The Children's Cop

by Sherry Lewis

  Then again, who was he kidding? It wouldn’t last a year under any circumstances. Maybe he should just put Lucy, her problems and the relationship that would never work out of his mind. Let her keep her secrets and get on with his own life the best he could.

  Irritated, Jackson scooped up salsa with a chip and popped the whole thing into his mouth. Fire exploded in his mouth and tears filled his eyes before his mind had time to register how hot the stuff was.

  Wishing he’d had the foresight to order a beer, he dashed the tears away with the back of his hand, felt his sinuses loosen and looked around frantically for something that would soak the heat from his tongue.

  He was vaguely aware of Lucy leaving the table, and he felt a moment of panic, but she was back within seconds. “Drink this,” she ordered, and shoved a cold glass into his hand.

  He squinted to make sure she hadn’t given him water, but when he realized that she’d somehow produced a tall glass of milk, he gulped it gratefully. Gradually, the fire in his mouth, nose and throat began to lessen and the tears dried well enough for him to see again.

  Taking another swipe at his eyes with his sleeve, he sent her a wobbly smile. “Thanks.” The word croaked out and left him sounding like an old man.

  She grinned, and for a moment it was as if nothing had ever been wrong. “Hot?”

  He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Hot? No. Are you kidding?” He took another long drink and coughed. “It’s great. You should try some.”

  Lucy held up both hands to ward off the suggestion. “Oh, no. I can see how much you’re enjoying it, and I’m not sure there’s enough for both of us.”

  “What kind of gentleman would I be if I kept this all to myself?”

  “What kind of lady would I be if I didn’t let you?”

  He grinned at her. “Compassionate?”

  “Try stupid.” With a laugh, she leaned back in her seat. Her smile faded. “Do you really want to know what’s bothering me?”

  The question nearly made him choke again, but he nodded. “I really do.”

  “And if you hate me when I’m through?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  She tried to smile, but failed miserably. “I probably should have told you this from the very beginning, but I just couldn’t. Just before Angelina disappeared, I was working on another case. A little boy who’d been abducted out of his bedroom in the middle of the night.” She faltered and spent a minute tearing one end of her napkin into a fringe.

  The turn of the conversation confused him, but she was having such a difficult time talking, he didn’t want to interrupt.

  “We thought we knew who’d taken him, and we concentrated all of our efforts on finding that one person.” She paused and took a deep breath “We were wrong. By the time we figured that out, Tomas was dead.”

  Her voice caught and her lip quivered as she smoothed her hand across the small pile of shredded napkin. “We found him the day before Angelina disappeared. I had to tell his mother that we’d failed her, and I lost it. My captain assigned me to this case and ordered me into counseling. I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to trust me. I wanted to trust myself.” She gave him a sad smile. “I wanted to prove that I still had what it took.”

  “And you thought I might not trust you if I knew?”

  “Why should you?”

  He dipped his head so he could make eye contact. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because I failed.”

  “You’ve never failed at anything before?”

  She lifted her gaze to meet his, but she looked miserable. “Of course I have. But failure isn’t allowed in my family, and you had to put your trust in me. You had to rely on me at a time when I had nothing to give you. Nick offered to let me take some time off, but I was so afraid of looking like even more of a failure I turned him down. That was wrong, Jackson. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “No harm done.”

  “Isn’t there?” She sighed heavily and reached for her glass. “What if that’s not true? What if I let my own selfish concerns get in the way of the investigation?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Relatively sure.” He leaned closer and shoved the salsa out of his way. “As sure as I need to be, anyway. You’ve been incredible, Lucy. You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty.”

  “Someone else might have found Angel already, or at least a lead on Patrice.”

  “I thought you told me that these things take time.”

  “Well, of course they do, but—” She broke off, clearly frustrated. “To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not sure I have what it takes to do this job.”

  He frowned, worried for the first time. “We’ve been pushing too hard. Maybe we should skip today. Give you a chance to breathe and then figure out what you want to do next.”

  She shook her head quickly. “Absolutely not! Whether I have a personal crisis or don’t, Angel’s still missing.” She paused while their waiter settled large hot plates of food covered with chile verde and melted cheese in front of them. “I’ll be all right,” she assured him. “It’s just been hard not telling you. But I promise, it won’t affect my work.”

  “That’s not even a question,” he said. “But everything in life isn’t about the case. Right now, I’m worried about you.”

  A shimmer of moisture filled her eyes a split second before she dipped her head. “Don’t, Jackson.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You know what. I’m a police officer. I can’t cry, and especially not in public.”

  “Right now, you’re a woman,” he said simply. “A beautiful woman I happen to care about a whole lot.”

  She shook her head quickly, but he laced his fingers through hers and lifted her hand to his lips. “Is it really so hard to believe that I care about you?”

  “What makes you think I don’t?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the way you have such trouble looking me in the eye whenever the conversation becomes personal.”

  “I’m on a case,” she argued.

  “And what excuse would you give me if you weren’t?”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. “What makes you think I’d need an excuse?”

  “Call it gut instinct.”

  “I’d call it something other than that.” She pulled her hand away and cut into her burrito. “I might not be good at relationships, but I’m not afraid of them.”

  “If you say so.”

  Her eyes narrowed and something dangerous flashed in their depths. “Gee, I wonder why I ever hesitated to confide in you.”

  “I’m sorry.” He dug into his own burrito. “I didn’t mean to upset you, but you have to admit you’re not the most open person in the world.”

  “And exactly what do you see as the value of being ‘open’?”

  “I don’t know. What do you get from your friends?”

  Color crept into her cheeks and she looked away. “Bad example.”

  He blurted a laugh that got a couple of heads turning their way. “Oh come on,” he said, lowering his voice again. “You’re not really going to tell me that you don’t have any friends.”

  “I have lots of acquaintances,” she said, “but friends? Close friends? Not really.”

  He lowered his fork and tried to read her expression. “You’re not serious.”

  “Deadly.” She spread sour cream over half of her burrito and smiled sadly. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t always been this way. If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have told you that I had some of the greatest friends a person could have.”

  “So what happened?”

  She shrugged as if the answer didn’t matter. “There were six of us who went through the police academy together. A few months ago, my best friend was accused of killing her partner during a shoot-out. Everyone reacted differently to the shooting. Catherine, out of necessity, had to distance herself. She was an instru
ctor at the academy and she’s chief of police now. There was no way she could publicly support Risa without jeopardizing the investigation. The rest of us knew that standing up for Risa would only raise all those gender issues we work so hard to avoid. That was bad enough, but the evidence started mounting, and it really looked like Risa might have been guilty.”

  She put one hand to her cheek and took a steadying breath. “I never thought Risa was capable of murdering her partner, but I did wonder, in the face of the evidence, if maybe a bullet went astray in the confusion. She insisted that she was innocent, of course, but I— Well, I didn’t exactly win the popularity contest.”

  “So what happened?”

  “To Risa? She was innocent, of course, and she eventually proved it. And she said she understood my reaction.” The corners of her mouth turned down at the memory. “But we’re not friends any longer. Not like we were.”

  “So fix it.”

  She laughed abruptly. “Fix it? Just like that? I never pegged you as being naive.”

  “It’s not naive, it’s realistic. There’s nothing so wrong that it can’t be fixed if you want it badly enough.”

  Lucy pulled her soda closer and took a drink. “I’ve tried. I left a message the other night, but she hasn’t called back. I think it’s pretty clear she’s not interested.”

  “And that’s okay with you?”

  “No,” she said with an exasperated sigh, “but what choice do I have?”

  He laughed sharply. “You’re an interesting woman. You’ll stop at nothing if a case is involved, but you don’t show the same tenacity with your personal life. Why is that?”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “Am I? Tell me something, Lucy. The two of us… Would you fight for us if it came to that, or would you just let go?”

  “That’s an unfair question.”

  “Maybe so. But I’d sure like to know the answer.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I’d fight if there was something to fight for. But since we’ll part company when the case is over, it’s kind of a moot question, isn’t it? But since we’re asking, would you put us above your family if it came to that? Or would what Wiley wants always come first?”

  The question stunned him for a moment, but when he realized what she was doing, he grinned. “Point taken. I have no room to talk. I come from a classic screwed-up family. My parents divorced. My grandfather’s a wee bit controlling. My dad beat the crap out of everybody in his path and then drank himself into an early grave. My brother—” He broke off with a sharp laugh. “My brother could be the poster child for dysfunctional people.”

  “And then there’s you.”

  “And then there’s me. And I’m either crazy as a loon or more mixed up than all of them. I’m not sure which.”

  She studied him for a long moment before her lips curved into a sly smile. “I vote for crazy,” she said at last. “If you’re not, I might have to listen to your advice.”

  That was so unexpected, Jackson had to laugh. “God forbid!”

  She forked another mouthful and paused with it a few inches from her mouth. “You can say that again.”

  “So I’ll just shut up, then?”

  “For now.” But the smile in her eyes told him more than her words could ever say. Her eyes, so deep and dark, held untold promise, and his mouth grew dry at the prospect of discovering what else they held in store.

  Before he had a chance to pursue it, her cell phone let out a bleat and the moment, like so many before it, was gone.

  After a few minutes, Lucy glanced at him, and smiled. “She’s back.”

  “Who?”

  “Patrice.”

  His heart and stomach got all jumbled up inside of him and his voice cracked with the sudden emotion. “Is Angel with her?”

  “Hank doesn’t think so. He’s pretty sure she’s alone.”

  Just like that, Jackson’s appetite disappeared and the food he’d already eaten turned over in his stomach. He’d never seriously considered the possibility that Angel was with her mother, but he’d obviously held on to more hope than he’d thought.

  Shoving his plate away, he stood. “Let’s go.”

  They were only two short words, but Lucy was on her feet before he could get them both out. “Let’s hope she knows where Angelina is.”

  LIGHTS BURNED INSIDE the small blue house on Adler Drive when they pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. Jackson had felt the anger growing as they drove across town, and now it had become a tight ball of sharp-edged tension that grated with every breath.

  Almost before they stopped moving, he jumped from the car and started up the walk. He was halfway to the door when Lucy called after him.

  “Wait a minute, Jackson. We need to talk before we go inside.”

  He wheeled back toward her. “If you’re going to tell me to let you do the talking, forget it. I’m not going to let Patrice disappear again without answering a few questions.”

  “She’s right inside. I don’t think she’s going to leap out a back window and sneak off. And you’re jumping to conclusions. You haven’t even seen Patrice in more than a dozen years. You have no way of knowing what she’s like now.”

  “She’s been gone for two weeks. Her daughter has been missing all that time, and she doesn’t even know or care. What more do I need to know?”

  He turned away again and would have kept walking, but Lucy caught him by the sleeve. Though he could have pulled away easily, he turned back. Even angry and nearly crazy with anxiety, he wasn’t a complete jerk.

  “We don’t know any of that,” she said. “You’re assuming every bit of it. She might have taken Angel somewhere. She may have been in contact with her. You’re assuming the worst, and if you approach her with that attitude, she won’t tell us anything.”

  That possibility almost made his lungs stop working. “She’ll tell us,” he growled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Lucy moved past him and took the lead position. “Why don’t we find out if that’s even necessary first?”

  “Because people like Patrice don’t change.”

  “Look, Jackson, I understand that you’re upset and I know you want Patrice to know something that will help. But she may be as confused and lost as we are. And if she’s not, then we have to be extra careful. Trust me. Let me handle this.”

  Trust me. She had no idea how much she was asking. Only two people in the entire world had his trust, and even they had never asked something so hard. Or maybe she did know. The confession she’d offered over dinner hadn’t been easy for her, but in spite of her fears, Lucy’s instincts had kicked in the instant Hank’s call came in.

  She had no reason to worry about her career. But would she devote as much energy to anything else in her life?

  “You’ll only make things worse if you barge in there like some lunatic,” she said again.

  Jackson’s need to be in control went to war with his feelings for Lucy, and he finally managed a nod. Maybe she’d never devote one-hundred percent to their relationship, but he would never doubt her dedication to the case. “I’ll do my best.”

  “I can’t ask for more than that.”

  Lucy reached the front door first and rang the bell. Patrice answered almost immediately, and Jackson wasn’t sure he’d have recognized her if he saw her on the street. Her hair, once nearly as dark as Lucy’s, was now an unreal shade of blond, and she’d put on at least fifty pounds. Her hand trembled as she reached to hold the door, and it seemed to take forever for her to focus on them.

  When she finally did, her eyes flew wide and the old hardness flooded back into her face. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to look for Angel,” he told her.

  “But how…? How did you find us?”

  “Your neighbor called me when he couldn’t find you.”

  She shot a look toward the house next door. “Hank? How in the hell did he know who you were?”

  “Apparentl
y, Angel told him.”

  “But how did she…?” Patrice sagged against the doorway and her eyes sought answers from Lucy. “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t know the whole story, either, Ms. Beckett. We just want to make sure Angel is all right.” Lucy introduced herself and showed her badge, then said, “Do you mind if we come inside for a few minutes?”

  Patrice shook her head and moved away from the door to let them enter. “I’m sorry. I just heard about Angel a few minutes ago. I’m still in shock.”

  “You’ve been gone for two weeks,” Jackson reminded her. “Maybe you’d have heard sooner if you’d come home or called.”

  “I did call. Angel was supposed to be staying with a friend. Until about half an hour ago, I thought that’s where she was.”

  “Which friend is that?” Lucy asked with a warning glance in Jackson’s direction.

  “A girl she met at school. LaNiqua or something. Angel was supposed to be there.”

  Lucy kept her voice low and soothing, which was a whole lot more than Jackson could have done. “You don’t know the people she was to be staying with?”

  “No. I’m sure he thinks that makes me a horrible mother.”

  She got that one right. Jackson trailed the two women into the living room, amazed that Lucy still didn’t show a flicker of judgment. “Where have you been all this time?”

  “Working.” Patrice moved a pair of jeans and shoes that had been abandoned in the middle of the floor. “I got a new job that pays great. It’s finally going to get us out of this rat hole and into something nice, but I have to travel two weeks out of every month.”

  “And Angel knew where to find you?”

  “Of course. What do you think? I’d take off and leave without telling my kid where I am?” She caught the look on Jackson’s face and laughed harshly. “Oh, that’s rich. That’s exactly what you thought, isn’t it?”

  For the first time since he’d known her, Jackson had to admit she was right and he was wrong. “Hank didn’t know where you were,” he said in his own defense. “Angel never told him you had a new job.”