m actually giving myself a night off before classes start on Monday,” Wyatt said with a smile.
“Volunteering at an old job wouldn’t be my idea of fun, but you do you.”
Wyatt laughed. “I’m just helping here for a couple of hours. I’m going to Church later with friends. You should come.”
The way the locals referred to Church Street Brews like a house of worship confused me to no end when I moved to town.
Eventually, I realized going to Church wasn’t always as holy as it sounded.
I rarely went out anymore. However, given Wyatt’s crazy schedule, the chance to catch up with him was tempting.
“You sure your friends won’t mind hanging out with an old guy? ”
“Dude, you’re barely thirty,” Wyatt said, shaking his head.
“I’m thirty-three,” I countered. It didn’t escape me that Wyatt was the same age as my rookie partner, or that the people I was closest with in this town were so much younger than me. It hadn’t been like that in Richmond. Most of the people I hung out with were my age or older guys from my unit.
“I might as well be in my thirties,” Wyatt said with a smirk. “All my friends are closer in age to you than to me, and I’m practically married.”
“Did you propose to Cammie?” I asked. Damn, it had been a long time since we hung out if I’d missed that news.
“Nah, but soon,” he said, handing me my latte. “Come on, Levi. Have a drink with us tonight, and I’ll drag my ass out of bed early on Sunday for one-on-one.”
I first met Wyatt in Centennial Park. He was at one end of the basketball court shooting hoops alone, like I was, and the next thing I knew, we had a standing weekly game every Sunday at 8AM.
Our games shifted to Sunday evenings after he started working two jobs and disappeared completely once he added college classes and a girlfriend to the mix.
I was happy for him, though I missed our weekly games more than I cared to admit.
“Deal,” I said, hoping the espresso would help me stay awake past nine tonight.
I turned to leave and froze. The woman walking through the front door had a way of doing that to me. The first time I saw Everly Hendricks, I could barely form a sentence, which was really inconvenient since I was interrogating a subject.
“Officer Stafford,” she said as she walked toward me.
There was only one word to describe Everly: Striking.
Everything about her commanded attention.
She stood as tall as I did in the four-inch heels she always wore to work.
Her intelligent eyes were a shade of light brown that shifted from warm to icy depending on the situation.
I’d never seen the warm version directed at me, which made sense, given we’d only interacted professionally and from opposite sides of the justice system.
“Ms. Hendricks,” I said after a pause just long enough to be awkward.
“Enjoy your afternoon,” she said, walking past without stopping. Her perfume made my stomach tighten like it always did.
“You as well,” I called after her, again a beat too late.
She stopped, and for a moment I thought she might turn around.
When she started for the counter again, I released the breath I’d been holding.
Everly Hendricks was a puzzle I’d been dying to solve since the first time she handed me my ass.
Back then, I’d just wanted to understand how she could fight so hard to defend the man who’d killed her brother.
Now I was desperate to know why the rest of the world fell away every time I saw her face.