Always Mickie (Cruz Brothers Book 3)

by Melanie Munton

“They said it was because she was fat, which was mean,” I replied. “She was only a size ten.”

  “You weren’t even on the team.” She threw her hands up. “Oh, and let’s not forget in college when you found out Whitney’s boyfriend was cheating on her.”

  I pointed a finger at her. “Hey, you thought sending his car through the car wash with the sunroof open was hilarious, too.”

  She pursed her lips, clearly biting back her laughter. “Okay, that was pretty good. I’ll give you that. But my point is that yes, you tend to go kind of over-the-top sometimes. Maybe overreact a little. But it’s part of your charm.”

  I knew she was right.

  I thought back to one of my biggest freak-out moments, which now lived in infamy in the Cruz family.

  The time when Dawson had hung a giant version of the “Dogs Playing Poker” picture on our living room wall without asking me first. I’d walked through the door after a twelve-hour shift with an aching back and throbbing feet, and the picture had been the first thing I’d seen.

  I wasn’t proud of my reaction.

  I’d gone a bit…psycho was probably the most apt description.

  To be fair, I had been six months pregnant at the time. So, I could blame most of that on the hormones.

  He hadn’t hung anything up without my permission since.

  I groaned, tipping my head back. “Okay, yes. I know I can be dramatic, and I’m working on it. Dawson was just the first guy who was able to handle that side of me. He’s always dealt with it in a way that worked for both of us. When I told him to leave, I figured he would assume I was just being dramatic, and that he’d handle it the same way he always had.” I shook my head. “But he didn’t. He just left.”

  “Is that why you married him?” she asked. “Because he knew how to handle you? Because he could take it?”

  “No,” I said forcefully. “I married him because he loved me enough to take it. To put up with me. And I love him enough to never stop trying to be good enough for him. To be better for him. To deserve him.”

  Her brow furrowed. “You don’t think you deserve him?”

  Her scrutiny made me squirm in my seat. “Sometimes I don’t. He’s had to deal with so much in his life, and still he insists on taking care of everyone around him. With how he grew up, no one would have been surprised if he’d just crawled into a hole forever. But he didn’t. He made something of himself.”

  She took my hand. “And I’d bet he would say a lot of that is thanks to you. He joined the police academy after he met you, Mickie. His relationship with his mother improved once you came into his life. You’re good for him, just like he’s good for you. You didn’t have an easy way of it growing up, either. I mean, look how I turned out compared to you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Hey, don’t say that.”

  She put her hand up, silencing me. “I’m kidding. Mostly. Milo is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But I know I wasn’t a good role model for you when we were young. I drank, smoked weed, snuck out all the time, and obviously, got pregnant and dropped out of school. Everyone pretty much expected you to end up the same way.” She smiled proudly. “But you didn’t. You made straight A’s and got a college scholarship. You’ve made something of yourself, too. You deserve him, Mickie. Believe that.”

  Something wet touched my hand. Dammit, when had I started crying?

  “When you two met,” she went on, “you were like magnets. It was obvious to anyone around that you were meant for each other. There was this invisible string pulling you two together. Which is why I know you’ll be okay. Because magnets can’t stay apart long. They always come back together.”

  I grabbed a tissue off the counter and dabbed my eyes. “Damn you,” I muttered. “I’ve already cried enough today.”

  She laughed, pleased with herself. “You’re welcome. Shoot, if my speeches affected Milo the same way, that kid would be putty in my hands.”

  I joined in her laughter, and had to admit her talk had made me feel better. Uncertainty was still there in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t as prominent as before. Hope bloomed inside my chest as I thought of Dawson and how far we had come together.

  We were strong.

  We’d waded through tough times, and we were still here. Our love was now as resilient as ever.

  Though the events that followed that conversation with Margot would test that strength and resilience.

  Immeasurably.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Dawson

  Goddammit, I couldn’t think straight.

  I drove away from the hospital, more confused than ever.

  Maybe hurt was a better word than confused.

  I was hurt that Mickie would even consider the possibility of leaving me. My gut was telling me—hoping—that she’d made the decision to apply for the job in New Jersey during a time of severe emotional stress. When she hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  I’d learned over the years not to take a lot of her overreactions to heart.

  But she’d waited until this morning to turn the job down.

  That’s what I couldn’t figure out. I wasn’t sure what that meant, if anything.

  I returned to the station, my head a mess, with the goal of distracting myself by focusing on work. It hadn’t helped distract me from my problems these last two months, so I wasn’t sure why I thought it would help now. But I was going to try, anyway.

  Otherwise, I was going to go track down Stein and truly beat the hell out of him.

  Simply because I needed a punching bag.

  Kyle met me as I was entering the bullpen with an eager smile on his face. “We tracked down the last known residence of Oscar Rivers.”

  Fuck, yes.

  I needed some good news.

  I fished my keys out of my pocket. “I’ll drive.”

  The address he spouted off was a good sign. It was in the same area as all the break-ins, and only two blocks away from the last homicide.

  “I talked to his landlord,” Kyle said as I sped across town. “He said the guy’s mom died recently. She’d been pretty sick in the hospital for a while. He’d been helping pay her medical bills, and he’d been late on his own rent several months in a row.”

  “So, he’s been low on cash,” I concluded.

  That would certainly explain his motivation for burglary. Not necessarily murder, though.

  “Apparently,” Kyle answered. “Landlord also said Rivers seemed to suffer some sort of mental break after his mother’s death. He started behaving erratically, became irritable, and even threatened a few of his neighbors. Sounds to me like he became unhinged.”

  Anger, grief, and pain over the death of a close family member, now that could cause homicidal tendencies. We’d seen it too many times. It could make cases like this harder to work.

  But at the same time, we were cops and our job was to protect the public. Oscar Rivers had become a danger to society and to himself, and he needed to be stopped.

  I slowly pulled up to the house and parked at the curb. Assessing the dilapidated one-story home, it appeared as if no one was home. Hell, with the missing shingles and the overgrown yard, it looked like no one had lived here for years.

  “You take the front, and I’ll enter in around back,” Kyle said.

  “Sounds good.”

  We exited the car and immediately pulled out our guns. We knew the suspect was armed and dangerous, which meant we were taking precautions. Especially since we didn’t know what kind of situation we were about to walk into. I met Kyle’s eyes and nodded before watching him disappear into the backyard.

  I reached the front door and pounded several times. “Oscar Rivers! This is the Baltimore PD. Open up.”

  When silence greeted me, I repeated the act. Either Rivers wasn’t home, or he was waiting for us to enter so he could attack.

  I blew out a few deep breaths, and prepared myself for whatever was inside. I felt the familiar spike of adrenaline as I kicked in the ric
kety old door and entered at a low angle.

  The front room was empty, save for a dirty couch and a dusty TV. Slowly, I crept further into the house, sweeping through each room with my gun raised. I knew Kyle was doing the same at the back of the house. Each room had black-out curtains covering the windows, and I had to wonder if this guy was some kind of vampire. It made seeing without any lights on damn difficult.

  When I’d checked all the rooms on my end, I yelled, “Clear!”

  “Clear!”

  I met Kyle outside the kitchen and we both holstered our guns. “This place is a mess, man,” he said. “I’m half expecting us to find his mother’s dead body sitting in a rocking chair somewhere.”

  There was a foul smell in the air, but it wasn’t of death. I knew all too well what that smelled like. This was simply the putrid smell of rotted meat, mixed with mold and mildew. I assumed there was probably black mold all over the place. I spotted stacks of mail on the kitchen table and bet I would find hospital bills in there. Any information we could gather on this guy would be helpful.

  “Why don’t you start in the bedroom, and I’ll take over in here,” I said.

  “On it.” He walked down to the room at the end of the hall.

  I was about to slip on my gloves when I heard the sound of the front door opening.

  Shit.

  I grabbed my gun out of its holster and plastered myself against the nearest wall. “Oscar Rivers?” I yelled.

  There was complete silence and then, “Who the fuck wants to know?”

  “This is the Baltimore PD,” I answered, keeping my voice calm. “You’re under arrest for the murders of Lynn Siever and Harrison Nettleman. I need you to get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your head.”

  His maniacal laughter cut through the air, sending a chill down my spine. “Fuckin’ cops. I ain’t done shit, and I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you ‘cuz you ain’t got proof of nothin’.”

  I glimpsed movement at the end of hallway, and knew Kyle was holding his position. Rivers didn’t know he was there, which could benefit us if the guy decided to fight. I might be able to keep him calm longer if he thought he was only taking on one cop, instead of two.

  “We have evidence that places you at both crime scenes, Oscar,” I said, which was a lie. We still had another week to go before we got the DNA test results back. But the circumstantial evidence against him was strong enough for an indictment. “It’s over, man.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to jail,” he said in a much quieter voice. “And since I ain’t got nothin’ left, I ain’t got nothin’ to lose.”

  This wasn’t good.

  He sounded as if he’d already made his decision and was resolved in it. Going out with a bang.

  “Don’t do it,” I told him. “Don’t make it any harder on yourself.” Silence. I decided to try another tactic. “Do you really think your mother would have wanted you to do this? Would she be proud, Oscar? Surrender now and I promise, we’ll get you the help you need.”

  He still didn’t answer.

  We needed to resolve this and restrain the guy as soon as possible. With the black-out curtains, it was pretty dark in the room and hard to make certain things out. Even still, I wasn’t about to become a target by exposing myself.

  I bent down and retrieved an empty container of laundry detergent from the floor. Leaning close to the open doorway, I tossed the bottle into the other room, where I knew Rivers was holding up.

  Just as I suspected, a gunshot rang through the house as the bottle crashed against the floor.

  Fucking shit.

  Rivers had a gun and he was willing to use it. This situation had just escalated into something a hell of a lot more serious.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I called out. “Drop the weapon now.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  All of a sudden, the wall right above my head exploded as a bullet sailed through the drywall. Chunks of plaster and splinters of wood rained down on my head. I ducked low and dove to the other side of the room. Expecting him to come charging in, I flipped the kitchen table over and took cover behind it.

  Now, I was fucking cornered in the room.

  I couldn’t see what was going on in the rest of the house, or where Kyle was at.

  Shit and double shit.

  I crouched behind the table, waiting for any signs of movement.

  And that’s when I heard them.

  Footsteps moving down the hallway toward Kyle’s position in the bedroom. Before I had the chance to come up with a plan to cover him, two more gunshots rang out, the loud echoes reverberating off the walls of the tiny house. I assumed Kyle had been made.

  “Kyle!” I shouted.

  “I’m hit,” he yelled, grunting. “He ran back down the hall.”

  Goddammit.

  The fact that he was speaking and not unconscious didn’t offer me any comfort. He could bleed out before we got him medical attention.

  Him being shot changed things. I wouldn’t let my partner die because this disturbed individual refused to be brought down.

  I slipped out from behind the table and quietly crept out of the room. All I could see in front of me were dark shapes, but none of them were moving. At this point, Rivers could be anywhere, hiding in any nook or cranny.

  This was his territory. He had the advantage here.

  A shot was fired into the darkness, shattering a light fixture above my head and to the right. Glass shards landed on my head and arms, cutting into my skin. I ignored the pain as I returned fire. I ducked behind some sort of cabinet, taking aim again when I heard movement in front of me. I was getting my bearings now, and knew he was headed for the back door.

  He was going to escape.

  Nope. Not going to happen.

  I sprung up and darted after him. He turned around and shot wide. I pinched off one shot that I knew had hit my mark when I heard a pained grunt. His guttural noises told me it had possibly hit something vital. Though that didn’t stop him from squeezing off another round before I could find cover.

  This time, his shot wasn’t wide.

  I felt a sharp, burning sensation rip through my abdomen, causing me to stumble.

  I didn’t give myself time to think about the pain, and quickly fired off three consecutive bullets. One of them must have hit him because I heard nothing but silence after that.

  When I pressed my hand to my side, my fingers were instantly covered in a warm, sticky liquid. Shit, that was quite a bit of blood.

  And sonofabitch, that hurt.

  I shed my suit jacket and wrapped it around my waist, tying the knot tight right above my wound. Then I ripped off the bottom section of my shirt, and pressed it against the hole that was gushing blood.

  “Cruz!”

  “He’s down,” I managed, gritting my teeth through the pain. “I’m hit.”

  “Shit.”

  I fell against the nearest wall as a wave of light headedness came over me.

  Damn, that hit me fast.

  I was already feeling weak, tired. I tried keeping pressure on the wound, but my limbs were starting to feel like jelly.

  And suddenly I was cold.

  The next few minutes were a blur as I felt a hand replace mine against my stomach. Kyle was talking to me, probably trying to keep me awake, but his voice sounded like it was a million miles away. My eyelids grew heavy, and I just wanted to go to sleep.

  I fought it, though, because something—or someone—was telling me to stay awake. It sounded like Mickie, but I knew she wasn’t there. She was somewhere else, mad at me. Or maybe I was mad at her. I couldn’t remember, but whatever happened didn’t mean shit anymore.

  All I could think about was how I wanted to see her again. At least one last time if that was all I had.

  I pictured her face in my mind, because I didn’t want this shitty house to be the last thing I saw on this earth. I imagined us lying in bed next to each other, holding hands and smiling between swee
t kisses.

  I wished we’d had more time.

  But if this was it for me, then at least I’d had ten years with her. She’d given me two beautiful kids, who would both grow up knowing their parents loved each other. At least I had been able to enjoy my time with her.

  But I didn’t want to leave without telling her goodbye.

  Or telling her I loved her one last time.

  I think I whispered it into the void as I closed my eyes, hoping it would somehow cross time and space and reach her ears. As long as she knew I loved her and was sorry I had to leave her, I could go.

  I could go.

  I…could…go…

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Mickie

  Somehow, I’d managed to stop crying and clean myself up a little. Margot had even talked me into ignoring all the laundry I had to do in favor of opening a bottle of wine and watching a rom-com.

  I was right in the middle of opening said wine bottle when my cell phone rang.

  It was Ashley. I knew she was working tonight, so I figured they needed me to fix whatever disaster had befallen them. Actually, I was surprised it had taken them this long to call.

  “Please do not tell me Cynthia spit on another patient,” I said, laughing. “I’m not covering for her again.”

  Silence.

  If I hadn’t heard the distinct hum drum of the hospital in the background, I’d have thought she’d hung up.

  “Ashley?”

  “Mickie,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “You need to get down here.”

  I was on alert. “Why? What’s going on?”

  Her breathing picked up speed. “Two cops were brought in earlier.”

  No.

  It was the call. The one I’d dreaded for ten years.

  No, it can’t be.

  The hand that held my phone started shaking.

  “One of them was Dawson,” she said. “He’s been shot, Mickie.”

  I fell into a chair. My mind went blank, yet my brain went haywire all at the same time.

  “H-how is he?” I managed.

  As a fellow nurse, she knew I needed it straight, no sugar-coating.

  “He was rushed into surgery. I haven’t heard how it’s going yet. Just…get down here now.” She hung up.