The man nodded, his attention being beckoned by someone behind the bar. Standing from his seat, he offered me another one of his kind smiles, and then pulled his wallet out. Fishing through it, he slid a business card over the table, and toward me. “Give me a call. We’ll help you out.”
I nodded. “Thank you, I will.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Devolin said cheerfully.
“Likewise.” I smiled again. “Both of you.”
Just as they’d appeared, they left, their meals in tow.
Chapter 8
Shane
I was about to leave work for the day, when I saw Dalton standing by my car.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked the man. It wasn’t unusual to see him stop by the precinct, seeing as we’d sometimes work cases together, but something told me that his mere presence today wasn’t one of police matter per se.
“Met your woman earlier today.”
My brows hit my hairline. I wasn’t expecting that. “Care to repeat that?” I hadn’t asked him or Brycen for that at all. Hell, all I wanted was to know more about the woman my daughter was beginning to spend so much time with.
Damn Brycen and his big mouth.
“You think I wouldn’t know what my own men were up to when it’s my company?”
“I didn’t ask for anyone to follow her,” I defended.
“Relax.” The man clapped the side of my arm. “Dev and I were at Fairfax grabbing lunch when I saw her. She seemed spooked.”
That was news, yet it wasn’t. I recalled the haunted expression when I’d spotted her first thing this morning; or yesterday for that matter. “What makes you say that?”
“She was barely eating. Her eyes were everywhere in the place. She tried to hide the fact that I scared her, when I asked her if everything was okay,” he rattled off. “And the kicker…after I told her what kind of business I was in, she asked me if I knew of any decent security alarm companies.”
My body stiffened. “She what?” I couldn’t blame her for being spooked, what with her history, but it surprised me that she felt so unsafe that she’d feel the need for a security system.
The man nodded. “I’m going to recommend Stan. He did a great job with Devolin’s system. He’ll most likely give her a discount for having two places done at once.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“No prob.” He stared me down. “Any breaks in this case of yours?”
“I still think it’s him,” I told Dalton. The team at Nightshade Security knew of my one and only suspect. I just hadn’t imparted my suspicions to my partner or my boss, yet.
“Yeah, but you’re not going to walk into that precinct and start pointing your finger at the fucker, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” I sighed. “He’ll slip up eventually, and when he does, I’ll get him.” It killed me that there would most likely be another death on my hands before I could possibly discover something to nail the bastard.
“My offer still stands, bro.” He grinned. “Decent hours. You’ll be able to spend more time with that little doll of yours. Working with people you trust. You wouldn’t be under the same set of rules as you are now with the JPD. You already know this since you’ve been helping us out for over a year now.”
Didn’t I know it. That’s what half my problem was. The other, was the fact that our local judicial system was flawed. It’s like they were letting just about anyone become cops these days. It was easy enough to pass the law enforcement entrance exam, but when you burn bridges along the way at the academy—particularly those with your evaluators—let’s just say you’re not the kind of cop I want to know, and even less, one I’d like to work with. That was the case with one officer I’d had the displeasure of training nearly ten years ago. Casen Dodge.
Casen had been a self-entitled little shit. His father, a captain on the JPD, had made sure his son followed in their family’s footsteps by greasing doorways to ease the passage. Unfortunately, due to my recommendations, Dodge didn’t pass the academy. He’d moved away, yet, eight years ago, he’d also made a reappearance in Jacksonville, and dear old dad hired him on the force.
Despite my and other officers’ grievances, we’d stayed stuck with him. He was nothing but a traffic cop with a grudge to hold.
And the only suspect in my wife’s murder, not to mention the other fifteen that followed, even if I had yet to find shit to pin him with.
“You’re right,” I told Dalton. “I’ve been sick of the bureaucracy, for a while now; maybe I do need a change.”
“Then let me know when you’re ready. I could really use you on the team full time,” he said. “Then again, you already know this since I’ve been trying to poach you for nearly a year now…ever since our case in Mexico with Devolin’s uncle. Meanwhile, if you or your woman–”
I held my hand up. “She’s not my woman.”
The man smirked, and I wanted to wipe that look off his face. “Yet,” he taunted.
Shaking my head, I hit the fob on my car to disarm its alarm. “I’ve got to get home. It’s my night to cook and Emberlyn’s coming over.”
That warranted a chuckle from my friend. “You say she’s not your woman, yet you’re cooking for her. Could have fooled me.”
“Let’s just say she’s coming over as my way of apologizing for being an ass to her last night.”
He laughed at that. “Rough start, if you’re not seeing one another, and you’ve already stepped in it.” Humor left his features, replaced by an intense look that was sobering. “I saw what Brycen dug up on her, Shane.”
“She’s been through a lot,” I mumbled. “I need to talk to her, especially since Rosie has been spending time with her more often lately. If there’s trouble blowing back onto her, I can’t let my girl get closer.”
The man moved aside, nodding in agreement. “Enjoy eating crow.”
After settling into the driver’s seat, I smirked at the man. “You know what, I think I will.” Slamming the door shut, I started the engine and put my car in drive.
Dinner was in the oven, Mom refused to relax and not contribute, so I set her on a salad. She was finishing up with that in the kitchen, Lana Rose talking to her about the basket of goodies she’d come home from our neighbor’s with earlier. I was reviewing some of my case files.
Emberlyn came knocking at six o’clock on the nose.
My daughter exploded like a shot out of the kitchen and made a beeline for the front door before I could get there myself. When I did, however, I liked what I saw. A whole hell of a lot.
She wore a baby blue sundress with capped sleeves, her hair in a loose knot at the back of her neck. Her gray eyes seemed to have changed to match the shade of her attire. She didn’t wear much makeup, but I could tell that she’d put some effort into her look, right along with the dark red lipstick. My mind short-circuited as it began to envision how those red lips would look wrapped around my cock. As my eyes trailed lower, I became increasingly aware that she was the perfect height for me.
Visions of me pushing her up against a wall, and taking her from behind, so I could grab her ample hips…
Fuck, Brycen! Why’d you have to–
“Shane?” I heard Emberlyn’s voice. She presented me with a bottle of wine. “I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”
“I said I was making dinner. That includes providing the drinks too.” My voice was hoarse.
She shrugged. “Save it for some other time, if it doesn’t go with what you have planned.”
“Can I show you my room now?” Rosie interrupted.
Emberlyn’s eyes searched mine for permission, which I granted with a nod of my head before I looked down at my girl. “Do it quick, honey. Dinner’s ready.”
“Okay!” Then she proceeded to pull Emberlyn along behind her, the woman still looking back at me.
By the time the two were out of the room, and I was standing there by myself, I knew I was in trouble.
Chapter 9
Em
berlyn
Damn, he looks hot!
I took a moment to cool myself down by inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. A lot of good that did me when I inhaled the subtle spice mixed with a woodsy scent, and my nonexistent libido kicked in at a low purr.
Get a hold of yourself! You’re standing in his little girl’s room!
Making a great effort, I focused on all the pinks and purples surrounding me in the form of pillows, ruffles, paint, and other assorted accessories. It was cute. It was girlie. It was entirely Lana Rose.
“You’ve got a beautiful room, Sweets,” I told her.
The sight of a framed photo on the nightstand, of a woman holding a newborn baby, had me smiling—despite the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“That’s my mom,” Rosie explained. “Isn’t she pretty?” She grabbed the frame and hugged it to her chest before handing it to me. “Daddy says I look a lot like her.” Her smile made the entire room that much brighter. “Daddy told me that she was the prettiest in the world.”
My eyes were fused on mother and daughter, settled in a rocking chair, and a pang of sadness hit me. My butt found the edge of the little girl’s mattress.
I could have had that once.
Clearing the emotion from my throat, I looked up at the little girl who stood in front of me expectantly and declared, “She’s very beautiful, Rosie, but I think you’re even more so.”
She shrugged off my comment, but gave me another one of her megawatt smiles. “Come on! We don’t want to make Grams and Daddy wait.” Rosie grabbed the frame from my hands and carefully set it back where it had been, before turning to me with a scrunched-up nose. “They get pissy when I take too long.”
I giggled at that, even though I was sure that ‘pissy’ was most likely a word she shouldn’t be uttering at her young age. Getting up, I extended my hand to her. “Let’s go, Sweets.”
Dinner was a quiet affair, entailing mostly of Rosie regaling her grams and father with what we’d been up to at my shop earlier today. Shane’s mother seemed thoroughly interested in what her granddaughter had to say, yet the man himself, seemed more interested in watching me eat. It was a little disconcerting.
By the time dessert rolled around, Rosie offered to help her grams to plate everything, while Shane gave me a tour of their home.
We’d ended the main floor’s tour in the den, but to be honest, I was too busy dealing with the fluttering sensation in my stomach, or recuperating from his slight touch to my lower back as he guided me around, to really take in the beauty of the house.
“Thank you for coming over tonight,” he said. “I have to admit I had an ulterior motive, aside from adding on to my apology.”
“Forgiven,” I croaked out.
The man’s gaze was intense. “Is everything all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked him.
“You seemed a little tweaked this morning. I saw you on your front steps.”
He made to approach me, which caused me to back up, right into the side of his desk, knocking a slew of papers and the file they’d been tucked into on the floor.
“Shit!”
Hurrying to my knees, I started rallying everything up in a pile when I felt Shane kneeling next to me.
“Let me. You shouldn’t–”
I took a closer look at the shots of random pieces and froze, studying them.
“What? What is it?” he asked. “Do those look familiar?”
“They just remind me of something I once wanted to try and never have,” I told him. “A photographic mosaic.”
His body went rigid. “A what?”
“A photographic mosaic…or photomosaic,” I explained. “It’s when you take different images of the same size and compile them together to make a larger picture. Kind of like a puzzle, because each image has to be in the right color scheme to make the larger image true.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” he asked.
“Well, no,” I said, then inquired further. “How many pieces do you have?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’d have to pull my files for the last eight years to know for sure. Do you know how to do these photo…”
“Mosaics?” I supplied. He nodded. “I’ve been wanting to try. Most people do these on computers these days, but I’ve seen them done by hand in a few galleries I’ve visited since I moved here.” I studied the photos closer, then moved to inspect the next one in the pile in my hands, and gasped, dropping everything I held onto the floor.
“Emberlyn,” I heard Shane say, but I was too busy processing the shock of what I saw. “Ember,” he tried again.
“Shane! Ember! Dessert’s ready!” Nora called out, but I couldn’t respond, closing my eyes to try and imagine something beautiful to replace the horror I’d just seen.
“Give us a minute, Mom. We’ll be right in.” I felt his hand grab my chin, gently tilting my head until we were face-to-face. “Look at me, Emberlyn. Look at me right now!”
That worked.
My eyes snapped open, and I realized I wasn’t breathing; the dark spots slowly clouded my peripheral vision, and my body swayed.
“Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe with me.” Shane put a hand of mine on his chest, covering it with one of his as his other remained at my chin.
“T-that’s the woman…” I swallowed the bile in my throat. “She was found dead in…Oh God!”
“Don’t talk. Just breathe, baby.”
Something in me snapped, and my body jerked back as if he’d hit me. Cold dread filled me along with even chillier memories. “Don’t call me that!”
Shane’s grip on me retracted as if I’d touched him with a cattle prod. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t call me that,” I repeated at a whisper. “It’s what he used to call me.”
“Who?”
That’s when I realized I’d said too much.
Jumping to my feet, I backed toward the front of the house, stuttering, “I-I have to go.”
“Wait!”
I shook my head, swallowing what I knew would be my dinner coming up to greet me again. I didn’t want to be here when it did. “I’m sorry. Tell your mom and Rosie thank you.”
Turning, I rushed out of the Peters’ residence as if my hair was on fire, barely making it to my front bushes before my stomach revolted, turning the wonderful dinner that Shane had put together into plant fertilizer.
What I didn’t expect were the steel bands that would come to wrap around me while I sobbed and dry-heaved.
Chapter 10
Shane
“Is everything okay?” Mom had run into the den as soon as the front door slammed shut. “What happened? Where’s Ember?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got to go after her.” I couldn’t explain because I didn’t really know the whole of it myself. “Can you look after Rosie? And don’t let her come in here. I’ll clean this up when I get back.”
She nodded, a distraught expression entering her gaze as she peered at the mess around me. “Okay, baby,” she choked.
I winced. “Mom–”
“Go,” she said. “You need to go. I’ll go check on Rosie.”
Nodding, I hurried out the front door, catching sight of Emberlyn hunched over one of her bushes, her back and shoulders heaving violently.
Fuck!
I didn’t hesitate. Rushing to her, I wrapped my arms around her middle and held on to the sobbing woman, who in turn began to scream like a banshee.
“Let me go! Help! Someone–”
My hand snapped up to cover her mouth, and I bent my head to the bucking woman’s ear. “Shh,” I whispered as she continued to fight me. I got a kick in the shin, causing me to groan. “It’s Shane, Ember. It’s me. I’m here.”
Her body went slack, but shock set in almost immediately and she began shaking like a leaf, her sobs resuming.
“Let’s get you inside, sweetheart.”
She didn’t argue. In fact, she didn’t say anything or physic
ally acknowledge me.
Bending down to pick up the tiny purse she’d dropped to the ground, along with her keys, I made to pick her up in my arms.
“I-I can walk,” she said, teeth chattering.
“Okay,” I said softly. “How ‘bout you hold onto me and we’ll take it slow. I’m not liking your color right now.”
I didn’t realize how extreme her fear was until I’d closed the door behind us, and attempted to usher the woman toward where I knew the living room would be, but she shrieked, “Lock the door!”
After that task was done, we made our way to the couch.
Emberlyn quickly backed into the armrest, curling her knees up to her chin. I grabbed the throw off the back of the sectional and draped it over her.
“Let’s get you a glass of water,” I told her, heading toward the kitchen.
In case you were wondering, this wasn’t my first time inside this house. I’d been here plenty while growing up, but it sure had changed. Emberlyn had put her mark on her grandmother’s old place, and it was a warm and pleasant one with a more modern flare to it. I approved.
Glass in hand, I set to run the water until it was nice and cold, filling it from the tap.
When the floor creaked beneath my feet on my return, Emberlyn jumped, panic in her eyes until they settled on me. She melted into the cushions almost immediately with palpable relief.
She didn’t waste time, grabbing the glass from my hands, chugging its contents immediately. I took the glass from her and settled it atop the one coaster I saw on the coffee table before crouching down in front of her.
“Better?” I asked. She nodded. “Want to talk about it?” She shook her head, no. “Do you want me to leave?” Another shake. This had me standing to sit next to her, but not too close, since I didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she clearly was.
That plan was squashed as soon as my ass met the cushion and she launched herself at me.
Night Shift (Nightshade Book 2) Page 4