Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1)

by Lori Power

  Mitch shifted his weight subtly to his toes. Light dawned and his gut clenched. Oh shit, he found out about the accident.

  “When we put this kind of undercover operation together, it’s important for all members to be protected. Which means…” Boulet’s brow folded over his eyes in a deep scowl. “No known associations.”

  “Chief, I can—”

  “You were made, Mitch. Your cover blown. A woman claiming Michael Ward’s not your real name passed the phony driver’s license into a local cop shop. In fact, she went one step further and announced your real name–Mitchell Morgan—to the officer.” Boulet’s hand slapped the table. “You’re goddamned lucky it was the day of the bust.”

  “I don’t…” Who? What woman?

  “I can’t imagine what kind of fiasco of police incompetence would have ensued if she turned up the day before,” he said, lifting his hands in the air, exasperated.

  Mitch had the impression, the older man was working himself up to a full head of steam. Boulet’s face had the color of ripe prunes.

  Mitch couldn’t seem to make his diaphragm work properly. His shallow breaths made it impossible to concentrate, while his boss’s penetrating stare looked through him like an x-ray. Finally Boulet turned in disgust to gaze out the window.

  Mitch followed Boulet’s lead and stared through the dusty window to the parking lot below. Response failed him and he racked his brain, striving for enlightenment.

  “You sleeping around while on the job?” Boulet’s attention snapped back to Mitch. He tossed the sheets of paper back on his desk and shook his head violently. “Strike that…I don’t care if you sleep around. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do…you’re young and single. I don’t give a shit. But you use your alias, not your real name!”

  “Chief, I—”

  “And how the hell did she get your wallet anyhow? You get robbed?”

  My wallet? “Chief…” Mitch paused, expecting to be cut off, striving to maintain his own calm in the face of his superior officer. This had nothing to do with the car accident. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The commander took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses purposefully before pulling the papers back squarely in line with the file. “The same day as the bust, your driver’s license was passed in to a local detachment. The woman who turned in your license, a Miss…” He ran his finger down the top piece of paper. “A Miss Tymchuk claimed the license to be a fake. She said…and I’m quoting here…she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt you were not Michael Ward.”

  Mitch broke his military stance and took a step back, suddenly needing a chair. “Lorna Tymchuk?”

  “The very same.” Boulet raised liquid-brown eyes in his direction, nodding. “Memory returning after your long flight?”

  Mitch raised both hands up to his head. I knew she looked familiar. I knew it. But I was in such a hurry and focused on the mission. Try as he might, the only recollection of the woman’s face was helmet-like hair sprayed to within an inch of its life, accompanied by a particularly pained expression around the mouth. Of course, I remember thinking she looked as though she had a stick up her ass, and that would have explained Lorna for sure. But what was she doing there? No…no way.

  The chair squeaked to accommodate Boulet’s shifting weight. The sound brought Mitch’s hands back down to his sides.

  “Care to share the new revelations?” The older man’s color had returned to normal and his brow smoothed as he leaned back in the chair, arms folding to the back of his head.

  “It was a car accident. How she got my license, I mean,” Mitch rushed his words, eager to get through the explanation. “The call came in. The bust was going down. I had to get to the graveyard. I was focused on getting out to the main roads, anticipating lunch-hour traffic. I sped through this suburban neighborhood after having made the drop. Ran a stop sign. She T-boned me with a big dually. I tossed her my driver’s license. I had to flee the scene or be late,” Mitch said, taking a breath, returning his hands to behind his back. “I made a choice in the moment. I didn’t recognize her. Didn’t take the time. I’m surprised she recognized me. We haven’t seen each other since university.”

  The Chief smiled with no lack of sarcasm. “Amazing, isn’t it…” He leaned forward in his chair, pulling out the keyboard tray. “What a woman will remember.”

  Protocol required him to stand unmoving in his Chief’s presence. He rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension and shifted his weight subtly from one foot to the other watching Boulet tap quickly into his computer, stubby fingers flying across the keys. Despite the heavy silence, the older man seemed satisfied with the explanation.

  Picking up the file again, Boulet made some handwritten notes before returning his attention to the computer screen.

  What’s the big deal now? Job’s over. Mitch grew impatient and antsy with the burden of silence.

  At last, his boss pushed the keyboard tray back under the lip of the desk, slipped the papers into the file, laced his fingers on the blotter, and raised intelligent eyes to stare at Mitch. “You’re no rookie, and that was rookie behavior.”

  Mitch leveled his balance squarely on his feet, controlling his breathing, and stared straight ahead to the dead spider carcass just under the framed diploma centered above the Chief’s head.

  “You’re a lucky bastard. One, because she doesn’t live there either. Seems like a chance meeting in a remote location for you both. And two, the cop doesn’t appear to be in Fong’s pocket. The guy did the right thing. Reported it directly to us and smoothed it out with the lady. Go.” He lifted his hand in dismissal. “Go, before I start to question my choice of your leading this mission.”

  Mitch left Boulet’s office, dazed. Lorna Tymchuk? The Chief’s questioning my competence. We bagged the bad guys, and he’s flipping his wig over a chick I knew years ago. How the fuck did this happen?

  Mitch walked the buzzing corridors towards his desk, hearing nothing but his own thoughts. Chance meeting? In his line of work, chance and coincidence equaled gambling with people’s lives.

  He slugged back a cup of coffee. Boulet had closed the file on Lorna—literally—but the cop in him couldn’t let it go. They met back east. The operation went down on the left coast. Yeah, Lorna could be there for one reason or another. But they had a history. He needed to know.

  Not paying attention, Mitch bumped into a uniformed officer who eyed him skeptically before seeing his badge and registering his rank.

  The officer stepped to the side in the face of Mitch’s silence. “Pardon me, sir?”

  Mitch searched the rookie’s face, freshly reminded of his dressing down from his commander on how his actions were no more intelligent than a fresh-faced youth. “Officer?”

  “Jordan.”

  Mitch shook his head, deciding he wouldn’t be that guy. He wouldn’t play the part of the seasoned cop who took the potshots at the new recruits.

  “What part of the detachment are you in?” Mitch gazed about the corridor, then back to the rookie to the sign above the door, gathering his bearings on where he had wandered in the maze of halls.

  “Tech, sir.”

  Mitch nodded. Knowing someone in IT could be useful. Mitch turned on his heels. “Show me what you do.”

  Choosing to ignore the chipped lime-green paint on the walls, Mitch followed Jordan, wondering where the last five years went remembering when he was the rookie. Five years? Today, it felt like a lifetime.

  What a crook in the road it took to get me here.

  He hadn’t ever planned on being a cop. In fact, he started as a Financial Planner. And hated every moment in that particular rat race. Each day agony. Then he met Luke Randall. Officer Luke Randall who invited him to a recruitment seminar after a particularly vicious rugby game where Luke was a starter on the opposing team.

  “You’re strong, Mitch. I’ve the black eye to prove it,” he laughingly ran his fingers under the swelling eye. “Fast, agile, a
nd likely smart, despite being a rugby player.”

  Mitch shrugged, wondering what the man wanted.

  “You know I’m a cop.”

  When Mitch merely nodded, offering no comment but another swig of his beer, Luke continued. “I’ve accepted a transfer.”

  “You’re leaving the force?”

  “No.” Luke took a deep pull from his mug, his sparse reddish hair darkened with sweat. “I’m working with Recruitment. You should consider enlisting in the force yourself.”

  Mitch almost choked on his beer. “Me? Ga!” He huffed. “Get out. I run red lights just for fun.”

  Luke’s brows rose towards his receding hairline. “Why not?” He set his beer down with a dull thump. “It takes all kinds, Mitch. Who knows? You might like it.”

  And now five years later he was head of a successful undercover op.

  As though his thoughts had conjured the man himself, Luke met him in the hall on his way back to his desk. “What’s with the critter on your face?”

  Mitch ran his hand over his beard. “What, you don’t like it?”

  “A little outside regulation, I think.” Luke scratched the bridge of his prominent nose and laughed. “No need to let the new recruits see the flagrant disregard for rules.”

  Meeting Luke was no accident. Randomness doesn’t exist in our life. A senior member of the department always spent time with guys returning from the field. Work forgotten for the moment, the two crossed the street for friendly catch-up and normal conversation.

  “Been home yet?” Luke held up a hand to the waitress, signally for a round of beer.

  “Yeah. It was devastating. Found the goldfish belly up.”

  “A loss, I’m sure.” The older officer’s brow creased with his smile. He nodded at the waitress who set the drinks down on paper coasters. “Thanks, Sal.”

  “Your family? All good, I hope.” Mitch forced himself to participate.

  Luke waved a pale hand scarred with age spots. “Mack’s off to university next year. Deanne’s going into second year nursing, and all I can say is I hope she’s a fast learner ’cause I think my heart’s gonna stop with the cost of tuition.”

  Mitch chuckled at all the right times, his gaze following the sway of Sally’s hips as she moved from table to table.

  “You be seeing that girl–sorry, woman, again soon? Oh, her name’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  Mitch pulled his focus back to his friend, tensing with the mere thought of Viola. “Then bite it off.”

  “I’ll take that as a no then.” Luke paused, sipping his Bud Light. “Viola! Yes, Viola.”

  “Yeah, a real peach.”

  “Well, she definitely seemed like a handful.” Luke winked.

  Mitch nodded. “Viola was too much, too soon after the last mission.”

  “More suited to what you’d been working on?”

  Holding up his hand to signal Sally for another round, Mitch contemplated his answer. “Yeah, I guess I never thought of it that way. For sure, more suited to biker gangs and rough living,” he said, taking another swig from his mug. “A little too rough at times.”

  Luke declined the second beer but continued the banter while Mitch made appropriate responses. The last thing he wanted right now was a trip to the psychologist.

  Parting company with Luke, Mitch decided to hoof it home. Viola and Lorna. I couldn’t find two more polar opposite women if I tried. Viola wore her passion on her sleeve. Violence ran close to the surface. She could just as easily throw a glass at me as wrap her legs around my waist and tug me down for a fuck. That’s all it had ever been with Viola—fucking.

  The few memories of Viola drifted off like a fog over water and his mind’s eye filled with memories of Lorna. He grimaced, internally picturing the fool he had been panting after the brainiac. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. He shook his head, watching his feet chew up the sidewalk as he slowly made his way along the busy street. The breeze cooled his heated skin and the traffic distracted his racing thoughts.

  I should have walked away the night of the grad celebrations. Convinced myself she’d walk on the other side of the tracks with me. No, I was just a fling. Got her fill and walked away.

  “I’m not even good enough to have my calls returned.”

  Mitch had the overpowering urge to strike something. Inflict pain. Find a release for the embarrassment that threatened to strangle him every time he thought her name.

  Unlocking the door to his apartment, he glanced towards the mountain of mail on the side table, the heap of laundry beyond in the bedroom. “Lorna Tymchuk,” he mumbled, toeing off his cowboy boots, leaving them where they landed by the front door. “Every time you’re around, nothing but trouble follows.”

  Receiving clearance to ‘get back to normal,’ Mitch lifted the scissors from the top drawer in the bathroom en suite. With a sigh, he tugged on the ends of his beard and pulled a face at himself in the mirror. How’d she identify me? “I can barely recognize me,” he mumbled to his dour reflection.

  He laid the scissors on the counter and shrugged his jacket off and pulled his shirt over his head. With little regard, he tossed his clothing on the floor and started with his beard. Every movement reminded him of Lorna. Flushing the remains of his beard down the toilet, he recalled how she ran her chin along his freshly shaved cheeks, ending with her nose next to his. “You smell good.”

  He eyed his hair, pondering where to start. “Definitely not regulation.” Mitch grimaced at its length. Holding up a hank, he cut about four inches from his scalp. He needed to get his hair to a reasonable length before going to a barber so he didn’t have to give any great explanation. Secrecy is part of the job description.

  Secrecy and a big question mark were always part of his memories of Lorna. What did he know of her? Not much. Mitch’s mind drifted back to their first meeting, at a library, of course.

  Disaster.

  “You do know where that is, don’t you?” sneered the female voice on the other end of the phone and all he could imagine were horned-rimmed glasses.

  She proved to be something very different from his expectation. He needed a tutor to bring his marks up to retain his spot on the team. Lorna came highly recommended.

  No, she wasn’t what he expected, and then again, she was. A girl trying to look much older than her years walked through the atrium doors of the library, all poise and control, until she wasn’t. Tripping despite her very sturdy shoes, down she went, briefcase flying, to land flat at his feet. Her strawberry-blonde hair, tucked away in a neat pony tied at the nape of her neck, escaped its confines, coming out in bunches to frame a lovely face. No glasses at all, horned or otherwise, just a startled expression and golden eyes that pierced him like rays of the sun.

  Despite his resentment over requiring a tutor, he liked her straight off. The fire in the depths of her amber eyes, a smolder calling him by name. Lorna mystified him, being all at once confident, insecure and awkward, poised, uptight, and timid. His friends made fun, calling her a female geek and wondered what was wrong with him for checking her out even after his grades improved. What did they call her? Oh yeah—Lorna the CyberFem. But when he worked with her, he would catch her watching him with that fire in full flame, and he knew—he just knew if she let him in…but she would only allow him so far. Still, like a moth mesmerized by the flame, he continued his quest until he finally got burned.

  “More the fool am I,” he scorned his mirrored self, hacking off more hair. “I won’t ever go there again.”

  Chapter Five

  That he lived by the motto there are no coincidences ate away at Mitch’s resolve about burying Lorna in his past. Freshly groomed, with neat short hair and a goatee, he returned to the detachment with one thing—one woman—on his mind.

  “Jordan, isn’t it?” Mitch held up his badge attached to the chain around his neck.

  The younger man squinted, his gaze searched Mitch’s face trying to place him.

  “Morgan,” Mitch
supplied. “We met yesterday.” Mitch smiled as the rookie officer’s brow smoothed in recognition.

  “Ah, yes. Sir?” Jordan’s intelligent brown eyes flashed with question.

  “Luke tells me you’re a real whiz at intel. I need some assistance locating a woman from a hit and run,” Mitch said, wheeling over a chair from a nearby desk.

  “A hit and run, sir?”

  “Yes. Problem is the accident occurred in another city. This shouldn’t be a concern though.” He tried his best man-to-man, you-know-what-I-mean approach. “It’s important to a recent sting operation and we’re tying up the loose ends.”

  “I see.” The rookie chanced a friendly grin in return. “Whatever I can do to assist, sir.”

  Jordan turned to his computer and logged on. Windows started to flash by on the over-large second monitor in rapid succession, giving Mitch a dizzying sensation of flying through space in a Star Wars episode. When Jordan paused his keystrokes, Mitch provided Lorna’s name and watched the younger man resume tapping away on the keyboard, lost in his cyber universe.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Mitch stifled a yawn and Jordan came back to earth.

  “Here she is, sir. Not hard to find at all,” he said, casting Mitch a crinkle-eyed grin. “Vital statistics, name, date of birth. Is she at fault?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Just wondering, sir. There’s a sealed record. Typically means a juvy sheet and more times than not, trouble.”

  “Juvy? A criminal record?”

  “Could be. I can’t be sure, of course, unless we opened the file, and I’d need clearance.”

  The Lorna of his memory—valedictorian, tutor, professor’s assistant—didn’t mesh with a juvenile record. “Tell me what you can access.”

  “I see here she was orphaned at the age of six when her parents died in a car accident while she was at school. Her one remaining relative—looks like her father’s brother—had custody off and on until she was twelve. I’d have to access files from Social Services to see foster-care records, but seems irrelevant to what you’re after.” Jordan raised his brows in question.