To Love a Cop

by Janice Kay Johnson

  His head turned back toward the light-rail station. “I’ll go straight home, I swear! Please, mister. I mean, Detective.”

  Ethan shook his head. “We’ll talk to your mom. She may be more understanding than you think she will be.”

  “She won’t! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “In,” Ethan said inflexibly, holding open the passenger door.

  As he walked around to the driver’s side, he watched through the windshield in case the kid tried to make a break for it. All he did was slump in defeat.

  Once Ethan was in, he hit the button to lock the doors. “All right,” he said. “No more dancing around. I need your name.”

  The kid jerked a one-shoulder shrug and mumbled again, although this time Ethan heard him. “Jake Vennetti.”

  “Vennetti.” Oh, damn. Why hadn’t he seen the resemblance right away? “Your father was Matt Vennetti.”

  Jake sneaked a look sidelong with those chocolate-brown eyes just like his father’s. “Yeah.”

  Ethan opened his mouth and closed it before he could say aloud what he was thinking. Oh, shit. Jake was right; his mother was going to freak. She had good reason to hate guns.

  In fact, this boy, sitting beside Ethan, had to be the one who’d gotten his hands on his father’s service weapon and accidentally shot another kid, who died. From there, the tragedy had cascaded. In the end, Portland Police Bureau Officer Matt Vennetti had ended up killing himself. Not with the same gun, but he’d swallowed a gun nonetheless. It all happened—Ethan wasn’t sure. Five years ago? Six? He knew Matt’s only son was a little boy and not to blame, which wasn’t to say he didn’t blame himself.

  “I went to your father’s funeral,” he said quietly. Despite his rage at a man who’d leave that kind of burden on his wife and child. “Your dad and I rode patrol together early on.”

  Head ducked, Jake didn’t respond.

  Perturbed, Ethan said, “I can look up your address if I have to. Why don’t you just give me directions.”

  “Like I have any choice,” the boy spat.

  Ethan started the engine. “You didn’t do anything so bad today. I cut school in my time, too.”

  Jake turned his head sharply away. Ethan had a bad feeling it was to hide tears.

  * * *

  WHERE COULD HE BE?

  Laura Vennetti paced, her phone clutched in her hand. Fear squeezed her heart. She’d be purely mad instead of scared if Jake had ever done anything like this before, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t like him at all. He was a good student. Never in trouble. She’d fear a kidnapping if a classmate hadn’t reluctantly told the principal that he’d seen Jake get on a city bus.

  He’d been gone hours now. School had let out. She’d called all his friends, none of whom would admit to knowing his plans, although it was hard to tell with preteen boys, who seemed to communicate primarily in grunts and hoots.

  “I swear I’ll ground him until he leaves for college.” The sound of her voice was meant to fill the silence. Instead, it seemed to echo, leaving her even more conscious of being alone in the house. She reached the back door and swung around to stalk through the kitchen and dining room into the living room. “I won’t let him leave for college. He doesn’t deserve—” Her voice broke.

  She’d thought it was dumb for a boy his age to carry a phone, but she had just changed her mind. If he was in trouble, how could he call her? There weren’t many pay phones anymore, and he might not have money with him anyway, and she discouraged him from talking to strangers.

  Maybe it was time to report him missing to the police. Her gaze went to the clock on the DVD player. No, it wasn’t even four yet. Kids cut class all the time. Nobody would take her seriously.

  Soon.

  She heard a deep engine outside and rushed to the front window. A black SUV had pulled up to the curb in front of her house. The passenger side door opened and—

  Laura clapped a hand over her mouth. Thank you, God. Thank you. She raced for the front door and flung it open. Her son lifted his head and saw her, then, ducking his head again, trudged across the lawn toward the porch. She was barely aware that a man had gotten out, too, and came around the big SUV to follow Jake.

  She planted her fists on her hips in lieu of bounding down the porch steps and snatching him into her arms. “Where have you been? Do you have any idea how scared I was?”

  He sneaked a shamed look at her. “I didn’t think the school would call you.”

  The man came to a stop behind Jake and laid a large hand on his shoulder. She thought he squeezed, just a little, before letting the hand drop. Laura had to lift her gaze a long way to the man’s face. He was...well, not a foot taller than Jake, but a whole lot taller. He had to be six foot three or four.

  Her heart drummed for an entirely different reason now. Calm eyes she thought were hazel held hers. His hair was brown, but not as dark as Jake’s, or as her Italian husband’s had been. He might not be male-model handsome, but came close, with a strong jaw, prominent cheekbones and a high-bridged nose. He had broad shoulders and the long, lean build of a basketball player. Standing so close to him, Jake was dwarfed.

  “Jake.” She heard how sharp her voice was. “Come here. Right now.”

  The stranger arched dark brows but stayed where he was when Jake slouched his way up the steps onto the porch. She pushed him behind her into the house.

  Only then did she see that the stranger wore a gun.

  “Who are you?” She sounded hysterical, with good reason.

  “Ms. Vennetti.” He nodded. “I’m Detective Ethan Winter, with PPB.”

  A police officer had brought her son home. Dread closed her throat. She had to swallow before she could ask, in a harsh whisper, “What did he do?”

  “Nothing more serious than cut school.” That slow, deep voice was as calming as his steady gaze. “I was hoping to talk to you for a minute, though.”

  She bit her lip and gave a choppy nod. “Come in, then.” She turned to find Jake hovering on the other side of the living room. “Go to your room,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later, after I’ve heard what Detective Winter has to say.”

  “I didn’t do—”

  “Your room,” she snapped.

  His expression stormy, he thought about defying her, but the moment lasted a matter of seconds before he bolted for his bedroom. The door slammed hard enough to make pictures on the wall bounce. Laura closed her eyes, prayed for strength and once again faced the police officer who had brought Jake home.

  He stepped inside, his shoulder brushing her, his gaze skimming the room in what she guessed was automatic assessment.

  “Please, have a seat,” she said, and closed the front door.

  He hesitated momentarily, making her aware none of the furniture was built on a scale for a man his size, then chose one end of the sofa. She sat in her favorite easy chair facing him over the coffee table.

  “I knew your husband,” he said abruptly. “We patrolled together for about a year early on in our careers. I’d been on the job a little longer than Matt had, but not much.”

  She suddenly felt stripped bare. All she could do was hold up her chin. “So I suppose you know our whole history.”

  A couple of lines deepened on his forehead. “Your whole history? No. I remember hearing about the accident, and I was sorry about what happened with Matt. I actually came to the funeral. You and I spoke briefly afterward.”

  She had been mercifully numb by that time. She remembered a succession of police officers, all in uniform, one by one expressing their regrets. Some she knew, many she didn’t. She had been grateful they had come. If they hadn’t, who would have? Her own family was so small. And Matt’s—

  Laura shook off that memory.

  “Where did you find Jake?”

  “The gun show out at the Expo Center.”

  “What?” She half stood, then made herself resume her seat. Oh, dear God.

  “I didn’t recognize h
im. I was only concerned because I thought he must have cut school.”

  “He did.”

  He bent his head in agreement. “He admitted he had. He says he’s eleven? I guessed him to be older than that.”

  “He’s tall for his age. And...mature looking.” Jake’s looks had come from his dad. The resemblance was becoming more striking all the time. She tried to hide how that made her feel.

  Detective Winter sighed and rolled his shoulders a little. “I’ll be honest. I might not have paid as much attention if he’d been looking at BB guns like you’d expect a kid to do. But he wasn’t. He seemed a little too interested in the kind of handgun I carry. I thought you needed to know that he’d cut school because he wanted real bad to finger some Sig Sauers and Berettas and the like.”

  She looked pointedly at the big black gun at his hip.

  “I carry a weapon because my job demands it,” he said, more mildly than she probably deserved.

  After a moment, she nodded.

  “Were you aware of his interest, Ms. Vennetti?”

  She started to shake her head, squeezed her eyes shut and finally nodded. When she met his eyes, she knew she wasn’t hiding her desperation. But she hadn’t had anybody to talk to about this. Hadn’t wanted anyone else to know. Certainly not her sister or brother-in-law. What if they decided Jake was a danger to their kids?

  “I— He was only five and a half when it happened.”

  The kindness and sympathy in this man’s expression made her feel shaky. She didn’t want to be weakened, but...was it so bad, just for a minute, to feel grateful for someone who seemed to understand? “A little boy,” he said. “Too young to know the difference between a real gun and a toy gun.”

  Her head bobbed. “Yes. Except... The boy who died was Jake’s first cousin, Marco. They were best friends. It was really gruesome. The bullet hit him in the head.” She hardly knew her hand had lifted and that she was lightly touching her cheek, letting him know where the bullet had entered Marco’s head. “I don’t think Jake will ever forget.”

  As if she could.

  “No.”

  “He didn’t see his father, thank heavens. At least Matt didn’t do that to us,” she said bitterly.

  “But you found him.”

  She shuddered. “Yes.”

  Detective Winter swore, rose to his feet and came to her, sitting on the coffee table close enough for him to take her hands. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to carry something like that with you.”

  She had the oddest moment of bemusement. A man was holding her hands in a warm, comforting clasp. He leaned forward in concern, so close to her that she saw his eyes were hazel, mostly green streaked with gold, and that his lashes were short but thick. If she were to lift her hand to his hard jaw, she’d feel the rasp of his late afternoon beard growing in.

  A near complete stranger was holding her hands.

  She could not afford to think of him as a man. He wasn’t here because he was interested in her. He was here because he’d caught Jake at a gun show.

  All her fears rushed back. Even so, she couldn’t make herself retreat from that comforting clasp. She looked down to see the way his thumbs moved gently, almost caressingly, on the backs of her hands.

  “I put him in counseling, of course,” she said in a stifled voice. “He...regressed, after Matt killed himself.”

  “Of course he would.”

  She nodded. “But he’s done really well. He makes friends. He’s close to a straight-A student. I thought...I thought we were through any danger period.”

  Detective Winter waited with seemingly limitless patience. Ethan, that was his first name, she thought, finding it fit the man.

  “Only, recently I’ve caught him watching TV shows he knows I don’t allow. All he seems to want to watch are police shows. There’s that reality one.” He nodded. “And he’s slipped a few times and said things, so I know he’s seeing some pretty violent stuff at friends’ houses. Movies I’d never let him go to or rent. And when the news is dominated by some awful crime, he’ll stay glued to CNN or whatever channel follows it.”

  “He’s a teenage boy. His father was a police officer. His interest might be natural.”

  “Why would he admire that, given what happened because his father carried a gun?” she said sharply.

  Detective Winter’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He straightened a little, though, and his clasp on her hands loosened.

  “And then I was changing the sheets on Jake’s bed,” she went on, her voice slowing. “I found some gun catalogs under the mattress.” She gave a sad excuse for a laugh. “Playboy magazine wouldn’t have shocked me. These...seemed way more obscene.”

  “Understandably.”

  “And now this.” She searched his face, as if she’d find any answers.

  “Matt must have had friends Jake could talk to about some of this.”

  “Friends?” She huffed. “You mean from the department? No, they all did a disappearing act. He was probably their worst nightmare come true. Why hang around to watch the epilogue?”

  The detective’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “None of his friends on the job stuck around to be sure you and Jake were all right?”

  “No. I quit hearing from the wives right away, too. I definitely embodied their worst nightmares.” She didn’t admit that, as angry as she’d been, Matt’s cop friends and their wives were the last people she’d have wanted to hear from or see. She might have ignored their calls.

  Had ignored some.

  But there hadn’t been all that many, and they’d tailed off within a couple of weeks. Nobody had been persistent enough to come by when she couldn’t be reached by phone. Out of sight, out of mind.

  “You have family?” he asked.

  “My sister and her husband and kids. They’re the only reason I didn’t move away. Sometimes I think I should have.”

  Those eyes, clear as they were, had somehow softened now. “Fewer reminders.”

  “For Jake,” she said briskly, sitting straighter and sliding her hands from his. She watched as he flattened them on his chino-clad thighs, long, taut muscles outlined beneath the cotton fabric. “I could move to Beijing and I wouldn’t forget a thing.”

  He saw deeper than she liked. “Matt had a big family.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember seeing them at his funeral.”

  “That’s because they weren’t there.”

  “His parents didn’t come to his funeral.”

  “Nope.” Anger had long since buried any pain at that loss. She lived with a whole lot of anger. “Neither did a single one of his three brothers and two sisters.”

  “They ditched you?” he said incredulously. “Because of a tragic accident?”

  “Marco’s father, Rinaldo, is the brother Matt was closest to. They had...a really horrible scene and never spoke again. I thought...after Matt died...” She grimaced. “But no. Either they held Jake responsible even if he was only five years old, or they blamed me.” For good reason.

  “What did you say?” This man, this stranger, was glowering at her.

  She gaped at him.

  “You think it was your fault?”

  Oh, no. She’d said that aloud.

  But it was the truth.

  “I went outside to water the annuals in pots and left two five-year-old boys alone in the house.” For five or ten minutes. That’s all. But it had been long enough. “I should have checked first to be sure Matt locked up his gun. I’d gotten so I usually did, because he was so careless with it. But that one time...that one time...” Her voice wobbled. She couldn’t finish.

  He gripped one of her hands again. “Laura. It is Laura, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  He shook his head. “It stuck in my mind. The gun was Matt’s. Not yours.” His jaw muscles flexed, and his gaze bored into hers. “He’d carried it for years. He was a professional. He knew bet
ter. Him leaving that damn gun where his little boy could get his hands on it was not your responsibility.”

  There was so much grit in those last words, she quailed. Then she squared her shoulders. “I did a couple of things wrong that, coupled with what Matt did wrong, led to something horrible. I will not forget my part.”

  Ethan Winter just shook his head.

  “Would you take advice from me?”

  She eyed him warily. “It depends what that advice is.”

  “I saw Jake’s expression when he looked at those guns today. Whatever is going on in his head is powerful. You’re not going to be able to stamp it out by making guns taboo. I’d strongly suggest you consider enrolling him in a gun safety class—”

  This time, she jerked back, pulling her hand from his and curling both hands into fists. “You think I should put a gun in his hands? No! No, no, no. I swore I would never allow one in my house again.” She glared at his holstered weapon. “I shouldn’t have let you in. Not carrying that.”

  His eyebrows drew together. The silence bristled with too much said. After a moment he nodded and pushed himself to his feet.

  “I’ll leave, then. I think you’re wrong, but you have a right to make the decision.”

  Her “thank you” rang of sarcasm.

  He took a business card from a pocket. “My cell phone number is on the back. If there’s anything I can do for you or Jake, call.”

  She was careful not to let her fingers touch his as she took the card, then looked down at it. Detective Ethan Winter. What did he mean by anything? Would he show up if she needed wood split next winter? A ride to work when her car was in the shop?

  “May I say goodbye to Jake?” he asked.

  He’d been...nice. She hadn’t. Taking a deep breath, she nodded.

  She stayed where he was when he went down the hall. Heard him rap on the door, then the bass rumble of his voice, but couldn’t make out words or hear anything Jake said.

  A minute later, the detective came back down the hall. She stood to see him out. He nodded politely as he passed her and crossed the porch, his expression cop-guarded.

  “Detective,” she said to his back.

  He paused at the foot of the stairs.