by Leslie Wolfe
I’d shagged my partner.
Again.
Unbelievable.
I repressed a sigh loaded with self-directed frustration and proceeded to pull my hair from underneath his body, gently, unwilling to awaken him, unable to face him yet. How was I supposed to tell him this had been a mistake and it could never ever happen again, when I’d said all that before and then last night it happened?
I wiggled away from him, feeling a pang of regret at the thought of putting distance between our two naked bodies. He’d made me feel alive again, bringing my weary, frozen heart back from the land of grief and silence. He’d made me laugh for the first time since my husband was killed. For that, I was grateful, but also a little saddened, remembering how I’d tucked Andrew’s framed photo inside the sock drawer, unable to stand seeing his smiling face looking at me while another man held me in his arms, without feeling guilty and ashamed as if he were still alive and I were cheating on him.
I was badly messed up, and I kept on making mistake after bloody mistake, messing everything up a little more every bloody time.
Get a grip already, you prat, I admonished myself, finally breaking free from Holt’s asleep embrace.
Tiptoeing quickly, I grabbed a bathrobe from the closet and tied the sash around my waist with a rushed gesture, then grabbed my phone, ready to leave the room. From the bedroom doorway, I stopped and looked at Holt’s body one more time, enjoying the sight of him a moment longer when he didn’t know what I was doing, when he couldn’t see me.
Smiling, I let my eyes wander, and memories of last night came crashing in. How we’d hurried home from the restaurant, driven by an urgency we’d never felt before. How he’d slammed the door shut after we entered the house and didn’t even bother to turn on the light. How we felt for each other in the dark, touching, kissing, wanting, needing.
A familiar feeling unfurled in my abdomen, bringing a rush of blood to my cheeks and warmth through my entire body. No longer eager to disappear, I weighed for a moment the option to slip back into his arms and let him wake next to me, while my eyes took in the sight of his broad shoulders and firm buttocks. Yeah, my partner had a nice, tight arse, and that was part of my problem.
What was it with women and their fascination with men’s arses, anyway?
When his phone rang, I started, almost ready to run, as if I’d been caught doing something terrible. But I remained in place, steadying myself, prepared to face him and say the two words I hadn’t spoken in my bedroom for almost two years.
“Good morning,” I offered, while he grunted and turned on his left side to reach for the offending phone.
“Getting ready to run off on me, Baxter? So soon?” he mumbled, but then his smile disappeared when he read the name on the caller ID. He sat up on the edge of the bed and took the call with tense shoulders and a growing frown.
“Yes,” he said into the phone, his voice cold, almost argumentative, but also defensive. “No, I’m fine. What happened?”
He listened to the caller intently, his body language conveying his escalating angst. He fidgeted in place, probably unwilling to pace the room naked while I was there. Curious, I stayed put, watching the exchange attentively. My partner rarely lost his cool, if ever. The person on the other end of the line must’ve had one hell of a grip on him.
“Don’t move; don’t go anywhere; don’t talk to anybody; I’m on my way.” He ended the call and threw the phone on the bed, then picked his clothes from the floor and started putting them on in a rush.
“What happened?” I asked, touching his arm.
He turned and looked at me; for a second, I didn’t recognize him. I’d never seen fear in his eyes until that moment. Deep, all-consuming fear, the type that changes one’s life forever, its memory impossible to erase.
“They got my kid, Baxter. Bastards took my kid.”
There it was… a cold shower when I least needed one. Before even processing the seriousness of what had happened, before I could start thinking like a cop, I felt the sharp bite of jealousy, of my own personal brand of fear.
“You’ve got a kid?” I firmly propped my hands on my hips and stepped into his path, searching his eyes. “Tell me you have a wife, and I’ll shoot you right where you stand.”
“Ex-wife; that was her on the phone,” he replied, tucking his shirt into his pants as quickly as he could.
I breathed. “What happened?”
He shook his head while snapping his holster in place. “Something happened at the school. My ex said they told my daughter that I was in the hospital. No one bothered to follow the damn protocol.”
I felt a chill traveling up my spine, sending goosebumps all over my body.
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
“Apparently, two cops showed up and took my daughter, saying I’d been shot on duty. People see cops in uniform and they turn into complete morons; they don’t think to question anything, to make a phone call and ask.”
“When did they take her?”
“Almost three hours ago.”
That was really bad news. The first few, critical hours after the abduction had come and gone, wasted.
I released the bathrobe knot and untangled the sash with trembling fingers, then I let the robe fall at my feet while I put on a fresh set of clothes, moving as fast as I could. I slid my holster on the inside of my belt, then bent over to fit my ankle weapon in place, while Holt found his keys and ran downstairs, taking two steps at a time.
From the living room, he shouted, “Will you be all right?”
“Sure, I will,” I replied, catching up with him, my hair undone, makeup smeared from last night. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not, Baxter,” he said, gently pushing me aside. “I’ll handle this on my own.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Holt,” I replied, grabbing my wallet and keys. “I’m a cop and a bloody good one. Last time I checked, that’s the kind of help you need in a kidnapping case.”
“I want to keep this on the DL, Baxter. I can’t have the entire Las Vegas Metro Police Department kicking in doors and putting my daughter’s life at risk.”
“And, what, I can’t be trusted to keep my mouth shut? Really?”
Frustrated, he threw his arms in the air. “I didn’t mean it like that, all right?”
He was distraught to the point where he didn’t know what he meant anymore. He deserved some slack, and his kid deserved his focus. “I know you didn’t. But you know what needs to happen, right?”
“What?” he asked from the doorway, squeezing his car keys in his hand, ready to bolt.
“We need to talk to people, look at traffic cams, interview teachers and colleagues, the whole nine yards. We need help.”
I picked up my shoes and slammed the door behind me, running barefoot toward his black SUV. By the time I climbed into the passenger seat, the Ford’s engine was revving angrily under his foot.
“Yeah, I know,” he said in a dour tone of voice. “Buckle up.”
He sped off in a cloud of burnt rubber smoke, then turned on the siren and the flashing lights the moment we hit traffic.
I looked at him, part of me still angry because he’d never mentioned he had a family. He’d grilled me for being secretive about my former life, about Andrew and my friendship with Anne St. Clair, while at the same time he’d conveniently forgotten to mention a kid and an ex-wife. I felt like saying a few things about that but realized it wasn’t the time or the place. One glance at his clenched jaws and the ridges running across his forehead, at the white knuckles holding the steering wheel, and I started feeling his pain, his rage, his fear.
I reached out and touched his elbow, gently.
“We’ll find her, Holt,” I said quietly, wondering if he’d heard me over the blaring siren.
He turned my way briefly and nodded once, his way of thanking me.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
His jaws tensed even more. “Meredith. My daughter’s nam
e is Meredith. She’s fifteen years old.”
The Ex
Four hours missing
The drive to Holt’s ex-wife’s house was short and tense. Holt didn’t say anything else, while I kept going over scenarios in my head, something gnawing at me relentlessly. My mind stubbornly fixated on a case I’d worked on in London, the kidnapping of a superintendent’s four-year-old son.
It was during my first year as a police inspector, the youngest one in London’s recent history. Proud of my recent promotion, I tried my best to ignore the condescending comments that swirled around me like flurries of frozen antipathy. That I’d slept my way into the job. That I wasn’t worth my salt. That I wasn’t going to last long.
I knew I had to prove myself again and again before anyone could begin to trust me and I was painfully aware of what most of my colleagues said about me. That’s why I was surprised to be named lead in the case of the kidnapped superintendent’s child, a freckled, red-haired boy named Joshua O’Reilly. I remembered feeling both elated by the opportunity to work a high-profile case and being set up to fail, probably by some of those who didn’t believe I belonged and wanted me to be unsuccessful.
It was at the height of the pedophile priests’ scandal, and nowhere else did that disgrace leave a more horrifying mark than in the tight ranks of London’s stiff-upper-lipped Christians, shocked with the unraveling stain of shame that had touched their very souls. Consequently, everyone looked at the missing boy’s church and priest, searching for answers, harassing the clergy and the churchgoers, throwing stones at the once-revered establishment’s stained-glass windows.
My gut disagreed.
Under the worried supervision of New Scotland Yard, I explored a different avenue, looking into the long list of cons, gangsters, rapists, and thieves the superintendent had locked up during his career. I strongly believed that revenge could’ve been the motivation behind the kidnapping.
I talked to dozens of suspects, checked countless alibis, and desperately waited for the ransom call that didn’t come, while everyone’s modicum of confidence in my ability to find the boy was quickly dissipating. Then, one day, not a moment too soon, I hit the jackpot. I found the kidnapper. It wasn’t a felon the superintendent had locked away; it was one’s mother, an old, half-crazed bat. She’d taken the boy just to make the parents suffer like she had when she lost her son to a lifelong sentence for raping and killing the teenage girl who lived next door. Thankfully, the woman had fed the child and kept him reasonably well-cared for during the five, endless days she’d had him.
But that was London, a lifetime ago; even kidnappers had morals. Now we were in a different world, one infinitely more aggressive, merciless, and crime-savvy. One where a cop didn’t know what to expect, only what to hope for.
I was about to ask Holt to start looking at the people he’d put behind bars when he stopped abruptly in front of an elegant, three-car-garage home south of Charleston Boulevard and east of Jones Boulevard. The moment he pulled up at the curb, the front door swung open and a woman rushed out but froze in place when she saw me.
She’d been crying; her eyes were red and swollen. She ran her hands quickly across her face to wipe away the tears and threw me a piercing glare that I found difficult to explain under the circumstances. But maybe she wasn’t thinking straight.
I pulled aside my jacket flap and exposed my badge.
“Detective Baxter,” I introduced myself. “I work with—”
“You had to bring her here, Jack? To my house?” she interrupted, throwing Holt an angry glare. “You couldn’t spare a moment with me, as Meredith’s father, without her here?”
She made repetitive, dismissive gestures toward me while she talked but I stood firmly, waiting for her to finish unloading her anger so we could get some information and start looking for Meredith. Holt seemed to do the same, because he raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.
“Jennifer, be reasonable,” he said, but she was quick to cut him off.
“Did you screw her too?” she asked bluntly, while my jaw dropped.
Exasperated, Holt ran his hands through his raven-black hair. “Come on, let’s not do this now,” he pleaded, but she didn’t relent.
“Have the balls to admit it, at least,” she added, crossing her arms at her chest.
He straightened his back and shot me a quick, apologetic glance. “Our daughter is missing, and that’s the only reason I’m here. If you want to talk about that, I’ll listen. If not, we’re leaving. My priority is finding Meredith.”
Jennifer broke into tears again, her anger gone, replaced by maternal despair. “Who took her, Jack?”
He approached her and led her inside, while I followed, bothered by an annoying question. How did she know we’d been sleeping together? Was it written on my forehead or something? I didn’t care as much about her as I did about the people we worked with. Our boss, Captain Morales, would be quick to rip us apart for breaking the nonfraternization rule. The Internal Affairs bitch, Lieutenant Steenstra, was after Holt for a missing kilo of cocaine that had vanished during a bust and would love a good reason to throw me under the bus for covering for him. The other detectives in the squad weren’t stupid; soon enough they’d figure things out.
We couldn’t afford the tiniest wisp of gossip floating around about our private lives, Holt and I, when both our careers were hanging by a thread. He had the IAB’s suspicions weighing over his head like his own personal, custom-designed storm cloud, and I had an excessive force report on my record, complete with a disciplinary reduction in pay and twelve-months’ probation. I’d put a suspect in the hospital after interrogating him, and no one had given a shite that I had my reasons to lose it on him.
I closed the door gently behind me and remained standing in the hallway, giving the two former spouses some space. Holt had managed to get his ex-wife seated on the couch, while he sat in the armchair next to her, barely touching the edge of the seat.
“Walk me through what happened,” he said.
“This happened,” she said, pointing at a flower arrangement in a clear vase, the type that is delivered by florists with an hour’s notice.
Holt walked to the dining table and picked up the card, then started reading it with a growing frown.
“Nothing is impossible. Our thoughts and prayers are with you during these trying times. We are grateful for your husband’s heroism in the line of duty,” Holt read quietly, rushing through the text as if it annoyed him by being too long. “Yadda, yadda, signed, Western High School.” He let the card drop on the table. “And? You called them?”
The woman scoffed as if accused of being a complete idiot. “Of course, I did, right away. They told me two officers had shown up to get Meredith and take her to the hospital because you’d been shot. They told Meredith I was already with you at the hospital, that I couldn’t be reached, and that you were in surgery.”
“Then?”
“I called you,” she replied, her voice riddled with sad, tired undertones as if telling the story had taken all her strength.
“All right,” Holt said, walking toward her and crouching in front of her to meet her eyes. “We’ll start talking to people, pick up her trail. Don’t say a word to anyone, not even the police. Until we know who took her and what they want, that’s probably the smartest way to go.”
“It’s probably that stupid job of yours, Jack,” she pushed back. “One of the lowlifes you locked up took her to get back at you, and you’re telling me you’re too proud to ask the rest of the cops to look for my baby? Are you crazy?”
With every word, her voice rose a little, ending in a high-pitched scream filled with tearful resentment.
Holt plunged his hands into his pockets and sighed.
“If I may?” I intervened. “The kidnappers didn’t plan for the flowers.”
Both of them turned and looked at me inquisitively.
“They took her this morning, and they didn’t expect either of you to bec
ome aware of her disappearance until the afternoon, correct? When school lets out?”
Holt nodded, while his ex mumbled something, avoiding my glance.
“That gives us the possibility to take them by surprise. I suggest we use that edge, and fast.”
“Fine,” she spat the word, “if she’s calling the shots and you’re okay with it, I’ll shut up.” She stood, and Holt stood with her. She grabbed his forearm with both her hands as fresh tears flooded her eyes. “It’s our little girl, Jack; don’t you forget that. Find her and bring her home, you hear?”
I didn’t breathe until we were back in the car. We’d wasted another twenty minutes on the former Mrs. Holt’s hysterical rants, but that had been a necessary step in the process. The last thing we needed was the phone calls she could make to half the precinct and the chaos that would immediately ensue.
Despite that logic, I also believed we needed help.
School
Six hours missing
I thought I’d seen the worst of Holt’s driving, but I’d been wrong. By the time we pulled in front of Western High School, I was happy we weren’t a mangled, fiery mess of contorted metal and broken bones.
Holt didn’t bother to turn off the engine; he rushed through the front doors and flashed his badge, making the security officer at the entrance nod quickly, then look sideways, probably afraid to be caught in whatever backlash the kidnapping of a cop’s daughter from school could bring upon him and everyone else there.
I had to bring my stride to a run to keep up with him; he knew exactly where he was going and didn’t stop until he barged unannounced into the principal’s office.
Seated behind the desk and pale as a specter was a middle-aged, bald man. He wasn’t aging elegantly; his beard was splotched with patches of gray hair as if only certain sections of his facial hair had received the memo that he’d recently turned fifty. His jaw was slightly swollen on the left side, probably from some dental issue in the making. He nested that section of his jaw in the palm of his hand and looked miserable.