30. Chapter 30
It was two nights later that Levi rolled over, still half asleep, to pull Melanie into his arms only to find that she wasn’t in bed anymore. All he felt were cold sheets. Sitting up to see the clock on her side, he saw it was almost two. This week had been rough for them. He knew it would be, that’s why he had wanted her to go check in with her therapist and why he had been leaving the office early to be here in the evenings with her. Tomorrow was the anniversary, and he wasn’t sure what to do for her. He had tried to be supportive, but he knew she was still struggling.
Getting out of bed, he walked to the living room. Melanie was asleep on the couch with both heating pads on her legs and the TV playing late night infomercials. Her legs must have been hurting really bad for her to get out of bed and dig out the heating pads. It had been several months since she needed to do that. He wondered how much of it was physical and how much was psychological. Instead of waking her up to come back to bed, he grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and laid it over her to keep her warm. Then, he sat down in the comfy chair beside her, leaning forward to put his head in his hands.
He needed to go back to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, but he didn’t want to leave her. It felt wrong to sleep in the bed without her now. Her hand on his leg made him jump.
“What’re you doing up?” she whispered, reaching for his hand when he sat up.
“I came to find you when I realized you weren’t beside me anymore.” Lacing their fingers together, he moved to sit on the edge of the couch beside her. “How do your legs feel?”
“Can we not talk about it? You should go back to bed, you’ve got a busy morning.” There was no way in hell he was going to do that while her eyes looked glassy.
“Come to bed with me. I’ll move your heating pads for you.”
“No, it’s ok. I’m just going to stay out here for a while.”
“Mel—”
“Please, don’t,” she said to cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it, and I’m finally in a comfortable position and don’t want to get up. Go back to bed.”
“Ok.” Maybe it wasn’t worth fighting over. He leaned down to kiss her forehead then stood up. When he heard her make a noise that sounded like she was trying to hold back her tears, he leaned against the wall just inside their room. Doing nothing was hard, but clearly she didn’t want his help tonight.
Not knowing what else to do, he went in the bathroom to take a shower. There was no way that he could go back to sleep. If she didn’t want him here with her, then he could at least go to work and get caught up on all the things he’d been pushing to the side so he could come home early this week.
He was about to open the door to his office when he heard footsteps behind him.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Scarlett asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said and typed in his code.
“I live here.” She followed him inside, taking a seat without being asked. It annoyed him when she just made herself right at home.
“Doesn’t explain why you’re not asleep.”
“I’ve been upstairs holding Sabrina’s hair while she throws her guts up.”
“So you finally found her?” They had been looking for Sabrina for a week now. After her last stint in rehab six months ago, she’d been doing well. Then all of a sudden last week she did a disappearing act again. Only this time, she had left her phone and all of her belongings behind. He thought she might’ve ran off to kill herself or something. Apparently he was wrong.
“Yeah, apparently she’s been drunk for three days. No drugs this time thankfully. Now, your turn. Why are you here?”
He liked Scarlett, but she wasn’t his first choice to talk to about his marriage. She couldn’t even maintain a relationship, so there was probably nothing useful she was going to have to say about it. “I just couldn’t sleep,” he said with a shrug. “We’ve got several investigations going, and I wanted to dig into them a little myself to make sure my guys are doing a good job.”
She hummed suspiciously. “Well, then, I’ll let you get to it. I’m gonna go down and get a snack from the kitchen. You want something?”
It was weird that she was being nice to him. “No, thank you. They’ll be serving breakfast soon. I’ll go down then.”
“Suit yourself.” She got up to leave but looked back at him. “I know Melanie and I aren’t friends or anything, but if there’s something I can do to help her, let me know.” Then she was gone before he could reply. Scarlett was like that though. Any time she showed she was a human with actual emotions, she liked to run away as fast as possible.
He turned on his computer to bring up the files for their active cases. All he wanted to do was bury himself in work and not think about the way Melanie had silently watched him leave this morning. He’d tried to talk to her again, but she only said, “Go if that’s what you want to do.” It hadn’t been what he wanted to do, it had just been the only thing he could think to do.
About four hours later, he was riding with Flip on their way to interview a woman who had called in complaining about seeing a guy sneaking around the neighborhood. They wanted to get a jump on it before it turned into a spree of break-ins. If somebody had been casing the neighbors, then it was only a matter of time. They’d just turned on the block when the police radio started going off with reports of an officer down. It had been several years since they’d had an officer shot. From the sound of it, no one was close.
“Let’s go. That’s three blocks,” Levi said, picking up his radio.
“Seven to Control.”
Go ahead, Seven.
“Responding to shots fired report.”
Copy, Seven. Rover Eight you’re four blocks from the incident. Respond and provide support.
Roger, Control.
They rolled up behind the officer who was leaning against his car holding his neck where he’d been shot. “Help him and call for an ambulance,” Levi said to Flip.
“My partner went after him.” The officer pointed to the building.
Levi pulled his gun and took off inside yelling for Flip to send the Rovers in when they got there. There were sirens coming, hopefully it was more cops. He ducked into the stairwell, listening, and heard footsteps above him. Running up the stairs, he made it to the third floor and followed the blood trail into the hall. The officer looked back at him, putting a finger to his lips. Up ahead there was a hallway intersecting this one.
“I don’t know which way he went,” the officer said quietly when Levi got close enough. “Cover right and I’ll go left.”
He nodded and readied himself. They turned and there was a shot behind him so he spun. The perp had missed the officer as he dove to the floor and was now aiming at him.
“Drop it,” Levi said.
“You ain’t the police!”
“You’re right,” he said and took off running. In close quarters like this with less than ten feet separating them, he knew his odds were better to just tackle the guy. Most people weren’t quick enough to react and shoot. They landed hard against a door and Levi’s head hit the frame, but the guy hadn’t gotten off a shot. The officer helped get the gun away and cuff the asshole just as backup arrived.
“Thanks, man. He probably would’ve gotten me too if you hadn’t shown up.”
“Always happy to help.”
“Get that checked out,” he said, nodding to Levi’s head.
He touched it at the same time he felt the blood running down his face. Well, that wasn’t good.
One officer that had just shown up said, “Your partner’s headed to the hospital. We’ll take this guy in for you.”
“Thanks,” he said and took off down the hall after handing him off.
“We’ll need to get your statement too,” she said to him.
“Yeah, you got it. Let me just get my face cleaned up.”
He followed them down the stairs and out into the sunlight. Flip met him at the door, “You ok, man?”
“Yeah, you?” Flip had blood all over him from the officer.
“Yeah. Come on, let the medics look at your head.”
While the EMT bandaged up his head, he gave his statement. Since Mary Belcher, the new Chief of Police, had taken over, DeLaney had been working with them to fill in some gaps when they could. There was a clear line that Andrea had drawn though. DeLaney would not police the community. They would only respond if it involved one of their clients or if the officers were in trouble. Intelligence also turned over their investigations to the police and District Attorney for prosecution. It had been working out pretty well in his opinion.
He thanked the medic for the bandage and promised to let someone give him a few stitches when he got back to HQ. Then he got in the car with Flip. There was no way that he could go interview someone with his head split open. Flip had blood on him and needed to go change. They were going to send two others to go interview the lady and check it out while he went to let Allie stitch him up. The only thing he had to do first was call his wife because it would be better not to just spring it on her by showing up, especially with how she had been the past few days. He dialed her with a sigh. They hadn’t spoken since he left around three this morning, now it was almost nine.