Mounting Danger

by Karis Walsh

  And I needed you. Rachel had needed Christy to stand by her when everyone else turned their backs. Needed her support and her touch. But she had been surprised to discover that she hadn’t meant enough to Christy to make her stick around. And Rachel had been even more surprised to find that the loss of her community, her police family, had meant more to her than the loss of her girlfriend.

  “I have other plans,” Rachel said. She walked away from the bleachers and into the crowd. Christy wouldn’t follow her there. Rachel didn’t look back into Christy’s blue eyes, didn’t want to see her dark strawberry-blond hair—so silky and long when Rachel unpinned it from Christy’s usual tight bun. Definitely didn’t want to see the way Christy’s full breasts filled out her uniform top. Rachel walked resolutely toward the TPD seats and sat in a back corner. She tried not to watch when Christy walked by and joined her usual group of friends. Rachel’s former friends.

  Rachel had been so wrapped up in the emotions roiling through her, she thought she’d be distracted enough to make it through the service without any real tears. But the speeches by Alex’s friends and the words of the chaplain broke through her personal issues and forced her to remain present. Her feelings for her fellow officers hadn’t changed. They might be ignoring her, but she still cared. And she hated that she did. When Alex’s young son, a boy who looked about eight, delivered a eulogy in his high, sweet voice, Rachel bit her lip and stared at the ceiling, the floor, the huge spray of flowers next to the casket. Anything to keep from seeing the fatherless little boy, anything to keep from crying. She had been holding so much inside, acting day after day as if nothing mattered to her. If she started crying now, she might not be able to stop.

  Even the addresses by the government officials moved her. Ellen Laird, the state’s governor. Eugene Varano, Tacoma’s city manager. Rachel’s cynical self knew they were only after televised publicity as they sympathized with the police so they’d secure union endorsements in the next election. Photo ops, as they shook hands with Alex’s son and kissed his crying widow and patted his tiny daughter’s head. But Rachel’s cynicism couldn’t keep her from the tug of connection as Alex was honored and remembered. One of her own had been killed, shot in the head when he accidentally stumbled on a drug deal in the park. Even the black sheep felt the loss of a family member.

  Just make it through the service without crying. Just make it through the crowd without making eye contact with Christy and losing her grip. Rachel had her pride, although not much else. And tempting as the offer of a night of sex and cuddling was, it wasn’t nearly enough to break Rachel’s resolve. Private support meant nothing without any public support to back it up.

  Rachel stood up when the seemingly interminable service finally ended. She took a deep breath and prepared to merge into the crowds again, push her way to the door and to the freedom of open air. She only made it a few feet before an authoritative voice stopped her.

  “Bryce.”

  Damn. Rachel had been secretly hoping someone might talk to her, recognize her. Not in the shadows as Christy had done, but out here in the open. She got her wish, but why the hell did it have to be Abby Hargrove?

  “Lieutenant,” Rachel said, her voice formal and her posture tall as she turned around. Abby Hargrove had it all. Looks, success, respect. When Rachel had first been hired, she had hoped to find an ally, a mentor in the then-Sergeant Hargrove. She had quickly given up on that notion.

  “Tomorrow, zero eight hundred. My office. You’re being reassigned.”

  Fuck. Rachel hoped her expression wasn’t giving away any of her internal swearing. She nodded as her lieutenant walked away without another word. Rachel didn’t even bother going after her to try to find out more about this reassignment. She didn’t need details to recognize bad news when she heard it.

  Chapter Two

  Callan Lanford shifted her hips and wedged her right foot between her duffel bag and the metal frame of the seat in front of her. She was too tall to fly coach. A week of hard riding as she tried out for one of the East Coast’s top polo teams hadn’t even caused a twinge in her muscles, but two hours on an airplane and she was stiff and sore from inactivity. And restless. She tapped her fingers on the plastic tray table as she tried to muster some interest in the romantic comedy playing on the plane’s small screen, but she gave up with a sigh and tugged out her earbuds.

  Getting access to her laptop proved to be more challenging than any of the complex goal-scoring drills she’d performed during the previous week. She balanced her half-eaten fruit plate on her lap and tucked the plastic cup of ginger ale between her thighs before she closed the tray table. She groped for her duffel bag, careful not to spill her drink or hit her head on the seat in front of her. Once she had the laptop in hand, she maneuvered back to an upright position and opened the table again. She arranged her cup and plate and computer on the too-small plastic surface, hoping she had at least an hour of battery life and turbulence-free flying ahead of her.

  Cal slid the window shade closed to keep the glare from the bright sun off her screen. She had spent the past months living in two worlds, practicing for and studying footage of the Virginia team while training her horses and coaching her own polo teams on her family’s Washington farm. The scenery between the two coasts and the idle time spent traveling from one to the other were inconsequential to her. Too much time and space to think. She preferred action.

  She opened a document full of notes she had made over the winter as her Pacific Northwest Polo Club teams had practiced in the indoor arena and played casual matches against other local clubs. Cal typed in the details of several new plays she had thought of over the past week of nonstop polo. She had suggested the Virginia team try them, but they had been politely uninterested. Cal had quickly learned that they were a smoothly functioning unit. Successful and established, they wanted nothing more than a qualified fourth player to step in and fill an empty space. They might be interested in her new ideas once Cal was settled on the team, but innovation wasn’t a requirement for the job. Cal had adapted quickly, learning the team’s plays and executing them flawlessly and without variation, but she hadn’t been able to stop her mind from making changes and improving on their existing playbook. Her Northwest team wasn’t at the same level yet, but they’d benefit from her week of exposure to new players and new methods.

  Cal added some new drills she had learned in Virginia to her lengthy training file. Several of them could be adapted for the group of amateurs she coached in her limited spare time. She closed the document and checked her e-mail while she still had some power left, since, as she had suspected, she hadn’t given her laptop enough time to charge before leaving the hotel. Silently praising the gods for in-flight WiFi, she scanned her e-mails quickly, deleting a few ads for riding paraphernalia as she skimmed through her in-box. A note from her friend Linda who played on a polo team in Portland, asking if Cal would be in Oregon for an upcoming meet. Cal smiled, remembering the last time she and Linda had gotten together on the field, and then later in Cal’s hotel room. She’d make it a point to get to the meet. She had been too busy to give much attention to her social life over the spring, but she would have to change that—and soon.

  Cal’s smile faded as she read her dad’s e-mail. He had sent an addendum to the long list of East Coast networking contacts her mother had sent a few days prior. Cal hadn’t even made the Virginia team yet—technically, since she was certain she’d be picked to fill the empty position—and her parents already were planning her route to a different and better club. Cal read through the list of names, noting which ones she had met during her week of tryouts. She had felt it herself, that Virginia wasn’t a place to get comfortable, a place to settle in and make her mark. She would gain some valuable experience, and then she would move forward. Always a new level to reach. Cal finished memorizing the list and read the more personal message her dad had written at the bottom of his e-mail. He had been contacted by a friend’s daughter, asking Cal
to train a mounted police unit. Cal could hear her father’s laughter in his writing, and she laughed as well. As if she had the time or desire to devote to a new job. She lived and breathed polo, only resurfacing now and again for sex. Nothing else mattered.

  Forty-five minutes later, as the plane taxied to the gate, Cal turned on her cell, pulled up her dad’s e-mail, and dialed his friend’s daughter’s number. He could have answered for her since they both knew she wasn’t about to take on a new project when the height of polo season was approaching and her time was scheduled to the minute, but he had respected her autonomy enough to let her make the call. She didn’t have any trouble saying no to anything or anyone that might interfere with her priorities.

  “Lieutenant Hargrove?” Cal asked when she heard an unintelligible voice answer the phone. “This is Callan Lanford, returning your call.”

  “Ms. Lanford?” a woman’s voice repeated, breaking through the static. “I can barely hear you.”

  Cal turned toward the window, shielding her neighbor as much as possible as she increased the volume of her voice. “I’m sorry about that. I’m on a plane. My dad passed along your message about training the mounted police unit, but I have to decline the offer.”

  End of story. Cal had learned not to give excuses when she said no to someone who wanted to take time away from her career. If she said she was planning to leave the state soon, then the lieutenant would tell her they’d be glad to have her help on a temporary basis. If she said she didn’t have time available, she’d be given the unlikely story that the job wouldn’t require much time at all. People usually had trouble arguing with a no that didn’t have reasons attached.

  Lieutenant Hargrove apparently wasn’t one of those people. “We really need your help, so I hope you’ll reconsider. The job offers decent compensation, and you can set your own hours. It’s part-time work, so it shouldn’t interfere with your own training. I’m going to have the officer-in-charge contact you, and she can explain in more detail what we—”

  Cal heard her phone beep before the line went dead. Damn. Didn’t she have anything with a fully charged battery? She wasn’t accustomed to filling long hours of nothingness with technology. Cal would have liked to have ended this issue right now, but she’d have to wait until she got home. Maybe she could give the unknown officer-in-charge the names of other potential trainers, but Cal wouldn’t accept the job.

  She reset her watch to local time. After too many hours of stasis, she’d finally be able to move.

  *

  Rachel started her shift at six the next morning, still slightly hungover from too much beer the night before and exhausted from the struggle to keep from going to Christy’s apartment. She spent the two hours before her meeting with Hargrove backed into a parking place at the station and sipping on a triple-shot latte. As a new sergeant, she still didn’t have a set shift, so now she was doing a stint as fill-in for a vacationing day-shifter. The squad of old-timers, the patrol officers with enough seniority to qualify for a cushy day shift, suited her fine. They hated her because they were all long-time friends of Officer Sheehan—the man she had been unfortunate enough to arrest—but at least they didn’t need or want her input on their calls. She spent her days hiding and staying out of everyone’s way. Frustrated. Wanting to work, but relieved to have a place to lie low for a while, hoping the fuss over her decision would blow over and everything would return to normal.

  Of course, her imminent reassignment blew that hope to bits. Rachel was tired of sitting on her lazy ass and not doing any actual police work, but she had a feeling that whatever post Hargrove stuck her in wouldn’t make her life any easier. Still, how much worse could it get? A desk job? Rachel leaned against her headrest and stared at the modern glass-and-steel station. Working inside, constantly meeting up with other officers and their disapproving stares. The steel beams were as confining as prison bars, but at least people on the phone wouldn’t know who she was. She’d spend her days listening to citizens complain about their neighbors’ dogs and handing out theft report numbers for insurance claims. Better than the days when she could go her entire shift without talking to anyone who wasn’t selling food out of a drive-through window.

  Rachel finished her coffee and got out of her car. She swiped her card at the door and tossed the paper cup in the recycling bin before heading to the women’s restroom to check her appearance. Lieutenant Hargrove never looked anything but perfectly polished. Rachel couldn’t clean up her reputation, but at least she could give the impression of a model officer on the outside. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and straightened her collar. Tucked her shirt a little tighter. Rubbed her sleeve over her already shining badge. Fuss and fuss, but she looked the same as she had when she’d started. She turned on the water and wet her hand, running it through her short dark hair to smooth down a few loose curls. If Hargrove had given her more notice, she would have gotten a fresh haircut. She sighed and dried her hand on a paper towel. She couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Rachel checked her watch as she walked up the metal stairs, her black boots echoing in the large open space. Nothing in the building was designed to muffle sounds or soften hard surfaces. Bright and utilitarian and austere. Judging and confining. The moment her watch’s second hand hit the twelve, Rachel knocked on Hargrove’s door.

  “Come in, Bryce.”

  Rachel entered the small office. Abby didn’t look up from the paperwork she was doing, but she motioned Rachel toward an uncomfortable-looking plastic-and-metal chair. Rachel sat on the edge of the hard plastic seat and watched her work.

  Lieutenant Abby Hargrove was beautiful. Rachel had noticed her immediately when she had started with the department. Auburn hair wrapped neatly in an elegant chignon. Makeup perfectly applied. The body of an athlete and the curves of a sexy woman. All she needed was the sash and tiara, and she’d be able to win any title she wanted. But Rachel had no clue who was behind the stunning good looks. What kind of heart beat behind the bulletproof vest. What thoughts simmered behind those long eyelashes. The Hargrove name was well-known in the department, but not in a good way. Hints of violence, corruption. Nothing proven, but definitely something there. Abby Hargrove kept herself poised and aloof, separate not only from her family name but from everyone else on the department. Most of the other women on the force stuck together even across the barriers of rank, but not Abby.

  She finally looked up and caught Rachel staring. Rachel didn’t shift her gaze away. She was becoming quite adept at hiding anything she felt. Embarrassment, hurt, loneliness. They all were there, but under the surface. She couldn’t change the way other officers treated her. She couldn’t beg or cajole or demand their friendship. Her only recourse was to appear unfazed and untouched by everything. No sign of weakness allowed.

  Abby stared back for a few seconds before she broke the silence. “Officer Jensen said you helped him with the horses at the memorial service,” she said. “Do you ride?”

  “Um, yes,” Rachel said. She focused on the question and not her shock that Clark had bothered to mention her assistance. “My parents have a ranch in eastern Washington. I’ve ridden Western, and I played polo in college.”

  “Polo.” Abby shuffled through some files on her desk and pulled out a slip of paper torn from a spiral notebook. “Have you heard of Callan Lanford?”

  Rachel felt her confused response flicker over her face. She relaxed her forehead and blinked a couple of times before she answered. Of course she knew Callan Lanford. Golden girl of the polo world. Cal had been two years ahead of her in school, and the star of USC’s national champion polo team. Far out of Washington State University’s league. And Cal had been far out of Rachel’s league. Cal still played—apparently both on the field and off. Every month, Rachel saw pictures of Cal in her polo magazines, either wearing the burgundy and royal of the Pacific Northwest Polo Team or wearing street clothes, with some gorgeous woman draped on her arm.

  “I’ve heard of her,”
she said.

  “Good.” Abby slid the piece of paper over to Rachel. It had Cal’s name on it, and a phone number. “She was recommended as one of the top trainers in the area.”

  “She is,” Rachel said. Why were they talking about Cal? “But I don’t need a—”

  “Yes, you do,” Abby picked up a small plastic container full of paper clips and leaned back in her leather chair. She flipped the box upside down so some of the clips stuck on the magnetic opening at the top. “You’re Alex’s replacement as sergeant for the mounted unit. Against my recommendation.”

  “I’m…what?” Special units like the mounted division were prestige and coveted positions, with their abundant grant money and the autonomy they offered. Rachel would have applied to be a rider in the unit if she had still been in patrol when it formed. She didn’t have the seniority or the connections—even before her disgrace—needed to be in charge of it. “But…how?”

  Abby shrugged. She pushed the paper clips back into the container with her long fingers and flipped it again. “Apparently you have a friend somewhere high up the food chain. You don’t have any lower down.” She leaned forward. “I’ll be honest with you, Bryce. I don’t want you in my unit, and I certainly don’t want you in charge of it. The mounted division is dealing with enough crap. They’re mourning their leader and they’re pushing to be ready for the Fourth of July celebration, so they don’t need to be handicapped with someone like you. You aren’t a team player, you won’t have their respect. You don’t have a prayer of pulling them together in time.”

  Rachel struggled to pull her attention off the flipping paper-clip box and catch up with Abby’s speech. She appreciated the honesty, at least. Abby was only saying out loud the things Rachel was thinking. Still, it hurt to hear them. “I never applied for the job,” she said. “There must be some mistake.”