Take the Lead

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “If you’re this fired up, it really is time for you to call it a day. Do you want me to walk you to your car? The sun’s going down.”

  “Nope. Bradley’s working security. He always has a minute to walk with me. It’s relatively safe around here.”

  “Not always, though.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll ask Bradley. She playfully shook a finger at him. “But if you don’t get out of her soon, I’m going to send him upstairs to escort you to your car.”

  “I’m heading out in twenty minutes. I’ve just got to make two more phone calls.”

  Her eyes widened. “Shoot. I almost forgot.” Stuffing a hand into one of the many pockets on her smock, she pulled out a bright-pink Post-it Note. “You’ve got three calls to make, doc. Sorry.”

  With a sense of dread, he glanced at the paper, then slowly smiled. “Traci Lucky called?”

  “Yes. Officer Lucky,” she said slowly. “She specifically asked for you call her before eight tonight, if at all possible.”

  If she’d mentioned that specific time, he knew it was about tonight’s dance class. He’d completely forgotten about it—mainly because waltzing was the last thing he felt like doing at the moment. Summoning up a smile, he said, “Thanks for passing that on.”

  Hartley still hesitated. “Dr. Rossi, I hope nothing is going on with that girl.”

  “Gwen? I hope not.” He paused, then figured he’d rather have Hartley stew on his love life than worry about Gwen or a crime or something. “I have a feeling it’s personal. Traci’s my date to my brother’s wedding. And, since we all have to know how to waltz for their reception, we’re taking ballroom dance lessons together.”

  “Get out.” She propped a hip against the door frame. “I’d pay money to see you waltz.”

  “Believe me, you’d regret wasting your money. Traci and I aren’t exactly what you’d call graceful together.”

  “I bet you two are real cute.”

  Now this conversation was going over the line. “And I bet you need to get on your way.”

  “Yes, sir.” She waggled her fingers. “Have a good night.”

  “Night.” As a new thought entered his mind, he said, “Hey, Hart, don’t tell everyone about this, okay?”

  “The dancing or the dating?” Her eyes were sparkling.

  “You know I mean both.”

  “Fine. But be warned, I’m going to ask you how tonight went.”

  “I’ll prepare myself,” he joked. “Night.”

  Walking back to his desk, he chuckled. Boy, if he didn’t have meddling parents to worry about, he had nosey office managers. He wouldn’t have it any other way, though. The more he learned about Traci’s past—and Gwen’s present—the more he was grateful for being surrounded by people who cared.

  Anxious to speak to Traci, he sailed through his two calls, more grateful than ever that he’d long ago learned to make his more challenging calls first. These last two women were usually open to his advice, and tonight’s calls were relaying some positive test results for each.

  Finally done with work, he grabbed his backpack, walked through the office, checking locked cabinets, doors, and windows, then at last got to his car.

  He dialed Traci’s number two minutes later.

  “Whew. I was starting to worry about you,” she said as soon as she picked up.

  “Sorry, it was a crazy day. Long. Plus, I only got your message about a half hour ago.”

  “I hope you didn’t have too many emergencies?”

  “Nothing too bad. Just a lot of patients.” He liked how she asked that. He’d dated women before who never seemed to understand how erratic a doctor’s day could be. He hadn’t necessarily been shocked, but it had been difficult when one or two of the women refused to understand how he simply wasn’t able to answer a phone when he was on call. “What about you? Were you on shift today?”

  “I was.” Her voice cracked. “I’m sorry, but can we do a raincheck for tonight’s lesson?”

  “Of course.” He was worried about her now. “Traci, do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.” She sniffed. “I’m sorry. It was just a tough one. A lot of red tape, unnecessary meetings and annoying people. All I want to do is sit in front of the TV and drink a beer. Maybe eat some ice cream.”

  “I know you live with a bunch of girls, but do you want some company?”

  “Sure, but I should warn you—I’m planning to watch the Bachelor.”

  He grimaced. “I didn’t know you watched shows like that.”

  “It’s a guilty pleasure. I binge watch it when I’ve had a bad day.” She kind of chuckled, but it sounded throaty and strained. “Nothing makes a girl feel better than to know at least I’m not about to get a rose.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m trying to be a good boyfriend, but I don’t think I can hack it.”

  “That’s probably a wise move. You’d be sitting here with at least three women, two of whom are acting slightly hormonal.”

  He glanced to his right, made a sudden decision, and pulled into the grocery store parking lot. “I’m not up for that, but I can deliver ice cream with the best of them. What kind do you want?”

  “Matt, you don’t need to bring me ice cream.”

  “Five women together on the couch? Uh, yeah, I do. I grew up with two sisters.” And they would absolutely kill him if they heard him talking about them like this!

  “In that case, we’d love some ice cream.”

  He smiled, especially since he knew what kind to bring. Graeter’s ice cream was the Cincinnati cure—all for any bad day. “Any special flavor?”

  “Anything will do . . . but maybe chocolate-chocolate chip? Oh, and vanilla too?”

  “I can do that. I’ll be over soon with a couple of pints.”

  “Thank you, Matt.”

  “Anytime.” He stopped himself just in time before calling her sweetheart.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, he was knocking on the front door of Dance With Me and then getting ushered upstairs by an ebullient Shannon.

  “You win the prize for one of my most favorite people,” she said as she led the way.

  “What about your husband?”

  “Dylan is working tonight. He gets my prayers, but no prize,” she joked.

  Walking into the living area, Matt spied Gwen curled up on the couch and Traci wearing flannel pajama bottoms and some kind of police academy T-shirt. Both looked up at him and grinned. Maybe it was the sack he was holding that made them so happy.

  “Hey, Gwen,” he called out.

  “Hi, Dr. Rossi. Thanks for bringing us food.”

  He smiled, liking that she was looking so at home with the other women. Getting her here hadn’t been easy, but it was so worth it.

  “Oh, my gosh! You brought us Graeter’s,” Traci said, with a note of reverence in her voice as she reached for the grocery bag. “You’re the best.”

  “I think Matt’s appearance gives new meaning to a doctor making house calls,” Shannon joked.

  “I hope you enjoy it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Traci asked.

  “Positive. I picked up some food at the deli while I was at the store. I’m going home to eat dinner and collapse.”

  Handing off the sack to Shannon, Traci smiled up at him. “I’ll walk you down.”

  He held up a hand. “Have a good night, ladies.”

  “You, too,” Gwen said.

  Walking down the stairs with him, Traci smiled up at him. “There’s a fairly good chance that those women are going to have those pints cleaned out before I get upstairs.”

  “I hope not. I brought over five pints.”

  “Five?”

  “I was only going to get three, but then I started
thinking three pints didn’t sound like enough for five women on the edge.”

  “You just keep getting better and better.”

  Her words were teasing, but they made him feel good all the same. When they got to the door, he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  “Yep. And the next night. Pretty much every night until Hunter is off the streets.”

  He nodded. “Then give me a call in a day or two, Traci.”

  A bit of vulnerability snuck into her expression. “All right. Will you be wanting a Gwen update? If so, I can easily text or email you reports on how she’s doing.”

  “Hearing about Gwen is good and well, but that’s not why I want to hear from you, Traci.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m going to want to hear your voice.”

  “I’ll call you soon, then,” she said with a smile.

  “That’s all it took?”

  “Not necessarily. You see, I’m going to want to hear your voice, too.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “The one thing that can solve

  most of our problems is dancing.”

  —James Brown

  “I feel like we’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” Traci said to Dylan as they spent a now-rare afternoon driving around Bridgeport and the surrounding areas. “And, yes, I know I’m beginning to sound a lot like your wife.”

  Dylan, who was driving, slid his sunglasses back over his eyes. “I didn’t say anything, Lucky.”

  She noticed his lips twitch. Figuring she might as well get the teasing over with, she prodded at bit. “But . . .”

  “Okay, fine. If you start craving peas and cornbread, I’ll know that you’re a Cleveland girl no longer.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I have no idea why anyone would want peas and cornbread together.”

  He grinned. “On second thought, you might get to keep your city girl status a little longer. I was talking about black-eyed peas, not green peas.”

  “I had no idea there was a thing.”

  “Sure you did. Remember? Shannon made all of us eat them on New Year’s Day.”

  She thought back as Dylan drove to yet another address where they were hoping to find evidence of Hunter. “She cooked them all day with peppers and bacon. They weren’t bad.”

  He smiled. “They really weren’t. And, since my sister made the cornbread, it was actually a decent meal.”

  “Ha-ha. When you start attempting to cook instead of living off the glory of Jennifer’s culinary skills, you can start talking trash.”

  “I wasn’t talking trash about anyone, Lucky.”

  “And I wasn’t either, so don’t get all snippy, Lange,” she said as he pulled to a stop in front of a pair of rundown houses. “Where the heck are we, anyway?”

  “Back in the day, in the late forties or so, a metal company moved to Bridgeport and even built themselves a company town.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. All the houses were catalog houses. Some, a couple streets over, are real cute. The owners fixed them up and have a lot of pride in them. Others, like these close to the river, have seen better days.”

  “Better years is more like it.” She scanned the notes on her iPad. “It looks like we got a credible witness who hung out with Hunter over here. When . . . ah. Two nights ago.”

  He turned off the ignition. “It’s amazing how our best informants always share information just a little too late.”

  Getting out of the cruiser, Traci shrugged. “There’s a part of me that can’t really blame them. Rats who are found out don’t live very long.”

  “Let’s hope this one gave us enough to be useful,” he said as they walked to the rundown house.

  Traci had already checked her weapon, but the grouping of houses made all her senses light up. The five of them hugged the end of a cul-de-sac and each one looked more worn down than the last. A couple of old toys littered one of the yards, old tires and the remains of a lawnmower were scattered over another one. No one was around outside, but it was a little on the chilly side.

  However, she did see slight movements in more than one window.

  The house they approached had a sagging front porch, was an unfortunate shade of faded mustard yellow, and had some dusty-looking curtains hanging listlessly over the front windows.

  “Television’s on,” Dylan said.

  “Maybe someone is home,” she joked. Now that they’d been partners for close to a year, they’d developed a rhythm to their calls. They’d begun to enjoy stating the obvious, affectionately making fun of one of the older guys in the precinct who always said the most obvious things like he was giving sage advice.

  Dylan rapped on the door. “Hello?” They heard some shuffling but no one came to the door. Dylan knocked harder. “Open up, please. Police.”

  After a few more wasted seconds Traci heard a deadbolt click and the door opened a couple of inches.

  A guy around her age peeked out at them. “What?”

  “I’m Officer Lucky, this is Officer Lange. We’d like to speak to you for a few minutes.”

  Suspicion entered his eyes. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “No one said you did,” Dylan replied easily. “Now who are we talking to?”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “Yes,” Traci said. “What’s your name, sir?”

  He blinked like he wasn’t sure she was even talking to him. “Smith.”

  Traci rolled her eyes. “Your last name is Smith, buddy?”

  “Yeah. And my first name is Billy, not buddy.”

  He could try the patience of a saint. Keeping a firm hold on her temper, she said, “Billy Smith, do you want to talk with us out here or inside?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you at all.”

  “You don’t have a choice, buddy,” Dylan said. His voice was still easy but there was a harder edge to it.

  When Billy still hesitated, Traci said, “You might get a little more privacy inside.”

  The man sneered. “Everyone’s already seen you two. Plus your car’s down there.”

  So, he’d been watching and wasn’t quite as oblivious as he’d been acting. Traci decided to call his bluff. Making a big show of pulling out her pencil and a pad of paper, she said, “All right, fine. Now, maybe you can tell me where you’ve—”

  “Hold on. Come on in.” He pulled back the door with a flare of impatience and walked across the room.

  Traci and Dylan looked around for a few seconds, then followed him in. It was a smelly mess inside. Cigarette ashes, old mail, empty beer bottles. Fast food wrappers. Dylan walked forward. “You alone?”

  “Yeah. I live alone.” His eyes darted around the room as if he wasn’t sure.

  It was obvious the guy was lying, but Traci figured they would have heard someone else by now if Billy had friends hiding in one of the rooms. Guys like him weren’t always the stealthiest of people.

  Not wanting to sit on the worn, stained couch, Traci leaned against the wall. “So, where were you two nights ago?”

  “Here.”

  “Sure about that?” Dylan asked.

  Billy’s expression turned more mutinous. “Hell yeah.” After a second, he looked confused again. “Why?”

  “Because we’re looking for someone we heard was here too,” Dylan replied. He looked around the room like he was imagining hanging out there on a Saturday night. “This is a pretty big room. You’ve got a nice television, too. You were seriously hanging out here alone?”

  “Yep.” Billy nodded.

  “Really?” Traci gestured to the bottles on the floor. “You’ve been drinking all of these by your lonesome?”

  A line formed between his brows as he looked at the small pile of discarded bottles. “I didn’t say that.”

&nbs
p; “Who was here then?”

  Billy crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t say a word.

  Traci stared at him until he started to fidget. Then she darted a look at her partner.

  Dylan stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Billy, I don’t care what you’ve been doing in here. I’m not even interested in you at all. I just need a name. If you give it to me, then we can leave.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “If we tell you the name, you need to tell us the truth. Because we’re looking for someone specific, Billy,” Traci said. “We need him. Need him bad. But, if you lie, the three of us are going to run into some problems.”

  Traci could practically see Billy processing what she just said. He began to perspire. She guessed it was because she and Dylan were staying silent and he was thinking about the consequences of either lying to the police or ratting out his friends.

  After almost five minutes passed, he looked up at her. “I just remembered. There were some people over here two nights ago.”

  “Was any of them Hunter Benton?” Dylan asked.

  Slowly, Billy nodded.

  “Is he coming back anytime soon?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “If Hunter comes back, you need to call me,” Traci said.

  “There’s no way. I’m not a snitch.”

  “If you don’t call me next time you see him, there’s no way we’re going to leave you alone,” Dylan replied. “We’ll be here in your business most every day. Parked in front of your house. Contacting collection agencies. Anyone who can make your life miserable.”

  “If Hunter finds out I’m telling you guys about his whereabouts, I might as well pack up and move. He’s going to be pissed.”

  “I guess you’ll have to make that decision, Billy,” Traci said as she handed him her card. “I’m going to give you a week. If we don’t hear anything, I’ll know that you don’t want to play.”

  Dylan smiled as he stepped out the door. “See you soon, buddy.”

  Traci gave Billy a mock salute before following her partner. As she walked through the weed-infested yard, she felt slimy, like she needed a hot shower, fast.