Chapter 13
I’ve only been gone for an hour, so I’m not sure what happened between me pulling out of our driveway and returning to it, but I don’t pull in. I can’t. I lean forward to make sure I’m getting things right. For a second, I think my eyes are playing tricks on me. I couldn’t possibly be seeing Harper running down the street, her blonde head bobbing up and down as she waves her arm.
“Would you stop!” she screams.
But I trust my ears. I drive forward, honking, which makes Harper move onto the sidewalk.
“Hey. Hey! Harper!”
Ignoring me, she continues to run until she trips in the dip of a sidewalk.
“Damn it.” I pull over and get out of my car, jogging to her. “What the hell are you doing?”
Harper rolls onto her back, half of her body on someone’s lawn and the other on the sidewalk. My eyes move from her red, scratched up feet to her black leggings torn at the knee, showing nothing more than a scrape. Her heavy breathing is the only sound she makes until the sobs come.
The power of her cry forces me back at first, and I know, well beyond a reasonable doubt, it has nothing to do with the fall.
This kind of crying happens on the worst day of your life.
And, fuck me, I thought we all passed that already. But then I panic.
“Where’s Lucas?”
Shaking her head, Harper doesn’t look up. “Tides,” she weeps into her skin.
“Harper!” I grab her wrists, shaking them to free her face, flushed and flooded with tears. Quick pants escape her mouth, but I seem to have her attention. “Tell me what’s going on. Where’s Lucas?”
“Lucas is at school,” Harper clarifies, and then her face crumbles, snot bubbling out of one side of her nose, tears raining down her cheeks. “He can’t come home from school and—”
With her eyes wild, she frees herself from my grip and stands, about to flee again, but not before I wrap an arm around her waist.
“Harper!” The way she flinches when I raise my voice makes my stomach twist. I loosen my hold and turn her slowly back to me, trying to harness my patience. “Harper, if Lucas is at school and Tides is at home—”
“Tides isn’t at home! They took him, Riley.”
Only a true idiot would steal a police dog that’s microchipped to the brim. One call and the entire police force would be on the move. I go to grab my phone from my car. “What do you mean? Let’s call the police—"
“The police took him.”
My neck will hurt later from the whiplash of flinging my head back so intensely. “What? What do you mean the police took him?”
Harper wipes her face with the back of her hand before she bends down, retrieving a crumbled, unopened envelope I hadn’t noticed. She hands it to me. “Silas came. He took him back.”
“They can’t do that.” At least, I don’t think they can .
“They did.”
I rip it open, letting the envelope fall to the ground. I’m so jacked up on adrenaline I have to close my eyes for a second, resetting my canvas before I read as carefully as I can. But that’s not easy with Harper’s crying stealing my attention.
“I…I missed this one when Caroline helped me with all the paperwork. And Silas has been calling but…I didn’t want to talk to him.” Harper hangs her head. “This is my fault. Lucas can’t come home and just find Tides gone. He can’t.”
“I thought you were gone forever like my Dad. I don’t like thinking about everyone leaving me forever.”
Under normal circumstances, it might seem like Harper is overreacting. But we aren’t talking about a normal dog. We’re talking about Tides.
We’re talking about Nate’s dog, who would take a bullet for him in a heartbeat. I know the only person—or thing—that could’ve got Nate out of that car would’ve been Tides. I imagine he would’ve chewed through the metal door that sandwiched Nate’s broken leg. He would’ve pulled him to the surface. Tides would’ve saved Nate’s life even if it meant losing his own—exactly what he almost did for Lucas and Harper. In some ways, that dog did what I should’ve been doing from the jump.
“ You’ve gotta take care of my family.”
Fuck this being about a dog.
“Let’s go.”
Harper’s wet eyes dart from the hand I’ve reached down to offer her up to my face. “Where are we going?”
Before knowing the answer, Harper places her hand in mine and I pull her up onto her feet.
“Home. You need to clean up your feet.”
Harper’s shoulders slump.
“Then put some shoes on. We’re going to get him back.”
“It’s probably an administrative mistake,” I say, looking down at the letter I’ve stuffed into the cupholder.
Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself—and Harper—repeatedly as we drive to Oceanside’s police station.
The tears have stopped falling and the cries—the god-awful cries—have silenced. But now, Harper says nothing.
Zilch.
Not a word, a mumble, a curse under her breath. She doesn’t misdirect her anger at me—who, for once, isn’t the enemy. She doesn’t say anything at all.
The silence makes me uncomfortable, and I find myself bouncing my left leg as we slow in traffic. I’m reminded the day Nate deployed and we drove home together. Back then, I found solace in the fact she had nothing to say. Instead, now, Harper’s silence is painful. It’s hopeless.
I finally pull into the police station and into a parking spot, shutting off the engine. “Stay here,” I tell Harper, and even though it’s annoying she doesn’t listen and jumps out of the Jeep, I’m thankful to get some sort of response from her.
A few quick steps and she’s caught up to me, her head swiveling, eyes wide, as if she expects to find Tides. “Do you think he’s here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I offer honestly, because the truth is, I have absolutely no idea and what I won’t do is bullshit her.
I swing open the door and the officer at the front desk does a double take. I step in front of Harper. “I need to see Officer Ford.” The young guy’s eyes move over my shoulder. “It’s an urgent matter.”
“I…Officer Ford is off duty, I believe.” He produces paper and a pen. “Would you like to leave a message for him when he comes in for his next shift?”
“Off duty my ass,” Harper mumbles, stepping around me.
I grab her arm, holding her in place. “You believe? Can you go back and check? We’ll wait.” I point between us. “Riley Monroe. Harper Jones. As in wife of officer Nathaniel Jones. I’m sure you’re familiar with the name. We need to see Silas. And like I said, it’s urgent. I’m sure many of you here wouldn’t keep a widow of your own waiting. So check. Now .”
We hold eye contact for another five seconds before the officer nods, stepping out from behind the desk.
Harper’s phone rings and she pulls it out of her pocket, silencing the call, mumbling something about a class.
I pull my keys from my pocket and turn, realizing I’m still holding Harper’s arm. I release it and hand her the keys. “Take my car and go to work.”
“Riley—”
“Harper,” I hiss. “Listen to me. I’ll take care of this. I don’t need you here being all emotional.”
Her head juts back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, crying helps absolutely nothing. Just go to work and do some yoga and let me deal with Silas.”
“How do you expect me to go work right now?”
I sigh. “To be honest, I’m assuming you won’t just because I asked you to.”
“That wasn’t asking. You told me to,” she snaps.
“Are we really going to fight over semantics right now?” I nudge the keys at her. “Go.”
“How will you get home?”
I shrug. “I’ll figure it out. Just...when you pick Lucas up from his friend’s, take him somewhere else. Plan to keep him out late unless you hear from me.”
Harper hangs her head, her blonde hair falling forward with the movement, caging her face in what I know she thinks feels like another chapter of defeat in what’s turned out to be a story of never-ending heartbreak. And I’ll be damned if we’re in this situation because of a dog. I’m determined to rewrite the entire plot because I can’t stand seeing the way her face falls, knowing if one thing went differently that fateful night I’d never be the one to bear witness to it .
I reach out, pushing a bundle of strands over her shoulder. “I’ll handle it, alright? Go. I’ll see you at home.”
It’s impossible to ignore the way her face relaxes when I tell her that.
After leaving me at the police station, it only takes eleven minutes for Harper to check in. I slowly read each message she sends.
Harper
Anything?
Do you really think they’ll give him back?
They will.
I tell Harper that even though I don't think it’ll happen without a fight.
Did you go to work?
Harper
Just got here. I’ll come back to the station after I’m done. Need an hour.
Don’t. Just let me handle this, alright?
I see you typing your objection and don’t bother. I won’t read it.
Shifting in the chair, I look up, finding that junior cadet staring. He’s gone from shy and intimidated to trying to be the intimidating one, which can mean only one thing. He’s realized who I am—I’m the one who took one of their own.
“Riley? ”
Silas peeks his head out from behind the partition. “Come on back.”
I let the kid at the front desk feel good about the death stare he’s attempting to give me as I walk past him because I’ve got a bigger, 90-pound problem to deal with.
In the hallway I find Silas opening a door. “We can talk in here.”
“No need for the interrogation.” I eye the mirror and cold, metal chairs and table.
Silas grunts, closing the door behind him. “Just figured you’d like some privacy.” He motions at me to sit.
“Nope.” I pop my lips and remain standing. “Don’t even need much of your time. Just give me Tides and I’ll leave.”
Leaning against the door, Silas folds his arms across his chest. “We don’t have Tides . We have K9 Cruz.”
I raise an eyebrow. “K9 Cruz ?”
“That was the name he was given when he entered the program.”
I never liked Silas, even though Nate did, or at least, appeared to. But I have to wonder how much of that liking had to do with it being necessary because they worked together in a no man left behind type of environment, one Nate knew better than anyone well before he joined.
“Silas—”
“Officer Ford,” he corrects.
Officer Ford seems to have forgotten that I’ve been around that time he got kicked out of Ship-Slapped for mooning a waitress.
“We’re talking about a dog who—”
“Is an officer of the law,” Silas cuts me off once again.
I press my lips together and count to three. “He’s more than that to two people, and one of them is eight .” The thought of Lucas's face when he finds out what happened makes me rage. “And he definitely was more than that to the person who is the only reason you and I are having this conversation in the first place.”
“You mean Nate,” he growls, and takes a step closer, “the person who died because of you?”
The words should make me cower but I don’t. Sticks and stones may break my bones but when the wrong person is talking, well, the most hurtful words don’t have to even sting.
“Yeah. Nate. Your guy. How do you think he’d feel about this situation, huh? I’d bet good money he’d dig himself out of that grave to come kick your ass knowing you got his wife into such hysterics she ran barefoot after your car.”
Silas lets out a snide laugh. “It’s not my decision. I’m following protocol. And according to protocol, that dog belongs to the town. Nothing you or I can do about it.”
“You could’ve done something about it I imagine.” I tip my head to the door. “All of you here could’ve put your feet down.”
If I were home earlier when Silas showed up. I would’ve been the one they took away in a police car, not Tides. Because that’s what Nate would’ve done—the right thing.
Pushing off the door, Silas drops his arms and reaches for the handle. “Are you done with this show? I’ve got reports to write up. Can’t believe I wasted more than thirty seconds talking about custody of a dog. Not my circus anyway. Custody is a legal matter. Did you sleep through that lecture in law school?” He turns, opening the door.
Custody is a legal matter.
I bunch my fists, because I know what I have to do. Fight. Because custody isn’t just a legal matter—it’s a legal battle.
And I’ll go to war if I have to for Nate, for his family, I will and with full force.