by Diane Kelly
“Ryan’s nephew.” It made sense that Toby might have touched the brick while they were painting the model.
“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
If Adriana had been trying to frame Ryan, it looked like she’d been smart enough to keep her prints off the brick and shoes. “Did you contact Miss Valdez and tell her the results?” I asked.
“I figured I’d let you handle that task,” Bustamente said with a wry smile. “After all, you’re wanting to get into detective work someday. You might as well get a taste of it now. Consider it an opportunity to expand your skills.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Who do you think you’re fooling?”
He chuckled. “Certainly not a smart young woman such as yourself.”
He’d pushed his dirty work off on me. I wasn’t much looking forward to giving Adriana the news, but Bustamente was right. I better get used to uncomfortable conversations if I wanted to be a successful detective. And I knew he’d only asked me to handle the task because he was swamped and because he trusted me to do a good job. It was an implicit compliment, really.
I raised a hand in good-bye. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Good luck, Officer Luz.”
As I headed back down the hall, I passed Officer Hinojosa.
“Sucking up to the detectives again?” Hinojosa asked.
“Not sucking up,” I snapped. “Doing my job.”
He chortled. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”
Seth and I drove back to my house. I would have liked to plop myself down on the sofa with Seth and our dogs and watch television until it was time for me to get ready for my shift. But duty called and I, being the dedicated cop I was, had to answer.
I walked Seth and Blast to the door. While Seth gave me a kiss good-bye, Blast did the same to Brigit, licking at her mouth. I wondered if he could taste Brutus and realized Brigit had cheated on him and gone to first base with a coworker. If he could, he didn’t seem to mind. I guess dogs don’t get jealous. Humans, on the other hand, were prone to intense jealousy. Exhibit A was Adriana and Ryan. One of them didn’t seem to be able to get over the other. But who was the one who couldn’t let go?
I touched my index finger to Seth’s chin dimple. “Thanks for dinner.” I followed up with another warm kiss.
When we finally broke apart, Seth gave my long, dark locks a final twist, said, “See ya,” and headed out to his car.
* * *
I dressed in my uniform and pulled my hair back into my usual tight, professional-looking bun. “Let’s go, partner!” I called to Brigit. She bounded up and trotted after me as I exited the house.
After running by the station to get our cruiser, we headed to Adriana’s house. I clipped a leash to Brigit’s collar, gave her a moment or two to sniff around the mailbox and porch, and led her to the front door. Knock-knock-knock.
“Hello, Officer Luz.”
I nearly jumped out of my tactical sneakers when a voice came from behind the oleander bushes to my left. Had one of those creepy gnomes from out back come to life? I reflexively whipped my baton from my belt and flicked it open. SNAP! Working as a cop had put me in some dangerous situations, and quick reflexes could mean the difference between life and death. They could also mean the difference between appearing in control or out of it. Right now, I was afraid I appeared to be totally out of it.
Adriana’s face peeked out from between limbs she’d pushed aside. Her eyes went to my baton.
“Hello, Miss Valdez.” Attempting to appear calm and nonchalant, I twirled the baton in my fingers, just as I’d done with my performance baton back when I’d been a twirler for my high school’s marching band. Swish-swish-swish. Yep, just playing with my baton. You didn’t scare the bejesus out of me popping out of that bush. Nope. I stepped down from the porch, leading Brigit with me, before collapsing my baton and returning it to my belt. “What are you doing back there?”
She held up an extension cord, looking at it rather than me. “Plugging in my new lights.” She disappeared for a moment as she stuck the plug into an outdoor outlet, reappearing a moment later as she slipped out from between the bushes. She pointed up to a floodlight mounted on the corner of her house. “That’s motion-activated,” she said. “I put a couple of them out back, too. They’ll light up the whole yard if anyone goes back there again.”
She’d followed my instructions. I fought the urge to pat her on the head and toss her a liver treat and a “good girl!” But it also made me wonder. Would she be going to all this trouble if she’d been the one to throw the brick?
I gestured to the thick bushes. “You might want to cut these bushes back, too. They make a good place for someone to hide.” Obviously.
“I’ll get right on that,” she said.
Brigit sniffed along the edge of the porch, dropping to her belly and shoving her nose through a spot where the wood had rotted, leaving a gap of several inches.
Adriana glanced at Brigit before turning back to me. As before, her focus was slightly askance. “What did the crime scene person say? Are you going to search Ryan’s apartment?”
Brigit began to claw at the wood, trying to get at something under the porch. I ordered her back to my side and grasped the leash near her collar, holding her close. When I responded to Adriana, I chose my words carefully, watching her closely to see how she would react. “The footprint analysis was inconclusive,” I said.
Her eyes flashed, but was it with fear or fury? “Inconclusive? What does that mean?”
“It means the tech couldn’t be certain if the footprints had been made naturally by a person walking in your backyard.”
Her face contorted in confusion. “How else would footprints be made?”
I raised one shoulder. “He said that given the parameters, it’s possible they had been fabricated.”
“Fabricated?” She spat out the word as if it was a bug she’d accidentally ingested. “He thinks the prints were faked?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “But the bottom line is a good defense attorney could make a sustainable argument to that effect, especially given that Ryan has an alibi and already successfully sought a protective order against you. We need to build a better case if we’re going to search Ryan’s place and bring him in on charges.”
She sputtered, her eyes looking wild as she threw her hands in the air. “I don’t believe this! I’m being treated like a criminal when I’m the victim here!”
I raised a conciliatory palm in an attempt to calm and appease her. “I’ll be watching out for you, Miss Valdez. I promise.”
Yep. I’ll definitely be watching out for you.
TWELVE
MISSION IMPOSSUMABLE
Brigit
She smelled the possum. It was right there under the porch. She didn’t scent fear, though. The stupid thing must be sleeping. If Megan would just give Brigit some slack on the leash she could claw through that rotten wood in a few seconds. She wouldn’t kill the thing, just give it a nice chase, a fun scare, show it who was boss. Dogs rule! Possums drool!
But no. Megan was being a total party pooper. Looked like Megan needed to be shown who was boss, too.
“Come on, Brig,” Megan said, turning to head back to their cruiser.
Not gonna happen. Brigit plunked her butt down on the grass and refused to budge.
Megan gave her the hand signal that meant “come.” But Brigit refused to come. Make me.
Megan crouched down and looked her in the eye. “Only good girls get treats.”
Treats? Well, now. That changes everything.
Brigit lifted her butt, wagged her tail, and followed Megan to the car, gladly accepting the liver treat Megan tossed into her enclosure before closing it. Megan put her face to the mesh screen and said, “Sometimes you’re a real pain in the ass.”
Brigit wasn’t sure what Megan meant, but she knew the tone meant Megan wasn’t happy with her. She didn’t much care. Megan would get over it. She
always did. Besides, Brigit had a treat to eat. That’s all that mattered right now.
THIRTEEN
ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER
The Devoted One
There’s been no visit. No phone call. Not even a text or e-mail. Of course it had been less than twenty-four hours since the incident, but the longer things went on, the less likely it was that there would be any contact.
You do nice things for someone, try to show them how you feel and make them feel special, and what do you get in return? Taken for granted and dumped, that’s what.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
No one should have to put up with this kind of treatment, to be taken for granted like this.
But people appreciate things more when they no longer have them, don’t they? Sure. That’s where that old saying “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” came from. Maybe the only thing needed to bring the two of them back together was a little time apart.
It was worth a try.
FOURTEEN
EYES WIDE OPEN
Megan
After visiting with Adriana, I phoned Detective Bustamente to give him an update. “I swung by her house for a quick chat. I told her that the footprints wouldn’t hold up under the scrutiny of a good defense attorney and that fact, along with Ryan’s alibi, meant there wasn’t sufficient evidence to make an arrest.”
“How did she respond?”
“She was furious.”
“Furious because she’s scared? Or furious because her plan to get Ryan in trouble isn’t working?”
Hell if I know. “I don’t know what to think.”
“We’ll figure it out sooner or later,” Bustamente said.
“I hope it’s sooner.” Later might be too late.
After speaking with the detective, I made a pass by Ryan’s apartment complex. While his Camaro was in his reserved parking spot, his work truck was nowhere in the lot. Looked like the guy was putting in some overtime.
With a couple of hours to burn until our night shift began, I drove to the Shoppes at Chisholm Trail, a mall located within the boundaries of our beat. To look at the place now, you’d never know a bomb had gone off there the previous summer. Thanks to Brigit alerting on the device, we’d been able to evacuate the food court before the explosive detonated. To this day, I couldn’t figure out why she’d led me to the garbage can where the bomb had been placed. While she was trained to track and sniff for illicit drugs, she was not trained to scent for explosives. Best I could figure, either she heard the timer ticking and was curious about it or she smelled something else in the garbage that had caused her to alert. Either way, her actions saved untold numbers of lives. She and I had sustained minor injuries, but we’d lived to patrol another day.
Given that it was now August, the summer stock had been relegated to the clearance racks to make space for the incoming winter apparel. But given that we lived in Texas, summer weather would actually continue for a couple more months, the calendar be damned. Might as well see if the stores had any cute bathing suits or shorts on sale, right?
Luck was with me. I found a cute bikini in a mint-green color for half price, as well as a pair of shorts and a bohemian print top. I tried them on in the dressing room, turning this way and that to check myself out in the mirror. “What do you think, girl?” I asked Brigit. Ridiculous, since she wore the same outfit—her fur—every day and had little interest in fashion. Even if she did, she couldn’t exactly express her opinion. Sometimes I forgot my partner wasn’t human. Still, she wagged her tail when I spoke to her so I took that as a sign of approval. I decided to get them all. I worked hard. I’d earned them.
As we made our way through the food court with our purchases, Brigit lifted her nose in the air and sniffed her way along. We were passing through an aisle between sets of tables when a male voice called out. “Officer Luz! How are you?”
I turned to see Serhan Singh at the counter of his kebab restaurant, Stick People. Though Singh was from Turkey, he’d embraced American life, and the local sports teams, with fervor. He sported a full beard, jeans, and a Texas Rangers jersey.
“Let’s go say hi,” I told Brigit, changing course. As we headed to his booth, her tail wagged a mile a minute. She knew Serhan. Better yet, she knew he was always good for some warm beef or chicken.
We stepped up to the counter. “Good to see you, Serhan.”
“You, too,” he replied. “I have not seen much of you two at the mall this summer.”
It had been a busy season for me. Between tracking the Berkeley Place Peeper and working an undercover drug sting at the university, I’d been tied up elsewhere the past several weeks. “We’ve had some investigations that kept us from our usual beat,” I told him. “How are your wife and daughter?” I’d never forget their terrified faces the day the bomb had gone off and they’d been forced to flee the mall. The image was seared into my memory.
“Kara’s excited about starting first grade,” he said. “She can’t wait to learn how to read better. She told me that she knows most of the three-letter words now and wants to learn the four-letter ones.”
We shared a chuckle at her innocence.
He looked down at Brigit, who was smacking her chops and drooling so heavily her mouth was a virtual Niagara Falls, forming a small puddle at her front paws. “Would you like chicken or beef tonight, Brigit?”
She responded with a woof!
“Beef it is.” He used tongs to pull three strips of beef from a warming tray and lay them in a cardboard basket. He handed me the basket, along with a napkin. Not that he thought Brigit would need it. She could wipe her mouth with her tongue. But he knew I’d tear the meat into smaller pieces to keep her from wolfing it down and would need to clean up afterward.
“Thanks so much.”
He nodded. “My pleasure. Hope to see you again soon.”
Lest someone slip in Brigit’s drool, I wiped the floor with the napkin and led her outside. I parked my rear on a bench to feed Brigit. She snatched each piece of meat from my hands as soon as I tore it off. It was a miracle I didn’t lose a finger in the process.
After visiting the mall, I drove to Forest Park and threw a Frisbee for Brigit, letting her get some exercise and have some fun. She ran after it, catching it every time as it began to come back down to earth. She even caught my bad throw, which ended up in the branches of an oak tree, falling down through the limbs like a pinball.
As we played, a smiling redhead came up the walk, a black Lab at the end of her leash. Brigit trotted over to meet the dog. Both of their tails wagged as they greeted each other.
“Hi,” I said to the woman as I bent over to pet her dog. “Who’s your pretty girl?”
“That’s Shae,” the woman said. “She’s sassy.”
As if to prove the point, Shae bent down on her front legs, her rear in the air and her tail whipping back and forth as she attempted to engage Brigit in play. Brigit mirrored the gesture, adding a frisky arf-arf! as she jumped back and forth on her front legs. The two engaged in a playful dance for a few seconds before a squirrel scampering between two nearby trees drew their attention away.
“Enjoy the rest of the day!” I called to the woman as she and her dog continued on their way.
We spent another quarter hour at playtime before it was time to head to the station. “C’mon, girl!” I called to round up Brigit. “Time for work.”
We arrived a few minutes early for our shift. Brigit and I waited in the parking lot for Derek to arrive. Our fellow officer Summer pulled into the lot not long after us. She drove an adorable white Miata with a colorful pink Hawaiian lei hanging from the rearview mirror. She had the top down, enjoying the night air. Not that it was cool, by any stretch of the imagination. But when the daytime highs had hit 104 degrees, the upper eighties felt virtually arctic.
Summer’s name fit her perfectly. She was a bubbly blonde with bouncy curls. Like me, she’d joined the force right out of college
, though she had three years’ experience on me. Unlike some officers, who became jaded after dealing with lawbreakers day in and day out, Summer somehow managed to remain an optimist, retaining her faith in humanity.
How she managed to maintain her sunny disposition these days was beyond me. After Derek Mackey had lost critical drug evidence and a dealer had gone free as a result, the W1 captain no longer trusted the Big Dick to work alone. Nobody’d wanted to pair with the jerk and, unfortunately, Summer had drawn the short stick. Until such time as Derek proved himself again, she was stuck with him. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
When Summer spotted us, she waved and tapped her horn. Beep-beep! I raised a hand back at her. She pulled into a spot and activated the convertible top. It rose and arced over her head, slowly coming to a close.
“Hi, Megan!” she sang as she hopped out of her car. “Hi, Brigit!” She walked over, knelt down, and gave my furry partner a nice scratch and a kiss on the head.
“Hey, Summer,” I replied. “Before you head out on patrol, I n-need to speak with Derek.”
She looked up. “About what?”
I told her about my visits last night to Adriana’s house and Ryan’s apartment. “Derek handled an earlier call at Miss Valdez’s place. I want to get his read on her. We’re not sure she’s on the up-and-up. She avoided eye contact with me and seemed a little squirrelly.”
On hearing the word “squirrel,” Brigit looked up and glanced around, seeking the rodent I’d mentioned. Seeing none, she cast me a dirty look for my poor word choice and let out a sigh.
Summer stood. “What about Ryan Downey? Did he seem trustworthy?”
“Not particularly. Other than the Big Dick, I’ve never seen a guy so full of himself for no apparent reason.”
Summer offered a hmph. “So either one could be the bad guy, then.”
“Exactly.” I told Summer that the night crew needed to make extra passes by their residences tonight to keep an eye on things, and provided her with the addresses. “If you see anything suspicious, let me know. Okay?”