All Jake really knew is that Sara left behind her a broken man that had taken a long time to heal. And for Dale to have thought he saw her…
"I glanced in Buxby's when I was going to meet with Jean and I thought I saw her standing in line waiting to order her coffee." Dale's voice was muted as he kept his head down, eyes on the loop-to-loop design he made on the pad. "Saw her again in Skeet's on my way to the club this morning. Thought the sighting at Buxby's was a trick of my imagination, but knew it wasn't when I saw her in the forecourt. She was laughing with Ernie and standing next to her mom's old Toyota."
"Fuck." was all that Jake could say as he watched his best friend, the one person that he knew so well and who knew almost everything about him confess to seeing the girl that had broken him and not just his heart. Sara and Dale had been so entwined with one another that her leaving had left Dale with only half of himself: his personality, his hope, his soul.
"Anything I can do?" Jake asked softly but knew against knowing, especially now that his heart was so caught up with Caitlin, that there was absolutely nothing he could do, offer or say that would help his friend. And that portion of his heart that held Dale hurt at the knowledge that he was powerless to help this man that was part of his heart's family.
"Nope," came the expected reply.
"Here if you need me, man," Jake rumbled as he rose and stepped away from the desk. If he were Dale, he knew that he would want to be alone.
So he left his friend to it.
*.*.*.*.*
Ram wearily climbed the step to the second level of the building that housed the police station. At this time of night, there were little to no officers in the bullpen as they were either out on patrol or home in bed sleeping. Or like Lester on the front desk, feet up to the counter counting the holes in his eyelids as his throaty snore gave his game away. Ram swatted at Lester's size elevens causing the older Desk Sergeant to jump about two feet off his chair before recognizing his boss and offering some inarticulate, mumbled apology.
Ram planned on checking just a couple of things on his desk before going home to get his own sleep and he yawned just thinking about his own bed. Christ, but it had been a long day.
Seemed like every day was a long day on this job. But, he was working hard, going down in the trenches, to show the good folks of Grantham that he was a good Chief, a better chief than ol' Walt Saltzman who had gotten caught with his hands in many cookie jars that he shouldn't have been touching. But he didn't go down alone. Two detectives and Judge Everett were also indicted but no one knew if one of them had copped a plea to expose the other three or if there was that much evidence against them all.
But Ram had only been working the job for three months and was on the job, at least, fourteen hours a day between working the cases and keeping on top of the paperwork. But with the murders the fourteen hours a day had been expanded to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week,
He turned on the overhead fluorescents in his office and shuffled through the phone messages that had accumulated throughout the day. He saw a couple of print outs but nothing of importance, nothing to keep him from his bed.
Until he saw the missing person's report.
Renee Jamison, Layton Jamison's daughter, had been reported missing since Wednesday. Ram scanned through the details and decided to hand it off to one of the detectives in the morning. Then remembered the voicemail that he had gotten earlier from Jamison but he hadn't listened or responded to assuming it had to do with the drunken spectacle he had made of himself at the club.
"Aw crap," Ram mumbled as he turned out the lights in his office and headed back to his car. "When it fuckin' rains, it pours
Chapter Thirteen
"Hey, pretty girl," I heard Jake start on my voicemail. "Gotta stick around the club tonight. Dale's having…uh, Dale's got something going on and I think I need to stick around tonight. Know you got the valet thing this evenin', so I'll think of you but catch up tomorrow. Be good, Darlin', yeah?"
I was already dressed in the pre-requisite uniform of the valets for The Roses, our town's most prestigious restaurant, in black jeans, black polo shirt and black jacket with a huge red rose apply on the back. Of all my jobs, parking cars on Friday and Saturday nights was the one job to guarantee me the most bucks in the shortest amount of time. I could, between the two evenings from seven to midnight, make between $75 - $100 bucks in hourly wages and tips. There was no way I was giving up a shift at The Roses as it was such easy money for the short amount of time I had to work. Money that I counted on; money I desperately needed.
I wished I could say that it was just another typical Friday night when I returned home. I cuddled Floyd and fed him his treats, puttered around doing small cleaning as I waited for my body to signal its tiredness. But I missed Jake. After only four nights together, I missed his presence, his heat next to me as I tried to find sleep in the yet unfamiliar full-sized bed. I tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, the right temperature of cool or heat, but sleep still wouldn't come. It wasn't until I dragged the other pillow and held it close to my stomach that I was finally able to discover a comfortable position and drift off. My last thoughts were, 'This is bad. This is very, very bad.'
I awoke the next morning to a gentle but steady knocking at my door. Glancing at the tangled sheets and waking to the loud, angry mewl of Floyd as I displaced him when I moved to get up, I realized that my sleep hadn't been as restful as I had hoped.
I grabbed my threadbare robe and made my way to the door. Peering through the cloudy lens of my apartment's tiny peephole, I spied Jake on the other side of the door.
"Hey, gorgeous," he said as I let him into the apartment. "Brought coffee and doughnuts to start the day."
I watched as he took the two steps needed to drop his purchases on the bar before moving back to me for a hug.
"You gonna close the door, Darlin'?"
My body was running about ten steps behind my brain as I closed and locked the door before stepping back into Jake's arms. Recognition came slowly, but my heart told me that I was really there when I tucked my head underneath his chin as my arms wove around his waist. Safety, at last. "Mmm…" my throat expressed the all over satisfaction I had being at encased against his body and smelling his fresh clean scent.
Our breakfast consisted of sweet kisses, feeding each other the gooey bakery food and sipping on our individual cups of coffee as I slowly woke up.
"Missed you last night, Darlin'," Jake said in one of the breaks between kisses and bites. "Had a helluva time findin' sleep without you there."
"Me, too, baby," I admitted still not quite fully awake as I snagged another portion of the chocolate glazed donut.
"What's on for today, then?" Jake asked. I was grateful that he had turned the conversation from the mushy stuff to more important things like my schedule. I moved to the far wall of the kitchen that had a calendar showing the covered bridges of Cape Cod. "Uhm, looks like I'm clear until The Roses at seven," I answered.
"How about a motorcycle ride with a picnic?" Jake suggested.
"It's kind of the middle of winter, Jake. Won't it be cold?"
"Dress warm and instead of a picnic, we'll hit the best place for wings this side of the Missouri River," Jake countered with a lift of his eyebrows.
"Give me a few minutes and I can be ready." I didn't need to do much since I'd taken a shower last night when I got home from my stint at The Roses. Ronny, one of the other valets, was a chain smoker and even though we were outside, the smell of his cigarettes always seemed to settle in my hair.
"Take your time. I'll just hang out here with Fred."
"It's Floyd, Jake. My cat's name is Floyd," I called over my shoulder as I moved to my closet to try and pick out clothes for the day.
"Oh yeah. Floyd," Jake said. I saw Floyd scramble away from where I'd seen Jake standing so I knew he had tried to pet him. My damn cat was very persnickety about who he allowed to touch him and Jake had yet to make
the cut.
I was trying to do something with my hair, when Jake came to lean against the bathroom door jam and told me about the night at the club when he fired Fiona and poured a very drunk Jamison in a cab. We both were laughing and holding our sides as he finished his story.
"Received a call the next day, Jamison threatened both me and Dale ranting he was gonna destroy us, run the 'smut peddlers' out of town," Jake finished shaking his head at the memory.
"Can he do that?" I asked adding the last bobby pin to the chignon I'd fashioned in the hopes of preventing helmet head from our planned ride.
"Dunno," Jake said and finished with, "Don't care."
I saw his eyes warm with approval as he did a hair to boots, back to hair eye roam. "You look good, gorgeous. Now let's ride."
*.*.*.*.*
Detectives Tim Bell and Jeff Trusdale were on the road, thankful they could be out and about instead of cooped up like yesterday. They had been able to go through a lot of interviews at the club, but they had come up with a whole lot of nothing.
"Who's next on the list?" Tim asked.
"Uhm, Fiona Preston." Jeff read from the list of the women that were working or had worked at the club but had moved on. There were still more open spaces than those that had been crossed off but they had been able to make good time this morning.
"That the redhead with the long legs?"
"Dunno, wife doesn't approve of the club so I've never been." Jeff didn't seem embarrassed to admit it but Tim wasn't going to be able to let this one go. He didn't have much to tease Jeff about and this one was gold.
"Pussy whipped, much?"
"More like, won't get any pussy if she finds out I'm spending time watching half-naked girls strut their stuff. Ain't worth it."
They pulled into the short driveway of a double-wide trailer that had been tucked in a far corner of the Mobile Home Park, giving it a bit more yard than most of the other spaces.
"Well, seeing as your wife don't approve, I'll take point on this."
"Much obliged, Bell."
The door was finally answered after the third set of knocks by Fiona, who stood in the doorway in a see-through purple nightie wearing only the clothes God had given her underneath. "What?" She snapped. "This fucking better be good to get me out of bed at the crack of dawn."
"I'm Detective Tim Bell and this is Detective Jeff Trusdale, Ms. Preston. Can we talk to you for a minute?"
"Oh, all right," she mumbled ungraciously before moving back and allowing them to come in. She waved a hand towards the long couch that took up a large portion of her front room.
"Ms. Preston, with all due respect, ma'am, would you mind putting on a robe or something?" Jeff was looking everywhere but at Fiona and was hard pressed to keep the grin hidden. He was willing to bet that that was the first time Tim had ever had to ask a beautiful woman to cover herself.
Fiona looked down at herself and raised a hand to drag it across her nearly naked chest in a flirtatious manner, peering up at Tim through her eyelashes. "You sure you want me to cover up, officer?" she asked in a sultry voice.
"It's detective, ma'am, and yes. We would appreciate it."
Fiona gave him one last glance before turning away and stomping down the hall. Tim made it to the couch where Jeff was already sitting. The two detectives shared a glance before Tim warned on a soft voice, "Don't even say it, dude."
"Never even thought it, pal. Still trying to wrap my head 'round 10:20 being the crack of dawn."
They both watched as Fiona came down the hall dressed in jeans so tight they looked painted on and a t-shirt so small that Jeff would swear his seven-year old could fit it. "Is this better, detective?"
"Yes, ma'am," Tim said trying to keep his eyes on her face and not the fact that she was braless and the pearls of her nipples were poking through the material of her tiny top. "As you know, Ms. Preston there have been three girls murdered in town. We've found that all three girls either worked or had worked at Fuego's. The club where you used to work."
"Yeah, so?" Fiona put her hands on her hips causing the tiny top to stretch even further. Though it was the hardest thing he had been required to do in quite some time, Tim kept his eyes firmly on the redhead's face and not her delightful chest.
"Well, we're making a point of warning all the female employees, both former and currently employed to be on the alert. Make sure that you keep your windows and doors locked, don't go out alone at night and make sure, any time you are outside that you are aware of your surroundings."
"You think I may be next?" Fiona asked with a tiny laugh. "I don't think so."
"'Scuse me, ma'am?" Jeff decided to join the conversation.
"I won't be a target. I'm hooked up with some pretty big men in this town and no one is going to hurt me," She said on a confident note. "I'm not like those stupid, little sluts you've found."
"I don't understand," Tim said after glancing and catching Jeff's look of confusion.
"Those girls you found? They're not like me. They were just three sorry, little whores trying raise themselves up from the gutter. I worked with them, you know. I'm nothing like them."
"Nothing like them, ma'am?"
"Right, nothing like them. They were three skanks that happened to dance at the same club I did, but they were less than nothing. They danced." Fiona used one hand to wave towards the trophies displayed in a glass case. "I am a star, a headliner. I'm the one that brought this town's influential men to that seedy club. They came to see me both during and after my shows." Fiona ended her speech with a small, self-satisfied grin.
"Uh, I see--"
"Even after Jake and Dale let me go, my friends wanted to see me. Why do I need to dance in a dirty little club in a back-water town when I have men that are willing to pay to watch me dance somewhere … more private?"
"Ah, okay--"
"How 'bout it? You want a private dance, officer?" Fiona offered with a flirtatious smile her eyes trained on Tim as her chest tested the stretch of the top as she arched her back and offered them a side view of her magnificent body. Tim risked just one sweeping glance before lowering his eyes knowing that he'd be using that image to fuel his fantasies in the coming future.
"Uhm, thanks for the offer Ms. Preston but we need to be going. Please remember to do what we asked and take care to stay alert and aware. You have any trouble or feel threatened in any way, call 911."
Fiona moved to the door and managed to place a hand on Tim's arm as he and Jeff were leaving. "I'll be sure to call," she whispered, her full lips just millimeters away from Tim's mouth. To his credit, Detective Bell didn't stop moving out the door but he used the concealment of his suit jacket to cover the evidence of his arousal.
"Holy shit," Jeff announced when they were back in the car. "Can you believe that?"
"She's a whack-job alright," Tim continued in a falsetto voice, "I'm a star!"
"So the other girls were sluts when they were doing the same thing she was? Trophies? For stripping and dry humping a pole? You gotta be kiddin' me!" Jeff shook his head as he crossed her name off the list.
"Don't forget her delusions of grandeur for giving private dances with the movers and shakers here in our backwater town! Okay, who's next?"
*.*.*.*.*
There is nothing like flying on a motorcycle, twisting and turning through the back roads of our mountains, especially on a day when you can almost feel the promise of spring. While the wind was cold, Jake's body pressed fully against me from crotch to chest, was warm, as were his pockets that I tucked my hands into as I gripped him. I was able to watch the snow covered hills and grove after grove of native trees move by as we wound up and down and through the gentle hills in our corner of the world. Seemed like we had only been on the bike for a couple of hours before Jake pulled into a combination gas station, café and post office.
"Welcome to Smithfield," Jake announced as we peeled our helmets off. I was surprised by the jittering in my legs, echoes of the vibrations of the
motorcycle as I stood.
"It'll go away, pretty girl. Happens when you're not used to riding, yeah?" Jake explained after seeing me shake one jean clad leg then the other to try and get sensations back in my legs and feet.
After stowing our helmets, Jake grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the gas station-slash-café-slash-post office. Once inside, I saw that the gas station cashier and post office occupied the far left portion of what could only be described as a cabin with its rough hewn walls and plywood partitions. We made our way to the right, through the partially filled restaurant and seated ourselves at one of the many tables situated willy-nilly on the rough planked floor.
"Two ice teas and two medium portions of the hab-honey wings," Jake announced to the busy waitress that went gliding by our table, tray held by her side. She turned her head with a smile but didn't stop her trajectory which seemed to be towards the back of the restaurant.
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