by C. M. Steele
“I’m not on the menu,” I informed him for the tenth time. He thought that shit was funny, but I didn’t. He had the sense of humor of a seventeen-year-old boy even though he’d hit forty last month.
“Yes, but these guys like to look long enough that they keep coming back. And if you ain’t here, they don’t come in.” I couldn’t wait to quit. It would be happening very soon. A little more than two weeks, and I’d be out of here. “Well, maybe you should cook better food,” I muttered under my breath.
His head twisted, and his eyes narrowed with indignation as he said, “What did you say?”
“They should just eat the food,” I lied, remembering that I needed a job for bit longer.
“Just hurry up and get out there.” He scowled and stepped out of my way.
After putting my purse in my personal cubby, I brushed down my uniform and swept my hair back, then stepped out into the fray.
“Hey, Macy. I’m so glad you’re here. I have to go home soon. Tyler is giving the babysitter a hard time today,” Gloria exclaimed, walking over to return the coffee pot to the maker.
I emptied the filter and spun back to her with my brow arched. “Wait, isn’t your son with your husband?”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed, “Yeah, and the fucker acts like it’s a chore to take care of his own baby. I can’t wait until he heads back out on the oil rig.”
“Bye, ladies,” a patron said as he got up from the stool. We waved and in unison said, “Drive safe,” as he walked out. He wasn’t a regular, but he had been kind and quiet. Most of our regulars were great, hard-working guys needing a pit stop.
“Damn, it’s that bad,” I remarked.
She nodded, taking the empty cup and tip off the counter from the man that just walked out. “We are on the outs, but you know what happens when you hop into the back of a truck with your high school boyfriend.”
“Can you all catch up later? I need some damn food,” Earl, a regular, shouted from his usual corner seat at the counter.
“Oh, hush it, Earl. I’m coming,” she hollered, walking his way. Gloria had been working here for three years and trained me last year when I started. She used this job to supplement the money her husband sent while he worked away on an oil rig.
I turned in the other direction and started checking all the shakers. We wouldn’t have a crowd today. Most people went home on the weekends, but we had to be ready for the masses.
“Hey, miss, can I get a cup of coffee?” I looked up to see a Will County deputy. He gave me a smile that actually turned my stomach. I didn’t know why, because I wasn’t bothered by cops; in fact, they were welcomed. I grab a coffee cup and saucer, setting it down in front of him with a polite smile, then pulled a pot off the maker and filled up his cup.
“Here ya go,” I said, sliding the creamer and sugar bowls in front of him.
“Thanks, doll.” He poured in the sugar and cream, but his eyes kept moving in my direction as I filled the salt shakers. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
“I’m here all the time,” I remarked, still focused on my task. Normally, I was a lot sunnier, but I got a disturbing vibe from him. He was handsome and looked to be in his thirties.
“Well, it’s finally my lucky day,” he said with a smirk. Holy hell, that came off as creepy as fuck. I didn’t know what to say, but luckily I had an out.
“I wouldn’t say that. Macy’s mine,” Billy, another truck driver, interrupted. He winked at me. Billy was pretty good at keeping the creeps away from me when he hung around. Billy had been married for over a decade and met his wife at a truck stop, so he liked to look after us.
“Damn. Well, maybe we’ll meet again,” the cop remarked, finishing his coffee and leaving a five-dollar bill on the counter. The cops around here were given free coffee, so this was more than a nice tip. I stuffed it in the tip jar next to the register for us to share.
After that, I didn’t think about the officer again, and the rest of the night moved at a steady pace. When four in the morning hit, I cleared out the tips and headed to the back to go home.
“Hey, don’t clock out yet. You owe me another thirty minutes.” I stopped mid-step and spun around back to the counter. I wanted to tell him off for waiting to say a damn thing, but I needed this job a little longer. We had a little bit of an early morning rush, so I ended up staying another hour.
Thankfully, he didn’t try to keep me there any longer because I was ready to get out of this place. In a few hours, I was going to pick out a car so I didn’t have to borrow my neighbor’s car. Mrs. Blankenship was a nice lady, but I hated taking advantage of her kindness.
Chapter Three
Sean
Two weeks later
I had my cup of coffee in hand when I punched in at the station. It was stronger than I normally drank, but today I needed it. I took a long pull from it as I dragged my feet to get my evening started. The past two weeks were brutally slow and a daily reminder of the kick in the ass they gave me.
Thinking back on it, I’d wished I just told him to suck it and split. I had no obligation to the boss, but my good conscience couldn’t stand running out on the community. I easily could have put in for a new position anywhere, but I’d bought the house that I fell in love with, so unless I contacted the Weston Police Department, who had an even smaller budget, I was just going to have to retire.
The day after I put in my notice, the rage that filled me could have toppled an army. Irate, livid…hell, I was way past pissed the fuck off, but I took a deep breath and hit the freaking gun range. My aim was dead on, and my target ended up a big donut by the time I was done.
Everyone around me had already gotten word that I only had two weeks of work and that my former partner was to blame, so they worried about my mental state. I wasn’t going to flip out and go postal, but I hated that fucker and imagined every target was him.
I was certain that Justin’s father paid and paved the way for his son to get this far in life. When he joined the force two years ago, they stuck me with his unqualified ass. We all knew it was because of my great record that they partnered me up with that waste of space. Two fucking years…and that bastard was going to be a detective.
Thank fuck I didn’t need the job.
It was what I had to tell myself. I’d already started looking into opening up my own private investigation business. I didn’t want to work for anyone anymore and yet, I wanted to be a part of the cases. The startup money wouldn’t be an issue, but all the other aspects of running a successful and legitimate business would require a lot of work.
As of today, at the mere age of twenty-five my net worth hit around one-hundred-fifty million, and here I was running plates and ticketing people for fucking speeding. All of this had been nothing but a waste of my time. I had too much to lose risking my life to hand out tickets. Every day my odds of getting shot by someone I pulled over were improving with each stop I made, so I put in my notice.
None of these fuckers at the station knew I was loaded. I got the majority of the money after I started on the force. And it was for a good reason I never mentioned my wealth. If they did learn of it, there wouldn’t be a soul who could act normal around me, and the damn detective job would have been tossed at me without me even applying.
Merit and character meant a great deal to me, so I wanted to make it on my own. A part of me regrets not using that to my advantage, but that thought faded every time it popped into my head.
I walked to my locker with my head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone in passing. I wanted to get my things to toss in my truck. I didn’t want to forget anything. Tomorrow I was scheduled for my exit interview. Another useless thing to do, but after tomorrow, I could think about my plans for the future.
Downing the rest of my coffee, I tossed the cup in the trash, then emptied out my locker with everything but my clothes to change into when I signed out for the last time. I was almost all the way to my car when my favorite female detective ap
proached me. “How can I help you, Detective Ross?” I asked her.
After I saw her with the sheriff, I thought she would have avoided me, but it seemed that my disgust only made me a bigger target for her flirting. I would report her ass, but for what? She had the sheriff by the balls. Now it made sense how she became the youngest detective around with almost as much experience as Elroy. I did my best to keep my distance from her. In fact, I stayed away from most of the team.
“I came to give you a goodbye, for now, gift,” she said, smiling with her perfect teeth exposed. I didn’t want a present from her, but I also didn’t want to make a scene. I only had one shift left.
I took the small, flat box the size of a box of chocolates. I wasn’t a fan of them. I looked over at the garbage can that sat by the street light, then I looked back to her before she noticed where my eyes were going. “Thank you, Detective Ross,” I said, trying to act genuinely grateful.
“Oh, I think it’s time you called me Ellen,” she muttered, inching closer and looking up at me. Ever since I caught her with the sheriff, she’d been doing her best to win me over like somehow I would find the boss’s leftovers appealing.
“Well, I don’t think it makes sense to change things now,” I stated, my face contorting to a stern yet straight face.
“Maybe you’ll change your mind. Have a safe patrol, Sean,” she said, stepping back and then turning around and heading toward the police station while intentionally swaying her hips. She kept glancing back at me, smiling the entire time, making me want to laugh.
I didn’t want her to see me dump the gift, so I’d wait until I got home. I tossed the box in the passenger seat and locked the door without bothering to make sure the box wasn’t damaged. I didn’t hear a crashing sound, so I guessed it wasn’t broken. It must be a box of chocolates.
I hustled off to my patrol car before anyone else came to say goodbye or ask any stupid questions about Ross. I wondered if she created some rumors to offset her affair with the boss.
I headed over to my particular patrol route. It was a very long stretch of highway that became isolated from the major expressways. It was the start of summer, and the heat was a bit overwhelming tonight.
Drunk drivers coming from the pool and beach parties were going to be a big mess. I didn’t want any case that would fuck up my departure. I was so damn anxious to move along that I hoped that I wasn’t going to have to work today, but of course, they were short on patrol officers as it was. I wondered to myself why I cared.
Why did I have so much pride in my work ethic?
Chapter Four
Macy
I was running late again, and this time I was going to get canned. I tucked more of my things into my duffle. Three more days and I would be able to leave this hell hole for good. I could have been better prepared to split, but I didn’t want them to know I was jetting because they would do all they could to stop me. After all, I was their cash cow.
I lived in a two-bedroom trailer with my mother and stepfather, Gabe. They got together a few weeks after my father’s body was put in the ground. It disgusted me how quick she’d forgotten my father. I never trusted the man who took my father’s place. From the day he walked through the door, I knew that he wasn’t nearly as wonderful as my father.
Two years later, and I couldn’t have been more right. We went from a four-bedroom house in a middle-class neighborhood to the poorest trailer park in the area. There were twenty trailers in a row, and every single one of them was falling apart.
A meth lab was busted last week three trailers down and on the other side of us. Our patch of grass was layered with beer cans and cigarette butts. I had to tiptoe around the mess and dance around in the mist from a bottle of Febreze that I kept in my book bag.
I didn’t understand how my mother could spiral down so far. She went from a caring, loving woman to a hateful bitch who only wanted the benefits she got for me from my father’s death. I knew it was the drugs Gabe had hooked her on, but I’d grown well past hoping she’d change. What I didn’t tell her, although she should have already known, was the benefits she got for me dried up the day I turned eighteen.
I looked around the place to see if I’d left anything lying around that I might want to take. I saw the stub from the disability checks my mom received. She got monthly stipends from the accident to live on now. Not that she couldn’t work, but she was too strung out to give a shit. She didn’t care if I went without meals or nice clothes for school. Well, those days were over. I had my way out, and I was jumping ship before it sunk any deeper.
I was almost to the door when Gabe, that asshole of a stepfather, grabbed my arm. He pulled me roughly, making me bump my ass into the front of his body. The fucking stupid, drunk piece of shit always trying to give me a hard time about going to work at night. “You know, sugar tits, you’re going to get yourself fucked in the ass one day, working in the dark all the time.” I could smell the booze pouring off his body, and I wanted to vomit right on the floor.
“Mom, did you hear him?” I shouted out through our small trailer, ripping my arm out of his grasp and throwing my duffle over my shoulder after his manhandling had knocked it off.
“She’s passed out drunk. I’m not interested in your ass, though. I’d love to get my dick between your sticky, sweet cunt or those pouty lips.” He grabbed his hard shaft through his pants, and I knew that I was a second away from hurling. The man was a sick pervert, and I hated him. My mother gave no fucks to his behavior, but I couldn’t take it anymore.
Even if I had to pay for a hotel room for the next few days, I would. There was no way I could come back here. He was getting bolder and bolder every week. He’d have her doped up, and I would be trying to fend him off. I knew from the way he looked at me tonight that I wasn’t going to make it another night around him.
“God, you are fucking gross. Step toward me, and I’ll gut your disgusting ass right up the middle,” I threatened him, pointing my trusty little blade toward him. It was a gift my father had given me before he was killed in the accident.
My dad had always been my rock. The one person I could depend on had died, and I was left with two people that only wanted to use me. How I wished he was here right now. This wouldn’t be happening because my dad would have killed Gabe in a heartbeat.
If we didn’t live in a small trailer, I was sure my mother’s husband would have raped me. But since everything was paper thin around here, he couldn’t just come into my little room and do anything to me. I backed out of the door, staring at him, unafraid. He stepped further into the house, but I still didn’t trust him. I hurried to my car, hitting the unlock and tossing the duffle into the backseat of my new Dodge Charger.
Fuck, I wasn’t prepared to make my way to my job where I dealt with filth like my stepfather all the time. Plenty of great men stopped in and were super kind, but all it took was one jackass to wash all that good away easily.
Ugh, I sighed after I locked my doors and hit the push start. I stole a glance toward the house and could see him peeking through the shabby curtains that came with the thirty-year-old trailer.
The jackass thought I got my car by fucking truckers for extra tips, but what I didn’t tell them was that what I got it from the trust my father set up for me.
I would receive a large sum of money every year until I turned twenty-five, the last amount being over one hundred thousand dollars. There was no way I’d let them in on that little secret, so he could think whatever he pleased.
I was hoping to have an apartment in Weston already, but I couldn’t find one that was in my budget and in a decent location. In a few days, I could move just outside of Weston which was pretty far away without a vehicle and look for a better job in Houston.
I could have used the money to get an apartment sooner, but that would only last for about six months without a job. Having a reliable vehicle in order to find a good paying job was more important on my list. I’d rather live in my car than in that trai
ler, so it was worth the extra weeks I worked at the diner. Weston might not be the place for me after all because jobs were harder to find there. I might have to head to Houston.
I drove down the slick road in a hurry; it wasn’t a smart move, but I had to get to work before I got fired. My car had great handling, but I still needed to be careful. The biggest problem with all the storms meant my new baby was getting all muddy. I needed a car wash, but that would have to wait until I got settled in Weston.
I was driving down a dark, deserted stretch of highway, so I figured this was a great place to pick up speed to get to work before I was super late and fired. That was when I saw the lights and heard the sirens behind me.
“Shit,” I shouted, slowing down immediately, then I pulled over to the side of the road. I looked around, and there weren’t any streetlights, and the darkness was amplified by the rain. I shouldn’t have stopped here. They always say not to stop in such a secluded area, but I did. A man in a police uniform walked up, and I was going to get my first ticket.
Chapter Five
Sean
I was about to be done with my shift, so I headed back to the station. It had been a surprisingly uneventful night. The rain may have deterred some of the beach parties, or maybe I was just getting out before the shit storm began.
The rain was coming down hard, then slowed before another downpour began. I was about fifteen miles away from the station with my high beams on, when I saw a car speed past me. It had to be doing thirty over the limit.
My sirens went on, I pulled a U-turn, and I sped up and gave chase. This car had no intention of stopping since I had a hard time catching his speed.
“Shit!” This was not what I wanted to happen on my last day, last hours on the job.
I grabbed my car radio speaker and called it in. “This is Officer Cavanaugh. I'm in pursuit of a red Dodge Charger on Will Road. Excessive rate of speed. Vehicle refuses to pull over.” In the pit of my stomach, I had a feeling that things were going to get wild.