Reduced to Ashes

by Kay Gordon

  It was a nightmare. I didn’t feel safe and no one took me seriously anymore. I ended up taking a leave of absence from the department but never went back to LVFR.

  It became so bad in Vegas that I couldn’t even just transfer to another station house. I had to leave the city altogether. I had come to New Hope and left the old Victoria Jones behind. I refused to make friends with my co-workers. Hell, I refused to be friendly at all. About two years passed before I realized that I could trust the men I was around and finally stopped being a total bitch to them. That didn’t mean I had let my guard down completely, though.

  Dunsworth lost his job with LVFR and after I pressed charges, he ended up spending a single year in Nevada State Prison for Unlawful Dissemination of an Intimate Image. Or, you know, Revenge Porn. All of that because I was performing better than him at work.

  Lt. Widener was forced into a quiet, very early retirement about three months after everything happened and after the union finally brought to light how he was failing to protect me. Tim Palumbo had been the one to succeed him as lieutenant, a title very worthy for him.

  I had seen Widener on the streets about a year later and honestly thought he was going to hit me. Luckily, I was with Vincent, who didn’t see the former lieutenant, and Widener ended up glaring before turning around.

  I ran a brush through my blonde hair, which was now cut to my shoulders, but didn’t do anything with it otherwise. It was just going up into a ponytail once it was dry anyway. No make-up was added to my plain face and I barely took the time to look at my reflection before scooping up my dirty clothes and heading out of the bathroom. I was in my room getting my crap together so I could leave when someone knocked on the door softly.

  “Yeah?”

  The door cracked open and a head popped in. Lennox offered me a small smile as he jerked his chin in my direction. “Want to go grab lunch?”

  He was a handsome man. Built like a tank and about eight inches taller than my five-nine, Tyson was one of the few people I knew I couldn’t take down. His dishwater blonde hair was cut short on his head and his knowing chocolate brown eyes seemed to see everything. It was unnerving sometimes.

  “I appreciate the invite, but I’m so fucking beat.” I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Rain check?”

  He grinned and nodded his head. “Deal, but you’re paying next time since you’re postponing.”

  “Whatever.” I shoved his shoulder and the two of us headed down the hall towards the staircase. We passed more members of the 22nd, waving goodbye to them as we did, and Owens was talking to the captain at the bottom of the stairs. They turned towards us when they heard Lennox and me coming, and Captain Stevenson nodded at us.

  “Good work today. Both of you.”

  “Thanks, Cap,” I replied while Lennox just nodded. Owens smiled and put his hands on his hips.

  “Megs told me that you ladies are having a spa day tomorrow.”

  I rolled my eyes. His brand new bride, Megan, was a great friend and even better person. She was good for Owens and I appreciated the way she’d instilled new life into him since they met.

  “Your wife calls it a spa day, I call it my standing appointment with the masseuse to keep my body from aging too quickly.”

  “My wife,” he said, emphasizing the second word like he always did. He was so proud to call her that. “Has delusions of grandeur. I think she dreams of doing the real spa experience with you one day.”

  “She has to be delusional. She married you after all.” I cast him a smirk and held my hand up in a wave. “I’m out of here. I need sleep. See ya, Cap… Lieu.”

  Lennox muttered his own goodbye and we both headed out the door, getting blasted in the face with over one-hundred degree temperatures instantly. I turned to look at him as we approached my SUV.

  “What are you doing for the next two days?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the hood while I shoved my backpack inside. “I’ll probably indulge in too much TV.”

  “Are you going to spend time with the mystery man?” I asked and Ty immediately looked away from me.

  Tyson Lennox was about ten years older than me and I was pretty sure that most of our co-workers thought we were involved. Like me, he had some crappy experiences in his past that had him putting a front on at work to protect himself.

  He started out as a firefighter in the state of Wyoming and had been forced to transfer after more than ten years at the same station once they found out he was gay. No one would work with him and they had harassed him until he was completely miserable.

  After that, he only stayed at station houses for a year or so, moving on once someone found out his secret. He’d been with us for more than a year at that point without anyone finding out.

  He told me his secret while we had been in Vegas the summer before. We were both quite a few drinks in and I might have kissed him on the dance floor. Not my finest moment, honestly. I was lonely, drunk, and feeling sorry for myself so I came on to my poor co-worker.

  To Ty’s credit, he had been amazing in letting me down. He just smiled at me, taken my hand, and led me out the door of the club and casino we were at. While walking along the Las Vegas strip, he told me everything. In return, I confessed my secrets to him, too, and we had been close ever since.

  He had been dating his current boyfriend for almost six months, although I still hadn’t met him. Ty was holding back a lot of details of the relationship and I knew it was out of fear. I didn’t push, though. Hell, I was his biggest cheerleader. I knew he’d tell me when he was ready. I hoped that between having friends and a man he loved, Ty would put down roots and choose to stay in New Hope permanently.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Six months is a long time.” I mirrored his position against my door. “I wish you trusted me enough to tell me more about this guy.”

  “I do trust you, Tor. This has to do with issues both him and I have. You’ll be the first person to know. I promise.” He pushed off of my hood, leaned forward to kiss my forehead, and turned towards his car. “See ya, sweetheart.”

  “Bye, Ty.” I got into my own vehicle and jammed the key into the ignition, turning the AC up to full blast. Just being out in the heat for those five minutes had sweat forming on my newly-showered body. Living in the desert sucked in the summer.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went through my notifications while I waited for the car to cool down. Vincent had called once so I pressed his name and put the car into reverse just as he answered.

  “Pizza Hut or Dominos?”

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Neither. First of all, it’s not even lunch time and second, I’m sure you have a cardboard box you can eat instead.”

  “It’s almost eleven, close enough.” His deep voice was full of humor and always instantly comforting. “I’m going with Pizza Hut. What are you doing? You’re exhausted.”

  He wasn’t asking if I was tired because he already knew the answer to that. People dismissed the twin telepathy myth but Vincent and I were proof that it existed. We sensed things about each other and always had. It didn’t matter if we were in separate classrooms or a hundred miles apart, we felt it. My brother, older than me by six minutes and fifty-two seconds, was insanely protective of me and I felt the exact same way about him.

  “I just got off shift. I need to do a grocery run and then I’m going to pass out. We were on the last call for six hours.”

  Vincent hummed in acknowledgement. “Lucky. I spent my whole shift doing inspections. It was boring as hell.”

  “You’re such an adrenaline junky.” I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and turned off my car, holding my phone to my ear when the Bluetooth disconnected. “Are you coming to Dad’s tomorrow?”

  “Have you ever known me to turn down a home cooked meal from that man?”

  I laughed and grabbed a cart from the front. “Never once in my life, actuall
y.”

  My father was a good man. He had moved to New Hope shortly after Vincent and I turned eighteen but had welcomed me with open arms when I needed to get away from Las Vegas. He let me wallow in his home and then supported me when I picked up the pieces of my life.

  Our mother passed away when Vincent and I were just nine-years-old and I knew that raising rambunctious twins couldn’t have been easy. Dad was a plumber and although it didn’t sound glorious, he did well for himself. He made sure that his children were never without. He had started his own company when he moved to New Hope and it was a roaring success.

  Beyond all of that, my father was a genuinely good man. He cared deeply about those closest to him and would give a stranger the shirt off his back without hesitation. He hadn’t been in any substantial relationships since my mom died, claiming that she was the love of his life, but if anyone deserved a second chance at love, it was Warren Jones.

  I saw him more often than Vincent did since I lived just a few miles from him but the three of us made sure to have dinner every weekend when the two of us weren’t on shift. Dad was amazing in the kitchen and the moments spent with my two favorite men were the best.

  Vincent and I chatted while I walked down the aisles, throwing crap I normally wouldn’t into my cart. Grocery shopping while starving was a terrible idea. By the time I made it to the registers, my cart was full of crap.

  “Okay. I’m going to go pick up my pizza. See you tomorrow?”

  “Yup.” I swiped my debit card and sighed. “See you tomorrow. Love you, Vin.”

  “Love you, too, Vic.”

  The line went dead just as I accepted my receipt and I pushed my cart out to the parking lot. The drive home was quick and easy and soon I was pulling into a nice, quiet neighborhood.

  When I’d bought my house a few years ago, I’d been looking for two things: something with enough room for me to have a home gym and a whirlpool bathtub. I somehow ended up buying a newer home with four bedrooms that fit both of those categories. The thing was, it was in a very family-friendly neighborhood. Children were on bikes or outside playing with balls, and parents were taking walks with strollers while hand in hand. It wasn’t that those things necessarily bothered me.

  I was jealous.

  Here I was, approaching thirty, and I hadn’t had a real boyfriend since high school. I thought about getting a cat since having a dog with my schedule was out of the question, but I quickly realized that would just take me one step closer to spinster-hood.

  I parked in the two-car garage that was attached to my house and sighed. Being sleep deprived and starving was starting to mess with me. I needed food and a nap and to shake my funk off.

  Chapter Two

  Evan

  “The lab confirmed that there was Sludge in her system.”

  I looked up at my partner and sighed. “I figured. That makes twenty-four deaths this year alone.”

  “Yeah.” Dominic shook his head as he looked at the crime scene photos. “She’s so damn young.”

  That’s because they were targeting the high schoolers now, too. The kids were easy targets, especially when you factored in the side effects of the laced heroin.

  When I first transferred to the New Hope Police department two years before, I was almost sure that the job was going to be easy. After all, New Hope was a small suburban city located about thirty miles outside of Las Vegas with a population of around two-hundred thousand. It wasn’t exactly riddled with crime.

  Yeah, I’d been wrong. It didn’t matter where you lived- drugs were a poison that was spreading everywhere.

  I’d grown up in Las Vegas, so crimes and drugs weren’t something new to me. I entered the police academy at twenty and was promoted to detective just four years later. At that time, I’d been in the homicide department. I had a fall from grace two years later and was demoted back down to patrol.

  It’d taken me three years and a new precinct to get my shield back but I joined the narcotics division. I loved getting drugs off the street and helping people get clean. Making a difference was why I wanted to be a cop in the first place.

  “I need to meet up with Brian again and see if he has anything new,” I said, speaking of one of my informants. Brian wasn’t privy to much information within the operation of Sludge but he usually could tell me where I could find those who were dealing and when they were supposed to pick up their stashes.

  “I’ll reach out to my guys, too.” Dominic stood from his chair with a groan. “Come on. Let’s go update Messer.”

  Lieutenant Messer was just as pissed as we were and the three of us sat in his office brainstorming for the next few hours. By the time we were done, we still had nothing else to go on but we were both told to go home and get some rest.

  “You and Bec still heading to San Diego tonight?” I asked Dominic as we walked towards the exit. He flashed me a grin and pushed out into the hot afternoon air.

  “Hell yes. I can’t wait. I love my kids but two nights alone with my wife sounds amazing. Hopefully she’s already dropped Grace and Jade off so we can hit the road.”

  Dominic Morris had been my best friend since middle school. He’d befriended me on the first day of school when we sat next to each other in math class. We’d been forced to share a calculator and took turns spelling out words that were dirty to a twelve-year-old on it. We were inseparable after that.

  He was more brother than friend, honestly. His family had taken me in when I felt completely alone and treated me like one of their own.

  “I’ll check in with your parents tomorrow and see if they need any help,” I told him as I hit the button to unlock my truck. “I’ll take them for ice cream or something.”

  “Thanks, Ev.” He slapped me on the back, purposefully putting all of his strength in it like always, and I suppressed the small grunt before raising my brows at him.

  “That was weak, old man. You should probably hit the gym more.”

  Dom and I were pretty evenly matched. Both around six-feet-tall and in good shape, people often assumed we really were brothers. My brown hair was darker than his, though, and his brown eyes couldn’t have been more different than my blue. It was something I’d liked when we were growing up. It made me feel like I really was a part of the Morris family.

  “Whatever. See you Sunday?”

  “Yeah, enjoy your weekend.” He held up his fist and I hit my own against it before we went to our separate vehicles.

  I got in my truck and immediately started the engine so I could crank up the air conditioning. While it cooled down, I tossed my suit jacket to the passenger seat and rolled up the sleeves on my blue button-up shirt.

  A couple of patrol cars were pulling into the lot as I was exiting and I held my hand up in a wave before using it to loosen the tie around my neck. Wearing the monkey suit every day was something I was used to but it didn’t mean I enjoyed it. I looked forward to getting home and changing into a pair of shorts and nothing else.

  The neighborhood where I’d been renting my house for the past few years was an older one. The houses were built in the eighties but almost every single one was well-maintained. Mine was small, just two bedrooms, but I didn’t need anything big since I spent most of my time at work.

  I parked in the carport attached to my one-story house and barely had a foot out of my truck before someone said my name.

  “Good evening, Evan.”

  A smile hit my face when I turned to see my neighbor, a man barely in his sixties, stepping down from the porch so he could walk to the small fence that separated our driveways.

  “Hey, Keith. How are you?”

  “Oh, just perfect. The grandchildren are here for the weekend.” He glanced behind him at his house, which was twice the size of mine and with a second story, before grinning back at me. “Having the two of them here makes me feel young again.”

  Keith and Ruby Morris were Dominic’s parents and they had moved from Las Veg
as to New Hope once Dom and I graduated high school, when Keith had taken early retirement after being hurt on the job. The Morris family was the type of family that they modeled TV families after. They were affectionate, they were giving, and they showed me more love in twenty years than my parents had in thirty-two.

  Dominic had moved to New Hope about six years ago when his wife, Becca, had been offered a job with the city and he’d been the one to convince me to finally leave Las Vegas. The second he learned his partner, an older guy who’d been on the job for a long time, was retiring, he called and told me I needed to apply to transfer.

  Hell, he even made me aware of the house for rent next door to his parents and I was sold. Leaving the city was one of the best decisions I’d ever made.

  Dominic was Keith and Ruby’s only child so his and Becca’s two girls, Grace and Jade, were spoiled beyond belief by their grandparents and me.

  “Oh, Dom was like a kid on Christmas when we left the station. He couldn’t wait to get his wife alone.” I gathered up my clothes and my bag from the front seat and shut my door. “Let me know if you need a break. The girls can come over here for a bit.”

  “Thanks, son. You eat yet?”

  “Yeah, I had a sandwich at the station.”

  “Okay.” Keith reached over the small fence to give me a pat on the back. “Come for dinner tomorrow.”

  I chuckled and nodded my head. “I’ll be there.”

  He turned and headed back to the porch where I knew he’d smoke the rest of his cigar before heading inside. I went through the side door that led to the kitchen and dropped everything on the table.

  Without stopping, I headed back to the master bedroom and turned on the shower in the attached bathroom. I stripped out of my suit and tossed everything into the hamper before getting into the warm water.

  I washed the week off of me, forcing myself not to think about my case. Turning it off was hard, though. The spread of Sludge was getting further and further and the overdoses from it had doubled.

  Sludge was a blend of pure heroin and an ingredient found in household cleaners, Vitratrope. The Vitratrope combined with the heroin prolonged the initial rush of the high, giving the user around ten minutes of euphoria rather than just a couple. In turn, the Vitratrope also caused the user to be more docile and desperate for touch and affection. A person using Sludge was in a constant state of arousal, although they didn’t necessarily crave sexual intercourse. Just being touched gave them what they needed.