by Ladew, Lisa
Within a minute, Mr. Rowe pushed the front door open again and handed her a driver’s license. She noted with disappointment that he had put on a shirt. If nothing else, he was easy on the eyes. His cocky smile was still there though, the one that she wasn’t sure if she liked or not. She took his license and looked at it - the picture was of him, and the birth date was the one he gave her, but the address was wrong. “This address doesn’t match this house,” she told him.
“Yeah, I moved.”
“How long ago?”
He looked up like he was thinking. “A few years ago.”
“The law gives you six weeks to change your address when you move. I should write you a citation for that.”
The cocky smile slipped a notch. Kara restrained her own smile. She normally didn't mess with people like this, but he was asking for it.
“I trust you’ll take care of that?” she said, throwing him a hard glance. He nodded quickly. “Good,” she said, then turned on her heel and left, stopping at the police car long enough to talk to Howell. She marched to the back of the original house and went through every room, not expecting to find anything out of order. When she had proved herself right she locked the back door from the inside and went out the front door, locking it behind her.
She and her recruit cleared the scene without so much as a glance at Mr-cocky-smile’s house.
Chapter 5
As they left the neighborhood, Kara turned her thoughts forcefully away from Mr. Zane Michael Rowe and towards the performance of her recruit. Acting on instinct, she said, “What was your job before this?”
“P-p-prison guard.”
Kara pressed her lips together. Now the anger on his face earlier made sense. “Hey – sorry. I didn’t know. Recruits have a tendency to pull out their guns too early, and I didn’t have time to give you the polite speech – so you got the quick and rude one.”
Howell’s face softened. “I-i-it’s OK.”
“Good job on that call.”
He smiled instead of saying anything and she wondered if he understood how much he was going to have to talk every day on the job. Who in the hell wants to be a police officer when they have a stutter? But she was warming up to him a bit. He had performed well. What was his first name again? Seth. She pushed the centralized computer over to him. “Type in our report, Seth. Say we made checks and found the house empty, and we talked to a neighbor and got the homeowner’s phone number. The alarm company is trying to contact the homeowner and we locked the doors.”
He depressed the keys on the keyboard quickly, finishing the report in a few moments. His fingers didn’t stutter.
The dispatcher assigned a burglary call to another officer on the road. Kara wondered briefly if the dispatcher was new. She’d never heard the voice before, and the old dispatchers would know the officers with recruits needed calls like that for the experience. She got on the radio. “Central, we’ll take that call.”
Once they arrived at the house it ended up being a huge case. Three houses on one street and four on another. People kept coming over and saying that while they were at work, their house was burglarized too. It was too much work even for a recruit so Kara got on the radio and asked for help. A female voice she didn’t immediately recognize responded. “Central we’ll head over and help them.”
Kara furrowed her brow. She should know that voice - and then it hit her: Ivy! She smiled as she watched Seth dust a doorknob for fingerprints. She was excited to see Ivy on her first day on the job.
When Ivy and Joe called on scene, Kara left Seth for a few moments to go out and meet them. Ivy looked strong, happy, and confident in her uniform, but she looked overheated too. She had to wear her sleeves down to cover her tattoos.
“Hey sis, how’s it been so far?”
Ivy’s smile belied her words. “Great. We had a domestic.”
Kara laughed. She wondered how long it would take the new recruits to dread domestic disputes as much as the rest of them did. She told Joe and Ivy what they had and Joe took three cases from her.
He looked down at the addresses and complaints and shook his head. “We’re going to be here all day long. Want to skip our meal and have dinner at Nan’s at the end of the shift?”
“You’re on.”
The foursome worked hard for the rest of the shift, just as Joe had predicted, Ivy and Seth getting a great introduction to the tedious and plodding part of police work. When they finally finished up at 9 o’clock that evening and were able to turn in their evidence and head over to the restaurant, Kara breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a long day.
Walking into Nan’s, Kara gave the place a quick once-over, as she always did when entering a building. It was completely empty except for Joe and Ivy sitting in a booth near the door. Ivy was shrieking with laughter and Kara hurried over, wanting to get in on the joke. Seth followed slowly behind, seeming out of place with himself.
They slid into the booth, Kara next to Ivy and Seth next to Joe. Joe, his radio in one hand, held up a quieting finger to Ivy who clamped her hands over her lips. Joe spoke clearly into the radio. “Central, I need a driver's license check by number.”
“Standing by.”
Joe read the number off from a tiny piece of dirty and battered paper he had pulled out of his wallet.
No response came back from dispatch for a long time and Kara grinned, imagining what was going on on the other side of the radio. Finally, the new dispatcher came back, defeat and awkwardness in her voice. “That driver’s license number is to a … to a …” After sounding like Seth for a few moments she spit it out, the words coming quickly and all in a row. “To-a-Christopher-Penis-address-424-Elmhurst-Way.”
Ivy giggled behind her hands and dropped her face to the table. Seth just looked perplexed. Kara shook her head, a smile on her face. Joe pulled this on every new dispatcher. In his opinion, it was a rite of passage for them.
Joe waited until Ivy’s giggles quieted and then said, “Thank you, Central.”
“I can’t believe someone has the last name penis,” Ivy said, stray giggles still bubbling out of her.
“Just ask Joe, he knows all the dirty ones. There’s a guy with the last name Fuck in Canada and Joe knows his driver’s license number, but he hasn’t thought of a chance to legitimately use it on the radio yet.”
Ivy’s eyes grew wide and she giggled again. It made Kara’s heart beat gladly to see it. Ivy had had a hard life, and then a rough couple of months when her house was broken into during a police investigation and after that she was kidnapped by Brandon Savoy. But now things were looking up for her – she had a new sister, a new father, a new boyfriend, and a new job.
“Did Ryker work today?” Kara asked her.
“No, he works tonight. He and Jen are both on first watch.”
“Ah, that sucks. First watch is hard. If he can’t sleep during the day, tell him to try taking a Benadryl. That will knock him right out.”
Ivy nodded, her eyes serious and worshipful.
In a sickening flash, Kara realized that she hadn’t gone back to see Sgt. Gale. They had been too busy. Crud. She hoped Gale wasn’t going to make things hard on her. She put the rigid detective out of her mind and tried to concentrate on having a relaxing end-of-shift dinner. She tried to pay attention to her friend, her sister, and her recruit as they ordered and ate and laughed and compared notes for their burglary cases, speculating if it was one guy, or a team that had hit so many houses that day.
At 10:45, shift change, they left the restaurant and Kara and Seth drove in silence back to the police station. “We had a good day, Seth,” she told him. “And tomorrow we’ll do it all over again. Run an iron over your uniform tonight.” He nodded thoughtfully, and to Kara, that was good enough for now.
When they arrived at the police station, they cleared the patrol car, grabbed their things, and headed back to the receiving desk to drop off the radios and keys. As Kara walked down the long hallway she heard the loud hearty la
ugh of the desk sergeant. Somebody was making him roll. As she rounded the corner, she saw the back of a tall man with a dark head of hair. Something in his posture felt familiar to her. As he turned, her heart fluttered in her chest. It was Zane Michael Rowe and his cocky smile.
She kept her face from showing her surprise and approached him. “Did you need something Mr. Rowe?” she asked.
He shifted on his feet slightly and his smile slipped to only one side, deepening the lone dimple. “I was hoping to talk to you privately, Officer Price.”
Kara felt the weight of many stares on her. Ivy, the desk sergeant, Joe, maybe even Seth, were watching her closely. Had there been an issue at the house after they left? The thought caused a flutter of alarm in her chest, but she didn’t show it.
“Follow me.” She passed through the lobby and out the double doors, walking a few feet down the brick wall so they weren’t right in front of the doors.
She turned to him expectantly. His smile was fully in place again, but he seemed slightly nervous. Something in the set of his mouth and the way his movements were too quick - too jerky. Maybe he did trigger the alarm and now he’s going to confess, she thought.
“I was, ah, wondering if you would like to go out with me sometime, Officer Price.”
Kara uttered a surprised laugh and saw his smile grow strained. Oops, damage control - quick.
“You want to go out with me? After I held you at gunpoint today? Most men don't appreciate that.” If that wasn’t the understatement of the year she didn’t know what was. She hadn’t dated anybody who wasn’t a cop for six years, as long as she had been on the force. She was pretty sure men who weren’t cops were intimidated by her job. Or at least that was how it usually seemed if she showed interest in someone. She’d almost given up on men and marriage seemed an impossibility. Something that only happened to other people. As the thoughts rushed through her brain she decided to be completely honest with him. “Most men think I’m scary.”
His smile came back full-force and Kara’s brain did a double take. God he is handsome, ran through her mind.
“Well I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared at the time, but I also would be surprised if any red-blooded American man worth his salt didn’t find you …” He seemed to choose his word carefully - “arousing.”
Another laugh bubbled up out of her throat. Just what in the hell did that mean?
“Arousing?” she said skeptically. “Arousing as in …?” She trailed off, not sure what to say.
“Arousing as in sexy. Arousing as in beautiful. Arousing as in, I want to get to know you better so much that I had to come down to the police station hoping I could catch you.”
Kara felt a blush fly to her cheeks. Oh. She almost took a step backwards in surprise. This man was extremely forward and she’d never had anyone talk to her quite like this before. She thought she liked it, but it also made her a little bit nervous.
He took a tiny step towards her and lowered his head. She realized he probably knew how handsome he was and was trying to use it to his advantage.
“So how about that date?” he said.
Kara’s brain tried to think of all of her goals and life plans and if she really had time for a boyfriend right now, but Kara’s mouth had a different idea.
“OK,” it said, without any stutter or indecision.
“OK,” he breathed, his face a pretext of extreme confidence. “When is your next day off?”
“Saturday,” she said without thinking.
“Saturday at seven? Can I pick you up at your place?”
“How about here?” her mouth said, at least getting that much right.
“Here sounds good. Just so I know, will you have your gun on you?” His tone was soft and teasing. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Possibly.” She said, her eyebrows drawing down. What was he getting at?
“And your cuffs?” he asked, his voice suggestive.
Oh. Now she was sure what to make of it. Before she could decide whether or not to call the whole thing off because he was too cocky and forward, he laughed.
“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’ll be a good boy from now on. I promise.” He held out his hand. “Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Zane.”
Kara smirked. He had gotten her. She should know better after having been partners with Joe for so many years. She shook his hand. “And I’m Kara, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Kara,” he said lightly. A smile lit his face. “I will see you on Saturday at seven. I look forward to it.”
She watched him retreat to his truck and restrained an urge to copy down his license plate. Bad cop. Although she knew that Joe and maybe Ivy were already running background checks on the guy, if they had figured out why he came down here (or if they were listening in somehow). She whipped her head around, checking behind her. Clear.
She had a feeling he’d come out clean from any background check, though. He was too cocky to ask a cop for a date and not have a spotless background. She tried to think about when the last time she had been on a date was and couldn’t do it. At least a year. The thought of her date, only two days away, caused a surge of excitement inside her. The thought of going on that date with Zane caused a wave of heat to flush through her body. His dark eyes flashed in her memory, while she tried to decide if she liked that cocky smile or not. She’d have to see more of it to decide. Thoughts of her stalker and her next meeting with Sgt. Gale were temporarily driven to the back of her mind. She knew she liked that.
Chapter 6
Sergeant Aria Gale sat at her desk and munched on her morning bagel, her fingers flying over the keyboard. The detective’s office door opened and she looked up to see who her fellow early bird was. Gagne. She should’ve known. She waggled her fingers at him and turned her attention back to her work. Gagne was in the office as much as she was. In fact, if there were one person in the world who she thought might guess that she was no longer married, it was Gagne. No one else knew how early she came in or how late she stayed, or the fact that many nights, she just caught a few hours of shut-eye in the sleep room and then got right back to work, loneliness and denial her constant companions. At this point, work was her best friend, and she never ran from it.
The case she had gotten from Officer Price yesterday was turning out to be a killer, and she didn’t want to waste time. Officer Price didn’t realize that the man who had sent her flowers, a gift, and a box full of hair, was exceedingly dangerous. Aria didn’t want to waste one more day gathering all the facts. Officer Price needed to have her nose rubbed in these reports and quickly.
Aria printed off one more piece of paper and took everything to a meeting room where she could spread it all out over the long tables there. She cross-referenced and stacked pictures and took notes until she was certain she had every piece of information how she wanted it. She glanced up at the clock. 7:00. Forty-five more minutes until the only forensic document examiner they had on staff came into work. Good, she had a chance to go over what she had found one more time.
If she was correct, the crook who was currently focusing on Officer Price had done this at least four times before. She surveyed the papers on the desk. They painted a grim and terrifying picture. Aria thought hard, trying to form connections from the words on each page. She strode to her desk and grabbed a handful of paper clips, then pulled the trash can to the middle of the floor. She paced and thought and twisted the paper clips into tiny silver pieces before she threw them away. When a glance at the clock on the wall finally told her the forensic document examiner was in, she dropped her paper clips, gathered up her handwriting samples and strode purposefully upstairs.
***
Kara picked at her breakfast. The last thing she wanted right now was food. She had too many thoughts swirling around in her brain. The night before, after she had finished talking to Zane, she had gone inside, avoiding Joe’s intense gaze as well as she could. Ivy had sprinted up to her and asked who the hand
some stranger was and what he had wanted.
“Seth didn’t tell you who he was?” she had asked quietly.
Ivy rolled her eyes. “Seth doesn’t talk to me.”
Kara pursed her lips together. That was irritating. She wondered if Seth knew she and Ivy were sisters. When Ivy started clamoring again to know who the tall, dark, and handsome stranger was and what he had wanted, Kara whispered it to her. Ivy squealed, drawing the attention of every cop in the place.
“Shh, don't tell Joe. He’ll look Zane up in the computer.”
Ivy had cast a happy glance over to Joe who was glaring at them suspiciously. Kara had packed her things, called out her goodbyes, and left quickly, hoping everyone would forget about it by the next day.
But she hadn’t forgotten. She had barely slept the night before, thinking about Zane and worrying about what Sgt. Gale was going to say. Maybe if she went in with only thirty minutes to spare again, Sgt. Gale wouldn’t get much of a chance to yell at her today.
She stood up and fed the rest of her eggs to Duke, who managed to eat most of them with one bite but then spread tiny pieces of egg from the kitchen all the way across the living room as he tried to get up the last scraps with his tongue. Still deep in thought, Kara didn’t notice.
Her phone rang and she grabbed for it. A number she didn’t recognize from the station.
“Price.”
Sgt. Gale’s voice blared through the phone and cut through her introspection. “I want you down here in thirty minutes. And keep your eyes open. Your stalker is a very dangerous man.”
Kara’s stomach swooped and dropped until she felt she might puke. An empty hiss sounded in her ear. She looked at the phone. Sgt. Gale had hung up.