by James Hunt
“Grant, we’re going to catch him,” Mocks said. “Now that we know he’s going after the jurors, we can put them in protective custody. Hickem’s working to—”
Grant punched the dash, cracking the plastic of the old Crown Vic, silencing Mocks and stoking his anger. “It’s nothing but a game to him! A fucking game!”
Mocks was hesitant, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “This has been a difficult case—”
“Difficult?” Grant laughed, feeling himself starting to slip off the edge. “I killed a woman, Mocks!”
“Grant, that wasn’t your fault—”
“Then whose was it?” Grant’s anger boiled. “How much more shit do I have to wade through before I’m done? How many more demons from my past am I going to have to face?”
Mocks slammed on the brakes and veered off the road. The tires screeched from the sudden stop.
“Enough!” Mocks reddened from her neck all the way to her cheeks. “I’m not going to watch you go down this road again.” Anger turned to exasperation, and she shifted in her seat, sitting side saddle. “Grant. Hey, look at me.”
Grant slowly turned toward Mocks, and in that moment, he saw how much she’d grown. She wasn’t the rash young detective with a mile-a-minute-mouth, say-whatever-comes-to-mind girl that he’d been paired with all those years ago. She was a lieutenant, a wife, and a mother. And his best friend.
“No one could have gone through what you did and made it out the other side,” Mocks said. “If I lost Rick and Chase…” She shook her head. “What you’ve been able to do, how you’ve been able to help people, to stop the evil in this world… It’s because of all the bad shit that you’ve experienced. All the terrible, life-altering shit you went through gave you a purpose.” Her eyes watered. “But your purpose isn’t meant to run yourself into the ground and give up a future that you’ve worked so hard to have. A future that you deserve.” She exhaled, and then wiped her nose along the sleeve of her jacket. “I’m not going to let you go down that path. And if that means doubting you, or challenging you, then you bet your ass that’s what I’m going to do. I love you, Grant. And so does Sam. But if you can’t forgive yourself, then it will kill you.”
Grant opened the door and stepped out onto the side of the road, then slammed the door shut behind him. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the car, a few cars passing them on the highway. Mocks walked around and leaned right up next to him.
“Everything’s falling apart, Mocks,” Grant said. “It’s like I’m caught in quicksand, and everything I do only pulls me down deeper.”
Grant had never been one for discussing his feelings. It was one of the reasons why it had taken him nearly five years to get over his wife’s death, and to move on from the dark world of crime and police work. He let things fester and rot until it nearly destroyed him.
“You know, my final time in recovery, I went through some pretty bad withdrawals,” Mocks said. “Chills, shaking, hallucinations. And while most of it turned to kind of a hazy memory that bled together, there was one moment that stood out above all of them.” She removed her hands from her pockets, the digits small, white, and bony. She formed both hands into fists. “I had wanted another hit so bad that I tried to break out of the room. But the door was three inches of steel, and there weren’t any windows for me to crawl out. I didn’t have any tools except the clothes on my back and the mattress and pillows.” She stared at her hands and flexed her fingers. “So, I started punching the door. It hurt, but every time I punched it I realized that it distracted me from how bad I wanted a hit. So, I punched until my knuckles bled and I broke my left hand. But I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream, I just focused every single bit of my rage into that door.”
Grant stared down at Mocks’s hand and saw the faded remains of a scar that ran across the top of her hand. He’d never noticed it before when they worked together.
Mocks finally relaxed her hand and then dropped her arms to her sides. “I passed out during that boxing session, but when I woke up, one of the orderlies had placed me back in my bed. He told me that I dented the door.”
A skeptical grin formed over Grant’s face, and he narrowed his eyes. “A three-inch steel door. You dented it?”
Mocks punched Grant. “Don’t act so surprised.” She pocketed her hands. “Rick didn’t believe me when I told him either. But it’s true. Sometimes you just have to keep punching even when you know that you can’t break through. Because it might not get you what you thought you wanted, but it could lead you to something that you needed. I needed the distraction from the pain.”
Grant glanced down at his clothes, the same thing he’d been wearing since yesterday, suddenly feeling grungy. “I think right now I need a change of clothes.”
“I’ll have one of the officers drive you home so you can change.” Mocks headed for the driver side door, and before she ducked inside, Grant called out to her and she stopped, looking at him the way she had done so many times during their time together as partners in the Missing Persons unit.
“Thank you,” Grant said.
Mocks grinned and then punched the air playfully. “Just keep pounding, Grant. You’ll break through this eventually.”
After so many years as a lone wolf, throwing himself into his work with nothing else to focus on save for the result of the case, he once again found himself surrounded with a family. It was an unconventional one, but a family all the same.
Grant returned to the car, the radio crackling as he put on his seatbelt.
“Lieutenant Mullocks?” Dispatch asked.
“Go for Mullocks,” she answered.
“Chief Hofster needs both you and Mr. Grant to return to Police HQ.”
“Copy.” Mocks secured the radio to the receiver and turned the car back to Seattle.
Upon their return to the downtown headquarters, they were greeted with the frenzied horde of reporters that had tripled outside the front steps, and the crowd forced Mocks to park farther down the street.
The pair walked up to the building, Mocks flashing her badge at the barricade, and the moment they were up the steps, the questions were shouted at their backs.
“Lieutenant! What can you tell us about the Judge Brockwater’s death?”
“Does it have anything to do with the current case he’s working on?”
“Do you have any comment on the Mary Sullivan video?”
Grant froze and was the first to turn, facing the brunt of the lights and cameras.
“What do you have to say to the citizens of the city that you’ve now put in harm’s way?”
Before Grant could answer, Mocks grabbed his arm and yanked him up the steps and inside the building.
Mocks leaned into Grant as the pair were quickly escorted toward the Chief’s office. “Do you think Hickem leaked the tape?”
“He has nothing to gain from leaking it,” Grant answered. “If it was Dennis who sent that tape to Hickem, then there isn’t any reason why he wouldn’t have sent it to a news station.”
The moment they stepped into Hofster’s office and the door was shut behind them, Grant knew that the chief had seen the video.
Hofster sat behind the large oak desk, which was decorated simply. He had his computer, a few pictures of family, pens, and an empty file tray, but all of them rattled when he pounded his fist against the desk. “How did this happen!”
Mocks stepped forward. “Sir, we don’t—”
“The footage from that body cam along with the video feed of Mary Sullivan’s death is being played on every single news station across the fucking country!” Hofster shot up from his chair, his face so red it looked like he was bleeding. He stepped around his desk toward Mocks and Grant. “Every major political leader in the state is being bombarded with calls of why one of our own would kill a hostage!”
All but five foot nothing, Mocks stood her ground, staring Hofster in the eye. “Sir, I don’t know who leaked the footage.”
“It doesn’t m
atter who leaked the footage!” Hofster stomped the floor as he spun around back to his desk, kicking one of the legs, which toppled the video monitor. “Jesus Christ!” With his back to Grant and Mocks, Hofster regained control of his breathing and then turned around. He was calmer. “Mr. Grant, you are no longer a part of this investigation. You will be escorted off this premise and taken to your home.” He walked past Mocks and stood eye to eye with Grant. “My hands are just as dirty in this as yours. But the media will want heads to roll, and they will go after you first. I’m sorry for all of this.”
When Hofster returned to his desk, leaving Grant on his lonely island, he managed to look at Mocks one last time before he was escorted out of the room, and her expression broke his heart in half.
It was the look of a woman who believed she had failed him. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Out of the office and shuffled through the halls by a pair of officers, a tightness formed in Grant’s chest. He became short of breath, and the floor shifted unexpectedly beneath his feet. One of the officers caught him, but handled Grant roughly.
The dream-like state only worsened when Grant was brought outside, and while the sky was overcast, he squinted from the lights of the cameras. Reporters shouted their questions, which blended together in a dull roar.
Grant lifted his hand to cover his eyes from the lights, turning his face away from the crowd, but a single voice cut through the jumbled mess, silencing the news teams that clustered at the bottom of the steps.
“Did you kill her!” The voice was attached to a man forcing his way through the cluster of reporters. “Did you kill my wife?”
Grant froze, locking eyes with the man who had reached the front of the barricade. It was Elton Sullivan. Husband to Mary Sullivan.
“I’ll kill you!” Elton Sullivan climbed over the barricade, rushing toward Grant with the same rage and grief that he himself had felt after his wife had died.
And while Elton charged up the steps, eyes locked onto his target with intense focus, Grant didn’t step out of the way. Because truth of Grant’s actions was written all over Elton Sullivan’s face, and that truth was simple. Grant killed Mary Sullivan.
“You son of a bitch!” Elton made it halfway to Grant before he was subdued by the officers, his arms poking through the cluster of bodies that dragged him away. “You killed my wife! You killed her!” Spittle landed on the shoulders of the cops who pulled him off the steps, his face beet red as the anger gave way to grief. “You took her from me!”
The reporters clustered at the base of the steps, pivoting their cameras between Mr. Sullivan and Grant, but once the officers dragged the grieving husband out of sight, those lights and cameras found Grant once more.
“What happened during the recovery of Mary Sullivan?”
“What were the circumstances around her death?”
“Why would you kill her?”
More officers returned and removed Grant from the steps and tossed him into the back of a squad car, leaving a wake of questions unanswered, and leaving Grant to piece together the shattered remains of his life.
17
It wasn’t until after Grant was escorted out of Hofster’s office and the door shut, leaving Mocks alone with the chief, that she saw how frightened he was.
“This is bad, Lieutenant,” Hofster said, collapsing back into his chair. “This is very bad.”
“I understand, sir,” Mocks said. “And I also understand that the easiest approach to handle this situation would be to say that Grant acted alone. That he went outside protocol. It would fit the narrative that the media has already put together, and while it wouldn’t completely absolve the department of our sins, it would be a start. But if that’s the route that this department is going to take, then I want to make it clear that I will fight you tooth and nail. Sir.”
Hofster was silent. He had a hell of a poker face, and Mocks figured he would play the cards close to his chest. But if sticking up for Grant and doing what was right for her friend meant that she burned on the stake with him, then that’s what would happen.
“The priority of this department is still to catch Dennis Pullman,” Hofster said. “Regardless of the narrative that the media has put together, we know that it is Pullman who is the real menace.” Hofster raised his eyebrows. “Is that understood, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mocks wasn’t sure how she should take the chief’s comments, but she hoped that it meant that they’d be standing by Grant. While they might have had their arm pinned behind their back because of Dennis in forcing Grant to work with them, they could have tried other methods.
Hofster planted his elbows on the table, rubbing his hands together. “We might not survive this, Lieutenant.” He nodded and stood, walking around the desk. “I’ll do what I can to keep you out of it, but the press isn’t going to stop digging.” He stopped in front of her, shaking her hand.
“I’m not hiding from this, sir,” Mocks said.
Hofster smiled. “You’re a good cop.” He spun around, walking around his office as if it was going to be the last time he would see it. “I spoke with Hickem. The other jurors have been collected and are secured. If Pullman goes after them, we’ll be ready.”
But Mocks wasn’t sure that was Pullman’s goal anymore. He was smart enough to know that once they realized he was going after the jurors, they’d be placed in protective custody.
“Sir, while I understand removing Grant from the case publicly is unavoidable, we should still consider speaking to him,” Mocks said.
Hofster laughed. “You can’t be serious, Lieutenant. Do you know what would happen to us if the media found out? Or anyone?”
Mocks stepped forward. “Chief, Pullman targeted Grant at the beginning of this. There’s no reason to believe that he’s going to stop that now. Everything he’s done has shown some semblance of revenge. What if he’s not done with Grant? What if this business with the jurors and the judge was just something to keep him busy while he waited for a bigger play?”
“And what play would that be?” Hofster asked.
“I don’t know yet, sir,” Mocks answered. “But I know keeping Grant close would be good for everyone involved. Like you said, catching Pullman is still this department’s number one priority.”
Hofster studied Mocks for a minute, and he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “You are a loyal friend, Lieutenant. I admire that about you. But remember that you have your own family to think about.” He sighed. “Go home. There isn’t anything for you to do right now. And it might be the last time you have any sense of normalcy with your family for a while.”
“Yes, sir.” Mocks headed for the door and then out of the building. She avoided the horde of reporters, though they still managed to snap a few pictures and video clips that would be played on the evening news. And while she found their presence more than irritating, it felt good to leave them in the dust of her rearview mirror.
The more distance that Mocks put between herself and the precinct, the better she felt. And while the city was still underneath a threat of danger, she knew there was something good for her waiting at home.
The past few days had drenched Mocks in the evil of the world, and while she was used to seeing bad things, she could only take so much. Seeing her son was the best way to remember why she endured so much pain to fight evil in the first place.
Mocks stopped at the store and picked up a few things that she knew they needed for dinner and hoped that Rick hadn’t already done it, so she could surprise him. But the stop at the store had left her with the unintended consequences of seeing the news run another story on Pullman, and she was sucked back into that world once more.
She didn’t watch it for very long, but the other people in the store were drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
People were always so fascinated with death and destruction until it came knocking on their own door. Then they wished like hell it would just go away.
When Mocks pulled up to the street where she lived, she didn’t notice that Rick’s car wasn’t in the driveway. She just thought that he had moved it into the garage after making a trip somewhere, which she hoped wasn’t the grocery store.
Mocks scooped up the bags and then headed toward the door, balancing the groceries and the keys as she headed up the front porch steps and put the key in the lock, again not noticing that the lock wasn’t engaged. It had been precariously left open.
But Mocks was so excited to be home, so excited to see her family, blinded by the prospect of seeing her son, of seeing her husband, of holding both of them in her arms, and planting a big kiss on each of their handsome faces.
“Rick! Chase!” Mocks smiled as she called their names when she pushed open the door, but once she was inside the house, she sensed something was wrong.
Scuff marks lined the floor of the foyer, ones that hadn’t been there before. Between the two of them, Rick had always been the neat freak. He wouldn’t have left marks like that.
“Rick?” Mocks dropped her tone an octave and then placed the grocery bags on the side table by the door. She glanced into the key bowl and saw that Rick’s keys were gone. She reached for her phone and dialed Rick, hoping that he had just gone down to the park with Chase. The pair had been inside all day because of the rain, and she knew that both were chomping at the bit to get out and play.
“Pick up,” Mocks said, moving from the living room to the kitchen, and then up the stairs, searching for anything that seemed out of place.
“Hey, it’s Rick, I’m not here right now—”
Mocks hung up. “Shit.” She poked her head into Chase’s room and found it empty, then her and Rick’s room, also finding it empty. “Rick!”
The excitement had vanished and was now replaced with the dread and terror of not knowing where her family was. She tried Rick’s phone again on her way downstairs and heard a buzzing coming from the living room. She walked over to the couch and lowered the phone from her cheek when she saw Rick’s phone on the middle cushion.