Unbreakable Hearts

by Harper Bentley

  She’d hoped that Quinn was going to be home to celebrate the holiday with her, but she was landing in Buffalo probably that very minute and would be renting a car to drive to her parents’ house in Amherst. They were both retired physicians who’d had Quinn in their later years, and seeing as she was their only child, she usually spent the holidays with them unless they’d booked a cruise. Those times, she stayed in the city or went to Cold Spring with Tilly.

  As she was packing lenses into her bag, Tilly heard the “Whoop! Whoop!” of a police siren outside, and when someone started banging on her door and yelling, “Police! Open up!” she just about had a heart attack. She was going to kill her brother.

  Jerking her door open, she yelled, “Are you crazy?”

  With a big grin, Jeff leaned down, wrapping his arms around his big sister and picking her up, swung her around like she weighed nothing.

  “Put me down!” Tilly said through her giggles. Once down, she smacked him on the arm. “What the hell, Jeff? I’m sure half the neighborhood now thinks I’m a drug dealer or something. Awesome.”

  “Well, it might make your business pick up since they’ll wanna come in and check things out. I can even pull out the cuffs,” he said with a snort.

  She smacked him again as she laughed. “I don’t need help with my business, thank you very much. I’m doing just fine. Speaking of, I’m shooting the parade!”

  “You always shoot the parade.”

  “Well, this year, I’ve been hired to shoot it! Think I’m about to break into the big time!”

  “That’s awesome! I’m so proud of you.” He plopped down on her sofa. “Got anything to eat?”

  She rolled her eyes. It always went to food with Jeff. “Got some leftover Pylos in the fridge.”

  “Lamb?”

  “Yep.”

  He got up and made his way into her kitchen while she followed. “How come you’re not having dinner with Jennifer?”

  He opened the refrigerator, bending down to scope out all she had inside. “She went upstate to be with her family over the holiday. I’m scheduled to work all week, so I told her she might as well spend time with them.” He grabbed a beer first then took out the Pylos box in Tilly’s fridge, opened it, got a silly grin on his face that made her chuckle, then turned and put it in the microwave.

  “How’s she doing with her classes?”

  “Fine. She loves her first graders and they love her right back. But what’s not to love?” He grinned again as he leaned his hip against her counter, taking a drink of his beer.

  Tilly smiled, resting her butt against the counter across from her brother. She really did love Jennifer like a sister. “That’s true. I’m glad she’s doing well.”

  “So, what else is new with you?”

  “Doug and I are ‘officially’ broken up.” She did air quotes there.

  “Thank God. I couldn’t stand that prick.”

  “What? You never told me that!”

  “Would it have done any good? I mean, c’mon, Till, you’ve never listened to anything I’ve had to tell you because to you I’m still just your baby brother.”

  When she started to protest, he made a face at her and she realized it was true. She did still think of him as being the twelve-year-old brat who’d tried using her bras as slingshots. Dang, when had he become so grown up?

  He continued. “Besides, my first year on the force, he called me trying to get me to get him out of a ticket. Who does that? I’d only met him once and the dumbass had the nerve to call me.”

  “That is pretty crappy.” God, she wished she’d seen Doug for what he really was sooner. Like two years ago sooner. Jeez.

  The microwave beeped and Jeff got out the box, pulling a drawer open to nab a fork then went to sit at the dining table. “Anything else new?” he asked before shoving a huge bite of roasted potatoes into his mouth then moaning at how good it was. “Goddamn, this shit’s good.”

  “Mom would wash your mouth out if she heard you now,” Tilly scolded, pulling out a chair to sit with him.

  “Jen probably would too. What is it with you women and your no-cussing rule?”

  “Quinn doesn’t have a no-cussing rule.”

  “Quinn isn’t normal. Quinn’s badass. I’ll never forget the way she chewed that guy out at the club on my twenty-second birthday. I thought he was going to cry.”

  Tilly laughed. “Well, first of all, he shouldn’t have been so drunk that he fell into our table. Second of all, landing in Quinn’s lap and spilling her drink all over her suede jacket didn’t help and third, maybe he shouldn’t have told her she had ‘beautiful tits,’ proceeding to pinch her nipple after.”

  They both laughed at that.

  “That was epic,” Jeff said with a snort.

  “I agree.” She snorted too remembering the incident. “So what’s new with you?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking I’m gonna go the detective route.” He took a bite of lamb closing his eyes and moaning again.

  Please don’t say Vice. Please don’t say Vice. Please don’t say Vice.

  “Homicide, I think. Sounds like it’d be interesting, right?”

  Thank God. “Yes! Sounds like it’d be very interesting!” Tilly answered a little too excitedly making him look at her funny. She just wanted him off the street. Well, off patrolling the streets, which is where their father and uncle had been killed. She really hoped Jeff would follow through with his plan.

  “So I’m off tomorrow night at seven. Wanna do dinner?”

  “Sure. But does ‘Wanna do dinner’ translate into, ‘You cook the turkey and everything else all by yourself and I’ll come over and eat it’?”

  “Pretty much,” he said with a smirk.

  “Butt-face-booby-headed freak,” Tilly replied, repeating the cut down that Jeff had called her when she’d caught him making trebuchets out of her bras.

  He’d just taken a drink from his beer bottle and spewed some out, having to grab a napkin quickly to keep it from getting on his uniform. “Damn, Till. Warn a guy first,” he said laughing.

  She grinned. “You deserved that since I’m gonna be cooking everything, ass.”

  “Thanks, jerk.”

  She rolled her eyes. Ah. The joys of sisterhood. As Jeff continued eating the leftovers, she did a mental inventory of all she’d need to pick up at the market that night to prepare for their feast, excited that she was going to have company after all.

  Chapter 6

  Doug sat in the kitchen reading magazines as his mother prepared dinner. He’d moved in with her a couple weeks after she and his father had divorced two years before. She’d told Doug that she was lonely and needed male company, and, hey, if it meant free rent and free meals for him, what the heck.

  “You be home by one tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner,” she reminded him.

  “I will. You need me to help with anything?” He knew she’d say no but they went through this routine every year.

  “Nope! Just bring your hungry self.”

  “I sold the photos I took of the bank president this week,” he informed her as he flipped a page.

  “Yeah?” his mother asked from where she stood at the counter chopping garlic for her homemade spaghetti sauce.

  “Yep. The Times and the Post both bought proofs.”

  “That’s great, Doug. How much did they pay?”

  “Ma.”

  “Just wondering.” She shot him a pouty look.

  “I got paid pretty well. We’ll just leave it at that.” He wasn’t about to tell her anything. He’d learned his lesson over the years. Roberta Donati could’ve turned gossiping into an Olympic sport, and he just didn’t feel like giving her the gold today.

  “Hm.” She cut her eyes at him then let out a loud sigh as she now cut up a bell pepper, like he’d ruined her day by not coughing up the info.

  Doug rolled his eyes.

  But then she bounced right back as she always did when it came to talking about people. “Oh! You kn
ow Mrs. Regazzo? Well, her granddaughter got pregnant by some boy who has piercings all over his body! She said he has a hoop in his eyebrow, his lip and his nose. And he also has some kind of ball thing going right through his tongue! To top it all off?” She looked at her son all wide-eyed making sure she had his attention. “Both his nipples are pierced!” She whispered this bit of info, her eyes practically bugging out of her head.

  Doug wanted to answer her all, “No!” as if he were shocked at what she’d told him. He shook his head and had to bite his lips to keep from laughing at his mother’s scandalous report.

  “When Francesca finally met him, her granddaughter obviously knew he wasn’t good since she’d put off introducing them for so long, well, she told me she swore he looked like a living voodoo doll, things just sticking out of him all over the place!” She looked at Doug and nodded, eyebrow raised. “And to top that all off, he’s covered in,” she paused dramatically, “satanic tattoos. She said he has flames up the sides of his neck and skulls on his forearms. And her granddaughter told her he has a giant crucifix on his back, but Francesca said she thought it was upside down. She told Father Santoro.”

  “Ma.”

  “What? Just telling the truth. I’ll bet he also has something else pierced.” She nodded at him again as if she knew what she was talking about. She was stirring the sauce ingredients in a pan on the stovetop now. “Oh! Mrs. Ingram’s son was sent off to rehab last week.”

  Good God. No wonder his dad had left. The woman never shut up. He let his mother ramble on and on as he read through his magazine, giving her a “Hm,” or a “Really?” every so often to keep her appeased.

  “So, how’re you and Tilly doing?”

  That question got his attention. He looked up from his reading. “We’re fine, Ma. Uh, I think I’m gonna pop the question soon.” Oh, shit. Where’d that come from?

  His mother turned to look at him in shock then a grin slowly formed on her face. “Oh, Doug! That’s great! I’m so happy for you!”

  He grinned back at her. Well, it was out there now. Might as well go for it. “Think I’m gonna look at rings tomorrow. Pawn shops should be open. Then I’ll ask her at Christmas.”

  His mother frowned. “A pawn shop? Doug.” She shook her head in disapproval. “And you know they say that’s cheap when men do that. It’s like they think they can get away with not buying the girl a Christmas gift if they give her the ring. But they’d give her the ring anyway at any other time when they were proposing, so you need to make sure to get her a gift as well.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  He took a deep breath and counted to ten in his head. God, she’d been nagging him for years about when he was going to get married, and he thought what he’d told her would be enough to make her happy, but, no, she just found something else to gripe about.

  “I’ll take that into consideration, Ma.”

  “I like Tilly. She’s such a beautiful girl. You two always seem so happy when you’re together.” She smiled excitedly at him. “I think you should get married in June. A June bride is always the prettiest, don’t you think? I’ll have to see if the church is available! I’ll call Patty, the church secretary, to see what openings they’ve got. Then I’ll have to call Carol at the florists to see if they can get the flowers together.”

  And she was off and running.

  He continued reading, barely hearing his mother as she now rambled on about wedding details.

  “What do you think? Huh? Doug? Doug!”

  He looked up to see his mother staring at him from where she still stood at the stove holding a handful of spaghetti noodles.

  “I asked what size jacket you wear?” She dropped the noodles into the pot of boiling water.

  “Why?”

  “So I can order your tux!”

  “Ma, I’m sure Tilly will take care of all that. You don’t have to bother.”

  “But we need to get a head start on everything! Lord knows she’ll be busy finding a dress! I don’t want her to have to worry about things that I can help with!”

  “Ma. I haven’t even asked her yet. She might not even say yes.”

  “What? Of course she’ll say yes! You’re the most handsome man there is! How could she turn you down? Now, I’ll have to call Aunt Sadie and see if she still has her wedding dress. Maybe Tilly would be interested in borrowing it? I think they’re about the same size. Well, when Sadie was younger, that is. She’s put on a good seventy pounds since she walked the aisle.”

  Great. He’d really opened a can of worms now. But who knew? Maybe his mom would give Tilly a call and set her straight once and for all.

  ***

  As luck would have it, the next day Oz found his mark in the restroom of a dollar store.

  He’d followed Rico inside the store after watching him make some kind of drug deal on the street, pocketing whatever he’d bought. He’d next gone in the store, charming the girl at the register to let him use their employees-only restroom. Oz had followed him inside then waited about five minutes before moving toward the back to the restroom.

  He tried the doorknob, but finding it locked, knocked on the door.

  “Occupied. Fuck off,” Rico replied from inside.

  Oz waited a couple more minutes then knocked again.

  “I said, fuck off, asshole.”

  And now he’d had enough. Lowering his shoulder, Oz hit the door busting it open to find Rico, jacket sleeve pushed up, with a damned syringe stuck in his arm.

  “What the fuck?” the guy yelled, pushing the plunger all the way down, injecting whatever the hell was in it into his system, then yanking the needle out of his arm and coming at Oz with it.

  Fuck. Oz didn’t know he’d need rubber gloves with this one or perhaps full body armor. Somehow avoiding the needle, he grabbed Rico’s wrist, squeezing it, making him drop the syringe then turned him and slammed him face-first against the wall. Cranking Rico’s arm behind him and pressing his own forearm against the guy’s upper shoulders, Oz hissed in his ear, “Gotcha, motherfucker.”

  Face to the wall, Rico practically giggled, the laugh one of someone who now had a potent narcotic coursing through his veins, his movements becoming sluggish with every passing minute. Jesus.

  Oz snatched the cuffs out of his back pocket securing one link around the wrist he held behind Rico’s back then pulled back the other wrist, looping the other cuff around it. Rico chortled the entire time, giggling like this was all a big joke, which was not a little creepy. At least the guy wasn’t high on something crazy that made him fight tooth and nail or had him wanting to eat Oz’s face off. Oz undid the belt the guy had around his arm as a makeshift tourniquet, looping it over the cuffs. Then he bent and picked up the syringe, throwing it in the trashcan.

  “You got any other needles on you, Hernandez?” he asked as he patted the guy down. Hell, he didn’t want to stick his fucking hand in a pocket and get pricked, so he just left well enough alone. He’d leave it to the cops when he made the drop off.

  As he walked him out of the bathroom, Oz swore under his breath seeing how, sans belt, the guy’s jeans sagged even more than they had to begin with.

  “Christ,” he muttered, grabbing the back belt loop to hold the idiot’s pants up as he walked him back through the store.

  Surprisingly, he got no trouble from anyone in the store or on the street as he walked the perp to his truck. Oz guessed that maybe it was that he was in a different neighborhood and Rico wasn’t one of their own or maybe it was they’d made their money off him and didn’t give a shit one way or the other now what happened to him.

  He had to chuckle when he helped Rico up into his truck and Rico turned to look at him and said with a smile, “Thanks, man.”

  “Any time, dude,” Oz replied, closing the door then going around to get in and head back to NYC.

  “Where we headed, bro?” Rico asked as they jumped on the turnpike.

  “Back to New York. Gotta pay for what you did, Rico.”


  Rico sighed. “Yeah, I know.” Then he passed out, his head against the back of the seat, mouth hanging wide open.

  Every now and then Oz reached a hand over in front of the guy’s mouth to check to make sure he was breathing, that he hadn’t OD’d on him, and when he’d feel a shaky breath against his palm each time, he knew his skip was still alive and kicking, thank God. Just what he’d need was for some damned rapist junkie to up and die on him in his truck.

  He pulled his cell phone out and dialed Hank. “Got him. Heading back now. ETA two hours.”

  “Good job, son. He give you any problem?”

  “Other than what I told you about the other night, no.”

  “He at his girl’s place of employment?”

  Oz thought about Chloe and the gig she performed nightly and shuddered. “No, grabbed him at a dollar store.”

  “Nice. You find him on the fifty-cent rack?” Hank chuckled.

  “Ha. Ha. No. Fucker was shooting up in the bathroom. I haven’t frisked him, afraid of getting stuck, so you might issue a 10-50 and let them know he might have drugs on his person.”

  “Got it. I’ll call Joe and ask him to let the Staties know.”

  “Thanks.” They talked a bit longer before hanging up. He checked on Rico again who hadn’t moved a muscle but was still amongst the living, then he called Chris Quaid who also worked at CEP.

  “Yo,” Quaid answered.

  “We still on for tomorrow?” Oz asked.

  “Yep. Boone’s mom’s got everything planned out. She’s an amazing cook too. All you gotta do is bring the beer and we’re good.”

  This would be the first year Oz wouldn’t be having Thanksgiving dinner at home. His father had informed him a few weeks before that he didn’t feel like celebrating, so he’d told his son to find somewhere else to go. Oz knew the guys usually did something together, so he’d planned to hang with them. He’d check on his dad later that evening.