The Best of Me: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  “Hey. This is a surprise.”

  “Hey, angel.” He slid his arm around her waist and leaned in for a quick kiss.

  She turned her gaze to me and offered a sweet smile. “Hey, Trick. How’s it going?”

  “It’s real good, darlin’.”

  Her grin turned knowing as she mumbled, “Yeah, I bet it is. For Nona too, from what I hear.”

  Hayes spoke again, pulling us from our pleasantries and getting straight to business. “Wish this was a social visit, but we’re actually here lookin’ for a patient. Sabrina Lewis.”

  Tempie’s expression fell, her unhappiness obvious as she muttered, “Yeah, I know who she is.”

  “Twenty-two years old, came in because of a methamphetamine overdose?” I confirmed.

  She nodded grimly. “She coded on the way here. The paramedics almost couldn’t resuscitate her. It was touch and go for a while, but the doctors were finally able to stabilize her.”

  “Think she’s up for a couple questions?” Hayes asked. “We’re hopin’ she can give us a line on the guy who’s been dealing.”

  “Yeah. You can give it a shot.” Tempie gave us the room number, and we started that way when she called out, “Get this guy. I’m sick and tired of seeing kids come through here because of that stuff.”

  Hayes gave his wife a sweet smile, telling her, “We will, angel. I promise.”

  She returned his look with a soft “I know.”

  We headed for the room, and I rapped my knuckles against the wood before turning the knob and pushing the door open. “Sabrina?”

  The girl’s blonde hair went flying when her head shot around. Her blue eyes were wide and full of fear. The rim of red around her eyes was a good indicator that she’d been crying for quite some time. “Y-yes?”

  “I’m Detective Wanderly, and this is my partner, Detective Walker.” We showed her our badges. “If you’re feelin’ up to it, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Oh, uh….” Her gaze bounced back and forth frantically between Hayes and me. “Y-yeah. Okay. That’s fine.”

  She was skittish as a newborn foal. We were going to have to handle this one with care if we wanted any chance at getting something out of her. But I had to give her props for agreeing to speak with us after everything she’d gone through recently. It showed immense courage and strength.

  Hayes made sure to keep a comfortable distance, staying back against the wall and letting me take the lead. I grabbed a chair and moved it close to the side of her hospital bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “I… what?”

  “How are you feeling? I can’t imagine how terrifying what you just went through must have been. Are you okay? Is there anyone we can call for you?”

  “Um, no. Th-thank you. My parents are here. They-they’re down in the cafeteria.”

  “Would you prefer we wait to speak with you until they get back?”

  Her hair swished as she shook her head and whispered, “No. It’s okay. I can… I can talk now.”

  “All right, darlin’. We’ll start with my original question. How are you feeling?”

  I could tell by the look on her face that she was thrown by my line of questioning. She’d been expecting the very worst when two police officers stepped into the room. But it was obvious by looking at her that she wasn’t a typical junkie. This whole scene was foreign to her. “I-I’m okay,” she answered, her voice wobbling as tears welled in her eyes. “It was… I was so scared.”

  I kept my voice low and even as I replied, “I can only imagine. Do you remember much of what happened last night?”

  She pulled in a breath and began recounting the evening in surprisingly vivid detail, and I discovered that I’d been correct in my initial opinion. This wasn’t a girl who was well acquainted with drugs. Not at all. This was the first—and definitely the last—time she’d ever smoke meth. She’d been at a party with some friends when her boyfriend passed her a pipe. She’d been drinking and wasn’t really paying attention. Assuming it was weed, she’d taken a hit. Seeing as she’d never done drugs before, that first hit messed with her in a big way, so when her boyfriend had her good and high, he took advantage and kept pushing the pipe at her. It all went downhill from there, and the fucker bailed when Sabrina went down. If it hadn’t been for one of her friends, tonight would have turned out very different.

  Leaning forward, I braced my elbows on my knees and asked, “Sabrina, can you tell us where we can find your boyfriend?”

  She began worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and her tears finally broke loose, spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t… I don’t want to get him into trouble.”

  My stomach began to churn, and the voice in the back of my head that was a father before everything else began to yell and rage.

  “Listen to me, sweetheart. I know you probably care about this guy, but what he did to you, that’s unforgivable. If I had to guess, he was well aware of the fact that you’d never even consider touching that stuff, and by doing what he did, he broke that trust. You might not see it now, but trust me. This guy doesn’t deserve your loyalty. What he did to you is one of the worst betrayals I’ve ever heard of.”

  Her face crumpled, and she buried it in her hands as her body racked with gut-wrenching sobs. Hayes and I remained silent, giving her the time she needed to get all the pain out. The minutes ticked by, and I was starting to consider coming back at another time when she finally lifted her head and started speaking in fast run-on sentences. She gave her boyfriend up, telling us exactly where we could find him.

  I started to stand from the chair when she finished, but her hand shot out, grabbing hold of mine. I looked down at her, a careful expression on my face. “Am I…?” She swallowed thickly. “Am I in trouble?”

  I offered her the most comforting smile I could manage. “No, sweetheart. I think you’ve been through enough. But if you’re smart—which I think you are—you’ll dump this boy, and you never look back.”

  Sabrina nodded as a few more tears broke looks. “Y-yes, sir. Believe me, I will.”

  Reaching toward the bed, I placed my hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze. “Good.”

  We’d just left as her parents were reentering the room, and I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t going to be alone in there.

  “Wanna send some uniforms to pick him up and bring him to the station?” Hayes asked in a furious grumble as we started out of the hospital. “Something tells me a ride in the back of a cruiser’ll scare the shit out of a dickhead like him.”

  My blood had gone from simmering to a full rolling boil as Sabrina recounted her night, and I was itching to get my hands on the fucker. “Oh, hell yeah.”

  * * *

  Micah, Leo, Fred Duncan, and a few other cops were congregated in the hallway as Hayes and I exited the interrogation room.

  “Jesus Christ,” Micah grunted, a sinister grin stretched across his face. “That was the funniest shit I’ve seen in a long goddamn time.”

  “Thought he was gonna piss his pants,” Duncan cackled, holding his gut as he laughed. “Never seen a grown man cry that hard before. Could barely understand a word coming out of his mouth.”

  “Yeah, well it’s just too bad we can’t book him for bein’ a dick,” Hayes grumbled as we all started for the bullpen.

  “True enough,” Leo agreed. “But at least you made him sob like a baby. Second best thing to an actual arrest.”

  We made it to my and Trick’s desks, and I turned to hand the sketch we got from the asshole’s description of his dealer to Duncan. “Get that circulating. I want this guy, and I want him yesterday, yeah?”

  The loser hadn’t been able to give us a name, and the number he had was to a burner that was untraceable. We tried calling to see if we could set up a buy, but there was no answer, so we brought in a sketch artist to see if we would get lucky going that route. But without a name, it was going to take some time, and that gnawing I’d been feeling in my gut al
l goddamn day told me we didn’t have much of that.

  Duncan took off to make copies of the sketch and pass them around, and I sat back in my chair, watching as two patrolmen led the dumbass kid we’d just been questioning through the bullpen and out of the station. He was still blubbering the whole way out, and all I could do was hope his pride never recovered from the hit it took today.

  It was the very least a prick like him deserved.

  However, I’d seen Sabrina’s father before leaving the hospital earlier that day, and judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t going to just sit back and let the kid get away with the harm he’d caused to his daughter. And from the incredible size of the man, I knew the lesson he intended to mete out would be one that stuck with him for a very long time.

  I spent the next couple hours on paperwork, but all the while, that ugly feeling that something wasn’t right tore away at me.

  And nothing I did could settle it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Blythe

  I slammed my Algebra book closed. The numbers on the page were beginning to blur, and if I had to look at it for one more second, I was going to go blind.

  Hitting the screen on my phone, I paused the music and pulled the earbuds from my ears as I hopped off my bed and headed for the kitchen in search of ice cream.

  I rounded the corner and heard the sound of my mom’s laughter coming from the living room. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, and after spending so long sad and miserable because of my dad, I loved that she was finally happy again.

  She didn’t know it, but Tristan and I had heard her crying from her bedroom more times than we could count. She always tried to hide it from us, waiting until she thought we were asleep, but we knew. And we hated it.

  We thought it might get better once she finally kicked Dad out, but it didn’t—at least not right away—and I knew it was mainly because she was worried about us.

  Then Trick started coming around, and just like that, we had our mom back. She laughed and she teased and was just all-around awesome. And Trick looked at her like he thought she was the most beautiful, most hilarious woman he’d ever laid his eyes on.

  Which she was.

  She deserved someone as awesome as she was, and Detective Trick Wanderly was the coolest of the cool. I knew they’d make a great couple, because all the boys at my school thought I had the hottest mom, and all the girls thought Trick was the hottest dad. It just made sense for the two of them to get together.

  Mom wouldn’t admit it, but I knew there was something going on with her and Trick long before they actually became a couple. Then she went from being sweet to avoiding him at every turn, and for a while I worried they were never going to get together.

  But they did, and now everything was going great. It was nice having a man in the house. He did things for Mom all the time, like pour her drinks and rub her feet when they were watching TV. My dad never did stuff like that, but with Trick, it was almost like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. It was just second nature to take care of her, and I really liked watching that.

  I liked how sweet he could be with Hannah and Shawn. I liked even more that he treated Tris and me the exact same way. But most of all, I liked how protective he was.

  He promised me he’d never let anything happen to us, and I believed him 100 percent.

  “Ew!” Tristan shouted from the living room. “If you guys don’t quit bein’ all kissy and gross, I’m gonna hurl!”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes as I scooped some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream into a bowl. He thought it was gross when Mom and Trick kissed, but I thought it was sweet.

  Hannah did too.

  She’d told me once that one of the reasons she liked Heath so much was because he treated her the same way her dad treated my mom. And I decided right then and there that when I got a boyfriend, he had to be the exact same way.

  There was no way I’d ever date a guy who acted like my dad.

  I dropped the ice cream back into the freezer and pushed the door closed with my foot. Just as I was about to turn and head back to my room, I saw something on the kitchen counter from the corner of my eye and stopped dead in my tracks.

  Setting the bowl down with a clank, I moved over to the police file, flipped it open, and sucked in so much air that my lungs felt like they were burning.

  “You okay, darlin’?”

  My eyes shot from the drawing to Trick, and I finally let out a breath. “You found him.”

  Trick’s eyes were the coolest shade of gray, and they changed from dark to light with whatever he was feeling. Right then they grew darker as his eyebrows pinched together. “Found who, Blythe?”

  “The guy!” I snatched the picture up and waved it in front of my face. “This guy. The guy from my dad’s place. You found him.”

  I didn’t understand the look on his face just then. I was ecstatic. He’d made a promise to me, and now I knew he’d kept it. If he found this guy, we were all safe. But for some reason, he didn’t look happy about it.

  He moved around the island quickly, taking the sheet of paper from my hand and holding it up. “Sweetheart, are you sure?”

  “Yeah!” I chirped. “That’s totally him. Have you arrested him?”

  At my question, Trick’s mouth twisted into a smile, and his face changed. It didn’t look as tense as before, but the smile wasn’t like the ones I’d seen him give my mom. It wasn’t nearly as big and bright. I figured that was because this was a bad guy, and even though catching him was a good thing, it still wasn’t worthy of the kind of smile he’d give the people he loved. “It’s all good, Blythe. You’ve got nothin’ to worry about anymore.”

  My shoulders slumped, and my lips stretched so wide my cheeks hurt as I launched myself into his arms. Even his hugs were fantastic, all strong and warm. He was a whole lot taller and way more muscular than my dad, so when he hugged me it felt like I was being wrapped up by a teddy bear.

  “Thank you, Trick,” I whispered, overtaken by a lightness I hadn’t felt in weeks. “I knew I could trust you.”

  “Always keep you safe, baby girl.”

  At that, my chest warmed and my eyes began to sting. I’d only ever heard him call Hannah that, and having him call me baby girl made me feel like I was special. My dad used to call me sweet pea, but that had been a long time ago.

  “I know, Trick.” I whispered before giving him one last squeeze and pulling away. “I’ve got more studying to do. Just needed an ice cream break.”

  That got me the same kind of smile he gave Mom and Hannah, and I felt like I’d just won a medal or something. “All right, darlin’. You get back to it.”

  I skipped to my room and did just that, knowing everything was going to be all right.

  Because Detective Trick Wanderly made it that way.

  * * *

  Nona

  The moment Trick came back into the living room, I knew something was wrong. It was as if the air had grown thick and stale with the change of his mood.

  Sitting up on the couch, I grabbed the remote and paused the movie we’d been watching with Tris. Diva, who’d been resting on my chest, didn’t appreciate the sudden move and hopped down to curl up with Tristan as I asked, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  Instead of answering, he looked to Tris and said, “Bud, you mind givin’ me and your mom a few minutes? I need to talk to her about something private.”

  I could tell he wanted to argue, that the change in Trick’s demeanor had him worried, but he was a good kid, and instead of pushing, he just nodded.

  Trick gave him a grateful smile and reached down to take my hand. I let him pull me from the couch and guide me into my bedroom, where he closed the door.

  I took a seat on the edge of my bed while he remained on his feet, pacing the small stretch of carpet in front of me. “You’re starting to scare me, handsome. What’s going on?”

  “Got a case earlier today. Another girl overdosed. Was a fuckin’
miracle she made it through, but she was able to give us something none of the other people were. And what she said led us to the guy who’s been dealin’ meth all around town.”

  “I don’t understand. That sounds like a good thing.”

  He blew out a breath and reached around to scrub at the back of his neck. “Pains me to say this, but you have to know. The sketch of the guy was in the file I brought home from work. I just ran into Blythe in the kitchen, and she saw the picture.” He stopped to inhale through his nose before laying it on me. “Baby, it’s the same guy she saw at Chris’s that night. The one who freaked her out so bad.”

  My skin broke out in goose bumps, and it suddenly felt like the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “What—” I gave my head a violent shake, trying to piece together what he was telling me. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sayin’ Chris isn’t just in trouble. He’s in a whole fuckin’ lot of trouble. He’s got himself tangled up with a goddamn meth dealer, and from what Blythe overheard, that’s the asshole he’s in debt to.”

  I sucked in a sharp gasp that stabbed my lungs. “I… that can’t… oh my god!” I shot to my feet so fast it made my head spin. “No. Th-that can’t be right. I mean, he’s stupid, but not that stupid. It doesn’t….” I squeezed my eyes closed. My blood felt like it was boiling as the realization that Trick wasn’t wrong finally began to dawn on me. “That stupid fucking son of a bitch!” I hissed through gritted teeth. It took everything I had to keep from shouting the house down, but I somehow managed to hold back. There was no way in hell I was going to let my kids know their father had gotten involved with a freaking meth dealer. That would kill them.