If the raid had taken place a few months ago, she would’ve been able to sit through the sessions without a problem. She would’ve been able to nod her head and make appropriate comments and facial expressions. She would’ve hated every second of it, but she would’ve been able to do it. But the raid happened in September. The paranoia had already kicked in, and so had the nightmares. No way in hell could she have sat through a counseling session. Any therapist worth their salt would’ve seen her for what she was: a cop on the verge of a major crack-up. She would’ve been out on her ass before she’d even had a chance to sit down.
Skipping the sessions had been a risk, one that would cost her. Her chances of sliding on this were between slim and none, but she’d rather be tagged as non-compliant than crazy.
The door suddenly opened, and she jerked her head up. All thoughts of her suspension disappeared. Nickels, the one person who could help her find Michael, was standing right in front of her.
He began to open the door wider to allow her to pass through, but she shook her head and moved down the hall toward the gun range. She shot him a look; he instantly fell into step behind her.
“What’s up?” he said.
“I need a favor.” She forced the words out and had to beat down the guilt when he readily nodded his head. He’d want to know why she needed O’Shea’s records, and the lie she’d worked up to explain herself wasn’t one she wanted to tell.
“You got it.”
She pressed on before she lost her nerve. “You were in the military, right?”
“Yeah, I served in the Gulf—so?”
“If I asked you to help me get a hold of some service records, no questions asked—could you?” The open expression on his face closed up tight, and she instantly regretted asking him. “You know what? Never mind. Forget I asked.” She stepped to the side, but he shifted his body to block her exit.
“You just asked me to help you get confidential military files. Not exactly something I can just forget. What’s going on?” he said, his usually pleasant face clouded with concern.
“It’s stupid, really. Val wants to fix me up with this guy she knows. He said he’s ex-military, but you know how it is. He could be lying just to try and impress me. Being a cop is hell on a girl’s love life.” This was the lie she didn’t want to tell. She watched her words sink in, and his face changed again. His concern took a back seat to the protective possessiveness he felt where she was concerned. She felt horrible exploiting his feelings for her, but she’d do whatever it took to protect her family.
“What’s his name?”
“Michael O’Shea.”
“What branch?”
“Army.” She thought she remembered Lucy telling her it was the Army, years ago when he left, but she wasn’t sure. Nickels nodded his head and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“What do you want to know?” He was all business now.
“I don’t know … service dates, where he was stationed. If he committed any crimes while he was in,” she said. She had no idea what she needed, but it seemed like a good start.
“Basically, you want his entire jacket. Shit, Vaughn—you’re not asking much, are you?”
“I know it’s a lot, Nick. I just don’t know who else to ask.” If there was any other way, she’d jump on it in a heartbeat, but there wasn’t.
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do but I’m not promising anything.” He gave her a crooked grin. “A date, huh? I don’t know—you don’t seem like a dinner and a movie kinda girl.”
She forced herself to smile back. “I’m not. I’m a taco stand, gun range kinda girl, but Val thinks I need romance or some shit.” She rolled her eyes.
He threw a glance over his shoulder before looking her in the eye. “Ya know … you could just tell Val thanks but no thanks and grab a drink with me after work,” he said. She instinctively took a step back and dropped her gaze to the floor. With his light brown hair and whiskey-colored eyes, Nickels was no hardship to look at. If she thought they could keep it casual, she might consider it, but she knew Nickels didn’t do casual. He was a long-haul guy. He couldn’t handle her brand of relationships, which was no relationship at all. He caught her hesitation, and the disappointment she saw on his face compounded her guilt. She opened her mouth to agree to a drink, but he cut her off.
“I’ll do it regardless, but the drink offer still stands,” he said. Nickels was one of the good ones. He didn’t deserve to be used. The last thing she wanted to do was string him along, but she didn’t want to hurt him either.
“I better go see what Richards wants.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you inside,” he said, nodding in the direction of the briefing room. He took a few steps down the hall before she called out.
“One condition: I buy the first round.” She ignored the little voice in her head telling her this was a bad idea.
“As you wish.” He gave her a slight bow and another grin before he turned and walked away.
9
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Sabrina nudged the cracked door open with the toe of her boot and wrapped her knuckles on the frame. Richards’s head popped up from the small mountain of paperwork crowding his desk.
“Sit.” Richards leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin, studying her with enough intensity to make her want to squirm. Seemingly out of thin air, he produced a piece of paper and held it up for her to see. “You know what this is?”
“No, sir.” She knew exactly what it was. Richards cracked a smile and nodded his head.
“It’s your four-forty.”
She said nothing. When an officer discharged their weapon in the line of duty, the case was taken before an incident review board. A committee of fellow officers, administrators, department shrinks, and civilians were asked to review your actions and decide whether or not they were justified. The 4-40 form documented her side of the story along with the board’s findings and recommendations. Richards continued to stare at her for a few moments before speaking again.
“It was a good shoot. Witness accounts were able to corroborate your report. The bullet holes in Sanford’s shirt didn’t hurt either.” He cracked another humorless smile, and she returned it. “Why didn’t you come to me?” he said out of nowhere, throwing her off balance.
“Sir?”
“Sanford. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Instantly, she understood what Nickels was doing in Richards’s office so early in the morning. “Nick needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut.”
“Wasn’t just him. Lloyd, Tagert, McMillan, Davis … there’s been a steady stream coming in since you filed for a transfer. Nick was just the latest,” he said. The names of her SWAT teammates closed her throat. Suddenly she missed them almost as much as she wanted to kill them for getting into her business and dumping it on Richards’s desk. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “You want to tell me what happened after the raid?”
She thought of that day, of the ride back to the station. Kevlar stopped bullets, but that didn’t mean getting shot didn’t hurt like a bitch. Taking two to the chest had Sanford laid out in the back of the wagon. All she could hear was the excited buzz of the other team members. Her actions and the fact they’d saved Sanford’s life were all anyone could talk about. She didn’t have much to say, just endured the shoulder slapping and knuckle bumping with a vacant half-smile while Sanford glared at her through the slits cracked in his eyelids.
He’d said nothing to her after she dropped the banger, just lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Someone yelled her name. More shouts sounded from unseen rooms. The heavy tread of pounding boots shook the floorboards under her knee, getting heavier and louder. The guy she had cuffed and pinned to the ground with her knee in his neck threw up all over her boot. She barely noticed. She stood and rushed forward. She knelt, first in front of the kid she’d shot—he couldn’t have been more than twenty—to check his vitals. He was dead. She kept her gun trai
ned on him while she removed the 9mm still in his grip and jammed it into her waistband. It took only seconds, and when she looked at Sanford, he was watching her.
“Are you hit?” she said. She moved to run her hand along his chest and sides, checking for possible wounds.
“Get the fuck off me.” He practically snarled at her, shoving her hand away while he struggled to sit up. She looked up to find Nickels in the doorway, a look of sickened relief plastered all over his face. She stood and shoved her way past him. The rest was a blur.
On the way back to the station, Nickels watched them both, his temper showing plainly. “You’re an asshole,” he said to Sanford, his voice loud enough to quell the incessant chatter that filled the small space. “She saved your life, and you practically shit on her.”
Sabrina felt her stomach hit her boots. The last thing she needed right now was a confrontation.
“Nick—don’t,” she said quietly, but they both ignored her. “Fuck her and fuck you. Just because you got a hard-on for the unit dyke doesn’t mean I have to kiss her ass.” Sanford tossed her a snide glare. Before she knew it, Nickels hauled Sanford off the bench and the two of them were tossing each other around the back of the wagon.
Without thinking, she dove in and wedged her shoulder between them to pry them apart. Sanford took the opportunity to punch her in the mouth with a sharp jab that snapped her head back. It took the entire unit to drag Nickels out of the wagon when it finally pulled into the station lot. She’d had a busted lip she blamed on a takedown during the raid, and she’d expected the rest of the unit to back her story. Apparently, her expectations had been too high.
“I can handle it, Sarge.” She wasn’t saying a word. “You know I’m required to investigate the matter.”
“I never filed a formal complaint, and I’m not going to. So you’re not required to do anything.” It was a technicality, but she exploited it shamelessly.
“I can’t let it go, Vaughn.”
“I said I can handle it.” The abruptness of her answer caused Richards’s eyebrows to shoot up on his forehead. Great, now she was noncompliant and insubordinate. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s having a rough time, sir. His wife left him.”
“When?”
She sighed, picked at a loose thread on the knee of her pants. “A few days before the raid.”
Richards’s eyebrows slammed down over his eyes, and she knew she’d said too much. “How do you know?”
“Come on, Sarge. The guys around here gossip more than a sewing circle,” she said and was rewarded with a snort that might’ve passed for a laugh.
“He drinking again?”
Last week she’d stopped at the corner market a few blocks from the station to pick up a gallon of milk on her way home. Sanford had been at the register when she walked in, a fifth of Beam on the counter in front of him. She strode past him, pretended not to notice him or his purchase. When she made it up to the counter with the milk, he was gone.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Not that I’ve seen.”
Richards wasn’t buying it. “I’m pulling him in here because of what happened. Whether you want to file a complaint or not, he assaulted a fellow officer. Not something I can let slide. I’ll get the rest out of him and treat it accordingly.”
“It’s really not a big deal.” She wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
“See this?” He rooted around under a stack of papers and pulled out a brass nameplate that read Sgt. Daniel Richards. He slapped it down on his desk in front of her face. “This gives me the right to decide what’s important and what’s not. You transferred out of my unit because of Sanford and his schoolyard bullshit. That’s a big deal to me.”
She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable. Her leaving the unit had everything to with that raid. Sanford had his hand in it, sure— but it had just as much to do, if not more, with Nickels.
When she’d looked up from where she knelt next to Sanford, she’d seen Nick’s face in the doorway. He’d looked wrecked, on the verge of losing it. If it’d been her laid out on the floor, he would’ve fallen apart, compromising not only himself but the entire team.
She decided then and there she couldn’t work with him anymore. Backing your teammate was one thing—letting your emotions lead the way was entirely another. He’d be exactly the kind of idiot to ignore his own personal safety in favor of hers. She didn’t need that on her conscience.
“Okay.” She looked at her watch. It was seven-thirty. Time for the briefing. “Can I go?” She stood, ready to hit the door.
Richards frowned at her. “Yeah, you can go. Home.” He held up her 4-40 again and pointed to a box at the bottom of the page marked Office use only. “Do you know what this says?” he said, and she shook her head, not trusting her voice to stay steady. “It says Special Services Recommendations. Below that it says you’re required to attend three sixty-minute sessions with the department therapist within thirty days of the incident. It’s been more than thirty-five days since the shooting, and you still haven’t complied with department policy. That’s a problem, Vaughn.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I forgot—”
“You forgot?” He looked at her like she was on drugs. “Okay … well, since you’re so forgetful, you must have forgotten you scheduled an extended vacation before you transferred out of my unit.”
“A vacation? I can’t just take a vacation. This is my last day on the team, Sarge. We have an eight-thirty—”
Richards just shook his head. “We have a warrant to serve—you don’t. Your discharge from SWAT is effective immediately. Go home, Vaughn.”
Go home. The words caused panic to swell in her belly. She shook her head. “Strickland and I are working a double homicide, we’re waiting on a search warrant now,” she said, the panic rising up from her stomach to choke her.
“You don’t seem to understand. This isn’t a suggestion, or a request. You’re either going to take the vacation, or I’m going to suspend you for thirty days for noncompliance with department policy.”
She grasped at the few straws she had left. “I’m in my first ninety days in Homicide. Mathews hates me enough as it is—”
“I’ll take care of Mathews,” he said, referring to her new boss. “Please.” She was begging. She was actually begging.
Richards stared at her for a long moment before looking down at his desk. “You can finish out the day so you and Strickland can make your arrest, but come tomorrow morning, you’re gone.”
She nodded, felt hopeful. “The serve and search?”
“No. Your discharge stands. I don’t want to see you until you’ve completed your sessions. You read me?”
She moved toward the door. Drawing a deep breath then another, she struggled to rein in her boiling temper. She knew better than to turn around and look at him. She was being forced out on vacation because she saved Sanford’s life. What kind of shit was that?
“Vaughn?” He was waiting for an answer.
“Yes sir, loud and clear.” She opened the door and left, slamming it behind her with a resounding bang, blending perfectly with the gun shots from the range as they bounced down the hall.
10
Careful to close the curtains, he dropped Lucy’s limp body into the nearest kitchen chair. He found a roll of duct tape in a kitchen drawer, along with a few other items that might prove useful. He used the tape to strap her to the chair and slapped a piece over her mouth for good measure, then set the rest aside for later.
First things first.
Bypassing the rotary phone, he made his way into the living room. He remembered seeing a cordless handset tucked in her knitting basket. He hit Redial with no real hope. It was unlikely the person she called would be the same number she last dialed on the cordless phone, but—
“This is Michael. I’m unable to get to my phone. Leave me a message, and I’ll try to call back.”
O’Shea. The end of the outgoing message gave way
to a prolonged silence. He listened for a few moments before ending the call. He knew the two of them were close. Lucy lived in his foster parents’ old house, and he’d taken to staying here whenever he was in town, but why call him? Had Lucy called Frankie’s brother to tell him her killer was eating lemon pound cake off the good china in her sitting room?
It was doubtful. O’Shea was protective of Lucy, took care of her. If he knew the fox was in the henhouse, the phone would be ringing off the hook right now, but it was silent.
O’Shea had no idea he was here.
He walked through the house closing curtains and drawing blinds. Lucy lived miles from the nearest town—between Jessup and Marshall—so he wasn’t too concerned someone would drop in unannounced at this hour. She said the cake was for company, but he knew it was really just for Melissa’s birthday. Still, people were unpredictable. Caution was always prudent.
He perused the bookshelf next to the small fireplace. It held an odd mix. Dime store trinkets mingled with pricey collectables. The historical romance novels and Westerns he knew she loved shared space with Hemingway and Steinbeck. O’Shea—had to be. Tiny signs of him were all over the place.
Finding Lucy’s record collection, he flipped through the worn jackets until he found one he liked. He slipped the album out and placed it on the turntable, setting the needle down carefully so as not to scratch it. He raised the volume when Gene Kelly began singing in the rain.
He set the turntable on repeat and headed back to the kitchen. The music followed him through the house and he whistled along, the tune putting a spring in his step.
He went back into the kitchen and was pleased to see Lucy was waking. Her head lolled on her scrawny neck, her creased lids fluttered open, but she remained silent.
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 1 Page 5