Once a Cop

by Lisa Childs

  “Lunch?” he repeated, totally blank on why she’d shown up.

  She chuckled. “You invited me, remember?”

  “Of course.” He nodded as he remembered his late-night revelation and subsequent phone call. “Meredith Wallingford, this is—”

  “Sergeant Kent Terlecki and Officer Roberta Meyers,” she finished for him with a wide smile as she held out her free hand to shake theirs. “We’ve met.”

  “She’s our favorite social worker,” Kent claimed, showing his notorious charm as he squeezed her hand.

  Roberta only nodded, but it wasn’t clear if she agreed with the sergeant or was only acknowledging Meredith’s greeting.

  “Merry’s my favorite, too,” Holden said. Even though she hadn’t conducted the interview that had awarded him custody of Holly, Meredith had given him a glowing letter of recommendation.

  “You’re making me blush,” Meredith protested with a chuckle. “But don’t let that stop you from singing my praises.”

  Kent flashed his patented TV-cop grin. “Just don’t you stop. I don’t know what Lakewood PD would do without you.”

  Kent’s flirting with his date didn’t bother Holden in the least. He’d like to believe it was because he’d known Meredith for so long that he was sure he could trust her.

  “You’re a sweet talker, Sergeant,” Meredith said as color flushed her face. “I don’t know why that reporter from the Chronicle gives you such a hard time.”

  Kent’s grin slipped. “You and me both, Meredith.”

  Holden ignored the two of them and focused again on Roberta. She was likewise ignoring the banter between the sergeant and Merry as she stared at him. Or glared, rather. He didn’t blame her for being mad at him, though. He wasn’t too happy with himself, either; he should have told her that he was seeing someone, however casually.

  Finally she spoke. “Sergeant Terlecki can show me around.” Her lips lifted in a smile even though her eyes were cold. “Don’t let us keep you from your lunch date.”

  WHAT A FOOL I’ve been…

  When would she ever learn that she couldn’t trust her judgment when it came to men? And it wasn’t just the men she was interested in she misjudged.

  “Thanks,” she murmured to Kent Terlecki as they headed up the double stairwell to the second floor.

  He paused midstep and turned back to her, his brow furrowed. “For what?”

  She forced a smile and said, “Thanks for the tour.” Earlier that morning she’d actually resented him for tagging along; she’d thought herself a fool for stopping off at the department to change into her uniform before visiting the shelter. If she’d come alone, she probably would have been in the middle of asking Holden to the ball at the mayor’s mansion when his girlfriend walked in with their romantic picnic lunch.

  When once just remembering their kiss had made her lips tingle, now they burned as she pressed them together hard, fighting the urge to blast him for cheating on a nice woman like Meredith Wallingford. Kent hadn’t been just flirting when he’d claimed she was the department’s favorite social worker. Meredith had already had one cheating ex; she deserved better this time. Of course maybe Holden didn’t consider a kiss to be cheating. But Roberta did.

  “You okay?” Kent asked, his eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “Is it hard for you to be here?”

  Heat rushed to her face. Had he picked up on her attraction to the youth minister?

  “What do you mean?”

  He lifted his broad shoulders in a slight shrug. “Nothing.”

  “Ah,” she said as realization dawned. “You know about my past.” Her life wasn’t quite the open book she’d told Holden it was. But then she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been entirely forthcoming.

  “The chief and I are close,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, since you took a bullet for him,” she said, revealing the fact that she knew the department secret. Kent had been shot three years ago, and Robbie had only been with Lakewood PD for two and a half years. Because the force preferred its officers to have some experience, she’d initially been a county deputy for a couple of years after graduating from the Police Academy at Lakewood University.

  Kent grimaced and cursed his roommate. “Damn Billy’s big mouth.”

  Robbie smiled at the embarrassed look on his face and teased, “Brownnoser. Some people will do anything to get ahead.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, that’s what Erin Powell thinks.” Erin Powell being the reporter at the Chronicle who routinely harassed him.

  “She’s an idiot. You’re a great guy,” Robbie said, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “A real hero.”

  Someone cleared his throat, then remarked, “I hate to interrupt…”

  Robbie glanced around to where Holden stood a few steps below them, staring up.

  “Now this guy—he’s the real hero,” Kent said, obviously eager to get the focus off himself.

  “No hero here,” Holden protested.

  Robbie heartily agreed, but before she could voice the comment Kent’s phone rang. He glanced at the ID screen. “Excuse me, guys, I gotta take this.”

  Guys. Most of the male officers on the force saw her that way, one of the guys. She’d thought, after Holden kissed her, that he might have seen her as something else. Well, he did; he saw her as some men had once they’d realized she was a single mother. Easy.

  “Don’t let us interrupt your date with Meredith,” she told him.

  “I’d like to be the one to show you around the shelter,” he said.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Actually, it is,” Kent said as he stepped back onto the landing with them, “if you want to see the place today. I have to go, Rob. There’s been an accident, and I need to make a statement to the press.”

  “Fatalities?” she asked. The accident had to be severe if he needed to make a press release about it; otherwise he’d be on the news every five minutes about one fender bender or another.

  He nodded. “I’ll send someone back to pick you up when you’re done.”

  “No,” she said, “I can leave now, with you.”

  Kent shook his head. “It’s important that you tour the place.”

  He knew how much she would’ve liked having someplace like this to go to when she’d been a runaway. “Okay.”

  Holden waited until Kent had rushed off before speaking again. “I’m glad you decided to stay.”

  “You don’t need to babysit me,” she assured him. “I can check the place out by myself. And you can go back to Meredith.”

  “She left.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re pissed.”

  “Not at all,” she lied. She wasn’t mad at him; she was mad at herself for being foolish enough to consider dating him.

  “You should be mad at me,” he said, then lowered his voice to a whisper and added, “I shouldn’t have kissed you that night.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “But it was just a kiss.” A kiss she’d thought about much too often. “And it’s forgotten.”

  He nodded his acceptance of her claim. Maybe the kiss hadn’t meant anything but a thank-you to her for saving him from being shot at the warehouse. He wasn’t really attracted to her. Then he said, “I want to show you around.”

  She lifted a brow in question.

  “I want to introduce you to the kids,” he explained. “I think it’s important that they meet you.”

  She snorted. “Is that why they slink away every time I so much as glance at them?”

  How many of these kids had outstanding warrants? She’d bet quite a few—probably more than the youth minister suspected. Or didn’t he even suspect? Was he so idealistic that he had no idea how many of these kids had been in trouble? While some might have been running away from bad home situations, some ran because they’d gotten in trouble with the law, and they couldn’t go home because that was the first place the police would look for them. Perhaps he
hadn’t thought through all the consequences of his request for officers to visit the shelter.

  “So can we skip the upstairs?” she asked, seeing that most of the kids were either in the main-floor lounge or heading to the dining room for lunch. And the less time she spent with Holden, the better.

  “I can show the upper floors to you later, but the second floor has rooms for teenage mothers and their children. Third is just girls. Fourth, just boys.”

  “And you have chaperones who keep the boys and girls apart?”

  “Each floor has a chaperone,” he said.

  “What about a security guard?” Often these runaways were in the most danger from their fellow runaways, kids who’d do anything to survive. Or they were kids who’d wound up on the streets because of what they’d already done.

  “The shelter has security.”

  She leaned over the stairwell and peered across the foyer to the main lounge. She saw an older man leaning against the wall watching television, not the kids. “Him?”

  “He’s a retired cop.”

  “When did he retire?” she asked. “During the Carter administration?” She turned her attention from the security guard to a particular kid who was obviously trying to disappear into the shadows. But the windows were tall and sunlight poured through them, shining on a face she’d never forget. He wasn’t fast enough to escape her. Not this time. She vaulted over the stairwell and charged after him.

  Holden was stunned. One minute she was ahead of him on the stairs and the next she was gone, leaving behind only a flurry of curses. He rushed after her, pushing past the kids milling about in the wake of the running police officer. Pots, pans and metal racks rattled as Holden slammed through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

  The back door stood open, sun blazing down on the cooks who’d gathered in the doorway. Holden shoved between them and scrambled into the alley.

  Grunts and groans drew his attention to the other side of a Dumpster. He raced over to find the kid, a burly youngster, lying atop Roberta, his big hands gripping her throat, choking her. Holden, shaking with fear and rage, reached for him, but suddenly the kid convulsed and flipped onto his back. His convulsions continued, sending him across the asphalt like a drop of oil on a hot griddle. Two wire leads traveled from his side to the Taser Roberta held. Coughing and choking, she propped herself up on an elbow.

  He dropped to his knees beside her. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head and fumbled her cell from her belt. “C-c-call 911,” she rasped.

  KAYLA CRAWLED into Aunt JoJo’s closet. With the cordless phone pinched between her jaw and shoulder, she pulled shut the folding doors. Light from the hall shone through the slats, so that it wasn’t totally dark. But she wasn’t scared of the dark, anyway. It was the squealing coming from the phone that had her nerves on edge.

  “Shh,” she cautioned her friend. “Don’t get too excited.”

  “But your mom went to visit Uncle Holden’s shelter,” Holly said. “That must mean she likes him.”

  “That’d be cool,” Kayla admitted, smiling. She liked her friend’s idea of them being sisters, of all of them being a family. She liked it a lot.

  “It’d be the best!”

  Kayla sighed, hating that she had to be the serious one, but she needed to point out, “Mom could just be there for work, though.” She crinkled her forehead as she remembered. “She wasn’t supposed to work today. She told me she’d pick me up from school, but then Aunt JoJo picked me up, instead. And now she’s still not home.”

  “My uncle’s not home, either. They gotta be together. This is really great!” Holly squealed again.

  Kayla pulled the phone away from her ear so she wouldn’t go deaf. Then she gasped as the closet doors rattled. Through the slats she spied Sassy, the dog’s tiny front paws, one black like the rest of her and the other white like the patch on her chest, pushing against the wood until the doors folded open. Then she jumped onto Kayla’s lap, yipping and licking.

  Dodging the little dog’s black-spotted tongue, Kayla squirmed from beneath the coats hanging over her head.

  “There you are,” Aunt JoJo said from the hall, “I had to release the hound to find you. And this apartment is pretty darn small. I didn’t know we were playing hide-and-seek.”

  Kayla laughed. “I’m not hiding. I had to call Holly.” She lifted the phone to her ear and then added the explanation her friend had whispered through the receiver, “about homework.”

  “You’re doing homework in here?” Joelly lifted the sleeve of a coat and rattled the hangers. “Not much light.” She narrowed her eyes. “And where are your books?”

  “I…I…”

  Joelly laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s okay to just want to talk to your friend.”

  “Best friend.”

  “Sisters soon!” Holly yelled through the phone.

  “Shh…bye!” Kayla clicked off the phone and handed it back to Jo. “You didn’t hear that?”

  Aunt JoJo shook her head, but a smile tugged at her lips. “I didn’t hear a thing.” She turned away, heading back down the hall to the living room. “I’m way ahead of you, kiddo.”

  “What?” Kayla asked, scrambling after her.

  “On the video game,” she explained. “I got my bubble rolled farther through the canyon.”

  “Did you get to the rainbow?”

  “Not yet.”

  That was like Holly wanting them to become sisters. They weren’t there yet, and a lot of things could pop their bubble before they were.

  Chapter Six

  An icepack wrapped around her neck, Robbie settled back on the couch and picked up the fleece throw she’d dropped when she answered the door moments earlier. She’d no more than folded her legs beneath her when another knock rattled the wood.

  Despite her swollen throat, she managed a sigh and lurched to her feet again. Her legs trembled with leftover adrenaline as she stumbled down the short hall.

  “Jo, I’m fine,” she said as she turned the doorknob. “You don’t need to keep mothering me.”

  But it was not her best friend standing in the hall between their apartments. “Oh…” She gripped the edge of the door and was tempted to slam it in Holden’s handsome, cheating face. “What are you doing here?”

  He gestured at her throat. “I had to check on you,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I had to make sure you were really okay.”

  “Like I told you in the alley, I’m fine,” she replied. Of course she hadn’t been able to utter those words right away; it had taken her a while to find her voice again. “You should be home…with your niece. I wouldn’t want to make you late again.”

  “Mrs. Crayden is with her, and Holly’s sleeping. I assume Kayla is, too, since they have school in the morning.” He shifted his gaze to the door she held tight. “Is that why you won’t let me in?”

  “It is,” she said. “Partly.”

  “You’re really mad at me,” he said, “about the kiss.”

  “I’m not mad about the kiss. I told you, it’s forgotten.” Maybe if she made that claim enough times, she’d begin to believe it. But her gaze was drawn to his mouth, to his lips.

  “Yeah, you said that, and then you jumped off the stairs and ran one of my kids out of the shelter.”

  “Your kid?” She snorted. “Your kid is actually twenty-three and wanted for assault.”

  He sucked in a breath. “Twenty-three?”

  “No one told you?”

  “The police officers who responded to your 911 call didn’t talk to me. They wouldn’t tell me what was going on.”

  Robbie closed her eyes, her head pounding as she remembered the chaos in the alley. Kent Terlecki might never forgive himself for leaving her alone at the shelter, no matter how much she assured him she was fine. “I was actually talking about one of your other kids, not the police officers. None of them told you the truth about him?”

  He shook his head. “The ones who stuck around
stayed real quiet.”

  He probably blamed her for that. So she’d been right; more had outstanding warrants than just the perp she’d caught. “It was your idea that I visit the shelter,” she reminded him. “I bet you regret that now.”

  “The only thing I regret is your getting hurt,” he said, his eyes warm with sincerity. “Please, tell me what happened.”

  She was probably too keyed up to sleep yet, anyway. So she pushed the door wide open. “You might as well come in.”

  He hesitated. “I don’t want to wake Kayla.”

  “You’re more likely to wake her if we keep talking out here in the hall,” she said. “She’s at my neighbor’s. She fell asleep over there, and I didn’t want to wake her.” She shifted the ice pack against her neck, hoping the swelling would be down by morning and the bruises light enough that she could cover them with makeup.

  “You don’t want her to see you like this,” he surmised as he stepped into the apartment. He stood close, his gaze intent on her face. “I can see now that it’s been broken.”

  “What?”

  “Your nose.”

  She touched a finger to it, then shrugged. “It adds character.”

  “Is that what Kayla thought when she saw it?”

  She shut the door, knowing that her voice, despite the swelling, would probably get louder. “Are you criticizing my parenting again?”

  He shook his head. “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand why a single mother would put herself in danger, like the way you ran after that kid—that guy—today.”

  She flinched, having already realized back in the alley that that hadn’t been her smartest move. “I was working a couple months ago when he assaulted an elderly woman and stole her purse.” She’d been a vice decoy that night and hadn’t been able to chase him, and her backup officer hadn’t managed to catch him, either. “I wasn’t going to let him get away again.”

  “Even though he almost killed you?” Holden asked, his face pale with concern.

  Robbie managed a laugh. “He didn’t almost kill me.” Although she had been closer to blacking out than she was comfortable remembering. “I had it under control.”