Joanie then proceeded to let her know which guys were single. Out of them all, she thought Daniel would be her best bet. The older woman had warned her away from Nathan Muraca, telling her that he bragged about his sexual prowess. That hadn’t surprised Toni.
“Figured out anything yet?”
Drew’s question forced her to glance over at him, and she quickly wished she hadn’t. The moment their gazes connected, she sucked in a deep breath. He’d been asking about the case, right? Or had it been about something else? For a quick second, she’d seen a need in the depths of his eyes she hadn’t seen in a long time, a need she recognized. But why was it there? Wasn’t Natalie taking care of business? Then again, Joanie hadn’t mentioned anything about an affair between Drew and the television news reporter.
Twice this week, she’d watched as the woman met Drew in the parking lot when he got off work. Although they always left in separate cars, Toni wondered if they would hook up later for dinner somewhere, or at his house for a romp between the sheets.
She glanced back at her notes. “The flash drive is still a mystery to me, Drew. I’ve watched that video twice and can’t figure out anything I think Maria Tindal might have been interested in. I certainly doubt she could afford any of the items for herself.”
“She might have been making a purchase for someone else,” he said. “Someone with money.”
“Possibly, but I feel like I’m missing—”
At that moment, the phone on Drew’s belt rang, interrupting her words. He stood and pressed the talk button. “Detective Logan.”
“This is Joanie in Dispatch. A domestic dispute has escalated into a hostage situation—a teenager threatening to shoot his mother’s boyfriend.” She gave Drew the location.
“I’m on it,” he said, quickly putting back on the gun and holster he’d taken off earlier.
“You’re a hostage negotiator?” Toni asked him. Not all policemen and detectives were hostage negotiators. Because hostage situations were tense, stressful, and anxiety-filled, special training was required.
“Yes. I’ve been a back-up negotiator for last two years. I’ve only done a couple of them. You want to tag along?”
She was already grabbing for her own gun and holster. “Yes.”
They made it to the location in record time. It was in a nice neighborhood, filled with single-story, older homes. It wasn’t like the ritzy neighborhoods she’d visited since moving to Alexandria, but the majority of homeowners were keeping the lawns decent and their homes in pretty good shape.
Two cars of uniformed cops were parked outside a house. Already a crowd of curious bystanders was forming, and officers were keeping the onlookers back. She and Drew were out of the cruiser as soon as he brought it to a stop. They immediately approached the officer she recognized as the same one who’d met them at Maria Tindal’s crime site last week.
“What do you have, Officer?” she asked him.
He glanced over at her. “Renita Horsley’s ten-year-old daughter told her mother that her boyfriend molested her last night. The girl also told her older brother. He went and got a gun from a friend and intends to shoot the man.”
“Where are the mother and daughter?” Toni asked, looking around.
“One of our female officers has the mother seated in a patrol car, trying to calm her down. She’s so worried her son is going to ruin his life.”
“Did she file a report on what her boyfriend did to her daughter?” Drew asked.
“She’s doing it now, but she won’t tell us where her daughter is.”
Toni knew they needed to make sure the little girl was not in the house somewhere. She walked with Drew over to the squad car and glanced in. He flashed his badge to the woman who was seated in the back seat, and Toni flashed hers. “Ms. Horsley, I’m Detective Logan and this is my partner, Detective Oliver. How old is your son?”
“Ellis is only sixteen. He told me plenty of times to leave Sam...only I couldn’t. What happened to Bethany is my fault. I will never forgive myself.”
“Where is Bethany now?” Drew asked.
“At my mother’s. I took her there this morning after she told me Sam had touched her inappropriately. When I got back, Ellis had a gun on Sam. I pleaded with him to put the gun down, but he wouldn’t.”
The woman paused a minute, and then with tears in her eyes, she said, “Detective Logan, Sam is bad news. I realize that now, but I don’t want my child to ruin his life if he kills Sam. I also don’t want you to kill Ellis to save Sam. My son is a good child—a good student and respectful of everyone. Please, don’t hurt my boy.”
Drew looked away from the woman, not saying anything more. Toni knew there was no way he could make any promises. Instead, he looked at Toni and said, “Come on, Detective Oliver, let’s go in.”
• • •
Guns drawn, Andrew and Toni moved quietly around the back of the house and slowly up the steps, staying away from the window. Then they heard voices—that of an older man begging for his life, and then a teenager’s telling the man just what he planned to do.
Andrew figured the voices were coming from what appeared to be the dining room. He hoped like hell the back door was unlocked and they could get inside without being detected. He reached out and slowly tested the doorknob and let out a silent sigh of relief when it gave way.
Glancing over at Toni, he cocked his head to the door and silently mouthed the words, “We’re going in.” She nodded her understanding.
Andrew slowly opened the door, grateful that it did not squeak. He then entered the house. Toni following close behind him. Once inside, he quickly surveyed his surroundings and knew she was doing the same. In an instant, this place reminded him of the home he’d grown up in. One that was always neat and clean...except for the empty whiskey bottles and beer cans that, thanks to his old man, littered the area where the garbage cans were.
He cocked his head. The voices were getting louder, and he knew what his next move had to be. He tried to push out of his mind the pleading look in Renita Horsley’s blue eyes when she made her plea… Please, don’t hurt my boy.
Glancing over at Toni, he mouthed the words, “Let’s go. NUF.” No unnecessary force. He then raised his gun after holding up three fingers, and mouthed the count… “One…two…three.”
Andrew kicked open the door, and suddenly, they were in the dining room. The teenage boy, who looked more like fourteen than sixteen, was holding a gun on a slovenly man who appeared to be in his forties.
“Drop it!” Andrew ordered the kid.
“No! He has to pay for what he did to my sister.”
“He will pay. Hell, he’s paying now,” Andrew said, cocking his head over to the man named Sam. “Look. You made him piss in his pants. There’s no need to make him shit in them, too.”
He saw the grin the kid tried to hide. “I should blow his brains out. He deserves it.”
“There’s no need to waste a bullet. If you pull the trigger, he’ll be dead, and you’ll be in jail. Then, who will look out for your sister?”
“Mama will take care of her.”
“And who will take care of your mom?”
The boy slowly took his eyes off the older man and glanced over at Andrew. “You don’t know how much I wanted to protect them from him.”
“Trust me, I know.”
Then, knowing Toni had his back, Andrew lowered his gun. He knew she had to be wondering what the hell he was doing since his actions were definitely not by the book. At least, not by the cops’ rule book. But he saw a lot of himself in Ellis. Too damn much.
Pulling out a dining room chair, Andrew sat down, as if he had all the time in the world and stretched out his legs. He could tell by the look on the kid’s face that he was confused. Good.
“Okay, Ellis. Sam’s a piece of shit, I got that. He probably deserves to get his head blown off. I got that, too. But what I don’t get is why you’d waste your life and let one bullet—that will splatter his brains all
over this floor—get you time in prison when your mom and sister need you. Trust me. Prison isn’t somewhere you’d want to go. Especially if it’s for the rest of your life.”
The boy lifted a defiant chin. “You’re a cop. How the hell would you know what prison is like?”
Andrew leaned forward in his chair and stared into the kid’s eyes that were the same shade of blue as his mother’s. “Yeah, I’m a cop now, but I wasn’t always. I know because I did nearly six years at Glenworth for armed robbery. And I was just a kid myself. Hell, I hadn’t even finished high school yet.” There was no need to tell the kid that he’d eventually been exonerated. The fact still remained that he’d lost his freedom for six years.
“Glenworth?”
Andrew figured everyone had heard of Glenworth. He nodded.
“How old were you when you went in?” Ellis asked.
“Seventeen. And I had a bastard for a father who treated my mother like shit. More than once, I wished I’d had the nerve to do what you’re doing now. I even thought about it a few times.”
Andrew paused, letting his words sink in. “But when I was in Glenworth, I realized I was glad I hadn’t killed the bastard. Because he would be dead, and I would be paying for it for the rest of my life instead of just six years. Being locked up is no joke. Someone’s going to jail today, but let it be Sam. Trust me, convicts don’t like child molesters. He’ll get his—and fast. In fact, it might be better for him if you did shoot him. At least that would be quick.”
Andrew knew he had the kid thinking. “Your mom is worried about you, Ellis. She asked me not to hurt you. The reason I lowered my gun is because I can clearly see that Sam isn’t worth me shooting you just to save his life. Unfortunately, the dickhead has rights, and I have to protect them. So, what I need for you to do is to put the gun down and let me take Sam to jail.”
“He will get out and come back”
Andrew heard the boy’s voice tremble, almost like a sob. “Not if your mother presses charges...and I’m sure she will. Trust me—Sam is not worth it. Drop the gun and let us take it from here.”
Ellis met Andrew’s gaze, held it for a moment, and then he lowered his arm. Behind him Andrew heard Toni release a deep sigh of relief.
• • •
“What you told Ellis back there, was it true, Drew?”
Toni had to know. They had finally left the scene and were on their way back to headquarters. Officially, they were off work. When she returned to the office, she would gather up her notes and lock them in the desk drawer. A conscientious detective never left investigative information out for others to see. You never knew who might happen to be an acquaintance of one of the suspects.
Drew brought the car to a stop at a railroad crossing. As they waited for the train to cross, he glanced over at her. “Yes. I told you I’d served time in jail.”
“I’m talking about the other. About you wanting to kill your father.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, then nodded. “It’s true.”
She knew she had no right to ask him anything personal, and a part of her knew that if he’d wanted her to know, he would have told her when they’d been together. But that didn’t keep her from asking, “Was he physically abusive to her?”
Drew shook his head. “No. He was mentally abusive, and in some situations, that can be just as bad or worse. As a kid, I watched how he treated her, how she worked while he stayed home, sitting on his ass. How she still kept the house clean and food on the table. He treated both me and Mom like shit. I could never figure out why she stayed with him. And having grown up with that example of wedded bliss, I was in no hurry to replicate it. Marriage and kids are fine...for other people.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. “There was a time when I wanted to kill my father, too.”
He lifted a brow. “Why? Was he abusive to your mother?”
Toni shook her head. “No. He never lived with us, although he would visit. He had a wife and another daughter and son. I am the oldest. My mother had been his girlfriend in high school, but his family didn’t think she was good enough to marry their son. Dad convinced Mom he loved her and his engagement to another woman was one of convenience, done to fulfill his parents’ wishes. He promised her that after they were married, as soon as he could, he would get a divorce. I was born a week before his wedding to the other woman.”
Toni paused a minute. “Growing up, I adored my father, but as I got older and wiser and found out the truth, I started to resent his visits. Mom would be happy whenever he arrived, but then fall into a depression when he left.”
“How long did it last?”
“For nearly fifteen years.”
He didn’t say anything, and she broke eye contact with him. Just her luck—the train was a long one. She couldn’t even see the caboose yet.
“Tell me about it, Toni.”
She figured he had to be thinking that this conversation was coming a little late, considering they’d been apart for over four years. Just like he had never told her about the relationship he’d had with his parents, she’d never told him about the one she had with hers. Would things have been different if they’d been honest with each other before?
“Mom believed, even after fifteen long years, that he truly did love her, and that one day he would leave his wife for her like he said he would. Everybody tried to tell her differently, but she refused to believe them. Finally, my grandparents just accepted that Mom would never see Dad as anything but the man who loved her.”
Toni paused again. She was sharing with Drew something she’d never shared with any of her friends other than Joy. She certainly hadn’t ever told any of her male friends. So why was she doing it now—opening her soul to Drew, sharing something that was private and personal...something that had once caused her so much pain?
She knew the answer. She loved him. And after hearing what he’d told Ellis, she’d known his story was something he had wanted to share to help someone else. And it had. She had seen Ellis’s finger on the trigger. At any point in time, he had been prepared to put a bullet in Sam’s head. Drew’s words had stopped him.
“One day, a week before Christmas, Dad came to visit us. It was on a Thursday night. Thursday was always his regular time to come see us. I knew the moment he walked into the house that evening that something was different.”
She could clearly remember that particular night. “He didn’t come in and act like he owned the place…although, he actually did. He had bought the house for me and Mom, so I guess I could say he looked after us well enough. And we never needed anything that he didn’t get for us. Mom’s car, our clothes...everything. And he set us up in a nice community. She was a kept woman, and I was her kept kid.”
Toni’s throat grew tight, remembering, but then she swallowed and returned to her story. “That night, I thought Dad seemed kind of sad. I found out later that his wife had finally found out about me and Mom and had given him an ultimatum—he either cut his ties with us, or she would sue for divorce. He chose his marriage over me and Mom. That night he’d come to tell us goodbye.”
Toni drew in a deep breath and a sob caught in her throat. “All those years, he had Mom believing that all he’d been waiting for was a chance to divorce his wife. The moment he got it, he chose to stay married. Mom cried every day after that. Then one day, she didn’t cry. I was hoping she’d finally decided Dad wasn’t worth it, and although this would be our first Christmas without him, at least we had each other.”
Tears Toni could not stop filled her eyes. “Dad had made things easy for us to move on. He had left Mom the deed to the house, money for my college education, and enough funds in a bank account to tide us over for years to come. I thought we’d be able to start over. But I found out that wasn’t the way Mom was thinking at all.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up Christmas Day to find Mom had overdosed on her sleeping pills. She’d committed suicide, Drew. Heartbreak had pus
hed her into doing it.”
“I’m so sorry, Toni.”
She swiped at her tears. “Yes, I’m sorry, too. Mom deserved better, but she never believed that she did.”
“Has your father ever reached out to you since then?” Drew asked.
“Yes. He tried, and for years I refused to see him. I asked that he not attend Mom’s funeral. I heard he came to my high school and college graduations, but I didn’t see him. It was easier to hate him. For years I hated him. That’s why I decided that I would never fall in love. Being in love left my mother vulnerable. It brought her nothing but pain.”
“Is your father still living in Miami?”
“He moved to Philadelphia ten years ago. He subsequently got a divorce, and his family remained in Philadelphia, where his ex-wife’s family lives. He moved back to Miami a few weeks ago.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“His family has always been in land management and development. Are you familiar with the Oliver Properties?”
“The developer of those gigantic shopping malls across the United States?”
Toni nodded. “Yes, that’s him, and one of the reasons Mom and I never went without anything while growing up.”
She took another deep breath and continued. “After Mom died, I gave my grandparents permission to sell the house, and I moved in with them. They put the money from the sale of the house and my mother’s insurance proceeds into a trust fund for me.”
“Were you ever able to finally forgive him, Toni?”
“For my peace of mind, I had to. Before leaving Miami to move here, I went to see him in Philadelphia. I needed that closure.”
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