by Freya Barker
Lock&Load
Freya Barker
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Also By Freya Barker
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Lock&Load
Copyright © 2020 Freya Barker
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or by other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in used critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses as permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, mentioning in the subject line:
"Reproduction Request” at the address below:
[email protected]
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, any event, occurrence, or incident is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created and thought up from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ISBN: 9781988733586
Cover Design: Freya Barker
Editing: Karen Hrdlicka
Proofreading: Joanne Thompson
Chapter One
Hillary
“Heads-up. Someone’s on the warpath.”
I shove the last of my salad in my mouth as Linda slides across from me in the cafeteria booth.
I groan while I’m chewing. I know exactly who she’s referring to.
Four years I’ve worked with the woman and I still can’t figure out why she ever became a nurse. Karla Velky is one of the most miserable people I’ve ever encountered. She’s my boss and hates my guts. Also a mystery, although, I have a sneaky suspicion that may have had something to do with me dating Bill Shearer for those unfortunate four weeks.
Dr. Sugarlips, because the man could kiss—for a urologist anyway. Too bad he was all about the hunt for another notch in his stethoscope. Unbeknownst to me, Karla had been his catch du jour before me and had not quite gotten over it. Or him, so it seems.
“What’s she on about now?” I ask, already rolling my eyes in anticipation.
“She was looking for you earlier and wasn’t happy when I told her you were on your dinner break. I thought she’d bust a vein. Said you should’ve been back on the floor twenty minutes ago.” She takes a huge bite of her pizza slice.
“Twenty-five minutes ago I still had my fingers in the entry wound of the GSW that came in off the street. What does she expect? For me to tell the patient; sorry, can you stop bleeding for half an hour so I can take my break?”
Annoyed, I pick up my salad container and my water bottle and shove the chair back as I stand.
“Leaving already?” Linda looks up at me, grinning.
“You know you’re enjoying this way too much, right?” I accuse her, which only makes her grin wider as she nods affirmatively.
“What can I say? It’s been a slow night for me, I could use a good mudslinging to distract me.”
She wiggles her eyebrows and I shake my head, unable to stop the smile on my own face.
“You’re incorrigible. What would your wife say about that?”
“Maggie? She’d be pissed I didn’t tape it. She loves a good wrestling bout as much as I do. Just last night we found a good one on YouTube. Female mud wrestling, look it up.”
Linda and her wife, Maggie, are probably the most unconventional couple I know; unapologetically hedonistic and always up for a good time of one kind or another. In comparison I’m dull and uninspired, which is fine by me; I can find better things to do with my time than watch a bunch of busty women go at it in a tub of sludge.
“I’ll pass,” I tell her, which sets her off laughing again.
That’s another thing about them; they laugh all the time. Somehow, in the sometimes heartbreaking and gut-wrenching work we do, Linda is able to find the humor.
I’m envious of that. I have a tendency to absorb some of the misery around me and find it difficult to shed it at the end of my shift. I’m also more duty driven, my focus always on what I should be doing, rather than what I’d like to be doing.
Now that’s getting a little old. Working two jobs so I can finish paying off my student loans has been my sole focus for the past ten or so years. I’m so close to being free of that burden I can taste it, but as they say, the last mile is the longest.
I’m going on thirty-six, feel at least ten years older most days, and there are times I worry life may have already passed me by. Six more months of working two jobs and then I can tell Karla she can shove her schedule up her ass.
My fairly new second job at the homeless shelter my friend, Rosie, runs is what I’ll focus on full time then. I’ll still be caring for people—something that is ingrained in me—but I’ll be able to see the long-term impact of my work. You don’t really get that kind of gratification in the ER. We patch them up and send them off, rarely seeing the results of what we do.
Karla has her office door open when I attempt to sneak by.
“Where were you?”
The nasal pitch of her voice grates on me, but I try to plaster a smile on my face when I stop and turn. She’s in the doorway to her office, a hand on her hip, and a scowl on her face.
“On my dinner break. Linda mentioned you were looking for me so I cut it short.”
She looks pointedly at the watch on her wrist.
“Short? According to the schedule you should’ve been back almost half an hour ago.”
I take a deep breath in before answering. I’ve learned it doesn’t help my case if I lose my cool.
“Actually, I was busy with the gunshot wound that came in earlier, so I went on break later.” When she stays silent, only glaring at me, I quickly add, “I was assisting Dr. Bogosh, feel free to check with him.”
Her lips press into a tight line. She does not get along with Kevin Bogosh, one of our second-year residents.
“I will.”
She’s about to disappear into her office when I stop her.
“Why were you looking for me?”
From the glint in her eyes I know I’m not going to like what’s coming.
“Supply room is running low on a few things. I need a full stock count so I can order.”
I open my mouth to protest, I was in the supply room earlier and supplies looked fine to me, but think better of it. This is her game; every so often she puts me on some grunt job that’ll take more hours than I have left in my shift to finish, so she can get her jollies off. It’s just easier to give her what she wants so she’s off my back for a bit.
There are about four hours left in my shift. If I put my shoulders into it, it can be done in that time.
Make that five hours. Around ten thirty, four victims of multiple-vehicle accident came in and it was all hands on deck for a while befo
re I could finish up the task.
It’s a little after one in the morning when I climb behind the wheel of my car and force my eyes open for a little longer. Monday is my double day. I start at the shelter from seven thirty until one thirty, then half an hour to scoot home to change and wolf down something to eat before heading to the hospital for my ten-hour shift starting at two. It’s a really long day, but luckily I only have one double-shift day a week.
I live in an apartment building halfway between the shelter and the hospital. A one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a two-story building, just up the street from Lincoln Park. It takes me five to ten minutes going to either location, depending on traffic.
When I pull into the parking lot behind the L-shaped building, I notice two of the lights are out again. I’ll have to notify management tomorrow. It’s not the first time that’s happened and since I get home when most people are already asleep in bed, I’d rather not traverse the lot in the pitch dark.
I grab my bag and get out, locking the doors of my 2006 Honda Civic. Keeping a close eye on my surroundings, I make my way to the outside stairway leading up to my apartment.
Halfway up the stairs I hear a noise from the street—it sounds like a muffled scream—and peek through the brush blocking part of my view. It takes me a moment to register it’s a woman, who appears to be struggling with two attackers. The one person goes down when I notice one of the others raise something over their heads, bringing it down sharply.
I find myself already running back down the stairs when the sound of a wet thwack has my stomach roil. My feet keep moving despite the massive stop sign my brain registers. Just as I burst through the bushes onto the sidewalk, I hear another strike.
“Hey! Stop it!” I yell at the top of my lungs, as I see one of the two men bend over the victim. “Leave her alone!”
Both of their heads swing in my direction and I see they’re not men.
They’re boys.
Radar
“Let’s go, Phil.”
My new rescue, an aging furball of an undetermined breed I normally would’ve walked right by, blinks those pleading dark brown eyes at me. She already knows she has me by the balls.
That became clear the first time she blinked those heavily lashed peepers at me. I’d been looking for a good-sized rescue—a big, manly dog—to keep me company, since the kind of work I do is mostly solitary and often has me by myself in the office or at home. Three weeks ago my boss, Yanis, walked into my office, thinking I was on the phone because I’d been talking for a while. Turns out I was talking to no one, and I didn’t even notice it.
Do you know how scary it is to turn forty and find out you’re already walking around, mumbling to yourself? The crew at the office thought it was hilarious, but it rattled me. So I went to get a dog, and instead came home with Philomena, a nine-year-old fluffy thing on stumpy legs.
“Let’s go, lazy bones,” I prompt her again when she stays curled up on my couch, despite the leash in my hand.
She won’t stop bugging me for her morning walks, can muster up at least some excitement over the ones during the day, but at night, after the sun goes down, Phil is out.
Even when I clip on her leash and set her on her feet on the floor, she drags her little ass. The outside air perks her up a little as we start our nightly walk around the block.
I found this place last month, after my previous one became too small for my computer equipment. That had been a tiny one-bedroom, and the only place I ended up being able to sit was a stool by the kitchen counter or my bed. Every other piece of furniture had been repurposed to hold my stuff.
The new apartment has two good-sized bedrooms, one of which I spent some time organizing so I could fit every piece of equipment behind that one door, while the rest of the place is big enough for me and Phil to actually live in.
Nice neighborhood, even though I really couldn’t care less where I live. My work is my passion and both have me glued to my computer screens for the most part. Dimas had tried to sell me on buying a house. I can easily afford to but pass on the responsibility of looking after a property. I don’t want the headache. For what? I don’t garden, I don’t even really cook, except the bare necessities, and I don’t have a family. Except for Phil, of course.
No, this place suits me just fine.
We round the corner when Phil suddenly stops in her tracks, her floppy ears as perched as they can get, and one front paw lifted halfway in the air.
“Hey! Stop it!”
A few feet in front of me a woman comes flying out of the hedge and suddenly I notice a small group farther down the street. Two guys—one with a baseball bat—standing over someone on the ground. The damn woman runs straight for them, still yelling.
Shit.
All I wanted was to take Phil for a quick pee and roll into bed. It’s been a long fucking week already and it’s only Monday. Instead I find myself running to stop some suicidal chick from getting her head bashed in by a bunch of hoodlums.
By the time I get to her, she’s on her knees beside the victim, a woman judging by the clothes. Her face and head are a mess.
“Call 9-1-1,” I snap at the woman attending to her, without paying her too much attention. “And hang on to my dog.”
I drop the leash and take off after the two attackers I see darting around the next corner. By the time I get there, all I see is a car starting up about halfway down the block. I just manage to pull my phone from my pocket and snap off a few shots as it peels away from the curb. I could only make out half the license plate—QLK—but hopefully I’ll have a few images I can clean up.
Not much I can do on foot to catch what looked like an older model Corolla and sounded like it was souped-up, so I turn and start jogging back.
Phil is sitting on the sidewalk, looking at me as I approach, her tail wagging.
“Good girl,” I mumble, before crouching down beside the foolish guardian angel tending to the victim. “Did you call?”
She reaches for the beanie covering her hair and as she swivels her head to look at me incredulously, her curls bounce free around her face.
A memorable face I’ve seen before a time or two.
“Hillary?”
Chapter Two
Radar
“You said you had pictures?”
One of the detectives, Crystal Bissette, draws my attention with her sharp tone. She and her partner, Manuel Garcia, showed up about fifteen minutes after the injured woman was whisked off in the ambulance. I don’t think she likes me much. For the past eight months PASS—the security company I work for—has been involved in the ‘cleanup’ of the Grand Junction Police Department, at the behest of Chief of Police, Chris Underwood, after evidence of police corruption in the department was uncovered last year.
My eyes were on Hillary—who is being questioned by Garcia—almost exclusively. I know her as a friend of Rosie who is married to Hutch, one of my colleagues at PASS. She was first introduced to me at their wedding, and I’ve seen her at one or two gatherings, but we never actually talked. I’m not sure why, other than she’s perhaps a little intimidating. Can’t quite put my finger on it.
Almost immediately when I came running back, the ambulance and a police cruiser arrived at the scene and things were moving fast after that.
“Yes.” I pull the pictures up my phone and hand it over. Bissette studies the screen closely.
“It does look like a Corolla,” she confirms what I told her. “Can’t really see the color, though.”
“It’s probably black, maybe a dark navy,” I volunteer.
She hands me back my phone and a card.
“Email them to me?”
“Sure. Are you done with me?” My gaze is already drifting back to Hillary, her face mostly obscured by the curls gleaming where the glow from the streetlights hits them.
“You’ll both need to come in tomorrow to look at some mug shots.”
My eyes snap back to the detective.
“Yes, but you were still able to give descriptions of height, clothes, and footwear with great detail. You may recall more than you realize.”
I’m not sure whether having me sit in a small room for hours, sifting through pictures of repeat offenders, is some petty revenge for the in-depth scrutiny we put everyone in the department through, but there’s not much I can do about it. On the plus side, Hillary will have to do the same, so perhaps we can coordinate our efforts. Only makes sense, since we’re apparently neighbors.
“Fine.”
Garcia seems to be done with Hillary as we start walking their way. The two detectives step away—comparing notes, I’m sure—leaving Hillary and I standing on the sidewalk.
“That wasn’t smart.”
She slowly turns her head to look up at me and I notice her eyes are a dark brown, almost black. If they weren’t currently shooting flames in my direction, making me doubt the wisdom of opening my mouth, I might’ve commented on their deep color.
Unfortunately I’m not smooth, and normally not particularly tuned in either—which is why I tend to stick to computer screens—but I have no trouble reading the indignation on her face.
“Excuse me?”
The sharp rise of her voice on the last syllable confirms it only took me three words to piss her off. Nice going.
Even as I start justifying my comment, I already know I’m only digging the hole deeper, but I can’t seem to help myself.