by Aiden Bates
By week four, Pete was willing to take a few local jobs. He covered a controversial condo development on the site of the old state hospital in Waltham. He got some fantastic wildlife shots at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, and he went deep into some Sudbury conservation land to do some work on local ties to Metacom's War. They weren't exactly hard-hitting photojournalism projects, but they were fun and they got him out of doors. He got to be home at a reasonable hour and got to take care of his beautiful little girl.
He got back into the swing of cooking, too. He didn't do fancy meals, not yet. There wasn't time, even if Ruth was there to take care of that now. He liked to make good, hearty and healthy meals that would keep all of them satisfied for a good long while. The day would come when Marissa would reject good, hearty, healthy food in favor of chicken nuggets and swill, but until then he wanted to make sure that she had only healthy examples in front of her.
They made an effort to visit with Cynthia and Angus a little more often, just because they were family. If anything ever happened, they both wanted Ruth to know where to go and who to contact. Cynthia was her usual distant self during these meetings, and she would usually insist on keeping Pete late for a chat afterward to talk about either Ozzy or Ruth.
"Are you sure that Ozzy's such a great partner, Peter?" she would ask, chin stuck out in defiance. "In addition to his lack of education, you have an armed guard outside your door."
Pete scratched his head. "Why do you know that?"
"I'm your mother, dear. It's my job. Also, Veronica Dinsmore saw him on her way to check up on a horse. Don't avoid the question, Peter. Why is there an armed guard?"
Pete sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ozzy's working on a case that has some sensitive implications. He just wants to be sure that I'm safe. That's all. I'm pretty sure that it will all be over soon, you know?"
"Hmph." She sniffed and turned up her nose. "I'm sure that any little old country lady from Maine could have solved this weeks ago."
"Mom, that's Murder She Wrote. Not real life. Country amateur sleuths don't face down actual gangs in real life, or if they do they die a lot." He had to laugh at his mother's attitude.
Another time she confronted him about Ruth. "Are you absolutely sure that she's a good choice to help out with your daughter? She seems a little loosey-goosey to me. She's going to try to, I don't know, Montessori that daughter of yours and you'll come crying to me."
"Montessori is an educational philosophy, Mom. And we might put her into a Montessori school, if that seems like the right choice when she's older. Right now, I'm not worried about her educational philosophy. I'm just worried about her health and safety. I need to make sure that she's getting fed, changed, and held when I can't be there."
"Nonsense." His mother stomped her little foot. "We always hired the best, the smartest, and the best educated nannies. You speak Chinese because we hired Yaling."
"I understand a little. I was also nine when you brought her on. Not four weeks old, Mom. Right now she's still kind of loud and smelly luggage." Pete squirmed. He missed his loud and smelly luggage. "I brought you a picture of her."
"Oh yes. The one of her in that large pillow thing. It's very cute. Baby girls look adorable in all black, I must say. Does Marissa like this hippie?" She raised an eyebrow.
"As much as we can tell. She gave us a smile the other day, because we did something that made her happy."
"What was that?"
"We kissed."
She let him go after that.
All in all, life was working out fairly well for the little family now that they'd all settled in. If Ozzy missed his family he didn't say anything about it or them. He just went about his day. Sometimes he spoke about his progress on the case, and sometimes he didn't.
They hadn't gotten back to a point where sex was a possibility yet. Pete had tried to make up for it with some spectacular hand jobs, which Ozzy certainly appreciated, but they both knew that it wasn't the same. Pete couldn't wait to get clearance from the doctor to resume his normal activities.
Would Ozzy even still want him? He knew that he wasn't losing the baby weight as fast as he wanted to. Maybe Ozzy would prefer someone slim and handsome, someone who hadn't gotten pregnant at the drop of a hat. Pete had known that would be a possibility, just as he knew that Ozzy was too good to ever say anything.
Then again, Ozzy was still giving him plenty of attention. It wasn't sexual, but it was as romantic as he could want it to be. He never failed to touch Pete whenever he walked by, or to put his mouth on him and gave him a kiss. He would wrap his arms around his omega for no readily apparent reason, and he wouldn't let go.
"How did I get so lucky?" Pete shook his head as he watched his mate playing with his daughter. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve this, but he was never going to let it go.
...
Ozzyliked being a father, for the most part. He loved living with Pete. He loved waking up beside his omega. Even though they still couldn't have sex, not until his postpartum checkup, Pete's citrus scent was enough to keep Ozzy warm and sated and happy. Of course, the occasional hand job—or, less often, blow job—didn't hurt.
He loved waking up when Marissa needed something. He knew that it had been a hard decision for Pete not to breastfeed his little girl, but it truly hadn't been a practical solution. Not when he was getting called out to cover events at all hours of the day, or might have to travel. The upside of bottle feeding was that both parents could enjoy this special time with their little person, just them in the quiet room. He didn't even mind diaper duty, although it was more onerous for alphas and omegas than it would be for betas.
He loved the weekends spent together, all three of them wrapped up in each other in search of adventure. These weren't the adventures he'd chased in his youth. No, these were tamer adventures, the kind he could chase with an omega still recovering from the rigors of childbirth and an infant in a carrier. They went for beautiful, if sedate, hikes. They visited some old historical sites. They had picnics and just enjoyed the outdoors. Marissa, in particular, seemed to take particular pleasure in any kind of fresh air, so they indulged as much as they could.
It wasn't Ozzy's usual cup of tea. He wasn't racing down a hillside hoping he didn't wreck, or jumping off a cliff with a pair of nylon wings attached to his back. No, he had an entirely different kind of adrenaline pumping through his veins right now, and it wasn't the fun kind. The implicit threat to his loved ones had Ozzy on edge almost all of the time, and he wondered if he'd ever reach a point when he'd feel secure enough to seek out a good thrill again.
Pete suggested, once, that they could go to the beach for a little while. Ozzy was doing pretty well, all things considered. He knew a lot of guys who were in a very delicate condition, and had a long list of things to avoid while they got back on their feet. Ozzy wasn't like that, hadn't been like that in a while, and he thanked whatever deity or spirit looked over guys like him that he'd been able to get on with civilian life pretty quickly because it wasn't like that for everyone. He also knew that putting him around dust and sand, when he was already this keyed up and on edge, wasn't likely to end well for anyone.
Pete didn't encourage that again. He only encouraged excursions to woodlands or historical sites, and the whole family was happy with that.
At work, progress on the case moved at the approximate speed of a glacier. He moved along and tracked down every lead he could. He found plenty of dirty cops, which made his stomach cramp every time he noticed. He didn't work for Internal Affairs. He worked for Cold Case, and he had a job to do. Tim Harbaugh was still dead, and his death was still unsolved. He couldn't let Harbaugh's murder get swallowed up in such a large, and apparently long overdue, investigation.
He pulled back and tried to refocus. He knew he was missing something here. If past performance was any indicator, he was probably missing something that had come into play early in the investigation. It just wouldn't have made enough sen
se to follow up on, not with so many other things that made perfect sense just falling into his lap. Did he have any leads that had fallen by the wayside?
The only thing that sprang to mind was the line that had sparked it all. Harbaugh got what was coming to him. It had been some stranger saying it, some guy in a restaurant on one of Ozzy's first dates with his omega. He hadn't taken it all that seriously at the time, but now the words cried out like a beacon across his brain. Harbaugh got what was coming to him. Ozzy had only heard that when he'd already been turned onto the organized crime connection, and the link to Joe Sierzant.
When Dawn Moriarty had turned him onto the connection.
He'd only interviewed her once, and he hadn't felt strongly about interviewing her again. She'd been a scared creature, unwilling or unable to trust a cop as far as she could throw him. And ultimately she'd been right. They'd been attacked by a thug, who had promptly lawyered up and refused to speak a word even in his own defense.
Correct that. They hadn't been attacked by a thug. Dawn had been attacked by a thug. The attacker would have been perfectly happy to leave Ozzy and the probation officer out of it.
Acting on a hunch, Ozzy sought a meeting with the attacker and the attacker's lawyer. They showed up, but Ozzy didn't get very far with them. Unlike Balsalmo, the attacker—Oriol?—had something to lose. He would get out of prison, even if the judge threw the book at him. He wasn't willing to talk, even in exchange for leniency.
That left the source herself. Ozzy wasn't willing to go in without ammunition. He went to Ryan first. Ryan was into his third trimester now, and confined by policy to desk duty. He hated it, even if he was better at it than his boss. Things hadn't run this smoothly in Abused Persons in years. Ozzy privately suspected that people were just afraid to run afoul of Ryan's ill opinion, even though they all seemed happy and relaxed enough when he stopped in.
Ryan smiled at him. "Hey, it's my second favorite daddy! How's it going?"
Ozzy considered. "It'll be going much better once I clear this case off my plate."
"Yikes. Well, since you're here in my office and not waiting for me to show up and play with that adorable bundle of joy you call a daughter, I can only assume you think I can help you with that." Ryan raised an eyebrow.
"Well, yes, actually." Ozzy sprawled across one of Ozzy's visitor chairs and ignored the undercurrent of sarcasm. "A few months ago you looked into a witness for me, Dawn Moriarty."
"Right." Ryan nodded and folded his hands on top of his belly. "I remember. Sad case. No real hope there, probably for a long time before we knew about her. What about it?"
"Well, we only really talked about her record before Harbaugh's death, and then as an adult. We didn't look much at her record after Harbaugh's death." Ozzy looked at Ryan and gave him the best puppy dog eyes that he could manage.
"Don't do that, Ozzy. You just look constipated." Ryan swiveled his chair to type into his computer. "Okay. We have five arrests between Harbaugh's death and when she showed up at that hospital in Rhode Island. All for solicitation, all as an independent worker. After she leaves that hospital—and by the way, this part is not admissible as evidence, nor is it something you can act on to get a warrant—she's no longer independent. She's got a higher-up."
"Let me guess." Ozzy closed his eyes. "Sierzant."
"Oooh, got it in one, even with the sleep deprivation. How does he do it?" Ryan held out a pen as a phony microphone.
"Blowjobs, man. Anyway, thanks. I think I need to go talk to our little girl lost again. I think here are some questions that I should be asking." Ozzy slouched down in the chair. "The last time I interviewed her someone tried to kill her."
"So don't let it happen again." Ryan shrugged. "Blowjobs, huh?" His gaze shifted toward the wall and became speculative. Ozzy fled the room before he could hear more than he wanted to.
He reached out to Dawn's caseworker, Mary, and explained the situation. Mary was reluctant to be part of arranging a meeting. After all, the last time she'd done that someone had tried to kill her client. The thing was, Ozzy wanted to talk to Dawn about exactly that incident, among other things. He didn't want her to lie. He didn't want her to hide the truth. In fact, he wanted her to be very open about it. He needed to meet with Dawn Moriarty, and he was going to get his way. He just wanted to give her the opportunity to do it on neutral ground, someplace that Dawn went on a regular basis.
According to Mary, when she called him later, Dawn initially balked. She gave in a little while later, though, and agreed to come in and meet. When Ozzy saw her, though, she didn't seem to remember that this had been a voluntary move on her part. "So now that I've come all this way," she said with a scowl, "what's some scumbag going to try to kill me for today?"
"You tell me, Dawn." Ozzy kept his tone as soft as an alpha could. He knew that it could still be intimidating. "I think there are still a few things that we need to discuss, don't you?"
Dawn's back stiffened, suddenly, like she'd been wearing a corset and someone had suddenly pulled on all of the strings. "Hey now. I told you everything."
"You didn't tell me that you ultimately wound up working for Sierzant."
Dawn slumped. "Everyone winds up working for Sierzant." Her lip curled as she turned to look at Ozzy. "You think you won't? Just you watch. They'll make you an offer, and it will be something that means more to you than your life. More than your badge. And you'll hate yourself, but you'll do it.
"And once you've taken that little step, he owns you. Because yeah, maybe you did it to save your great aunt Sally, I don't know, but he's still got that to hold over you. You'll bow down to anyone, lick any boot, suck any dick, pull any trigger, because once you've said yes once, you won't stop."
"Seen it happen a lot, have you?" Ozzy tried not to be affected by her words. The most he could do was to avoid outward displays.
"Sure. He's got a guy working for him now; Sierzant pays for his health insurance. He's got a kid that needs round the clock care. Sure, it started out with, Oh, this is a one-time deal, and I won't do this or that or the other thing. That same cop has killed twenty-three people for Sierzant. He's also supervising other patrolmen. Sure, he's all about the sick kiddies." Dawn snorted.
"So he recruited you." Ozzy wiped his mouth with his left hand. He couldn't imagine the horror.
"He'd been trying to suck me in since I was maybe thirteen? Fourteen? I managed to avoid it for years. He's got cops, you know?" She closed her eyes against a bad memory, and Ozzy fought against the urge to wrap her up in his arms. "Sierzant wants what he wants, and there's nothing you can do. If he wants food, he takes it. If he wants something that can be moved, he takes that too. And if he wants a person for his stable…"
"He takes that." Ozzy nodded. He'd heard that sort of thing before.
"Right." Dawn nodded, eyes on the ground. "Except he's got cops. So if a girl, say, didn't want to work for him but wanted to stay solo, a cop would pretend to arrest her. And then he'd drive her to some secluded location and try to make her see the error of her ways."
"God." Ozzy put a finger to his lips as his gorge rose.
"Yeah. It was about as much fun as it sounds. Your buddy Harbaugh was one cop who was really into that. Like up to his eyebrows deep. After I got away from that dirtbag, I moved to Providence and tried to get better. Instead, a whole pile of Sierzant's goons attacked me and tried to kill me, and here we are." She shuddered. "They caught up with me, and I haven't been the same since. My children are gone, out of reach. I have no family. There ain't much else to tell you."
Ozzy rubbed at his face. "Was Harbaugh one of them?"
"Of course he was." She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I thought that went without saying. I'll never forget that creep's mustache, right over me. You know? I'll just never forget that. I wasn't the only one, either. But I got away. That happened sometimes. It just made Sierzant mad, though. He wants what he wants, and what he wants he gets. Eventually."
"What was it th
at he wanted?" Ozzy gripped the edge of Mary's desk in an attempt to keep the room from spinning. "I mean, his stable was plenty big by that point. Why did he need to expand it by so much?"
"Why not?" She shrugged, eyes on the ground. "I was pretty successful, as streetwalkers go, so he wanted that. And then he just hated the fact that someone was telling him no." She looked up with a wry grin. "I've had a chance to get to know what makes him tick, you know? He hates not getting his way."
"I can see that. Dawn, I have to ask. Why did that man attack you, the last time we spoke?" Ozzy leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I've been trying to make some sense out of it and I just can't do it. Why would Sierzant try to throw you under the bus in the first place? He fed you to us, and put you on our radar in the first place, right?"
She shuddered. "He did. He's not going to stop until I'm in the ground, is he?" She buried her face in her hands for a moment. "He got me under his control, back after Rhode Island. Made me a slave, more or less. He took everything I had, and there wasn't much I could do to stop him. But that wasn't enough. I got to be older than he wanted to have on the payroll. He wants his girls nice and young, and twenty was definitely too old to turn in the kind of profits he wanted. At least it was for the kind of business he was running. There are girls out there, you know, who can keep bringing in the cash for years and years, but I'm so not at that level.