by R J Gray
"Please," the distraught woman begged, "my daughter? My grandchildren?"
"Your grandchildren are okay; they are waiting for you at Legacy Hospital. I'm afraid Janet was life-flighted there about twenty minutes ago." Watching the woman carefully, Teagan was there to catch her when her knees buckled underneath her.
"Life-flighted?"
"I'll let the doctors give you a report on her condition as I am unaware of the injuries she sustained."
"That bastard," Margaret said. "Where is he?"
"He's in custody," Teagan reassured her. A shrill scream came from Margaret's mouth. Teagan turned, following her gaze to see the bagged, bloodied baseball bat being put into the back of the crime scene van. The color had drained from Margaret's face.
"What did he do? What did he do?"
"Margaret, look at me." Teagan turned her. "I know this is hard, but your daughter and your grandbabies need you. They need you to be strong and love on them. They just witnessed an extreme trauma and are alone at the hospital with strangers. Can you do that? Can you be strong for them?"
Margaret nodded.
"Is there someone we can call? Your husband? To come get your car and meet you there?"
"My husband is at my oldest son's house working on building a deck. Can you call him?" Teagan quickly got the information from her before turning and waving another officer over to them. "Officer Jones will transport you to the hospital."
Waiting until the woman was in the cruiser, Teagan pulled out her phone. "Mr. White? Hello, my name is Detective Teagan Smith, and I am calling about your daughter." She hated these conversations. The father was calmer than the mother had been, resolved almost. Teagan couldn't help but feel that he had been waiting for a phone call like this for a long time. Hanging up the phone, Teagan returned to the scene of the crime. An hour later, after running through the event several times, speaking with the crime scene investigators and the neighborhood witnesses, Joey and Teagan were finally getting ready to leave the scene, when their boss showed up.
"Smith, Covington." Lieutenant Downy nodded in their direction.
"Boss," Covington greeted while Teagan raised her hand in a small wave.
"Terrible situation this morning," Downy said.
"Truly," Covington agreed.
"You okay over there, Smith?" Downy asked.
"Yes, I'm fine." Teagan bent down, noticing a blood splatter in the grass. "Fuck."
"What?" Both men quickly walked toward her. She was putting a fresh pair of gloves on and picking up the pacifier from the grass. The blood-soaked pacifier. "She was holding the baby when he attacked her."
"Was the baby injured?" Downy asked.
"No, when patrol got here, the baby was in his crib. Everyone assumed the fight started inside once he got home." Following the tiny droplets of blood into the house, Teagan closed her eyes, imagining what had happened based on the evidence. "She came inside, put the baby down, called the children into the nursery and shut the door." She paused, catching her breath.
"All the while being beaten. Then she walked into the den, here." Teagan pointed to the bloodied handprint on the wall. "This is where he grabbed the bat." She nodded to the empty space next to the ball and glove. "He beat their mother in front of them and then used the son's baseball bat as a weapon." The three of them looked at each other in silence. The silence was broken by Downy's cell phone ringing. He stepped to the side to answer it. Joey scrubbed his hand over his face, looking at Teagan.
"Days like today, I hate our job, Teagan," he said.
"I do so much to try to prevent this from happening," Teagan said. "I volunteer at least twenty hours a month in education and prevention. Why? I don't think I am making a bit of difference."
"Don't say that. Between sitting on domestic violence court, mentoring, teaching, and everything else you do, you're making a difference. Imagine how many women have left their abusers because of you and how many perpetrators have gotten help." Joey said.
"I have some bad news," Downy said, rejoining them. "This case is no longer ours. Homicide is taking over."
"When?" Joey asked.
"Five minutes ago. She died on the table," Downy said quietly.
"Dammit!" Teagan's frustrated, strangled cry filled the room. She bit her inner lip to keep from crying. It wasn't professional. She didn't know why she cared so much, why she always cared. The victim was a stranger, and yet it was as if Teagan had lost a friend.
"What is wrong with your eye?" Downy's random question had Teagan's hand going to her face.
"There was a struggle with the perpetrator," Joey supplied.
"Why wasn't he in cuffs when you got here?" Downy asked.
"That is a good question, boss." Joey replied, his frustration evident in his tone. It wasn't the first time in recent months when patrol had done a crap job securing a scene or a suspect. "They were questioning him next to the house, and he ran." The look on Downy's face was of pure disgust. Teagan knew someone would be getting an earful.
"Why don't you go home and take a shower?" Downy asked Teagan. "Grab some lunch, and then come back to the office. You can type your notes and meet with the homicide detectives."
"I'm okay." Teagan shook off the feeling of dread in her gut and put on her tough face.
"It wasn't a suggestion," Downy said, "and put some ice on that eye."
"Sure thing."
Chapter 2
Teagan didn't want to admit it, but she was grateful for the break. Parking her car in the attached garage of her townhouse, she quickly punched in the numbers to the code on the locked inner door. Maybe she had been a bit paranoid adding the lock to the door inside of her garage, but she had seen too many bad things in her life. She took no chances with having a stranger meet her inside her home. Speaking of strangers, she should probably text her sisters back. They had been blowing up her phone all morning.
Evie and Ro were in some sort of ridiculous debate and needed a tiebreaker. Teagan had no interest in being that person, but it would appear that they weren't going to stop texting her until she weighed in on which ice cream flavor was the best. For the past month, they had been sorting out what they had alike and what they disagreed on. As identical triplets went, they sure had more differences than she'd have imagined. Looking at the screen, she giggled to herself. Ro was convinced that strawberry was the best flavor ever. Evie, on the other hand, was sticking to her guns about vanilla.
Come on, Ro, vanilla is obs the winner. You can put any topping on vanilla ice cream and make it into a sundae. There is a reason why everyone carries vanilla but very few places carry strawberry.
Feeling a bit naughty and needing the cosmic relief, Teagan texted back. You are both wrong. The best is Neapolitan. She put her phone down on the edge of the sink and prepared for a hot shower. Looking into the mirror, she groaned. The swelling under her left eye had gotten worse; she would have a black eye for sure.
Once the water was steaming hot, Teagan got in. She let the heat wash over her, hitting her aching muscles. The water unleashed the dam that had been holding back the tears. While she sobbed, she leaned against the shower wall. While at work, she did a great job of hiding her emotions. Being a woman in a still mostly male dominated profession was tough. She didn't have the privilege of showing emotions. There was a punching bag in the corner of her bedroom, one that got a lot of her work emotions pummeled into it. She wasn't normally a crier, but ever since meeting Rowena and Evelyn, things had changed. She was finding a part of herself that she had buried deep inside—a part of herself that she hadn't allowed to emerge before now.
They were tearing down her defenses and her walls. She didn't like it, not one bit, but she was finding it futile to fight. They mirrored her reflection. It was sometimes like battling with herself. Who wins in that situation? Finding them had given her permission to look into her past, her beginning, again. Maybe this time, she would find some actual questions.
All the emotions wrapped up in havin
g an instant family had turned Teagan on her head. The constant bombardment of questions that floated around in her brain, causing her inability to sleep. The what ifs and whys were driving her to the very brink of her sanity. The defenses that she used at work were weakened by exhaustion and distraction, two things she hadn't battled since she had been in foster care.
Taking a deep breath and inhaling the steam, she allowed herself this moment. Ever since discovering that she had sisters, not only sisters but identical triplets, she had started to rethink her theories of how and why she had been abandoned. Her first domestic violence call after meeting Evie and Ro and every call since, made her think about her mother. Was her mother a victim of domestic violence? Did she give them up because of their father? It was possible; she had seen it happen before.
Today, holding that little girl as her mother's battered body was rushed aboard the helicopter, she wondered, not for the first time, if her own mother was even alive. Could Teagan's father have killed her mother, causing the abandonment?
She also couldn't help but question her motives at making her father into the bad guy. It was easier, she suspected, to blame him for her mother abandoning them than to believe that a mother would simply walk away from her three newborn daughters within days of their birth for any other reason. It would also explain how she had never been able to find her, even with all of her detective skills and endless access to resources.
Feeling herself falling down the rabbit hole of unanswered questions, Teagan snatched up her washcloth, lathered it with soap and scrubbed her body. She scrubbed as if she could take away the pain with the dirt and sweat, to no avail. Throwing the washcloth down, she stepped out of the shower. A few minutes later, she texted her sisters to see if they were available to meet her for lunch. Evie was unavailable, but Ro was willing to meet her at Sal's, a local upscale deli, and was calling ahead to get them a table.
Master Chief Lorenzo De Luca, Luca to his friends, slammed closed the binder on his desk before standing. Leaving the office and heading down the hallway, he poked his head into his best friend's office. "I need to get out of here for a bit," he said to Octavius.
"How long do you think you'll be? We need to go over the plans for next week."
"Not long, an hour max. I'm going to grab lunch and maybe a beer. I'll have my phone on me."
"Where do you think you're going, Lorenzo?" Ro spun her chair into the doorway from the other room.
"I'm not sure," Luca said.
"I'd die for a pastrami from Sal's, but not on rye. I can't stand rye. Bread shouldn't be black, and an extra pickle! Two pickles!" Ro smiled in appreciation at him.
"Sure. I didn't have a place in mind, and Sal's has great beer," Luca said.
"Yay!" Ro spun back into her office, mumbling as she went, "That was easy."
"What was that about?" Luca asked Octavius. "I've never seen her so excited over a sandwich."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Octavius said. "But if you are going to Sal's, will you bring me back a sandwich?"
"Your usual?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Jason, you want anything from Sal's?" Luca called out.
"That would be great. My norm. Thanks." Jason's voice carried from the other room.
"Sure thing. Be back in a bit." Luca walked into Sal's five minutes later.
The hostess smiled broadly at him. "Hi, Luca! Your friend is waiting for you over at the table." She pointed to a table where a woman sat, her back to him.
"There must be some mistake; I'm not meeting anyone."
"Oh?" She looked down at her clipboard. "According to the call ahead seating chart, you are. Plus, I have a rather large to-go order here for you, pastrami on sourdough with extra cheese, two pickles, a Rueben with extra sauerkraut, an Italian hoagie, three sides of pasta salad, and—"
"Ro," Luca all but growled the name.
"So, um, are you going to join your friend?"
"It depends on her," Luca said. He fumed as he walked over to where Teagan sat.
"Hey, darlin'," he drawled. He was happy to see her. He was always happy to see her, but Ro needed to learn how to stay out of their lives. He was going to make sure Octavius impressed that upon her as soon as he got back.
Startled, Teagan turned to him, holding the menu over her face, hoping to hide her rapidly spreading blush. "Luca! What are you doing here?"
"Well, hello to you, too." He grinned at her.
"Hi." Her blush spread prettily up her neck. "What are you doing here?" she asked, a bit softer. "Is Ro with you? Did you bring the entire office?"
"It would seem like Ro arranged this little lunch date for us," he supplied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Can I sit, or should I take my lunch at the bar?"
Teagan pointed to the seat across from her, and Luca walked around and sat.
"Ro isn't coming, is she?" Teagan asked, processing the information.
"Considering she called in her, Octavius, and Jason's orders, I am going to say no."
"Are you serious? Dammit, Ro."
"Those naughty words sound ugly coming out of such a pretty mouth, darlin'," Luca admonished.
Teagan sighed. "It isn't too late to change my mind about you eating with me," she said.
"Yeah, it is. I'm already sitting." They both laughed. A moment later, the waitress appeared and took their drink orders. After deciding what to eat, Teagan put her menu down.
"What happened to your eye?" Luca glared at Teagan, awaiting an explanation.
"I took an elbow while subduing a running perp," Teagan explained, shrugging. "It isn't my first or likely my last."
"Chasing a perp? I thought you were more," Luca paused, trying to find the words without sounding offensive, "an interviewer. I was under the impression that you interviewed kids and took them to their foster homes."
"I'm a police detective, Luca. I arrest people, sometimes that includes chasing or fighting them. I specialize in crimes against children, yes, but I also work a lot with domestic violence, sexual assault and the like. All special victims fall under my purview."
"I see," Luca said, the growl noticeable in his tone. He didn't like it, not one bit. He refused to hide the developing feelings he had for Teagan, even if she fought them at every move. Luca was a protector, and the idea of not being able to protect Teagan was frustrating.
"I even get this shiny badge and pretty gun," Teagan said sarcastically as she lifted her jacket to expose them on her hip. "It's almost like I graduated from the police academy at the top of my class or something."
"That doesn't surprise me one bit," Luca said. "You're intelligent, Teagan. No one can argue that."
"But you don't think I am able to protect myself? I heard that little growl in your voice." Teagan leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Darlin'." Luca's voice lowered as he bent forward, toward her. "There is nothing little about me." He gently traced her swollen eye. "I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't take care of yourself. I'm sure you can. However, I would like to take care of you, myself, and the fact that I know I can't do that when you are on the job is frustrating."
"Are you ready to order?" The waitress appeared again, causing Luca to sit back in his seat.
He ordered quickly. Luca was a man who knew what he liked, and once he found it, he rarely, if ever, differed.
"I'd like a hot pastrami please, extra Swiss but on sourdough instead of rye," Teagan wrinkled up her nose, "and an extra pickle." The waitress walked away to the sound of Luca's deep laughter.
"What is so funny?" Teagan asked.
"That is the exact same order Ro placed. I wonder if Evie was here, if she would order the same thing, too?"
"Nah," Teagan answered. "Evie doesn't like pickles."
"What? Who doesn't like pickles?" Luca asked in fake outrage.
"Right? That is exactly what I asked her." They both laughed. The dinging of Teagan's phone caught their attention, and looking at the screen, she raised
an eyebrow and said, "Speaking of Ro—"
"Oh? What does the brat have to say for herself?" Luca asked.
Teagan shrugged, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "Nothing of worth," she said as she shoved her phone back into her pocket.
"You aren't lying to me, are you, darlin'?"
"No, not at all. It wasn't anything worth repeating." The blush was deepening.
Luca knew she was hiding something. "That blush crawling across your face says otherwise." He took a long pull of his beer.
"So, how much trouble do you think Ro is going to be in?" Teagan changed the subject.
"I will allow you to dodge my question this one time, but I did notice. I imagine she will find herself across Octavius' lap this afternoon. He has told her on more than one occasion to stop matchmaking."
"What do you think about their, umm…" Teagan paused, tugging at a strand of her hair, "… unique dynamic?"
"Do you mean, what do I think about the fact that Octavius spanks Ro when she's naughty?" Luca picked his words carefully, utilizing their shock value to read Teagan's reactions. She did not disappoint. Her eyes grew wide and she choked on the water she was sipping.
"Really, Luca?" She coughed a few more times, her eyes watering.
"That is what you were asking, right?" Luca teased. "I introduced Oct to the lifestyle, actually. When we were stationed in Virginia, I took him, Jason and another member of our team out to my favorite BDSM club. They had a lot of questions, but I think they've all been answered over the past decade. We all believe in having a head in the relationship; the degree of that varies from man to man."
"Wait, what? Even Jason? I thought Ro was bullshitting us about him. He just doesn't seem like the type."
"That language, darlin', needs cleaned up." Luca scowled. "Yes, even Jason. Jason is probably the easiest going of all of us, but he is of the same mindset and has his lines that once crossed will result in punishment."
