Officer on Duty (Lock and Key Book 4) (16 page)

“Alicia, Kerry and Sasha all say it is.”

“Really?”

“They swear. I think Liam might believe it too, but he won’t talk about it. I bet he saw something.”

“Interesting. Who knows what you might see on the tour then?”

Paige shrugged. “I know some kids at school who’ve gone on the tour, but I don’t think they saw anything. I’ll tell you if I do, though.”

Lucia smiled. “Your grandmother will be picking you up in a couple hours, but you can always come across the street to fill me in.”

“Okay. Hey…”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking of asking my dad if I can sign up for that swim fitness class you teach.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s every week, right?”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays. You don’t have to come to both days though if you can’t make it. It’d be great if you signed up – I think you’d love it.”

Paige sat back in her seat and smiled. “I’m going to ask my dad.”

“Well, I can’t wait to hear what he says.” Lucia slowed, rounding a bend in the road. Wisteria loomed against the early evening sky, and she had to admit, it looked haunted.

Tall and white, the antebellum mansion practically glowed, especially during the evening, when the sky was turning dusky. It could’ve been something out of a movie, right down to the spooky trees draped in Spanish moss. According to Alicia, there was even a gator living in the creek behind the house.

“If the tour takes you anywhere near the water, watch out for Brutus.” That was what Alicia said everyone called the gator.

“I will.” Paige unbuckled her seatbelt as Lucia parked near the front gates.

“I know your dad is at work and your grandmother is busy volunteering at the hospital, so if you need anything during the next couple hours, you can call me.”

“Thanks.” Paige smiled. “I think I’ll be fine though.”

A voice called out, quickly followed by more – a chorus of girls who waved to Paige from the house’s front steps.

“See you later. If I see a ghost, I’ll try to take a picture of it for you with my phone.”

Lucia grinned. “Perfect. Have fun.”

Paige gave a last wave as she turned and hurried toward her friends, her curls bouncing as she crossed the lawn, a definite spring in her step.

Watching the other girls welcome Paige into the group, it seemed like a good thing that Jeremy had decided to let her attend the Wisteria portion of the party.

Before putting her car into reverse, Lucia scanned the property for some sign of a supervising adult. The tour wasn’t supposed to start for another fifteen minutes, but surely there was a parent around.

She wasn’t disappointed. There was a dark-haired woman in a long white maxi dress on the lawn, standing in the shadow of a mossy tree. The birthday girl’s mom?

It was kind of weird that she was standing alone away from the girls, but—

A flash of movement caught Lucia’s eye, and she turned to see Alicia, Liam’s wife, descending the mansion stairs.

She was waving at Lucia, a bright smile in place.

Lucia waved back, relieved. Jeremy worried so much about Paige that Lucia wouldn’t have felt right leaving her without knowing someone was keeping an eye on her.

As Alicia turned to Paige, Lucia put her car in drive and turned for home.

* * * * *

“Again? You sure your girlfriend’s the pregnant one and not you?”

Richardson raised a nearly-empty soda bottle and shook it, making the last few drops slosh inside. “I need my caffeine.”

Jeremy glanced down at the oversized coffee mug he kept in the cruiser. He was no stranger to caffeine fixes, but Richardson was even worse – and that was saying a lot. He must’ve had a lot to drink before leaving for his shift, because they were less than two hours into it and this’d be the second time they’d stopped for him to piss.

“I’ll pull in here.” Jeremy nodded at the gas station a quarter of a mile ahead, one they frequented for soda purchases and coffee refills.

They weren’t on their way to a call anyway – so far, it’d been an uneventful day.

God knew Riley County was overdue for some of those.

“Want anything?” Richardson asked as he opened his door.

Jeremy shook his head. “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.”

He sat in the idling car, waiting for the MDT to chime. No matter how slow the day had been, he was always waiting to hear the sound.

A minute later, someone approached the convenience store’s front doors. Not Richardson – the first flash of his light-colored clothing told Jeremy that.

He watched a middle-aged man in a white t-shirt push open the glass door, and then he jumped out of the car.

His pulse picked up pace, and his senses heightened. He recognized the man.

Patrick Sharp. There was a warrant out for his arrest, and this wasn’t the first time he and Jeremy had met. Sharp was a habitual law breaker, currently wanted for the violent assault of a local bartender. No one had been able to locate him since the assault, which had happened a week ago.

Jeremy made eye contact with him for a split second, and Sharp burst out of the store like a race horse out of the gate.

“Stop! Police!”

Jeremy went after him, taking the longest strides he could in an effort to close the distance.

Sharp was surprisingly fast for a drug abuser on the rough side of forty. In the blink of an eye, he was halfway across the parking lot, sneakers pounding the asphalt.

Jeremy was already breathing deeply, inhaling the scents of sunbaked tar and motor oil as he ran, slipping in a puddle of the oil but quickly regaining traction.

In his peripheral vision, he could see the store doors swing open again, this time for Richardson.

The
thunk
of his soda hitting the ground was followed by boots pounding the pavement.

Jeremy was already closing in on Sharp. It’d be good to have Richardson at his back – Sharp obviously didn’t want to go back to jail and might not go down without a fight.

One of Jeremy’s hands was caught in the sudden gravitational pull of his weapon and he breathed more deeply as he came closer and closer, his heart punishing his ribs like his boots punished the asphalt.

Then Sharp reached for something – shoved a hand into his waistband.

It happened in an instant, and Jeremy saw. Saw and comprehended. His reaction was automatic, the nerves in his fingertips buzzing as he unholstered his weapon.

The subdued matte black of Sharp’s handgun was undramatic in the sunlight, the metal dark against his white t-shirt and sunburnt skin. The double
bang
that came before Jeremy could get his finger on the trigger of his Glock was explosive.

Sharp had shot while running, with nothing resembling skill or precision.

A metallic taste flooded Jeremy’s mouth, the rush of adrenaline tasting like the bullets flying through the air.

The shots kept coming.

He stopped in his tracks, preparing to return fire.

Then he heard the
thunk
at his back.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he knew. Resisting the awful impulse to turn his head, he fired first at Sharp.

Five rounds and Sharp was on the ground – at least one of them had hit.

Sharp had dropped his gun, and it’d skidded across the asphalt and beneath a vehicle.

“Shots fired.” Jeremy called in on his radio and barely heard his own voice over the ringing in his ears. “Shots fired, one officer down. One suspect down.”

He rushed in and cuffed Sharp, who was cursing and moaning, obviously still alive. Blood welled out of one arm and soaked his t-shirt.

As soon as Sharp was cuffed, Jeremy turned and looked over his shoulder.

“Shit.”

Richardson lay on the blacktop. His blood blended with the dark asphalt – it was the shine of it that gave it away, not the color.

The smell hit him like a truck, blood swirling with motor oil on the hot pavement, reaching him on a weak breeze. Sweat ran into his left eye and stung as he sprinted to Richardson and crouched beside him.

His black uniform camouflaged the blood. It took Jeremy a second to realize the wound was in his shoulder, just a couple inches from his vest.

He swore, biting his tongue when Richardson made eye contact with him.

“They’ll be here in a minute flat.” They were barely outside town limits. Meanwhile, he took the tourniquet from his duty belt and secured it high on Richardson’s shoulder, above the wound. “You’ll be all right.”

“You got him?”

Jeremy nodded.

“Good.” Richardson was sweating and clenching his teeth. “Stupid bastard.”

Jeremy agreed with Richardson’s assessment of Sharp, who was lying cuffed on the pavement, still groaning obscenities.

“Shitty luck lately.” It could’ve been worse. Still, this was the first time he’d seen a fellow officer get shot.

Sirens wailed, a black and white tearing down the street, followed by an ambulance. It didn’t take long to get anywhere in such a small town.

Jeremy tried to focus on that, to find a bright side to the situation. But no matter how he looked at it, this was shitty luck, just like he’d said to Richardson.

He’d been closer to Sharp. The bullet could’ve hit him – had probably been meant to. A little bad luck was all it took to end up with a tag on your toe by the time your shift ended.

He’d always known that, but now it was being waved in his face. And over what? Some idiot who couldn’t hold his liquor and didn’t want to be held responsible for his actions?

Paramedics took over, and Jeremy rose from the asphalt.

Blood dripped from his hands as they loaded Richardson, who suddenly looked even younger than he was, into an ambulance.

He had to be thinking of his bride-to-be and the baby they had on the way. Had to be realizing how close he’d just come to those plans going to shit.

Sharp was loaded into an ambulance too, and frustration insulated Jeremy against giving much of a fuck what happened to him. One of the half a dozen other officers who’d responded rode to the hospital with Sharp.

Beneath the sinking sun and the strobe of emergency lights, Jeremy felt far away – far away from the young officer who was his responsibility, and far away from how he’d expected the day to go.

Stupid, of course. He shouldn’t have let himself have expectations. Expectations were the lifeblood of disappointment for someone in his line of work.

* * * * *

The hospital waiting room was so well air conditioned it was frigid. Jeremy had ceased sweating beneath his vest hours ago.

It was almost ten o’clock at night. He should’ve still been in the cruiser with Richardson, but instead, he was waiting for him to get out of surgery.

His only companions were guilt and Amanda, Richardson’s fiancée. She sat a few chairs away, clutching her purse. Her eyes were dry, but smudged mascara ringed them, making her look dead tired.

He’d told her he was sorry for what’d happened. And then he’d sunk back down into his chair to rehash the situation again and again, to consider what he could’ve done differently.

He should’ve played it safer and assumed Sharp was armed. He should’ve had his weapon out sooner, just in case.

But he hadn’t drawn it until he’d realized he’d needed it, and now here he was, waiting for the twenty-three year old officer he’d been given charge of to get out from under the knife.

He should’ve been the one shot. He was the veteran officer, the sergeant, the one responsible for training the kid who hadn’t even broken in his boots yet.

The chaos of the scene rushed back to him: the concussive noise, the taste of adrenaline, the cramping in the hands he’d used first to wound and then to stanch blood. Putting two bullets in Sharp’s arm had stopped him, but it hadn’t reversed the damage done to Richardson.

Richardson would survive, it was almost certain. The bullet hadn’t hit any major arteries, but they had to cut it out of his shoulder.

There’d be weeks of recovery, at least. Probably physical therapy. With any luck he’d heal, but he and Amanda would have the scar as a reminder of what his job might cost him, at any time for any reason at all.

The reality was a dark foundation to build a life and a family on.

As he mulled that over, Amanda shifted in her seat, facing him.

“How do you do it?” she asked.

He turned to face her, meeting her red, mascara-ringed eyes. “Do what?”

“Convince your family to let you walk out the door for your shift every day. Your wife…” She gripped her purse strap harder, until her knuckles went white. “How does she deal with knowing you could wind up here on any given day?”

“I’m not married.”

“Oh… Sorry. Matt told me you had a daughter, so I thought…”

“It’s just me and her.”

She nodded, her shoulders drooping.

“She’s only twelve, but she’s a smart kid. I’m sure she realizes the risk. And my mother, too – I know she does. It’s just a part of our lives.”

He wished he had something smarter to say to her about it. Something comforting, profound.

But when he conjured up Paige and his mother’s faces, all he could think was that they were good about putting up with it. They surely had their concerns, but what could they do about it, really? And Lucia…

She jumped to mind, too. If things ever became serious between them, how would she handle the kind of stress Amanda was undergoing right now?

It was a baffling thought. Richardson and Amanda were engaged, were planning to get married and have a baby.

He and Lucia were just getting to know each other. And yet, the reality was there, just the same as if they’d been together for years: being with him meant assuming the risk that on any given day, the man in the uniform she liked so much might be killed or disabled in the blink of an eye.

And all over something so stupid, because some idiot with a meth-addled brain had come up with a half-baked plan to stay out of jail.

It was something she’d have to consider if things ever started to get serious.

Thinking of Richardson lying in a pool of his own blood in the Fisherman’s Stop-In parking lot made his job seem so fucking pointless. Nothing more than a game of Russian roulette.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Wish I knew what to say. But the fact that you’re here for him now shows that you’re the type of person who can handle this – the type of person he needs.”

Despite her smudged make-up and white knuckles, she was holding on tight to a certain type of composure. There was no one else here for her – no parent, no friend. Just her, the clock and Jeremy, who sat several chairs away.

It was so fucking sad, it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Whether or not this girl had previously had any idea of what she’d signed up for, she did now.

“I hope so, but to be honest … I’m afraid. He wanted the job so bad, and he’s only been on it for a few months. Now this. Makes me wonder what he’ll have to survive to make it to retirement.”

She touched her belly, her fingertips brushing the hem of her t-shirt. Her torso was flat, but he had no doubt she was thinking of the life there, and what obstacles her family might face by the time the child was grown.

With a clenching feeling in his gut, he thought of Paige and what it would mean for her if he was gunned down – killed or disabled.

The thought made him sweat, despite the chilled air. She’d already grown up without a mother, and her grandmother wouldn’t be around forever. He couldn’t stand the thought of not being there for her.

“I hope you and Matt have got your bad luck out of the way,” he said. “I hope the next twenty years go just fine. Hell, I’ve made it more than a decade and the worst injury I’ve suffered is a dog bite.”

She nodded. “Matt told me about that. At the time, I was glad he wasn’t the one who got bit.” She shot him an apologetic look. “Now…”

She sighed and leaned back in her seat, tipping her head against the wall. “I’ll be lucky if I can make it through the next year without becoming completely neurotic.”

The sour taste in his mouth intensified, and he swallowed it. He knew it was hard being married to a cop – he’d seen enough marriages in the sheriff’s department fall apart. But at least Amanda was here. That had to give her and Richardson a fighting chance.

Jeremy’s wife hadn’t even stuck around to see him graduate the academy. He hadn’t been worth the stress to her. The risk, the shitty hours, the modest pay that didn’t correlate at all… She hadn’t been willing to put up with any of it for him. Not for a single day.

On the other hand, Amanda sat there in faded yoga pants and a pair of flip-flops, her hair pulled back in a crooked ponytail. She looked for all the world as if she’d been winding down for the day, maybe even in bed already, when she’d gotten the call about her fiancé.

And she’d come running.

“You and Matt will be okay.”

She flashed him a smile. It was weak, but beautiful nonetheless – beautiful because it was plain as day that she was sitting there, the picture of worry and devotion, because she loved Richardson.

Jeremy knew love. He loved his daughter. But love beyond what he had for his family had always seemed like a minefield to him. He realized now, looking at Amanda, that that was because he’d never truly experienced it.

He thought Lucia was the kind of person who might be capable – might be willing – to love him like that, in time, despite his shortcomings.