Chapter 7
SEVEN
CROIS
On his next shift, Crois walked into the Roll Call meeting with a smile on his face.
Everyone seemed to notice that something was different, but the only one who said something was his parter.
Pilar sat down next to him at the table and gave him an elbow to his ribs. “What’s up with you?”
He shrugged, but a moment later, he had to lean out of the way and drop his arm to ward off another strike. “Hey!”
“Answer the question or get a kick in the pants, St. Cyr.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s with the last name, Bravo?”
“You’re hiding something from me.”
“What?”
“Yes, you, Crois. You’re hiding something.”
He shrugged and gave a vague gesture with his hands. “I’m an open book with you. All you have to do is ask.”
She smiled at him and that simple expression filled him with dread.
She pulled out her cell phone and keyed in the password.
When it was in, she brushed her fingers over the screen a few times before she turned the phone around for him to see it.
Crois took her phone into his hands and stared at the screen.
The hashtag that she’d searched for was CCPDHAWTCOP
It took a moment for him to realize what it was he was looking at. It was a picture of him, with the baby against his chest, his uniform shirt draped over the child.
He frowned as he looked at the image, trying to understand why PIlar was showing it to him besides the obvious hashtag.
“What’s going on?”
His partner sighed and rolled her eyes at him. She took the phone back from him and enlarged the image on the screen. Pilar pointed to some of the numbers under the image. There was a heart and the number after it was over five digits long.
“What’s that?”
“That,” Pilar explained, “is the number of times someone liked this picture.”
Crois frowned and brought the phone screen closer to his face. “Seriously? That many?”
Pilar sighed. “Yes. But that’s only one of the posts.”
“Wait,” he frowned as his brain tried to wrap itself around the idea, “there are more posts?”
“I gave up counting them,” she admitted, “but even those posts have shares in the high double digits.”
“Okay,” he spoke softly and slowly, “I wasn’t always the best in math at school, but that’s a lot.”
Pilar huffed. “That’s an understatement.”
“I can’t believe that anyone would care this much about a picture.”
“I guess you’re not on social media much.”
Crois frowned at the idea. “Try never.”
“How did I know that?”
Crois put the phone down on the tabletop and folded his arms across his chest. “Smart ass.”
He watched as she turned her phone off and tucked it into her pocket.
“I just think you need to be aware of this,” she explained. “You might have people commenting on it when you’re on the street working.”
“Why would they care?”
Pilar remained quiet.
Crois sighed. “I think you’re making too much of this.”
She shrugged and turned to face the front of the room as their sergeant, Kate Turner, came into the room.
Kate wasn’t alone. The man who walked in with her came from the CCPD Administration offices.
Crois didn’t know his name, but he knew the uniform and the look someone from that level of the administration could cast without a thought.
He sat up straighter and lowered his hands to the tabletop, waiting to hear what was coming.
Kate spoke first. “Good morning, everyone. Before we go over the assignments for everyone on this shift, we have a guest from the CCPD Headquarters. This is Dane Baldwin. He’s the head of Public Relations for the Center City Police Department. He has a few words to say bout an upcoming event.”
Kate stepped back from the podium and Baldwin stepped up. He smiled at the room, but Crois couldn’t say that the expression looked genuine.
His smile was a little too tight to be real.
“Good morning, everyone. I’m Dane Baldwin from the Center City Police Department’s Public Relations office.”
In Crois’ head he could say what he felt which was, ‘She already told us who you are, jerk off.’
“I’m making the rounds for the next few weeks to get officers to sign up for the charity boxing tournament with the Center City Fire Department.”
Crois sat up a little straighter.
He’d heard about a tournament like this, but since he’d moved to Center City, he hadn’t seen any sigh of the tournament.
Baldwin continued. “The boxing matches will be between one officer and one firefighter.”
Someone at the back of the room called out a question. “Why just PD and the FD?”
Crois saw Pilar turn halfway around in her chair.
“Really, Connelly?” She shook her head. “Who would you like to see in the competition?”
Connelly puffed up a little, his shoulders pulling back. “I’ve heard that this is a competition for the first responders in Center City. If that’s the case, where are the volunteers from the Emergency Room? What about the dispatch office?”
Crois frowned. “You do realize that doctors and nurses need to protect their hands, right?”
Connelly lifted his hands up between them. “So do I.”
Crois rolled his eyes inwardly. He bet he could figure out what Connelly needed his hands for. It wasn’t police work. He’d seen Connelly’s range scores. The man didn’t need his hands for firing a weapon.
Crois doubted that he could manage to jerk himself off with any amount of skill.
“So, I’ll be taking name of volunteers today at the end of roll call. I know that all of you can comprehend what this would mean to the CCPD when we win this competition.”
There were a few noises that sounded from around the room.
None of those noises sounded like someone volunteering for the competition.
“Does anyone here have any experience with boxing?”
“Well, Chauncey has the highest rate of fights in his folder.”
Crois kept his mouth shut. What they meant by fights was the fact that Chauncey was a man who liked to tear into people physically. He was a hot head and has more excessive use of force complaints than anyone else in Precinct Four.
Baldwin shifted at the podium and turned. “What about our resident internet star?”
Crois felt the other man’s gaze fall on him and he made the mistake of looking up at Baldwin.
“Officer St. Cyr. How nice to meet the CCPD Hawt Cop.”
Crois wasn’t someone who was easily bullied or cowed by people’s words.
He was, however, a man who liked to meet a challenge.
He nodded his head but didn’t say a word.
Baldwin stood there waiting for… something.
When nothing happened, he shifted from one foot to the other and then cleared his throat.
“What about you, Officer St. Cyr? Would you like to volunteer?”
Crois raised a brow at that question.
“Is there a reason why you’re picking on me?”
Baldwin smiled like he was paid to do it. Given that he worked for the Public Relations office, he was probably paid to smile.
“Well,” the public relations officer grinned at him, “since you’re so popular online, it would be great for ticket sales.”
“Ticket sales?”
Crois looked at PIlar and saw her wide eyes.
She gave him a look and continued talking. “Where does the money from the ticket sales go?”
Baldwin looked like he smelled blood in the water. “Local charities. This year the lions share of the money will go to the Center City Central Pantry Food Bank.”
Pilar smiled at him and reached out to smack his arm.
“There’s something to the idea,” she gave him a pointed look. “You are famous online right now. Think of the ticket sales.”
The Public Relations officer looked like he was salivating at the idea. “I like this more and more.”
Crois sank down in his chair. “I don’t like it at all.”
Kate smiled at Crois, her eyes narrowing like a bird of prey. “You know,” she grinned at him and Crois felt like she was about to hit him square between the eyes, “I seem to remember that you have past experience in boxing.”
Crois barely managed to hold back a groan. “It was a long time ago.”
Kate shook her head. “Not according to your files.”
Pilar leaned toward him and grinned like she was baring fangs. “Unless you want her to continue this like an interrogation you should just go ahead and give in.”
Crois turned toward her on his chair. “I thought you wanted me to be your best man. Do you want me to show up at the church battered and bruised?”
“First,” Pilar held up one finger, “the boxing thing is after the wedding. And two, if you show up battered and bruised to my wedding, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Uhhh, careful, Officer Bravo.”
The warning was from Kate, but Crois could see that Public Relations officer Baldwin was wide-eyed and likely curious about Pilar’s comments.
“I’ll consider it,” he looked straight at Baldwin, “give me the details and I’ll… I’ll consider it.”
It galled Crois to see the man light up like a kid at Christmas.
“Well, it looks like we’ll stand some kind of chance at the tournament. I’d hate for the CCPD to lose to the FD.”
Crois had been through similar challenges before.
It always seemed to come down to a grudge match.
“Yeah, well, I need training time. So, the faster you can get me the information, I’ll figure out what I can do to help.”
Baldwin nodded. “I’ll make a copy of the packet and leave it for you in your sergeant’s office.” Then he turned toward the room as a whole. “Now, I’ll turn the meeting back over to Sergeant Turner.”
Crois wondered if he’d made a stupid decision to participate in the tournament, but he didn’t really have time to ruminate over the idea.
Kate stepped up to the podium and launched into the morning meeting.
By the time they were headed down to their cruiser, Chois was wondering what kind of time frame he’d have to train.
He might joke about his boxing skills, but he wasn’t someone who liked to make a fool of himself.
He didn’t want to show his ass in front of his fellow officers, but he was also every aware that Harmony might be in the crowd of onlookers at the tournament.
To be a fool in front of her was one thing.
To be beaten to a bloody pulp? That was something else entirely.
When the meeting ended, Crois walked with Pilar down to their cruiser.
His partner waited until he was behind the wheel to make another comment.
“How did I not know that you were a boxer?”
Crois stretched out his legs and gave her a curious smile of his own. “There are a lot of things about me that you don’t know.”
He’d made his tone playful, almost suggestive.
Pilar shook her head. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
“Well, at least I’ve made an impression on you.”
“Like a scar,” she smiled at him, her voice almost a whisper. “You’re so lucky that I like you, partner.”
Crois smiled at her. “It’s my nature,” he knew he would get under her skin. “You know you love me.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Pilar frowned and laid her head back against headrest in the car. “Let’s get going,”
Crois knew that his partner was a unique mix of sweet and spicy.
He grinned, ready to give her back some of her sass. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Crois heard Pilar hiss out a low, quiet curser under her breath.
The curse was in Spanish, but he’d known Pilar long enough to know her favorite phrases.
This one was particularly colorful and when he drove out onto the road he was smiling from ear to ear.