The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set

by Danielle Girard

  “I’m in,” a couple others said.

  “Cameron?”

  “Rookie Club,” she said, referring to an informal club of women in law enforcement who met once a month.

  “I want to join the Rookie Club,” Daley said. “I was a rookie once, too.”

  “No men allowed,” Ballestrini said.

  “Isn’t that sexist or something?” Daley whined, half joking. He was the team’s single guy, always watching out for the ladies, even on the job.

  Cameron laughed.

  “He’s got a point,” Paules said. “Maybe you could bring it up for vote, adding male membership. Think of how you could expand the group.”

  “You’re engaged,” Kessler said. “You can’t be checking out other chicks.”

  “He’s not married yet,” Daley retorted, then winked at Cameron. “Maybe you can take a vote on it, Cruz.”

  “Sure,” Cameron agreed. “I’ll bring it up.”

  “Tell them we’ll behave,” Daley called after her.

  “Daley, don’t make promises you definitely can’t keep,” Kessler added.

  Cameron headed to her car. She hadn’t been to a Rookie Club dinner in almost a year. When she was a twenty-four-year-old rookie cop, the men outnumbered the women fifteen to one. Many of the women wanted nothing to do with their female counterparts. Cameron had been tempted to join that camp; she was never good with other girls anyway. Besides being blond and blue-eyed, Cameron was tall and lanky where the other girls growing up were dark-haired and eyed, petite and curvy. Little interest in clothes or music, Cameron preferred whichever sports she could convince the boys to let her join.

  Her best friend growing up was the youngest of seven kids, the first six boys. Christina survived by being as low profile a female as possible, sort of how Cameron dealt with being a gringa. The two were creative at camouflage: short haircuts with baggy shirts and hand-me-down pants for Christina, a baseball cap pulled down over the blond hair and eyes for Cameron.

  It was at a dinner with Christina’s family that Cameron first heard Mama Cruz tell the story of how she and Papa came to adopt Cameron. Her birth parents had employed Mama and Papa Cruz. Papa had helped with farming. Mama Cruz had done housework and helped take care of Cameron after she was born. Cameron had been with Mama Cruz when her parents were killed coming home from a meeting with an accountant in the town of Beaumont, forty-five miles from Bleakwood. The two of them were hit head-on by a drunk driver, and all three were killed.

  Mama Cruz didn’t make a single phone call. She and Papa simply took Cameron home. No paperwork, nothing. Had the authorities known, Mama and Papa Cruz would never have been allowed to adopt an Anglo child, but Cameron had no other family and things were much different then than now, especially in Bleakwood, Texas. When she turned eighteen, she officially changed her last name to Cruz. Only then did Mama Cruz confess how many times she feared someone would show up at the door and take Cameron away.

  The thought of losing Nate brought her blood to a halt. She considered going straight home, but she needed this companionship, too. Cameron had been part of the Rookie Club from the time she was a few months into the job. Two other rookies a few years senior invited her to join the group at Tommy’s for Mexican. Cameron might have begged out, but she owed one of them, Sydney Blanchard, a drink on a bet about time of death on a victim they’d found under a sewage drain. That first night, Cameron mostly listened as the others complained about the job, the crooks, the jerks, and men in general, surprised at how much she enjoyed it. Although she didn’t always say much, Cameron found herself coming most months.

  The women came and went. Jamie Vail had been absent a long time after catching her husband in bed with another member of their group. Cameron had assumed the group might simply disappear, but somehow the word about a woman-band of law enforcement officers had spread quickly. Over the eleven years Cameron had been on the force, the group had changed and grown, shrunk, and almost fallen apart more than a dozen times. The times Cameron showed up, she was often amazed at the crowd the group now drew.

  Every time she entered Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, there was the same mixture of trepidation and anticipation. The conversations were always heavy. Their jobs were filled with death, disappointment in their fellow cops and in people, and a sense of disrespect from their male counterparts, including spouses. For a lot of them, it meant long periods of struggle. There were always a few in the bunch who discussed things openly, but mostly, like other cops, these women dealt with things on their own. The ones in crisis rarely came to find a shoulder to lean on. Instead, crisis was usually marked by absence. Cameron wondered if Jamie Vail would come tonight.

  Cameron was prompt, as usual. Arriving at the table the restaurant held for them on the second Wednesday of every month, Cameron was surprised to see Jessica Campbell from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Jess was petite with dark hair and eyes. She looked Brazilian, but the name Campbell had always thrown Cameron off. Not that she was one to talk. Jess held a Bud between two palms, next to an untouched glass.

  “Hey,” Cameron said, sitting across from her.

  Jess glanced at her, and it seemed to take a minute before Cameron’s presence registered. “God, I thought you’d quit to have a baby or something.” She shook her head before speaking again. “What a dumb thing to say. Sorry. Are you back on the force? Either way is great, I mean.”

  Cameron updated her on being back at work, then redirected the conversation where she was most comfortable, to work.

  Jess pointed to her eye. “That looks like it hurts.”

  “Not too bad.”

  There was a beat of silence before Cameron asked, “Any progress on Ray Benjamin?”

  Jess stiffened and blinked hard. “I haven’t heard anything from Homicide, but they’re keeping it wrapped up. You saw it, right?”

  “Yeah. You know anything about the shooter?”

  “No one’s talking to me.” Jess lifted her empty beer bottle and waved it at the waitress. “You want anything?”

  “Soda water with lime, please,” Cameron said, picturing Diego pulling the trigger. “Was he a good guy?”

  “Benjamin?”

  Cameron nodded.

  Jess hesitated, picking at the label on her beer. Finally, she lifted her head and spoke. “He was the best. So intense, but completely dedicated to the job. Strong. A leader. He could be stubborn and an asshole with women, but he was good.” Jess dropped her head. “Really good. And he cared.” There was no question that there was more to Jess and Ray than a working relationship.

  “He was directing an ICE move to crack down on human trafficking. You should have seen him. He was like a kid with it.”

  Cameron said nothing as Jess continued, clearly needing to talk.

  “I’d like to see the bastards treated the same way they treat those women and children. Fine them every penny they’ve got saved, then stow ’em in the dirty hull of some boat with scraps of bread and barely enough water to survive. And when they get out, make ’em work for the rest of their lives like slaves. Makes me sick.”

  She took a drag on her beer. Cameron stayed quiet. She wanted to dig into whether Benjamin was really the good cop or the crooked one, but obviously Jess wasn’t the person to ask.

  “You hear how he got started?” Jess asked, setting the beer down.

  Cameron shook her head.

  “His first call as a rookie was to the port. Found a boat of women and children locked there. Twelve of them locked in some crate on a boat. The youngest was nine. He died. They’d been left there for days. Finally, someone walking down there heard them and called the cops. Ray responded.” She blinked, and Cameron could see emotion glistening. “If you had seen him with my ten-year-old son, you’d know. The kid had so many problems when his father left, but Ray made it better. Ray took the pain away. You can’t imagine how much it meant to see my son happy after his asshole father disappeared.”

  Cameron
thought about her son. Maybe she did understand.

  Jess drew a hard breath, then swigged the rest of her beer. “I hope they catch the son of a bitch who shot him.” Jess lifted the empty bottle and tapped it against Cameron’s glass.

  She was relieved to see Mackenzie Wallace and Linda James come in together. Mackenzie had recently moved over to the Drug Enforcement Agency while Linda James had been the captain of the district near Cameron’s house for two or three years now. Mackenzie was six-one and built like a violin—long with beautiful curves and strung tightly.

  “Jack and Coke,” Mackenzie ordered and pointed to Linda James, who said, “Just the Coke for me. I’m on call.”

  The two made comments about Cameron’s eye, which she waved off. Sitting across from her, Mackenzie pushed a pair of narrow glasses back onto her nose and leaned forward. “You doing okay, Cameron? I heard about the shooting.”

  She nodded. “Hanging in there, thanks.”

  The bartender came back with the drinks. Stephani Wang from the bomb squad showed a few minutes later with two women Cameron didn’t know. One seemed familiar. Stephani introduced her as Ryaan Berry of Triggerlock. It was likely Cameron had seen her at one of the specialist jobs. The second woman was brand new to the Bay Area. She’d moved to San Francisco from Chicago. Mei, Cameron thought she’d said, but it was loud. She did something related to computers.

  The conversation shifted to city politics, case stories, and men. It always turned to men. Cameron mostly listened. It wasn’t until they’d ordered that the person Cameron wanted to see came in.

  Homicide Inspector Hailey Wyatt was short—not much taller than five feet—and full of curve. It was the curve that Cameron imagined had given her a hell of a time in school. As she walked in tonight, men ogled. Hailey might have acted oblivious, but she caught every stare. Perhaps they were the reason she spent most of her time around dead men.

  Hailey’s husband had been killed last year. In the last months before Cameron left on maternity leave, she hadn’t seen Hailey at all. She looked better. Not straight-from-the-spa better, but this wasn’t that kind of group. Behind her was Shelby Tate, assistant medical examiner, in a pair of clean scrub pants and a UCSF sweatshirt. Though she had to be in her late thirties, her strawberry blond hair and freckles made her look like a college kid. Dinner arrived, and the conversation continued as Mackenzie talked about the undercover work. “During the bust, the guy turns to me as I’m cuffing him and throws up all down the front of me. Into my shirt, down my legs.”

  Linda James cringed while Shelby laughed out loud.

  Jess was quiet, working on her fourth or fifth beer.

  “Only an M.E. would find that funny,” Linda said.

  “Can’t be as bad as what Hailey sees.”

  “Haven’t had any really bad ones recently. Thankfully.” She sipped her beer. “My favorite is the guy we found splattered all over a residential street in San Jose. Have I told you this one?”

  A few shouted out “no,” and Cameron leaned back.

  “I’ve heard it,” Shelby said. “It’s great.”

  “What was it?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Some guy literally in a dozen pieces all over. At first, we thought it had to be some sort of explosive. There was tissue on the side of a car, on the street,” Hailey went on. “It was a mess, but we couldn’t find any detonator. I was really new, but even the experienced guys couldn’t figure it out. We ended up calling out Kjurkian.” Kjurkian was Shelby’s boss.

  “We must have walked that street for an hour.”

  “What was it?”

  “A plane.”

  “A plane hit him?” Ryaan said.

  The tissue was spread out, no detonating device. “He fell off a plane,” Cameron guessed.

  Hailey nodded. “Hanging on to the wheels of a plane, and when the plane got too high, he fainted and fell off.”

  “Where the hell was he going?” Ryaan asked.

  “No idea.”

  “That’s one for the Darwin Awards,” Shelby said.

  Dinner plates were removed. They ordered another round—decaf coffee for some, drinks for others. Jess ordered regular coffee, black. The drinks had just arrived when a pager went off. Everyone reached for her belt.

  Jess read the number. “Fuck.” She excused herself and pulled a cell phone off her belt, taking a few steps from the table before flipping it open.

  The others remained quiet, waiting to find out what disaster or death had called Jess from their meal. That feeling of anticipation and dread with the sting of adrenaline was something only another cop could appreciate.

  Jess was off the phone in less than a minute. “Mrs. Hyde calls,” she said, coming back to the table. She snapped her phone back on her belt and pulled cash from her front pocket.

  “What’ve you got?” Linda James asked, standing from the table.

  “Girl just off a boat, badly beaten. They think she’s Czech.”

  “Mrs. Hyde?” Cameron asked.

  “Jamie Vail, queen of sex death, mistress bitch.”

  Cameron didn’t respond. She’d known Jamie Vail as a completely different person.

  “Why Vail?” Shelby asked.

  “Raped so badly she’s half-dead. Doesn’t look like she’s going to make it, but for now it’s Vail’s. And because she’s an illegal, they want ICE there.”

  “I’ll take you,” Linda offered.

  “I’ve got a car,” Jess said.

  Linda gave a little shake of her head. Jess put both hands on the back of her chair, staring down at the table several seconds. “Okay. Thanks.” She lifted the black coffee and took two drinks, twisting her mouth as the liquid burned.

  Jess dropped twenty bucks on the table. Linda added forty more before the two left.

  “What are you working on these days, Cruz?” Shelby asked.

  She gave them her shoptalk, keeping her patience and hoping everyone would leave so she could catch Hailey Wyatt alone. The conversation returned to Ray Benjamin’s shooting. Cameron told them an abbreviated version of what she’d seen. It was as though she’d told the story a thousand times and she was relieved when the conversation no longer focused on her.

  “Jess is taking it hard,” Mackenzie said.

  “What was the deal with him?” Shelby asked before Cameron could. “She’s picked some lemons.”

  “I hear he was an okay guy,” Hailey said. “And clearly Jess fell for him. I don’t know if it was a long thing, and I don’t know if it had ended or not. He took care of his mother—supported her.”

  A few seconds of silence passed. Somewhere near the bar cheering erupted for some sports event playing on the TV.

  The waitress came by and left the check. Shelby added cash to the pile and passed it to Mackenzie. “I’ve got to get home,” Shelby said. “Tom’s got the kids, and I’m sure he’s ready to kill them by now.” Mackenzie Wallace, Ryaan and Mei rose with her. Hailey started to move when Cameron leaned across the table. “You have a few minutes to talk?”

  Hailey glanced at her watch and nodded.

  The others made their way through the crowds and disappeared before Hailey spoke to Cameron. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

  “You, too,” Cameron told her. Then, feeling the awkwardness, she added, “I was sorry to hear about—”

  “Thanks,” Hailey said quickly. “What’s going on?”

  Thankful to return to shoptalk, Cameron pushed her coffee cup aside and laid her elbows on the table. “I wanted to talk to you about Benjamin’s shooting. Who’s working it?”

  “It went to Nordenfeldt and Thomas. It was my call, but they pulled those guys in because of the situation.” Hailey frowned. “They haven’t talked to you?”

  “I gave a statement to someone named Patterson.”

  “Alan,” she said. “He’s helping them out.”

  “They tell you I saw the guy.”

  Hailey watched her. “You gave them a description?”


  “Didn’t need to. I know him.”

  Hailey leaned forward. “And you told Patterson?”

  “I did.”

  “Shit,” Hailey snapped. Then, “Who was it?”

  “Diego Ramirez.”

  “He was Special Ops for a while, right?” Hailey asked. “Then, he went undercover.”

  “Right,” Cameron said.

  “Jesus, a cop.” Hailey’s head popped up. “Wait, I thought he was dead.”

  “So did I,” Cameron agreed.

  “There was a service for him last year,” Hailey said.

  Cameron said nothing. Images from the service cascaded through her mind. The navy dress she’d worn so she wouldn’t stand out, the way she’d stood in the middle of the crowd and fought back her tears. How she’d longed to tell people that they were together, that he was the father of her child.

  “You’re sure it was him?” Hailey asked.

  “Positive.” She hesitated, then said, “I know it was him, and he knows it was me.”

  “You’re worried he’ll come after you?” Hailey asked.

  Cameron hadn’t thought about that. “I want him caught for shooting Benjamin. I’ve tried to find him myself, but he’s not in any of the old haunts.”

  “How long was he Special Ops?”

  “Two and a half years after I started as a shooter. Maybe two to three before.”

  Hailey watched her. “So, he’s been undercover for a year.”

  “About that.”

  “So, how would you know where to find him? He could be anywhere.”

  She nodded.

  “And somewhere in there he’s supposed to be dead?” Hailey continued.

  “It was official—an autopsy and everything.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Explosion in Mexico. They matched him with dentals,” Cameron said, trying to sound like this was only a case.

  “You knew him well,” Hailey said.

  It was not a question. Cameron didn’t answer.

  “And you want him arrested?” Hailey pushed.

  “He shot Ray Benjamin.”

  “And what did he do to you?”

  She met Hailey’s gaze and shook her head.