by A. J. Lape
“I’m so proud of you, babe. You’re going to excel, and other than your smarts, I know you’re the most beautiful recruit who will ever enter those doors.”
Alexandra. Always in my corner.
“Thanks, Yaya,” I said, referring to her in the Greek word for grandma, “but I don’t think a good shade of lip gloss is going to get me anywhere with those men.”
“No, but it never hurts to look beautiful.”
Alexandra, Pixie, and I had just finished a large bowl of pasta with a traditional Greek salad, heavy on the feta cheese. While Leonardo, Pixie’s iguana, scampered off with a black olive I’d dropped on the floor, I wanted nothing more than to aggressively relax on the couch. Instead, I snapped Lucky’s leash to his collar, heading out for a jog. My new schedule was vastly different from his norm, and Lucky had been jumping like a kangaroo since I’d come through the door, anticipating a daily run.
Perhaps a run would do me good. My mind twisted around like butter in a churn, trying to turn and shape out what the next six months would look like. I had all the materials in front of me—the uniforms, the textbooks, even the mental bruises from the morning’s formation that proved some people couldn’t march in a straight line—but what I didn’t have was Dylan’s broad shoulders to cry on when I felt overwhelmed. The days would be fast-tracked and strenuous, with me left questioning what I’d logged into my long-term memory and what things went short-term only to be called up on test-day and promptly forgotten. Whatever the case, we clocked out that afternoon with Roper telling us Tuesday would commence with classroom work. A physical evaluation was scheduled for Wednesday morning to log our beginning levels of fitness. Instead of resting my legs, though, here I was running. I wasn’t positive that was good…or bad. But if I backslid on my daily routine, I feared I’d be less than impressive on the eval. Compounding my nerves was the fact my days and nights were still a little wonky. Running, I hoped, would wear me out and force my brain to sleep because my body was still running on nightshift time. A part of me longed for Ugly Pizza and Bodhi Kessler, my favorite frat boy—and best customer—at UCLA. Bodhi had texted to see how the day had gone, but even joining the academy would add a different facet to our relationship that hadn’t been there before.
Growing up…hard to do.
Darn you, societal rules. Darn you.
Taking out on our normal path, Lucky swung his head around at me twice. His tongue hung out the side of his black mouth and did a flip-flap with each step. He was baffled why we were jogging at the end of the day instead of the middle. “It’s the new me, Luck,” I informed him in between huffs. “Just roll with it.”
He barked out a chuff and kept going.
April weather in Los Angeles saw the temperature gradually creeping up the thermometer. Right then, it was in the mid-sixties but brisk enough to fly a person to Kansas. The wind kicked up the fragrant smell of spring flowers, the sweet nectar swirling around my face with each pound against the pavement. Before long, I made it to the middle of the park, FaceTiming Dylan. He answered on the first trill thingy right as I led Lucky to the water trough and wiped my forehead on my wrist. “Hello, beautiful, tell me how your day went,” he murmured. “I’ve been chomping at the bit since morning.”
Dylan had texted off and on during the day, emoji blasting me with hearts and fist bumps, promising I would bury everyone by the end of the week. I recapped day-one. “I think I’ll do okay on the physical stuff. I’ve been running four miles daily since I moved here. Appearances suggest I’m the most fit—at least among the women recruits.”
“Of course, you’ll do okay,” he said deeply. “You’re going to kick everyone’s ass.”
Classic Dylan. Always optimistic.
“There’s a girl named Holland Hemming who I need to keep my eye on,” I told him.
“Tell me about her.”
There was a lot to tell about Holland Hemming. One of the most interesting—but not surprising—was that she’d become Grumpy’s latest crush. Things had been shaky between him and his girlfriend (and my mortal enemy), Ivy Morrison, and by the looks I caught him giving Holland, he appeared to be subconsciously auditioning a new GF. “Other than being Grumpy’s newest obsession…” I said. Dylan burst into giggles. “…she’s tall. Has red hair. Really cute.” I recapped her story and abrupt change of plans complements of a stick-up, to let him know how serious she was about her career.
“Hold on. Let me grab my laptop.” After a pause, Dylan came back online, pecking a few keys on the keyboard. In a few clicks, he’d located the cheerleading team picture of UC Berkeley for last year’s season. His brows snapped together, and those big, beautiful amber-colored eyes developed a laser focus. Gripping a nearby water bottle, he downed a gulp. “Hmmmm,” he said once he’d swallowed.
“What does hmmmm mean? I know she’s more than cute, but my ego doesn’t want to hear you say it.”
“Not my type, sweetheart. I’m just evaluating.”
“Then tell me what to do, oh wise one.”
Dylan was sexy as he sat there, his shoulders stretching a navy T-shirt to the point the seams just might pop. The muscles and cords in his neck bulged with power, and his eyes narrowed while he assessed an adversary he tried to take out of play. A white ball cap sat on his head that he twirled around backward, all business. I found it mind-numbingly bizarre this guy loved me.
“Okay, she’s tall, thin, probably can run fast,” he rattled off. “Probably more agile than most because there’s a picture of her doing a back tuck. Probably has the capacity to generate a lot of power but might feel insecure since she was a cheerleader, fearing no one will take her seriously. Could be defensive and hard to get to know at first.”
My hair escaped my rubber ponytail holder, landing up against my temple in a sweaty glue. Pushing it off my face, I fell back onto the park bench, sighing. “You just recited my own dossier, save for the cheerleader part.”
“It’s merely a scouting report, Darc.” After a heartbeat of a pause, he focused on his screen once more. “She’s top heavy.”
I raised a brow. “You mean, big boobs?”
“Whatever you want to call them.”
“So make sure I nail the things that don’t require big boobs?”
Another giggle from Dylan. “I’m an ass man, sweetheart. You know that, although nothing is inferior about—”
“My boobs,” I completed.
“There are always going to be other talented women,” he said softly.
“What if I can’t take her? What if I fail?”
“No one fails on purpose. They fail because they don’t have the skills, they weren’t prepared, or they didn’t have someone to believe in them. You have all three. Plus, you can hang with the men. You will not fail,” he vowed.
Preach it brotha, the cocky part of myself thought. But the insecure teen who’d barely graduated won out. My voice grew small. “I’m overwhelmed.”
“You’re human.”
“You’re never overwhelmed.” And it was debatable if he was human.
Dylan closed the lid on his laptop. “Not normally, but I’m a mean-ass sonovabitch too. Listen, the next six months are going to be grueling, but they’re also going to be your most rewarding. They’re going to catapult you into the life you were born for…God told me that this morning.”
Insert part two of the brow lifting thing. “God told you that this morning?”
He winked. “Well, I might’ve told Him, but He agreed. Trust me. You’re going to have more first downs than anyone. Grandpa has prepared you. Have you spoken with him yet?”
I relayed that Lincoln had to work late, but he’d said to not go to bed until he made it home. When Dylan inquired what I thought of our instructor, I watched a green hummingbird plunge in and out of a yellow Chinese lantern flower, thinking of my mother. My entire life revolved around her, our relationship, and what her absence had done to me. Behind my eyes, my skull was screaming—screaming for me to get a grip and to not quit
before I even started. My eyes filled with tears at the uncertain terrain to come—that grand destiny I just might be denied—but I blinked the emotions away.
“I saw that,” he said softly, but before I could name those tears, Thor and Finn came into Dylan’s suite and wrestled his phone away from him.
“Hey, trouble,” Thor said, dodging Dylan’s fists.
“Back off, idiots,” Dylan grumbled, but Thor and Finn won out.
Both positioned their big heads into the screen, but all I could see was an eyeball of each. “Tell me you didn’t say anything stupid in class,” Thor mumbled.
“Not much,” I said, needing a laugh.
“Good,” he said. “I actually prayed for you today. My pastor would be proud because I haven’t done that in like…for years.”
“No shit,” Finn muttered. “You’re too busy doing carnal things to ever think of anything else.”
“Funny coming from you, slut,” Thor said, “but I have to distract myself until Sydney comes to her senses. It’s taking her a long time,” he grumbled as an aside, “and I have no plan of attack.”
Thor and Dylan’s sister were human anatomy class partners back in the summer, if you catch my drift. It wasn’t readily clear how detailed their study of the human body had gotten, but Sydney went back to college and reunited with her loser boyfriend, Trace Badger. Trace and Sydney were a yawn, but with Thor it was white-hot.
Just my opinion, but Sydney was scared of something she couldn’t control.
“Bella,” Finn’s eyeball said, ignoring Thor’s woe-is-me, love-life story, “I received the cash you PayPal’d me. I’ve got some ideas on what to do with the two grand, and Taylor and I are going to make this baby grow.” He paused when my half-smile was forced. “What’s wrong? You seem sad.”
Dylan demanded they give him his phone once more, but Finn was one of those guys who reminded me of Dylan. Easy to divulge your deep, dark secrets to, I’d confessed I spoke of my mother before I could talk myself out of it.
His eyeball doubled in size. “What kind of idiot would ask about your mom?” he spat.
“He didn’t really. I volunteered,” I said in a dead voice.
Thor snatched the phone from him. “No effing way. Really? Now, I’m going to cry. Like my tear ducts are going to start bawling.”
If any girl knew who these three truly were, she would either drop her jaw in perplexed shock or beg them to be a sperm donor.
Dylan yanked the phone from Finn’s hand, begging to know why I’d volunteered something so raw it always left a burn in my chest. When I croaked out Roper baited me by highlighting my application instead of anyone else’s, Dylan’s brain went back to that thirteenth century philosopher thing. His faced reddened, questioning why I’d been singled out. But after half a minute to think, he dialed back into the conversation. “This could be good,” he said, trying to encourage me. “I don’t know the guy’s MO, but if it was to provoke you, then you more than met his challenge. I’m not sure I like him yet, but you can take it to the bank I’m going to ask Grandpa his opinion.”
Chapter 12
WEARING UGLY TIGHTY-WHITIES IS ENOUGH FOR A LETHAL INJECTION.
Located At 5651 West Manchester Boulevard roughly twenty-four minutes away via the 405, the LAPD Ahmanson Recruit Training Center was where I would spend the majority of the next six months in training. The academy, in its three locations, was reminiscent of a full-service college or professional sports arena, complete with a firing range, an athletic field, gym, track, and obstacle course. Additionally, there were classrooms and a cafeteria, fulfilling every need for training and recreation a recruit could ever need.
Finding a spot right outside the entrance next to a fountain, I’d arrived a full thirty minutes early on my third day, dressed in LAPD-issued sweats with my name on the front of my shirt. Days typically began with formation at five-thirty a.m., but since we were having our physical fitness qualifier, I wanted time to stretch in case Roper decided to start the day by going through the bottom of the alphabet first. To make sure I stayed awake, I’d gone through Starbucks and picked up a cold-brew black, trying to convince my neurons and limbs to talk to one another.
Jaws was on the phone with me. “Phone belongs to Clyde Sargent,” he said, referring to the request I’d asked of him Sunday night. “Are you familiar with that name? Where he lives?”
“He’s an Ugly Pizza customer. He lives close to the shop.”
“You failed to mention that.”
“We didn’t get to that part. It was your sexy time.”
He grunted…maybe…or maybe I imagined it. “Regardless, this is not your problem,” he said. “Tell Lincoln Taylor. Let him handle it.”
“It’s my case.”
“Jester, I’m loving the can-do-attitude, but you’re endangering your career if you don’t go by the book. Someone has been harassing you. You now know who it is. You need to look—”
“Compliant?”
“That would be one way to categorize your impending actions.”
“I don’t roll over and play dead.”
“One of the things I admire about you.”
Jaws admired something about me. My heart swelled, and I got a goofy grin. “He’s weird, okay? I want to know why he’s weird and why he keeps semi-confessing to a murder he allegedly committed in a hunting accident.”
“Now, you’re in over your head. Again, you failed to mention a hunting accident in your request.”
“Again, sexy time. And furthermore, why did this take you three days instead of what should’ve only been one? And feasibly ten minutes if you were feeling like a superhero?” Seriously, the delay had been odd.
I heard the frown in his voice, but he kept on topic. “What if Sargent’s just jacking with you? Men do a lot of strange things all in the name of flirting, Jester.”
“He wasn’t flirting.”
“So what makes you so positive he committed murder?”
“Oh, I dunno,” I said sarcastically. “Perhaps it’s the Black Sabbath music I hear in my head when I drop off a pizza. The smirk in his reptilian grin that is in no way humorous or friendly. Or his crappy sense of style and affinity for answering the door in his tighty-whities. Just my opinion, but wearing ugly tighty-whities is enough for a lethal injection.”
Jaws mumbled that the world was full of one too many perverted men. “All right, babe,” he murmured and sighed. “Spare the visuals. Just because I like you, I’m going to run a full workup on the guy. Anything else?”
“If you’re doing a full workup, can you find out if someone really did die on the street in front of his house? He said a guy got hit by a car on Levering…and that he was sorry he missed it.”
“Jesus, his poor mother in no way was proud how her kid turned out. I’ll tack that on. Lay low until then. Understood?”
What exactly was a full workup for Jaws? Did he need a warrant from a judge to execute? He was mob for godsakes. How did he do what he did? “I’ll think about it,” I finally said.
“Jester, you don’t follow directions well...if at all. Follow the book.”
It was my case…and I would end it as my case. I’d backed off the John Doe in Florida. Backing off Clyde Sargent was too much to ask of my ego.
He pulled a round two on the sigh. “You’re going to ignore me, but let me go on record as saying if you don’t go by the book, you’re sure as shit complicit in covering up a potential crime.” He paused again…but no sigh. “We’ll put that on ice for the moment. Did you at least start the day right? Have a good breakfast?”
I peered into my rearview mirror, checking my teeth with a wide-mouthed grin. “I think I need a life coach to travel the world with me. Breakfast was some baklava and a bag of microwave popcorn. So I’ve nailed my carb requirement.”
Jaws dropped a JC, muttering something else I couldn’t make out. “Please tell me you at least have a protein bar somewhere.”
Glancing to my purse in the passenge
r seat, I fished around inside it, pulling out a peanut butter flavored bar. “Got one in my purse. More like ten of them. Lincoln must’ve slipped into my room and put them inside.”
“Eat one now,” he ordered. Ripping the top of the wrapper with my teeth, I spit the wrapper onto the floor and bit into the gooey cardboard-like bar, catching sight of a car pulling up beside me. Its ignition went off, and when I searched over my shoulder to see who it was, I focused on Ezra Huxley. Huxley’s lips twitched with half a grin, and then he reached down to his floorboard, pulling out a rag and a dark shaped object. My mind wasn’t totally awake, but after a few blinks, I realized his fingers were wrapped around a 9mm in his hands. Here was the thing…we hadn’t been given our guns yet.
“Lord,” I muttered. “Huxley is all kinds of weird.”
“What’s wrong?” Jaws said. I heard him pecking on his keyboard.
“Ezra Huxley just pulled up next to me.”
“And?”
“He was a loner yesterday. Not by design, I should qualify. He made an attempt to fit in but reminds me of a guy who has a hole in his boat. He’s doomed for some reason. He didn’t really slide into one of the groups I placed people in either. He’s sitting in his car, cleaning his gun, and looking down the barrel.”
Jaws hissed like a snake. “Stay the hell away from him. Does he have a vendetta with someone?”
I scoffed. “I just met him. How am I supposed to know if he has a vendetta? Anyway, he called me last night.” I swallowed down another chunk of protein bar.
“Did you answer?”
Dumbly, but I’d just disconnected with Dylan and thought he could be calling back because he’d forgotten something. Unfortunately, I hit the talk button without looking at the number. “I didn’t really pay attention to who it was,” I answered, “but when I figured out it was him, I kept it short…wished him luck and shut down the call by feigning I was tired. Except I wasn’t feigning. I’m having trouble working at this time of day.”
“I want you to exit the car and find a supervisor.”