Turn Me Loose

by Anne Calhoun

  “You’re sure?” Riva said, warning in her voice. “Last time I talked to her it was forty-five minutes of mastitis details.”

  He’d been around pregnant cops and new mothers, and cops had no filter when it came to body fluids. But one of the admittedly few perks of going through chemotherapy and radiation was the total inability to be grossed out by basic bodily functions. Add a few weeks on patrol and he’d developed a cast-iron stomach. “I’m sure.”

  “Fine,” Riva said. “I’ll load the dishwasher and we’ll go.”

  “Your mother can load the dishwasher,” Rory said as he pushed his chair back. Ian glanced at Stephanie. Her eyelids drooped at half mast, and all she’d done was rearrange her food on her plate. “I’ll help her. Then she’s going to bed like a good girl.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Riva stood beside her truck, dinner congealing in her stomach. Her father’s vicious stunt with her mother left Riva torn between staying to protect her mom and leaving before she started screaming at her dad. Conflicted, she lashed out at the only person available to her. “What were you doing in there?” she hissed. “That’s not what we agreed to!”

  Ian reached for the door handle. “Locks? The situation has changed.”

  She pushed a button on her clicker. “How?”

  “I met your father, that’s how.” He hoisted himself into the passenger seat.

  ”Stay out of this, Ian. I can get what we need faster and with less suspicion. Just be yourself. It’s hard enough having you around, but when you stop acting like a cop, it throws me off,” she said as she backed out of the driveway. “You were talking. Smiling! You smiled almost all the way through dinner!”

  “I smile,” he said. “Smiling at people is an easy way to lower their defenses and appear nonthreatening.”

  And there was the emotionless strongman she knew so well. “I know that,” she said. “Women do it all the time. But I’ve never seen you smile like that.”

  “Like what?”

  Easy, warm, friendly. Like he wasn’t carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, like he wasn’t cold and hard, a robot. “Like a human being, I guess.”

  He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes unreadable behind his mirrored shades. The deep lines bracketing his mouth had disappeared with each smile at her father. She’d never thought they were laugh lines. They looked like the kind of mark left by prolonged exposure to pain. “I’m human.”

  “And you like boxing?”

  “Not only do I like boxing, I actually box.”

  “Of course you do. “She clenched her fingers around the steering wheel. “Oh. That’s what you’re doing. You’re setting yourself up as someone he can impress.”

  “He likes an audience.”

  “Yes, he does,” she said.

  “What did your mom take while I was gone?”

  Riva blew out her breath. “I don’t know,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. The situation was worse than she’d thought, her mother thin to the point of brittleness, unable to remember a short list of ingredients. “She’s been taking medication for headaches. I need to check what’s in her medicine cabinet. Do pain pills make you nauseated?”

  “Even high doses of ibuprofen can. They’re hard on your stomach. But we’ve got a pretty serious prescription painkiller addiction problem in Lancaster right now. Your mom looked like she’d taken something stronger than Valium.”

  “She gets nervous. Would a doctor prescribe prescription painkillers for nerves?”

  “A good one wouldn’t,” Ian said.

  “There’s so much you can do for pain, and headaches, and nerves, through diet. But that would make her stronger, more independent. He wouldn’t want that,” she said to herself. Her father wouldn’t want her mother well enough to think about choosing a different life, maybe with Riva.

  They drove in silence for a minute, then Ian said, “You’re white-knuckling that steering wheel at twenty-five miles an hour. What’s wrong?”

  She almost laughed. He’d known her in the time she thought of as After. The moment Ian Hawthorn took out his handcuffs and arrested her started After. After Hawthorn she developed her own sense of self. After Hawthorn she set boundaries. After she saw the consequences not only of her actions but also of her attitude. Her hero worship.

  Now Ian was seeing who she was Before Hawthorn. When she was weak. Malleable. Easy to manipulate and convince. Before she gave up everything about herself in an effort to win what her father withheld: love, affection, attention, approval. She didn’t like having anyone, much less Ian, know exactly how stupid she’d been, how little sense of self she’d started with.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see him for what he was,” she said finally.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You were a kid. Impressionable. He used you.”

  “I’m not beating myself up over it,” she said. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t agree to back off.”

  “I thought you were going with the business-in-trouble approach.”

  “I am. The first step is to look like I’m supersuccessful. Then I’ll go to him and tell him I was just trying to protect Mom from the truth because she can’t handle it, but really, I’m a failure and I want to make more money by going into business with him instead. Initially we’ll work with some of the vending ideas. That’s going to play to his ego, if we can package Rolling Hill Farm products and sell them in his vending machines. But I’ll also suggest I can help him move drugs, too.”

  “Why start that way?”

  “Because he likes to help you when you’ve fallen. And he likes it when we both agree that Mom is weak and helpless.”

  “Good plan. Great initiative. You’re not doing any of it.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Excuse me?”

  “He thinks I’m a desk jockey looking for excitement. He’s already got inroads in the police department. Getting an in at city hall would be his next step. All you need to do is to hang low and be my cover. I’ll get what I need and it’s safer for you.”

  “You think he’s going to trust you, just like that.”

  “You said your dad is the kind of man who wanted a son and didn’t have one. I think he likes being the top dog, but he’s getting up there in years. I think he’s looking for someone to raise up, pass the business on to. I can be that person.”

  They were waiting at a stoplight. Riva leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “I tried,” she said to the dashboard. “I tried to be what he wanted. You, of all people, know exactly how hard I tried.”

  To her utter shock, Ian’s hand patted her hair where it spilled over her shoulder. “You were never going to be what he wanted,” he said. “Because it wasn’t about you. It was about him.”

  “Classic narcissist,” she said, but her brain was otherwise occupied because he was now stroking her hair, softly, slowly, gently. The motion was both soothing and exploratory, like he’d been curious about the texture under his fingers.

  “Exactly.” His voice was just as distracted. “I thought it would be warmer.”

  “What would be?”

  “Your hair. What color is this? It’s not red, and it’s not brown.”

  “Chestnut. It’s chestnut brown.”

  “It looks like a deer’s pelt. Reds and browns and some gold.”

  She didn’t want to get out of the car. She didn’t want to do anything that would shatter this unexpected and unexpectedly sweet moment between them. Ian was touching her, his voice low and curious and absorbed, and she thought she might fly to pieces right here in her car. It wasn’t possessive, or dictatorial, or demanding. She could almost feel his fingers trembling through the fine strands of her hair.

  “I used to think about your hair,” he said. “You wore it straight. I wondered if it was naturally wavy.”

  The image of Ian thinking about her hair swept through her. She closed her eyes. “I straightened it back then. N
ow I’m outside too much to make the effort worthwhile. Humidity. Wind. You’re familiar with the humid subcontinental climate, right?”

  “I like it this way.” Still soft. Still low. Now intimate. “Unruly. It suits you.”

  She turned her head and looked at him, her hair sliding down her back, leaving his hand on her shoulder. Ian’s gaze lingered on hers, an odd note in his expression. Was that possessiveness?

  She was ninety percent sure the friction in his apartment had been for show. Now she wanted to know. “Have you ever wondered what it could be like?”

  “I’ve spent the last seven years wondering.” His voice was low, fervent, unwilling.

  The truck interior was so quiet she could hear her shallow inhales and the sounds of a spring night, crickets, kids playing. His fingers drifted along her collarbone, sending sparks skittering along her nerves. She was surprised her skin didn’t light up, especially when he lifted his hand to brush his thumb across her lips, then her cheekbone. But while she wasn’t the frightened virgin he’d arrested, Ian still made her pulse leap, her senses go on high alert.

  He noticed. Of course he noticed. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Just…”

  Her phone dinged with an incoming text. Grant home early = unusual = family night. Raincheck?

  She sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was go home again, but maybe it was for the best. She could go upstairs and sit with her mom, ask questions, figure out what was going on.

  Ian put his hand back on his thigh. “What’s up?”

  “Kelly wants to postpone. Her husband works all the time, but he’s home early tonight, and they want to spend time together as a family.”

  No problem! she texted back, using exaggerated punctuation to hide her disappointment. “It’s not surprising. I basically dropped all my high school friends when I quit college. We reconnected on social media a few months ago—”

  Three dots appeared almost immediately. Let’s go out. Not lunch. Lunch is boring. Drinks and dancing sound good?

  That sounded fantastic to her. “How do you feel about nightclubs?” she asked with a smile.

  “Fine,” Ian said. No hesitation.

  “Seriously?”

  “Very seriously.”

  “You dance. You don’t just hold up a wall and watch.”

  “I dance.”

  Sounds great. Let me know what night works! I’m bringing a friend.

  “Where are you going?” Ian asked when she started the truck.

  “Home,” she replied.

  Ian looked around. “Does your father work from home or does he have an office?”

  “He’s got an office at the warehouse, but he’s usually in a truck, visiting current customers or trying to drum up new ones. That’s why his laptop is always with him.”

  “A personal vehicle? Or a business one?”

  “Depends. Probably his truck, unless he’s running a route. He’s the vacation coverage for his guys. It keeps his hand in the business. I think he works from home, too.”

  “Let’s cruise by the warehouse, get the lay of the land. What about this club he was talking about?”

  “The boxing club? It’s not far from the warehouse, actually, in the West Loop area. Dad bought space there maybe twenty years ago. It’s an easy commute and close to the interstate, which makes it easy to get to different stops.”

  She merged into traffic. Ian watched out the windows, holding on to the handle above the door. She had no trouble imagining him in the same pose in a patrol car.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Memorizing the intersections.” He looked at her. “Habit. You always know where you are in case you have to call for backup. You’d be amazed how many calls we get where people can’t give us an address, much less cross streets. Does Kelly know?”

  “No,” she said, surprised. “You said I couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “While you were a CI up to the trial. After that, you could tell anyone you wanted.”

  “Would you want to tell anyone?” She tried to soften the edge to her words, but failed. “Would you want anyone to know that kind of thing about you? That’s part of the reason I left my old friends behind. I was different, and I couldn’t tell them why.”

  A shadow crossed his face, like he knew all about keeping things close to his chest. “Does anyone know?”

  “You. Me. Sorenson. Whoever else in the LPD. The ADA. That’s it.”

  “No one at the ESCC knows.”

  “No one,” she said quietly.

  “How did you explain dropping out of college?”

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t for me. Rolling Hill Farm and Oasis fit me much better. Ultimately I want a national reputation as a leader in the farm-to-table movement. We’re here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Pull over there,” Ian said. He pointed at an empty space at the curb, opposite a brick building with three loading doors facing the side street. Black lettering identified Henneman Candy and Vending. He looked around, taking in the street, the buildings, the sound of laughter and music coming from the main street. The neighborhood reminded him of SoMa, shops and dining and clubs only a couple of blocks away from light industrial zoning. He had to be on his guard, because no good would come of thinking he knew this situation, this town.

  This woman. He’d wanted her badly enough before, but now … now she was even more dangerous. Grown up. Working in a career he admired. Sexy as all hell, especially the way she drove, parallel parking the truck like a boss.

  She shifted into park and looked at him. “Why aren’t we going in?”

  “Wait a minute.”

  He needed a moment to process this, because there was so much more to this situation than he’d suspected. Riva had never told anyone. No one knew what she’d done wrong, and what she’d done right.

  He could relate. He didn’t tell people about the cancer, either. For a long moment he considered telling her, but then, across the street, a set of headlights flashed on and stayed on.

  All his senses went on high alert. Riva followed his gaze. “Who’s that?”

  “Stay in the car,” Ian said.

  He got out and walked down the center of the street, making it easy for the car’s occupant to get a good look at him. After a moment the lights went off and the driver’s door opened. Ian felt his muscles come to attention, but then his eyes adjusted to the dark again and he recognized the man now standing in the shadows beside the car.

  “Hey, Micah.” He held out his hand.

  “Ian. Good to see you again.”

  Following Captain Swarthmore’s advice, Ian had reached out to the Chicago PD via a contact he’d made at a conference the year before. Shorter and lighter than Ian, Micah kept his dark hair swept back from his face and had a quick intelligence under a cop’s habitually guarded expression. “Who’s that with you?”

  Ian looked over his shoulder and beckoned Riva out of the truck. The door slammed, then he heard her booted feet on the gritty pavement. “Riva Henneman, this is Micah Sewell. He’s with the Chicago police.”

  “Hi,” Riva said warily.

  “This is a courtesy call, to let them know we’re on their territory.”

  “Okay,” Riva said. “Do you usually do these calls late at night in the West Loop?”

  Micah smiled and looked around. “This is what the outside world looks like? Fascinating. I don’t get out much. I’m in cybercrime.”

  “Micah and I met at a conference about technology and law enforcement.”

  “You guys go to conferences?”

  He had to laugh at Riva’s flabbergasted tone. “We go to conferences for the same reason anyone else does. To exchange ideas, experiences, and talk about best practices.”

  “I do love me a good best-practice conversation,” Micah said. His demeanor was casual but his face was as watchful and wary as Ian’s. “Bring in ISO 9000 and I’m in heaven. What are you doing on my turf?”

  “We beli
eve an individual with a known connection to this warehouse is supplying the biggest gang in Lancaster with heroin and cocaine.”

  “And you haven’t contacted my captain to set up a joint operation because…?”

  “Because cops are involved.”

  “Yours or mine?”

  “Mine. As far as we know.”

  Micah blew out his breath. “Shit. Which means we’re probably involved, too.”

  “That’s why we’re meeting here, not in a conference room at your headquarters.”

  “Why call me?”

  “Because I trust you,” Ian said simply.

  “You have proof of any of this?”

  “Of the corruption, yes. Of the supplier’s involvement, no. That’s why we’re here.”

  Micah looked at Riva. “We. A quick check of the records pertaining to this address lists the owner, one Rory Henneman, who has a wife, Stephanie, and one daughter, Riva. You’re giving up your father?”

  “Yes.” Riva’s voice was steady.

  Wisely, Micah didn’t ask any more questions. Plausible deniability mattered in situations like this.

  Ian looked at Riva. “Do you have keys to the warehouse?”

  She nodded. “I’ll have to disable the security system, though, or Dad will get a notification on his phone.”

  “Call him and tell him I wanted to see it.”

  Riva stepped off to the side and initiated the call. Ian kept one ear tuned to her tone of voice and as much of the conversation as he could catch.

  Micah sighed. “Jesus, this is a bad idea. What are you thinking, running an off-the-books operation with a civilian who’s got a personal connection to the suspect?”

  “She’s totally trustworthy,” Ian said.

  “She better be. You’re trusting her with your life, and probably the lives of other cops.”

  Ian gave him his no shit, Sherlock look.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Information.”

  “Get some to give some.”

  Ian handed Micah a USB drive that contained what he’d learned so far about Rory. “You’ll keep this between us?”

  “For now,” Micah said. “I’ll look into things on our side. Quietly. Before you ask, we don’t have surveillance cameras on this particular street.”