by Lori L. Lake
“Hey, can we talk?” Dez asked.
Jaylynn shrugged. She followed her over to the lockers and waited while Dez removed her gun belt and hung it in her locker. Dez turned to straddle the bench and looked up. She fell into searching hazel eyes and felt her stomach drop right out from under her. Looking away, she discovered she was glad to be sitting down because she didn’t understand why her legs felt so shaky. A feeling of déjà vu struck her, and from out of nowhere a thought popped into her head: She’s the one.
She pinched her eyes shut and shivered, gooseflesh rising on her arms. For the briefest moment, she felt sick to her stomach, but it passed and she looked back up at Jaylynn. Taking a deep breath, she cleared her throat and tried to focus on a spot right over Jaylynn’s left shoulder. In a low, quiet voice she said, “Listen, Jaylynn. I was too hard on you tonight. I questioned your judgment, and I shouldn’t have. You caught me totally by surprise. I—I was wrong.”
Jaylynn had a hard time keeping her jaw from dropping open in amazement. The great Desiree Reilly was apologizing. She was so stunned she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You pulled rank on me.”
Dez winced and looked away. She nodded her head twice and returned her gaze to Jaylynn standing above her. “You noticed that, huh.” It was a statement, not a question. She nodded once more. “I’m not saying I won’t do it again, but I’ll try not to unless it looks like an emergency, okay?”
“I think you should let me drive for the rest of the month.”
Dez found a giggle pushing its way up from her diaphragm, but she stifled it. Holding back a smile, she said, “How about just tomorrow night?”
“Oughta be for at least a month.”
“Don’t push your luck.” With a twinkle in her eye, Dez said, “How about for the rest of the week?”
In her best Seven of Nine voice, Jaylynn said, “That would be acceptable.”
Dez rose from the bench and poked Jaylynn in the stomach with her knuckles. “You haven’t been wearing a bulletproof vest, Jaylynn.”
“No,” she hesitated. “I haven’t gone to buy it yet.”
“You’ve got the department voucher though, right?” When Jaylynn nodded, Dez went on. “You should wear one. They’re a big help in an attack. I’d have been less concerned out on the street tonight if you’d had one on. Besides, they’re good protection in car crashes.”
Their eyes met, and Jaylynn smiled. “I’ll take that as a challenge. I’m a perfectly good driver.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Jaylynn went to leave, but Dez’s voice stopped her. “By the way, Jay, thanks for the CD last week. That was nice of you.”
Jaylynn was flustered for a moment before she understood what Dez was referring to. “You’re welcome. Hope you liked it.”
“Yup.” She turned back to her locker, leaving Jaylynn to wander out of the locker room feeling surprised and pleased.
CHAPTER SEVEN
New Year’s Day found the two cops fatigued and bored. In contrast to the previous night, all was quiet. There weren’t even any good parties to bust up. When a call came at nine p.m. reporting a suspected shoplifter in the Target store, Jaylynn floored it and zoomed up to Hamline. She turned into the lot and parked the car near the front entrance. As she stepped out of the cruiser, she heard a shout.
Dez reacted exactly as Jaylynn did. They both focused on the man just outside the sliding glass door who was shouting, “Stop! Thief! It’s him.” He pointed. A slender Asian man cut across the parking lot and headed for the street.
Jaylynn slammed the door shut and was off like a shot. Legs and arms pumping, she felt the adrenaline surge. She hurdled a pile of snow in the parking strip. Her feet came down solid in the street, and she zeroed in on the fleeing man who was heading around the back of a large office building across the street. To her right and slightly behind, she heard Dez’s breath. “I’m left,” Jaylynn shouted, and peeled off around the front of the building, while Dez went in hot pursuit around the back.
Jaylynn poured on the speed and passed the front of the office building just as the man came around the side followed by Dez. Seeing Jaylynn, he veered away and headed down a grassy embankment toward the freeway. Jaylynn scampered down behind him, skirting a pile of snow and feeling warmed up and ready to fly. Now she ramped up the speed and narrowed the distance. She knew Dez was close behind and trusted that if she fell trying to get the guy, her long-legged partner would clean up after her.
Jaylynn grabbed the sleeve of the man’s jacket and stuck a leg in front of his shin as she passed him. He tripped and fell hard, rolling once and onto his side. He was panting as she jogged back, and then Dez was cuffing him and standing him up. Dez patted down the wheezing man and removed a Walkman, four unwrapped CDs, and a pack of batteries from his pockets. She handed the merchandise to Jaylynn and jerked the man’s arm. “Let’s go, buddy boy.”
Jaylynn fell into stride with Dez, noticing her partner was much more out of breath than she. Dez looked down at her. “You never mentioned you were a sprinter.”
“Oh. Yeah. Why?”
“That was a good run, Jay.”
“Why, thank you.”
Dez shook her head and turned away, hauling the young man along.
That was the most excitement to crop up for the evening. The rest of the shift dragged along as they cruised darkened streets and listened to the radio. Jaylynn wasn’t sorry when midnight rolled around. She was more than ready to go home and catch some sleep.
Jaylynn didn’t even bother to change clothes. In a hurry, she tossed her patrol jacket and hat in the locker, grabbed up her down coat, and bid Dez goodnight, heading out to the parking lot to wait for Tim. She passed through the rear police entrance, followed by Dwayne Neilsen. “Hey, Neilsen,” she said, then paid him no attention as she scanned the parking lot for the beat-up Toyota. So she was startled when Neilsen took hold of her arm and forced her another ten steps and around the corner into a darker area by the side of the building.
Still clutching her arm he said, “I suppose you think you’re pretty cute after last night with that drunk.”
“What? Take your hands off me.”
He tightened his grip and raised his right hand to shake his finger in her face. “You bitch. If you think I’m gonna stand aside and let you make me look bad—”
“I’m warning you,” she spat out, “let go of me or I’ll report this. I’ve put up with your shit long enough, and now I’m—”
“You’ll what?” he said, venom in his voice. “Ha. I’m way bigger than you and—”
A white hand appeared from out of nowhere and removed the finger shaking in Jaylynn’s face. A deep low voice she recognized said, “And I’m as big as you, asshole. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” The grip on Jaylynn’s arm loosened. Surprised, she watched as the snarling man whirled and tried to free his hand. He kicked out at Dez. She neatly sidestepped and nailed him in the forehead with an elbow. He dropped to his knees. She twisted the hand she held in a death grip until it was behind his back and stood behind and over him.
Grabbing him under the chin with her free hand, she tilted his head up to see into his face. “Can you hear me?” Dez asked.
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“This will be reported. That’s a done deal. How I report the situation is up to you.” She jerked his neck and jammed her knee into his upper back, still kinking his arm upward so hard that he grunted with pain. “Savage, stand in front of him and say your piece.”
Jaylynn didn’t know exactly what Dez meant, but she moved around in front of Neilsen and looked down at his flushed face, the veins on his forehead standing out in the dim light. “You’ve been nothing but rude and cruel. And for no good reason. I put up with the teasing, but this has gone too far. You touch me again or make trouble for me, and I’ll make sure you get fired.”
He choked out, “What are you gonna do now?”
Dez abruptly let go o
f him and he fell face forward. He caught himself on his hands and rose to his feet, a look of hatred on his face. He towered over Jaylynn, but he was only about two inches taller than Dez. She got right up in his face and stared him down. “I’ll tell you what we’re doing now. We’re all going back into the station, and you will tell the lieutenant you lost your temper with Savage. Then you’ll apologize. It’s that, or I’m writing you up.”
“You hit me,” he said. “I think I’m the one who should—”
A withering glance from Dez shut him up. He brushed off the knees of his pants and ran a hand through his short hair, but he followed them in and did what Dez demanded, though not with much conviction. Jaylynn thought Lieutenant Malcolm was pretty savvy though, so she wasn’t surprised when he asked Dez to stay behind as the two rookies filed out of the room.
On the way out the door, Jaylynn asked, “Dez, before you leave, may I have a word with you?”
Dez nodded. “I’ll look for you in a few minutes.”
Jaylynn headed downstairs to the locker room, several strides behind a very angry Neilsen. She figured she had a couple of minutes, so she stripped out of her uniform and tossed the blue shirt and pants in the department laundry. Pulling on jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweater, she thought about what had happened. One thing she knew for sure, she’d never want to be the object of Dez’s ire. She was one ferocious fighter when she got mad.
Jaylynn didn’t turn around right away when she heard the locker room door open, but when she did, she found her protector standing cross-armed and lounging against a locker in a posture of arrogant confidence. Her black hair glinted under the fluorescent lights and her eyes shone bright blue.
Jaylynn smiled at her. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I was handling things just fine out there.”
This obviously surprised the other cop. She straightened up and frowned. “He was attacking you, Jay.”
“He was doing the same bullshit he’s been doing since day one at the Academy. I had it under control. He just needed to whine.”
In a menacing voice, Dez said, “He was threatening you. It looked like he was going to hit you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Whatever. He’ll think twice about it in the future now.”
“Yeah, if you didn’t make it worse for me.”
“You won’t be seeing all that much of him. Lieutenant Malcolm is assigning him to the other sector from here on out.”
“Oh, great! Now he’ll really be plotting to show me up.”
In a dangerous voice, Dez said, “He better not or I’m bouncing his ass outta here.”
“Don’t you see, Dez? He’s an insecure jerk. But he does want to be a cop. He might even be a good one—who knows?”
“Character is everything in police work. He doesn’t have any. Men who hit women don’t deserve to be cops.”
Jaylynn grinned. “What about women who hit men?”
“Nobody should hit anybody.”
“Spoken by the Perennial Pounder who left a goose-egg the size of Saint Paul on the guy’s forehead.”
Dez crossed her arms and gave Jaylynn a serious look. “You think I overdid it, huh?”
“Just slightly. Look, I’m not ungrateful. In fact, for a moment, I enjoyed seeing him on his knees, unseemly as it is for me to admit it.”
Dez snickered. “You couldn’t have enjoyed it half as much as I did. I wanted to beat the crap out of him.”
“Thank you for not doing that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I better go now. I’m sure Tim is wondering where I am.”
“I’ll go with you to make sure Neilsen’s not hovering in wait for you.”
“No, no!” Jaylynn stomped her foot. “It’s fine, Dez. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Without another word, she marched out of the locker room.
Dez watched her go, a thoughtful look on her face. She decided she still had a little too much energy, so she went back to her locker and unlocked it. Time to do some sprints, she thought. If she was to keep up with a certain blonde-haired spitfire, she’d better put in some effort. She got out her running clothes and changed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dez worked out alone in the weight room. At midnight on a Friday night after Tour III ended, she usually had the place to herself, which was how she liked it. After hoisting three forty-five-pound weights on each side of the leg press, she got down into the contraption. This exercise always made her feel like a turtle on its back. She took three deep breaths, forced her legs to press the weight up, and released the safety. Coupled with the seventy-five-pound weight of the press carriage, she was lifting three-hundred-forty-five pounds. She didn’t stop at ten reps but kept straining, pressing the load up and down, until she could go no farther without her lungs and legs exploding. She let the weight down with a clang and felt the misery of the burn fading away, then started another set, and another.
She punished herself. Every day. Once she’d felt joy in working out. Now she worked her muscles to the point of exhaustion, hoping each night would find her so physically tired that sleep would attack her in the same way she attacked the weights in the gym. Each night she was disappointed.
Seven months had passed since the death of her partner in June. She still had difficulty thinking of him as dead. Gone. Never to ride with her again. His absence was a vicious rip in the fabric of her everyday life. She hadn’t been a cop long when he became her one true friend on the force, the only guy not the slightest bit upset that she was a better marksman, a black belt in karate, and more physically imposing than many of the men in blue. Though four inches shorter than she, Ryan had been five feet, eight inches of solid muscle. He wore health and good humor like a mantle about him, and she loved partnering with him in the two-man cars. She was just as surprised as most of their peers when he asked her, the quiet and dour rookie, to try riding with him after his partner retired. Later, when she asked him why, he said he’d had a hunch he’d enjoy working with her more than with the male rookies who were cocky, wisecracking showoffs. “I like riding with women. A lot of the guys are fun, but after a while, I get tired of them talking sports and lying about sex all the time. Women bring up interesting subjects. It makes the shift go by quicker.”
But now he was dead at age thirty-eight, leaving behind a stunningly beautiful wife and two gradeschool-aged kids, all of whom looked to Dez with such sadness and anguish that she could hardly bear to visit. Soon, she should go see Julie again, play with the little boy, Jeremy, who was also her godson. She would talk to the second grader, Jill, about horses and new songs on the radio—but the thought of it made her nearly sick with the weight of grief and responsibility. She’d been through this before at age nine when her police officer father died, but she found this was different. Somehow back then she was better able to insulate herself from the pain. Strange, now she was older, she didn’t seem to have the fortitude she’d had as a child.
Dez extricated herself from the leg press and returned the weights to the rack, moving on to the calf raise machine.
Ryan was the one who’d gotten her interested in weightlifting in the first place, the one area at which he could beat her—at least for a while. He spent many years bodybuilding and competing in local shows, and he told her she had a great physique. “Totally sculptable—you could win shows!” was what he’d said, embarrassing her to no end. She resisted at first, but he talked her into working out with him after their shifts, and she never regretted it. Most days after swing shift ended, they met in the gym to lift together. Whether they’d had a boring, frustrating, or exciting evening, hitting the weights at the end of the night was a good way to relax.
Not anymore.
Dez finished a calf routine and decided to call it quits. She flexed her forearm. It felt stronger—still stiff—but not painful. It would be a while longer before she regained the muscle she’d lost while in the cast, but she was pleased with the progress she’d made since August.
She toweled off as best she could, stepped into sweat bottoms, and donned a jacket over a baggy sweatshirt. Grabbing her sports bag she cut down the hall and past the Roll Call Room. She was surprised to see Jaylynn sitting there, feet up on the desk, reading a magazine. She almost passed by, but as she neared the doorway, Jaylynn looked up.
“Oh, hi, Dez.”
Dez paused and looked at her watch. They’d been off shift for an hour and a half. “What’re you still doing here?”
“Tim’s tied up. I’m waiting for him to call.” She gestured to her cell phone. “I thought he’d be here by now. If I’d known it would take him an hour, I’d have taken a cab home.”
Dez hesitated a moment. “C’mon, I’ll drop you off on my way.”
“But if he calls—”
“You’ll have the cell phone with you. Make sure you leave it on.”
“Right. Okay.” She bent down and picked up a backpack, put on her down coat, and followed Dez out to the parking lot.
As usual, Jaylynn shivered when the cold Minnesota air hit her. “Aren’t you cold?”
Dez hit the keyless entry for her Ford F-150 pickup, and the interior lights popped on. “No. I’m so overheated from the workout, it’ll be half an hour before I cool down.”
“Must be nice.” Jaylynn stepped up into the pickup. “This is such a cool truck. Must be real new.”
“Yup.” It had been Ryan’s, a new purchase he’d delighted in. He had special ordered it with an oversized storage unit in the bed, a bench seat in the front, and the extra cab space so all four members of his family could ride with him anywhere. She bought it from Julie a few months earlier when she learned Ryan’s widow was selling it. Sometimes when she wasn’t thinking of her old partner, she thought she smelled a faint whiff of his aftershave wafting through the truck. For that reason alone, she was glad she’d bought it.
