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

“Paige!” He was flying down the hall when he heard a voice.

“I’m in here.”

Something was wrong. He could tell by the sound of her voice.

“Paige! Jesus.”

He turned back around, approaching the bathroom door.

He opened it, too panicked to knock, and there she was.

Scissor blades gleamed silver and sharp in her hand, and something dark was pooled on the floor.

Her hair. It was heaped in a pile of curls, tangled on the bathroom tile.

Jeremy barely stifled a curse. “I thought you were gone. You scared the hell outta me. What’s going on?”

Paige looked down at the pile of hair, then up.

Her lip trembled.

He finally realized, then, what she’d done.

The hair that’d flowed down her back that morning was half its previous length in places, a third in others. She’d cut away sections, and the effect was uneven – if her curls hadn’t softened the asymmetry, he would’ve called it jagged.

“Honey?” His adrenaline gave way to something softer, something that felt like the beginnings of heartache.

“I cut my hair,” she said, looking down at the scissors she held, then placing them on the edge of the sink. “I… It’s hot outside.”

“You couldn’t wait to make an appointment with a professional?” He stared at the mess she’d made, not buying the heat excuse for a minute.

Her remaining hair flew in a wild cloud as she shook her head. “Nobody knows how to cut my hair! All they do is make it shorter, and then it poofs out and gets all frizzy, like a pyramid. It’s so curly – I hate it!”

“Your hair is beautiful. Your grandmother would kill to have it, but you inherited it from your grandfather.”

She shook her head even harder. “I don’t want grandma hair. I just want to look normal, like everyone else.”

He glanced down at the pile of severed curls on the floor, then up at his daughter.

And felt like a failure.

“We’ll get this fixed. We’ll get you a haircut you’ll like.”

She sighed. “Haircuts don’t work on me. They just make it worse. And I’m tired of wearing it so long.”

“No offense honey, but you cutting your own hair with the kitchen scissors was bound to make it worse. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can do better. We’ll get you to a salon tomorrow.”

She looked down at her feet. “I don’t want to go to a salon. It looks too bad – I don’t want anyone to see.”

“Well, maybe I can even it out a bit.” He eyed the scissors lying by the sink.

“You?” She looked up, regarding him with suspicion.

“Why not? I can’t make it much worse, can I?”

Her lip trembled again, then quirked briefly in something like a smile. “Don’t cut all my hair off.”

“I’ll try to save as much as I can.” He picked up the scissors. “Now for the love of all that’s holy, promise me you won’t move. Your grandmother will have my hide if I cut off too much.”

“She’s already going to freak out when she sees.”

He had no doubt that was true, but kept his mouth shut as he took one of the longest remaining locks of her hair between his fingers and held it next to one of the shortest, comparing.

His sense of dread eased a little with the first
snip
. When the curl bounced back into place and looked similar in length to the one he’d been trying to match, it was encouraging.

Ten tense minutes later, the pile of hair on the floor had almost doubled in size.

“Well, what do you think?” He put down the scissors. “Should I turn in my badge and open a high-end salon?”

Paige smirked. “No. You gave me pyramid head, just like everyone else.”

“Hey, pyramids are all about symmetry and even lines. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She turned to him, her expression earnest. “You did as good of a job as anyone else ever has.”

“High praise indeed.”

Her lips bowed in a pout. “Do you really think anyone can make my hair look good?”

“I already think it looks good, but there’s gotta be someone out there who knows how to handle hair like yours.”

“I doubt it.”

He wracked his mind for some sort of encouragement, knowing full well that he was woefully ignorant when it came to hair styling. His own hair was technically naturally curly, but he wore it less than half an inch long.

“Look at Lucia,” he said. “Her hair’s gorgeous, and it’s a lot like yours.”

Paige was silent for a moment, then her expression brightened. “Do you really think my hair could look like hers?”

“I don’t see why not. Maybe you could ask her where she gets it cut.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She looked uncertain, but hopeful.

That eased his guilt just a little, then brought it crashing back down on him in full force.

Was this what he had to resort to: telling Paige to ask the new neighbor they barely knew for advice a mother would’ve been able to give her?

He’d made peace with the fact that her mother was gone. Years ago. But every once in a while the lack came back to bite him in the ass when he least expected it, reminding him of what he couldn’t give his daughter.

“Hey,” he said, brushing an especially wild curl away from her face.

“What?”

“I’ll look into finding a good salon for you, too. I don’t care if I have to get a detective to investigate the entire coast for me; we’ll find a place.”

She donned a tremulous smile, and he marveled at her ability to be cheered by what he had to offer.

* * * * *

“I swear that little kid with the glasses was the one who took it. Did you see the way he looked at me with that smartass smirk? I thought he was gonna spit on me. Jesus.” Richardson ran a hand through his nearly non-existent hair.

Jeremy shook his head as they drove out of the neighborhood where they’d responded to a report of a stolen bicycle.

“You let bratty nine year olds get at you and you won’t make it a year in this job.”

“I’m just saying.” He shot Jeremy a long-suffering look. “Kids can be real jerks.”

Jeremy almost wanted to laugh. The boy with the glasses had given them some pretty sour looks, but kids were kids. He distinctly remembered times when he’d been a real little jerk at that age. He said so to Richardson.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I caught hell once for throwing one of my sister’s dolls in a creek when I was around that age. It got washed away, and by the time she was done crying to our dad, I knew I wouldn’t be sitting for the rest of the day. No idea why I did it, now that I think back.”

“Kids do stupid stuff. You’ll figure that out fast on this job.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, my sister and her husband have a few. They’re a little crazy, but they’re not bad.”

“What about you?” Jeremy knew Richardson wasn’t married, but he sometimes mentioned a woman named Amanda. “You’re seeing someone, right?”

He arched a brow. “Why, you interested?”

He ignored the joke. “You know where your girlfriend gets her hair cut? I’m trying to find a good place for my daughter.”

“Couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. I could ask her, though.”

Jeremy nodded. “What kind of hair’s she got?”

“Brown.”

Brown. The simplistic answer was on-par with how Jeremy would typically talk about hair, so he didn’t really have the right to roll his eyes.

“I mean, is it curly or straight?”

“Straight.”

He frowned. He’d already considered calling his cousin Liam, or their mutual friends Henry and Grey. They were all in relationships, but their women had straight hair, too.

“You telling me you don’t have someone to ask?” Richardson raised both his brows now.

“I’m single.”

“Now that just doesn’t make any sense. I may not have been here long, but if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard Kelly get all poetic over your blue eyes, I could retire already.”

Richardson raised his voice to a falsetto and started singing Jeremy’s praises. “I swear, doesn’t Sergeant Connor just have the bluest eyes? Wish I did. Wish I had a
man
who did.”

Jeremy wished he could say it was bullshit, but it was a nauseatingly accurate impression of Kelly, a shameless flirt and gossip who worked in dispatch. She had a crush on every man she’d ever laid eyes on, as far as Jeremy could tell, but he was one of her favorites to embarrass and torment.

“You know,” Jeremy said, “you look a lot like that snot-nosed little bike thief when you smirk.”

* * * * *

Lucia was never quite sure how much or how often to water her plants. Sometimes she had a feeling she overdid it, but that was better than underdoing it, wasn’t it?

Standing on her tiptoes, she poured water into one of her hanging baskets, frowning when excess liquid dripped from the vents at the bottom of the pot, confirming her suspicions.

Well, at least her petunias weren’t about to shrivel up and die.

She glanced down the street at Meredith’s house. Even from a distance, the flowers pouring from her window boxes were vibrant. Maybe she could ask her for tips next time she spoke to her.

She had no doubt that would be soon, but at the moment it wasn’t the silver-haired social butterfly she saw, but her granddaughter.

Paige Connor emerged from the house, and by the time she reached the curb, it was obvious she was carrying something.

A plate of some sort – possibly the same one Lucia had returned just days ago.

She crossed the street and walked up the sidewalk, stopping when she reached Lucia’s house.

More baked goods? Lucia didn’t know whether to cry tears of joy for her taste buds, or sorrow for her hips. The lemon bars had left her sure she’d never be able to resist Meredith Connor’s baking.

“Hey there,” she said, her belly threatening to growl as Paige climbed the steps.

Paige’s hair barely touched her shoulders. Last time Lucia had seen her, it’d been halfway down her back, a mane of wild, natural curls many women would envy.

“Hey.” She stopped at the top step, holding up a plate mummified in layers of cling wrap that rendered the contents ambiguous. “You’re not allergic to peanuts, are you?”

“No.”

“My grandmother wanted me to ask. She has a friend who’s allergic, and she can’t even touch anything that has them.”

Lucia eyed the tray with interest, feeling naughty. “Should I take that to mean that your grandmother is spoiling me again?”

Paige shrugged. “She made peanut butter cookies today and had some left over.”

Accidental extras? Remembering what Jeremy had said about his mother being both generous and stubborn, Lucia doubted it.

“Well, tell her I said thank you.” Lucia accepted the plate. “I’ve never been so glad I moved into a neighborhood in my life.”

Paige smiled, but that expression soon wavered. “Could I, um, ask you something?”

Lucia raised her gaze from Paige’s mouth to her eyes. They were a smoky grey, not blue like her father’s, but still strikingly pretty. And at the moment, they were about as cheerful as a brooding sky.