Without Restraint

by Angela Knight

  A female reporter strode toward them, moving with surprising speed on her high heels. A man with a camera balanced on his shoulder hurried in her wake. “Deputies, what do you think—”

  “No comment,” Frank snapped, shooting both of them a Dom glare that sent them quickly into retreat.

  “Nice work,” Alex murmured when they were out of earshot.

  “I hate the fucking press,” Frank muttered back.

  She shrugged. “Like you said—vultures.”

  “Hey, vultures need love, too.” A woman stepped out from around one of the funeral home’s white columns to intercept them, a wicked little smile on her face. She was just over five feet, delicately boned in a way that had always made Alex feel like a horse by comparison. Short blond hair exposed her ears, and her bangs were long enough to hang in front of her guileless blue eyes. For once, she wore a dress and heels, both navy blue, instead of the jeans and tee that were her habitual reporting wear. “And we perform a useful service. Otherwise the bodies would pile up. Hey, Alex.”

  Alex gave the blonde a sincere smile. Despite her dubious career choices, Cassie York had been a friend for years now. “Hi, Cassie. Circling again?”

  “Flap, flap.” The humor drained from her lively face. “I’m sorry about Ted. He was a good guy.”

  “Yeah. I really appreciate the story you did on him.” The piece on the Morganville Courier website was the sole bright spot in the coverage. Cassie had not only interviewed the sheriff and Ted’s mother, but also tracked down Terry Peterson and her children, Darius and Katilia. The three had talked about their memories of the night Ted saved them eight years before. Terry’s heartfelt defense of the man who’d rescued her kids had made Alex’s eyes sting.

  “Thanks.” Cassie’s eyes flashed. “I hate seeing a good man get shredded by morons who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

  Frank eyed her dubiously. “And you do?”

  “Yup.” Cassie looked up. And up some more, until she could finally meet his eyes. “Boy, the sheriff likes ’em big.”

  Frank opened the funeral home door for Alex before turning to Cassie. “You going in?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Cassie strolled past him, Alex in her wake.

  Alex winced, remembering her manners. “My mother would smack me. Cassie, this is Frank Murphy, who’s the new deputy. Frank, this is Cassie York. She’s a reporter for the Morganville Courier, but don’t hold it against her. She’s an actual person and everything.”

  “Just ignore the feathers.”

  “So are you trolling for quotes, or what?” Frank asked suspiciously as they walked up the funeral home’s carpeted foyer.

  Her expression cooled. “Actually, I’m here to pay my respects. Ted was a friend.”

  Inside, the building was cool, its walls painted a pale sea foam green, with thick brown carpet underfoot in the foyer that led to the main hall. Rooms lay off to either side with small signs standing in front of each listing the names of the deceased on view there.

  A line snaked along the corridor that led toward the room where Ted’s family and casket waited. Most of those in line were uniformed deputies. There were civilians, too, some with the logos of local businesses embroidered on their shirts; they’d apparently stopped by on the way home from work. That was the whole point of a visitation, after all—to give people who couldn’t attend the funeral an opportunity to pay their respects.

  “At least there’s a line,” Alex murmured. “I was afraid nobody would show.”

  “Yeah, WJIT didn’t do Ted any favors, the assholes,” Cassie growled. “You know, I have my faults, but at least I don’t use a cop killer as one of my sources.”

  Bruce Greer turned toward them from his space farther up the line, then walked back to join them. “Hey, Alex, Frank.” His eyes flicked to Cassie and went cold. “York.”

  “Hi, Bruce. Sorry it couldn’t be under nicer circumstances.”

  “With you, it never is.”

  Cassie blinked, looking a little hurt.

  “So, Cassie,” Alex said softly, meaning to distract her friend from Bruce’s uncharacteristic slap, “what do you think the chances are that County Council will give us a raise?”

  “It’s an election year for three of them,” Cassie murmured back. “You’ve got a better chance playing the lottery.”

  They spent the next few minutes chatting as the line wound through the corridor, only to fall silent when they reached the room where Ted waited.

  He lay in his black dress uniform in a dark walnut open casket draped with a flag. Nearby a shadow box display of his Army medals stood on a small table, along with a portrait of a younger Ted in his Green Beret uniform, looking every inch the stern warrior.

  Alex’s eyes stung fiercely. Cassie give her shoulder a comforting squeeze as she blinked hard, clenching her teeth against yet another wave of the grief and rage that had caught her off-guard so many times over the past week.

  The idea that Ted had been shot from ambush by a coward . . . That the entire fucking country felt entitled to sneer and joke about a hero because of something that was none of their goddamned business . . .

  Even liberals who might have supported a gay cop shot down in a hate crime sneered at him for the YouTube video. Some said it was just another example of a white cop getting off on beating a black man, and mocked Cal for allowing it. Alex had stopped watching TV or reading e-mail altogether over the past week, unable to tolerate another ignorant word from any of them.

  Fuckers. Stupid, ignorant fuckers.

  She shut the rage down hard, afraid she’d start screaming curses, particularly at the so-called friends who not only had avoided the visitation, but had not even sent flowers.

  There were a number of arrangements, but not as many as there should have been. Beside the casket stood a huge circle of roses and lilies on a wire stand from the MCSO. Alex had contributed when they’d taken up money for it, though she’d also sent a peace lily personally.

  As the receiving line snaked around the room past more floral displays, Alex read the cards protruding from each arrangement. Cap and his wife had sent an enormous philodendron so Ted’s mother would have something more permanent than flowers. The couple hadn’t been able to attend the visitation, though Cap had texted to say they were going to the funeral tomorrow. There were arrangements from other members of the Atlanta BDSM group, including Roy and Tara, the pair Frank had done the whipping demo with, plus a number of others. At least they—

  Suddenly a large, warm hand closed around hers, and she started, jolted out of her daze of pain.

  Frank watched her with concern in his gray eyes. “Are you all right?”

  Swallowing hard against the knot in her throat, she shrugged. He squeezed her hand, his grip comforting, a silent message of I’m here. Alex blinked, realizing they’d reached the couch where Cal sat beside Ted’s mother.

  Karen Arlington was a tiny white-haired woman whose face retained a seamed, elegant beauty despite her age. Alex had helped Ted organize her sixty-sixth birthday party a few months before. She’d looked barely older than Alex’s mother then.

  Now she looked as if she’d aged two decades, grief weighing at her face like gravity, deepening fine lines into deep creases. Her reddened eyes were so swollen, it was a wonder the poor woman could see out of them. She sat rigidly in her simple black dress, a strand of pearls gleaming around her neck, a tissue in one hand, the other clasped tightly in Cal’s.

  He wore a black pinstriped suit and a gray tie, his shoulders rigid, his jaw jutting like a proud man grimly determined to get through an agonizing ordeal without shaming himself.

  “Cal,” Alex choked. “Mrs. Arlington . . .” She bent to clasp the older woman’s hand, fighting the tears. One of them escaped anyway, rolling down her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.” Sorry I couldn’t have gotten there in time to save him. Sorry I couldn’t have at least killed the bastard who killed him. Just sorry.

  “Alex.”
The old woman’s thin shoulders shook once before she straightened them. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “He was a hero. He didn’t deserve this.” She had to swallow around the knot in her throat. “None of this.”

  Mrs. Arlington nodded, her effort not to sob so obvious it was painful. Cassie stepped in to speak softly to her as Alex turned toward Cal. Her friend was on his feet, shaking Frank’s hand as the big deputy murmured something low-voiced and comforting.

  “Cal . . .” Alex said. He turned to her and extended a hand, as if to shake hers. “Oh, hell with that.” She pulled him into her arms, hugging him hard. “Don’t listen to any of those bastards,” she whispered to him fiercely. “It’s all bullshit. Every bit of it. Ted would be the first to tell them to fuck off.”

  It took him a moment, but he hugged her back. She thought she heard a sob, ruthlessly bitten off. “This sucks, Alex. It sucks so bad.”

  “I know, baby. I know. But I’m here for you, no matter what.”

  He chuckled, though it sounded watery. “I know you are, PoPo. People like you are all that’s getting me through this nightmare.”

  She hugged her friend a little longer, exchanging murmurs about Ted, about the unfairness of it all, aware of Frank’s low, deep voice speaking to Ted’s mother.

  Finally, unable to put it off any longer, she pulled away from Cal and turned toward the casket.

  Ted lay in his dress uniform, resplendent in the black jacket with its high collar and row of silver buttons. They’d produced another badge for him, polished lovingly until it shone against the dark fabric. Next to it lay the rows of ribbons he’d received, along with the Medal of Bravery for saving Terry Peterson and her children from the burning trailer.

  Mortuary makeup hid the wound in his forehead. His features looked sharper, more drawn than she’d ever seen them, and his mouth appeared abnormally thin, as those of funeral home corpses always did.

  In a hard dark flash, she saw him lying on his back in the road with a bullet in his head. Pain stormed through her in a molten lava rush.

  Alex had thought she’d known anger before, whether as a teenager pissed at her parents, or a cop outraged at an abuser. None of it could touch this murderous fury.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the need to scream her rage. Remembering all the times Ted had waded into fights to keep her from getting her ass kicked by someone bigger, stronger, more vicious. He had never been a big man, yet he’d loomed large in her life, casting a shadow almost as long as the Coach’s.

  He’d taught her how to fight so patiently, with flashes of sarcasm that made her want to both swat him and earn his approval. Every time she mastered a throw, a grapple, a takedown, he had flashed that rare, proud grin of his that made her glow for days.

  He’d loved her. Oh, they had never said the “L” word—their relationship had been almost masculine that way.

  God, this hurts. Cal’s right, this hurts so fucking bad.

  And she had no business showing her pain.

  Suddenly Alex remembered a fragment from one of the homicide books she’d read so obsessively when she decided to become a cop. The writer had said serial murderers often came to funerals to drink in the suffering of their victim’s family and friends. It wasn’t just the killing they craved. It was the power that came from watching people grieve for those they’d murdered.

  Every corpse was surrounded by a web of suffering victims. Killers loved that.

  Alex gritted her teeth, fighting to get herself under control. Fighting to hide her pain in case his killer watched.

  Suddenly a big hand appeared below her chin holding a Kleenex. Frank. She accepted it, swiped at her eyes and running nose. “Thank you.”

  Cassie rubbed a hand down her back. “Tracy’s a good cop—though if you tell him I said so, I’ll call you a liar.” A trace of humor entered her voice. “He’ll chase the sniper until the bastard gives up just to get rid of him.”

  “Yeah.” He’ll chase the sniper. Not Alex. Tracy was the detective, the one whose job it was to nail the cop killer. Unless the murderer took another shot at Alex herself, she wouldn’t get a chance to bring him down.

  A television cop would swear revenge and start looking for clues, nailing him in an hour with frequent breaks to sell expensive cars. Real life didn’t work that way.

  It was Tracy’s case. He was the one with access to the evidence. If she tried to get her hands on any of it, the officers in the evidence room wouldn’t let her have it. It didn’t matter if she’d been the female embodiment of Sherlock Holmes. They had to protect the chain of custody. Otherwise some defense attorney could use her sleuthing as evidence of a police conspiracy to frame his client. That kind of thing could get a case thrown out of court and let Ted’s killer walk free to kill somebody else.

  But God, she wanted to do something.

  Actually, what she really wanted to do was press the barrel of her gun against the killer’s head and blow his brains out. Fuck the law. Fuck the system. What she wanted was the bloody justice of the heart.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Bruce asked suddenly, shouldering past Cassie, who stepped back reluctantly.

  “I’m fine,” Alex lied, swiping at her eyes. Resisting the temptation to snap, “Does it look like I’m okay?”

  He gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Cassie’s right. Tracy’s a good cop. He’ll do what it takes.”

  “Yeah,” she said. But it wasn’t enough.

  * * *

  That night’s shift was one of those thoroughly boring ones that demanded an IV drip of Red Bull and black coffee. Since it was her turn to ride with Henson, Alex actually counted herself lucky on that score. Frank had told her about some of the shit the sergeant had said to him during their ride together the night before. Given how frayed her temper was from grief and outrage, she’d feared one sexist, homophobic comment from the jackass would have set her off like a human IED.

  Fortunately Henson had just enough sense to fear she’d report him if he said anything out of line. He didn’t poke at her, and in return, she didn’t shoot him.

  Nobody took a shot at her either, though her shoulder blades itched every time she got out of her patrol car. Apparently the sniper had taken the night off. Maybe he’d decided to go looking for easier targets in some other town.

  Maybe. But she doubted it.

  * * *

  For once, Alex and Frank didn’t make love when they got home from work. Like most Doms, he had a keen ability to sense his submissive’s moods. She was grateful for his perception; the visitation had brought the pain of Ted’s loss back to the surface like an oil spill boiling up in the ocean. Her soul felt scraped raw, and her eyes burned with the tears she’d fought all night to suppress.

  She realized suddenly she’d been keeping so furiously busy concentrating on Frank, the job, and her parents in order to avoid the aching pain of losing Ted. And the guilt of being unable to do anything about it.

  Oh, she could have. There’d been a perfect opportunity when the killer had tried for them at Frank’s house, and she’d missed it.

  Epic fail.

  Eyes burning, Alex curled on her side in the bed. Silent, respecting her need to grieve, Frank wrapped himself around her, his big, naked body feeling warm and comforting against her bare back. SIG, as if sensing her pain—or maybe just wanting to be petted—curled up next to her belly. She stroked the cat, taking comfort in his soft fur and motorboat purr as Frank stroked her in turn. Back. Shoulder. Arm, carefully avoiding her bare breast, obviously realizing pain had blunted her usually healthy sex drive.

  “Let it go,” Frank murmured in his ear. “You don’t have to act with me, Alex. Let it go.”

  And she, who normally found crying so difficult, choked out a sob as the tears started running down her face, unstoppable as rain.

  * * *

  Alex and Frank got only a few hours’ sleep before they had to get ready for the funeral, which would be held that aftern
oon. Luckily, this was their weekend off, so they’d be able to make up for lost sleep later.

  While Frank showered and dressed, Alex made sure her badge and every silver button on her dress uniform gleamed, working over each with a soft cloth and a can of silver polish. Inhaling the astringent reek of the polish, she’d found something oddly soothing in the mindless repetition of rubbing slow circles over the metal.

  Alex pointedly did not let herself think about the badge the killer had taken. That would only trigger another fit of useless rage and guilt. She’d indulged in enough of that as it was.

  She’d never cared for the MCSO dress uniform. Its high collar felt as if it was slowly strangling her, and its wide, gleaming belt made the skinniest female look broad across the ass. Worst of all was the black campaign hat that always reminded Alex of Smokey the Bear. The hat was traditional wear for county deputies, but Sheriff Ranger rarely required them to actually wear it.

  “Only you can prevent sexual contact,” she intoned to her reflection, then added in her normal voice, “Because it’s for damned sure I’m not getting laid in this getup.”

  When Alex emerged from the bedroom, she found Frank waiting. “Oh, that’s just not fair.”

  The same uniform that made her look dumpy enhanced his drop-dead sexiness. The boxy tailoring emphasized his height and the breadth of his shoulders, as did the strap that cut diagonally across his broad chest. Silver buttons engraved with sheriff stars marched down the front of the jacket, and a blue stripe piped the outside of each pant leg.

  “Somebody needs to take a picture and put you on a recruiting poster,” Alex told him.

  “Thank you.” He gave her one of those hot, hooded looks he did so well. “You, on the other hand, make me want to unbutton all those buttons and . . . muss you. Thoroughly.”

  She grinned, cheered that he thought she looked sexy.

  Hat notwithstanding.

  * * *

  They arrived at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church to find its parking lot packed, in contrast to the visitation the night before. No surprise; the sheriff had sent out an e-mail Thursday saying he expected everyone who was not on duty to attend the funeral.