by Laura Scott
She radioed Raymond. “I’m walking toward the back entrance, and Liberty’s signaling me that she smells something.”
“In this area it could be a small-time drug deal or someone smoking up,” Raymond’s voice came back. “Abby’s paws were dancing like crazy outside earlier. Could be something, could be nothing. Stay safe and keep me posted.”
“Will do,” Noelle said. She looked down at Liberty. “Let’s go, Liberty. Show me.”
The dog’s ears perked, her nose started to twitch and her pace quickened. Okay, she definitely smelled something. Noelle followed her down the hall, through a back door and out into the snow. Pale gray sky stretched above her. A van with a Dotty’s Toys logo on it was parked in the alley, its white sides streaked gray with slush and dirty snow. It was smaller than the one they’d unloaded from earlier and she didn’t know Dotty’s was sending a second batch of toys. Was it for the next event? She signaled the dog to slow and started toward it, keeping one hand tight on the leash and the other ready at her weapon. Something thumped inside the back of the van.
“Police,” she called. “Is everything okay?”
The van’s back door flew open. Gift-wrapped toys tumbled out onto the ground. A man in a black ski mask launched himself at her.
FOUR
Where had Noelle gone? The question rattled around in the back of Adam’s mind as he dished bacon and sausage up onto people’s plates and listened to Matty chatting cheerfully in his ear. Noelle’s colleague Officer Morrow hadn’t budged from his position by the front door, so wherever Noelle had gone, everything was probably fine. And yet Adam couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
Maybe he’d seemed rude when he’d stuck her down at the other end of the buffet table with his dad. But for some reason, being up close with her rattled something within him like loose screws inside his internal engine. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head once since the moment they’d met. If he’d been a lot younger and a whole lot more foolish, he might have blamed his heart and said he’d fallen head over heels into something. But he’d never believed in so-called “love at first sight,” almost hearing the air quotes in his head as the phrase crossed his mind. His attraction to Matty’s mom had built incredibly slowly into something deep and long-lasting. And nothing like this jittery feeling inside him.
But, besides all that, he’d also never been one to ignore his inner danger alarm when it was going off. And right now, that was sounding too.
He gestured to his dad.
“Where’d Noelle go?” he called, forcing his voice to stay upbeat and light.
“For a walk,” Fred said with a smile.
Okay, but what kind of walk? The kind when your legs just need stretching or when something is wrong?
He glanced at his mom. “You and Matty got things covered here for a minute?”
Worry flickered in his mom’s perceptive eyes but her face flashed a smile that he suspected matched his. “Sure. Not a problem.”
And if there was a problem, it wasn’t his to solve, he reminded himself as he grabbed his jacket from behind the table, shoved his arms through and headed down the hall in the direction Noelle had gone. They weren’t colleagues or serving in the same unit. Yet for some reason, his pace quickened as he pushed through a door to his left. Immediately, bracing cold wind and thick flakes assailed him. The sound of a struggle came from somewhere to his right along with the noise of Liberty barking. He ran toward it, saw a white van ahead of him, and then he saw Noelle, down on the ground, fighting with a male figure in blue jeans, heavy boots and a black ski mask.
The figure had a gun.
Prayers shot like flares through Adam’s core.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Leave her alone! Let her go! Now!”
And maybe it was a silly thing to shout at a masked man attacking a cop, but he hadn’t really been thinking. The man looked up, distracted. Noelle delivered a sharp elbow to his jaw that sent him falling back. His gun slipped from his grasp.
“You’re under arrest!” Noelle shouted as she leaped to her feet.
But it was too late, as the man turned and ran, pelting down the narrow alley, with what looked like a large box jammed into his jacket. Noelle ran after him with Liberty by her side, shouting into her radio for Officer Morrow, giving him a rundown of what had happened and details of the direction the man was going.
Adam found himself running after them, through the narrow space between dingy brick buildings, being careful to keep far enough back to stay out of the way.
A fence rose ahead with a large lock wrapped around the gate. The masked man jumped up and scaled it.
Noelle glanced back for a fleeting moment.
“Adam!” Noelle shouted, and only then did he really know that she knew he’d been following her. “Stay with Liberty!”
“Got it!” he called.
Noelle scaled the fence, climbed over it and tumbled down the other side. Adam felt something brush his leg, glanced down and saw Noelle’s K-9 partner looking up at him under shaggy eyebrows. Liberty whimpered slightly as if the dog could read his mind and felt the same urge he did to run after Noelle and help her. No matter how skilled Liberty was at detection, it wasn’t her role to chase criminals down like some other K-9 breeds. It wasn’t Adam’s job either.
Instead, all they could both do was watch as Noelle chased after the man. He slipped and she leaped, tackling him from behind and bringing him down into the snow. A gift-wrapped package fell from his jacket as she cuffed him and read him his rights. Officer Morrow and his K-9, Abby, ran down the alley from the other direction and helped haul the cuffed man to his feet. Noelle walked over to the gate, unlocked it and signaled to Liberty. Then she knelt down and offered the dog the gift-wrapped package. There, between the gaps in the torn wrapping paper, Adam could see it was another black FlupperPup. Liberty’s back tensed and her ears perked as she sniffed it. Then she barked.
“More drugs?” Adam asked.
“Looks like it,” Noelle said.
She met his gaze and held it. What did she think of the fact he’d come looking for her and run after her?
“Hey, Adam! Adam!” A male voice yanked his attention past her. “Tell them you know me! And that I’m a good guy!”
Adam felt his jaw gape. The person shouting to him for backup was the same masked man who’d just been holding a gun to Noelle. His mask had been pulled up and now Adam could see his face. He was in his late twenties, with the sallow skin of someone who’d taken too many illegal substances and tried and failed more than once to claw his way back from that life. He turned away from the man, not wanting to interfere and Noelle matched his stance.
She bent her head toward Adam’s. “You know who he is?”
“His name is Olly Whit,” Adam said softly. “My family and I volunteer at the community meal here twice a month. He comes in sometimes with his daughter.”
“I didn’t mean any trouble!” Olly was yelling loudly now, seemingly to anyone who would listen. “My little girl’s mom won’t let me see her or bring her today. And I needed a present for her for Christmas.”
Adam felt the pressure of Noelle’s gaze searching his face. “Is that true?” she asked.
“I think so,” Adam said. “Or close enough. He has a little girl. She’s about three or four. He’s often losing visitation rights. He does have a record for theft and drug use, but from what I know, it’s low-level stuff.”
Noelle pulled a knife from her pocket and slid it first into the box and then the FlupperPup. It was faster and more precise this time now that she knew how to open it up.
“Well,” she said as she held up the dog for Adam to see. “He was carrying a toy filled with drugs.”
* * *
Sergeant Gavin Sutherland, head of the Brooklyn K-9 Unit, cut a tall and imposing figure, coupled with the kind understand
ing for the hard work his team did that made Noelle determined not to let him down. Especially since ‘Sarge’ had come to the community shelter personally to brief her on the status of the drug case.
It had been almost an hour since Olly Whit had been carted off in handcuffs. The community event had now ended, people had filed off home and the center had closed its doors. Noelle and Liberty stood beside Sarge in the alley behind the center, sheltered from the snow by an overhang.
“What’s your read on Olly Whit?” Sarge asked.
“He’s a low-level weed dealer,” Noelle said. “No indication he’s dealt in MDMA, Ecstasy or anything like that. And nothing that would indicate a connection with a larger criminal enterprise. His story of stealing a FlupperPup for his daughter is plausible.”
She was pretty sure she wasn’t telling Sarge anything he didn’t already know, but that he was looking for her take on it. Despite the years she’d spent as a K-9 trainer and thanks to the length of time she and Liberty had been forced to take off from high-visibility cases due to the bounty on Liberty’s head, when it came to being a K-9 officer, she was still very much a rookie.
“So, you believe him?” Sarge asked.
“It would be premature to judge his credibility until he’s been interrogated,” she said, feeling her chin rise. “Again, he has a record of minor offenses but nothing of the scale of what we’re looking for. Officer Morrow told me that the community center manager confirmed Whit was kicked off the premises for being drunk last week and suspended from attending events here for the next thirty days. Whit says he came by, hoping he’d be able to talk his way in, saw the truck and decided to go for a quick grab-and-dash instead.”
“And he just happened to grab the only toy in the truck that was full of drugs?” Sarge pressed.
Was he testing her? Or was she just tired? Or both? She hadn’t exactly slept the night before and had been working as much overtime as she could get her hands on.
“He grabbed the only FlupperPup,” she said. “Certain FlupperPup breeds are rarer than others, making them the most valuable. The black dog with the red bow is the rarest of the dogs. It’s hardly uncommon for rare toys to get stolen and resold on the streets at Christmastime. It’s possible he was covering his bases by picking something he knew he could resell to some desperate parent for some quick cash.”
Matty’s voice crossed her mind, reminding her it was stupid to judge how special a toy was based on how hard it was to find. Adam had taken the little boy with the bright inquisitive eyes and infectious smile home, along with Fred and Irene, while she’d been coordinating things with Raymond. Thankfully, the fact Whit had run from the scene meant the arrest had taken place away from the center and not disrupted the event.
Once the drugs had been found, she and Adam had barely exchanged more than a quick wave goodbye before he’d jogged back to the center. She hadn’t known what to think when Adam had run after her when she chased after Olly. But it had felt instinctive and almost comforting to have him there. And, of course, she was thankful he’d identified her suspect.
“Lou Shmit, the owner of Dotty’s Toy’s, says he has no idea how one of his vans showed up here after the event had already started.” Sarge’s voice dragged her attention back to the matter at hand. “He says there appears to have been a mix-up in his warehouse, after someone called claiming to be from the center, reporting they’d run out of toys. Also, no idea how a drug-filled dog showed up in his vehicle, considering K-9 officers swept his entire warehouse yesterday. He claims he’s being set up and someone used his van as a cover. Now his business is being searched by police again, wrecking their ability to meet the shipments they wanted to get out before Christmas. They’re practically on lockdown. He’s hopping mad about it.”
He continued giving her a quick rundown of the larger operation. There were officers tracking the distribution angle and investigating several different gangs, interviewing Olly Whit, Quentin Stacy and Lou Shmit’s warehouse team, as well as continuing to search toy stores and warehouses for the remaining FlupperPups. Not a bad reminder that no matter how much pressure she put on herself to work all the hours, she and Liberty were still just a single cog in a larger machine.
A yawn escaped Noelle’s lips. She quickly ran her hand over her mouth, hoping to hide it. But she could tell by the way Sarge’s eyebrows quirked that he’d seen it. He glanced at his watch.
“Your shift ended twenty minutes ago,” he said. “Go clock out, then go home and get some rest. If anything major happens, someone will contact you.”
“Actually, I put in a request for overtime,” she said. “There’s another Jolly Family Charity toy giveaway tonight and I’d like to be there. I’ve been on this lead ever since it broke and have been building a connection with the Jolly family. I might catch something other officers don’t.”
“I know, and you applied for overtime tomorrow too,” Sarge said. “I’m denying your request for today and only granting you a partial shift for tomorrow morning.”
She felt herself frown.
“I get that you and Liberty felt sidelined for a very long time,” he added, “through no fault of your own. I appreciate your dedication and everything you bring to the team, but you can’t make up for missing months of high-profile fieldwork by working yourself to exhaustion now.” His voice was firm, but there was kindness in his smile. “The NYPD has been cutting back on officer overtime hours for a reason. You and Liberty are a terrific team. We need you at the top of your game. You won’t be that without sleep.”
Then his eyes flitted over her shoulder and widened slightly.
“Then again, if this is a personal thing, you can always attend the event off duty,” he added.
She turned and followed his gaze. There stood Adam, on the sidewalk behind them, close enough to be waiting but far enough away to not be listening in. Her breath caught in her throat. He was so impossibly handsome, with his strong jaw, broad shoulders and caring eyes. Couple that with his deep heart for his family and dedication to serving both his country and those in need, Adam was probably the most extraordinary man she’d ever met.
He was the kind of man she’d never expected to look her way, let alone have her back.
“Sergeant Gavin Sutherland,” Sarge said, as he strode toward Adam with his gloved hand extended to shake the other man’s hand. “You must be Corporal Jolly.”
“Call me Adam,” he said. He shifted a reusable shopping bag full of Christmas gifts from one shoulder to the other, then reached out his hand and shook Sarge’s firmly. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Sarge said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of an update on the situation, but I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.”
“Thank you,” Adam said. “I appreciate that.” Then his eyes flitted to Noelle. “Actually, I was about to run an errand and wondered if Noelle and Liberty were up to joining me for a walk.”
At the word walk, Liberty’s ears perked. She glanced up at Noelle as if asking, Please, can we? Noelle bit back a chuckle.
“Actually, I need to go back to the station to clock out of my shift,” Noelle said.
“Which I can handle for you,” Sarge said quickly. “Go for your walk now. Unwind, stretch your legs and then pop back into the station when you can. I’ll sort your shift log. No problem. You’ve been working way too hard and could use a break.”
What was Sarge doing? His words, tone and bearing were every bit as professional and direct as usual. But there was a faint tinge of something almost brotherly to his voice. Then she watched as Sarge’s grin spread and felt her face flush. Her boss seemed to be under the mistaken impression that Adam was asking her out on a date. Which it couldn’t be, right? Adam’s only interest in her was in connection to the drugs case, right? Yet, as Adam said goodbye to Sarge and then turned to her and smiled, something warmed inside her chest.
She told Sarge she’d see him later, looped her hand through Liberty’s leash and turned to Adam. “Let’s go.”
Adam led the way and she fell in step beside him, as they walked side by side through the snowy city streets, feeling every bit as comfortable to have him there on one side as it did to have Liberty on the other. Lampposts festooned with sparkling red-and-green wreaths rose ahead of them out of the snow. The brightly decorated windows of barbershops, diners, stores and bodegas on both sides wished them a Merry Christmas. Small talk flowed easily between her and Adam as they walked. There was just something so comfortable about being around him. He was somehow like an old friend she hadn’t seen in years, but also sort of like a book she was engrossed in from the first page. They’d already walked three blocks before she realized she hadn’t asked him where they were going. What’s more, somehow she wasn’t in a hurry to. There was just something nice about simply walking side by side through the falling snow.
“How did you end up having two such different careers?” she asked. “What’s the connection between driving a military convoy in Afghanistan and giving out toys to children at Christmas?”
He chuckled. It was warm, deep and the kind of laugh that seemed to pull her in closer.
“The connection is my heart,” he said. He ran his hand over the back of his neck, then shivered as if melted snow had slipped down his collar. “It’s like my heart has two separate but connected sides. Joining the military to serve my country was a calling. It beat inside my chest like a drum, telling me that it was what I was meant to be doing with my life. But the connection to my family was just as strong, in a quieter and softer way, and I love being part of the charity my parents built. I loved serving my country one hundred percent, and yet I also wake up one hundred percent happy and thankful for the work I do now.”
