by Lulu Pratt
“Oh,” he finished quietly. I mean, what else was there to say? That about summed it up.
Silence filled the cop car so profoundly I could almost hear the snow lightly brushing the windshield. It seemed to last hours, but in actuality, I suppose it was mere seconds.
“Well let’s go get that sorry son of a bitch,” Dylan rejoined vigorously. I tried to send a small smile his way, but it died. This was no time to fake a warmth I didn’t feel, or an ease I couldn’t possibly possess.
He slammed on the gas, and his snow tires screeched as they hauled ass to Main Street. We slipped and slid over the icy roads, weaving perilously close to danger. His eyes had grown steely, and the visage of a determined warrior had descended upon his brow. He wasn’t Dylan anymore, he was Officer Robertson, defender of the innocent and protector of the good.
Despite myself, I pictured him with a sword in hand and a shield strapped to his back, like some hero out of a comic book. Was I really fantasizing at a moment like this, when I’d potentially just lost everything I’d spent years working for? Or was my brain just frantically searching for some balm with which to soothe the waves of anxiety that rolled in?
He spared a look at me, and in a low voice, asked, “Are you okay?”
I guffawed, and Dylan didn’t ask any more questions after that. Smart man.
His distracted gaze caused him to swerve around one particularly large turn, and out of sheer instinct I assume, he flung an arm across my chest, as though he were a human seatbelt. The car returned to its original spot on the road, but his hand didn’t leave my chest immediately. Rather, it stayed on my heaving bosom a full second too long. His strong arm brushed against the contours of my breast.
I felt my nipple harden involuntarily. Stupid, treasonous nipple. Why couldn’t it just stay soft, and subtle? Not helpful at all.
I noticed he was breathing unusually deep. Had our slight swerve really made him so anxious?
But we arrived at the shop before his arm or my mind could travel other places, thank God. Or was that a good thing? In any case, it meant I didn’t have to consider the implications of his heavy breathing, or the possibility of complicity in his cheating. We’d only met a few hours ago, and already, I was spinning out with empathic thoughts of how every minute detail of our encounter affected him. Shit. This was no time for a crush.
Because what we found at the shop was as bad — no, worse — than I had even expected.
The glass from one of the floor-to-ceiling front windows was smashed on the concrete. Wet footprints, with black sludge rising up around their edges, were tracked across the tiled floor. The security alarm was still blaring, as we were obviously the first to arrive on the scene. Gone was the previously quaint and welcoming bakery, smack dab in the middle of a parochial little town.
The scene was chaotic, hellish even.
“No,” I breathed. “This can’t be happening.”
Dylan cast another glance in my direction, I think to gauge if I was in any danger of fainting. Having determined that I was steady on my feet, he pulled out his gun, and proceeded inside, leaving the instruction to ‘Wait here.’ Given the gun, and the instruction, I assumed he thought that the criminal might still be lurking and didn’t want to put me in harm’s way.
As if. It was my bakery, and I’d be damned if I’d let some no-good scum-of-the-earth burglar intimidate me.
“I’m coming with you,” I told him. The statement left no room for negotiation, and by the rise and fall of Dylan’s shoulders, I could tell he didn’t want to fight over this one.
“Fine,” he replied in a low, agitated voice. “Stay behind me. If I fire a shot, drop to the ground immediately. Don’t do anything stupid. Understood?”
“Yeah. Now let’s move, he or she might still be in there and I want to sucker punch their fucking throat.”
“What did I say about not doing anything stupid?”
“Sure, sure,” I returned without conviction. “Nothing stupid.” I hoped the lie wasn’t as obvious as to him as it was to me.
He nodded, gingerly stepped over the sill of the broken window and into the bakery. With a flick of his wrist in the direction of the switch, he turned on the lights.
I wished he hadn’t.
The entire shop was in tatters. Display cases were broken into, the till was overturned, the kitchen had been looted. Even the decorations I’d so carefully collected were ripped off the walls and smashed. It seemed almost personal. But I had no grudges. I’d been in town a matter of months. Who would do this to me? And why?
Ignoring Dylan’s instructions, I rapidly strode in front of the protective barrier of his body, exposing myself to possible attack.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Get back here.” He jutted his chin behind his shoulder, indicating where he wanted me to stay.
Before he could stop me, I scampered off, quickly commencing a search through every nook and cranny of the bakery. I heard him sigh impatiently from the dining area, and I knew that he was at least mildly pissed at my insurrection. But I didn’t care. The shop was my baby, and it had been attacked. A mother’s instinct now possessed me.
The space was small, so this took me all of a minute to finish my hunt. I made my way back to the middle of the shop, where Dylan was searching behind counters, gun still in hand.
“Dylan,” I whispered.
He turned to me, taking his eyes off the scene. I knew that it must have gone against every ounce of his training. His face had colored with pure annoyance, which I studiously disregarded.
“What?” he asked, in an equally hushed voice.
“There’s no one here.”
His decibel rose back to normal speaking tones. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
His position relaxed, and he stood up straight. “I said to stay behind me,” he chided. “You wouldn’t have been able to defend yourself.”
I ignored this, mostly because he was right, and I found myself a touch embarrassed by my lapsed fervor. Moving on, I made my way to behind the counter where Dylan stood, and began to take stock.
“Fuck,” I said softly. Louder, again, “FUCK.”
Every single machine of any value within Zoe’s Cakes and Bakes had been stolen. It was as if someone had strategically cased the place, doing their research on resale equipment value and extracting them with precision.
My hands shook as I inched to the cash register, already knowing what I would — or more accurately, would not — find within. I knelt to the ground where the till had fallen, sat it up straight, and pulled open the cash drawer. The automatic lock had evidently been broken.
Empty.
“Zoe, don’t touch anything. You’ll contaminate the scene and get your prints everywhere.”
“My prints are everywhere already. This is my shop! My job! My livelihood.”
Tears came, slowly and then all at once. I collapsed onto the only chair that was still standing on its legs, the others overturned, as sobs racked my body. A scream, unprompted, was loosed from my throat. I was insensible with anger, grief and despair. I buried my face in my hands and kneaded knuckles over my brows, pulling at the gentle skin.
“Hey.”
A pair of strong arms were encircling me, pulling me up into a hug. I felt my body liquefy and sink into the vastness of his chest.
“Hey,” Dylan repeated again. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
He buried his face in my shoulder and held me closer.
“Zoe,” he said, lowering his mouth to my ear. “I swear to you I will find whoever did this and make them pay.”
“Promise?” I sniffled.
“Promise.”
CHAPTER 9
Dylan
All I could think about was how deeply I liked the feeling of Zoe in my arms. Comforting her came naturally to me. I alternated back and forth between considering how I’d make the motherfucker who did this pay for the pain they’d caused and being acutely aware of how cl
ose Zoe was to my body. I desperately willed my nascent erection to dissipate.
This is inappropriate timing, a voice in my head hissed. Keep it in your pants, dude.
The voice made a good point. I refocused my attention on being supportive.
We stood there for a while, who knows how long, her sobbing into my chest, me petting her hair and shoulders, trying all the soothing tricks I’d learned from raising Danny. It made me furious that these were the circumstances under which we should have our first embrace, romantic or otherwise, but I kept it in check, reminding myself that my rage was in no way important, except as motivation. Motivation to solve this.
At last, backup arrived in the form of Tom. His silhouette appeared in the lights of the sirens, moving to the bakery like a rotund mountain, his boots crunching over the glass. He took one look at the broken window, and me holding a sobbing Zoe.
He stopped a few feet before our statue-like jumble.
“Are you okay?” he asked me urgently, making his way completely inside the bounds of the bakery.
I nodded. “Yeah, the place was empty by the time we got here.” I gestured to Zoe, and by way of explanation added, “Whoever it was took everything.”
Tom gave me a grim look, one that I probably could have deciphered if I cared to understand its meaning. As it was, I wasn’t prepared to know what he was ruminating on. Without another word, he began to sniff around the place, unlocking cabinets and turning over dishes as I continued to hold the inconsolable Zoe in my arms. Lucky Tom was there and doing a thorough job, clearly, I’d given up any pretense of carrying out actual police work.
Finally, from across the small shop, he called out, “Dylan, I need you to come here a minute.”
I tilted my head in Zoe’s direction, indicating that I wasn’t sure she’d allow me to leave. My tilting head maybe also implied that I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave. Though Tom probably didn’t pick up on that aspect of the gesture.
“Come on, kid. You have a job to do,” Tom continued.
He was right, of course. Didn’t mean I had to be eager to do it. I guided Zoe gently down on the chair and stepped away with a fierce reluctance. She looked like a small animal, alone in a forest, at the mercy of bigger and scarier creatures. I needed, with every ounce of strength in my body, to protect her. The instinct had rooted inside me from the moment we first locked eyes, and I felt it growing, entwining around my very organs.
I didn’t take my eyes off her as I walked across the glass-covered floor to stand with Tom. The crunch of shards under my boots made me wince as I worried it would startle Zoe.
“So,” I said to him.
“So.”
“What do you make of it?”
Tom ran a hand over his bristly mustache, stroking its sharp hairs as he contemplated the question.
“First, tell me what she said about the burglary. Did she make note of anything in particular?”
I considered this, and replied, “She did say they got the most expensive equipment. I think I heard her mutter something about a blender, a set of knives, stuff like that. Some others I didn’t know the name of, so I assume they were specialty items.” I paused, and guiltily admitted, “I wasn’t listening that carefully.” Rookie error, I knew, and I was kicking myself for it.
He sighed, “That’s all right, even good cops make mistakes.” Tom’s brow furrowed as he returned to the contents of my statement. “Why would an average robber know which niche baking items to steal? Doesn’t that seem a bit implausible?”
I acknowledged that it did feel like a reach, and added, “I think that’s why she’s so destroyed by it. Not only did they take everything, but the shit was worth a pretty penny. Here I was, thinking you just needed a few baking sheets and some canola oil. Oh, and she said earlier in the day, maybe you remember, that she’d taken out tons of loans just to be able to get the shop up and running.”
“Loans, eh?” Tom queried. “Plural?”
“Piles of ‘em, from what I understand.”
“She say anything about what kind of loans? Interest rates, things like that?”
I shook my head, confused by his line of questioning. “Uh, no. That would be pretty personal banking information to share with a total stranger.” In my head, I mentally crossed out the words total stranger. Whatever Zoe and I were, it was more than strangers.
His eyes narrowed. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
I recognized that tone of voice, I even recognized the phrasing. “You got some theories, Tom?” I was ready to seize upon the most meager hint of a lead, like a basset hound on the whiff of a scent.
He shrugged his hulking shoulders, and replied, “A few, yeah.”
“Okay,” I said impatiently. “Shoot.”
“Not yet,” he responded. “Later. Meanwhile, dispatch says that because we were the first on the scene, we can take this one.”
Good. I’d be the police officer responsible for watching after Zoe, making sure that she was safe and that she got the retribution she damn well deserved. It was the kind of responsibility that doesn’t weigh you down so much as lift you up. I hungered to protect Zoe, to do right by her. I’d crack this case, even if it meant cracking a few heads in the process.
“All right,” Tom said. “Nothing else we can do tonight. Get her home, get some sleep and I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll call Joe to secure the scene overnight.”
He pivoted as if to leave, and hesitated. “One more thing. You know you can’t be, ah, involved with somebody whose case you’re working.” He shot me a meaningful look, and one in Zoe’s general vicinity. “If you’re going to… do something, you won’t take gruff from me, but this is a small town. People talk, things get around. Be careful.”
Shit. He was right, of course. Didn’t mean I had to like it. Indecision and doubt coursed through me as I tried to swallow this new complication with a poise I didn’t particularly feel.
“Just thought you ought to know,” Tom added and straightened up. “Well, I’m headed home to Gladys. She hates when I get called out on night jobs, that I’m getting too old for this shit. Suppose I’m not a spring chicken no more.”
With that, he turned and made his way out of the shop, leaving me alone once again with Zoe, whose sobs had softened into silent tears.
I knelt back down to her level, and took her chin between my fingers, lifting it so that she would meet my gaze. I needed to give her some sense of object permanence, to make it clear that there was at least one safe, stable thing in her life. Or one person, anyways.
“How are you hanging in there?” I asked. The red lining her eyes told me all I needed to know, but it was important to make her speak, in case she go catatonic with shock. That had happened to me a little over a year back and emerging from the emotional coma was as jarring as the event that had triggered it. I didn’t have a silver emergency blanket to offer, so I gave her my warm arms instead.
“I’m…” she trailed off, unable to complete the sentence. “I’m so lost. And so, so frightened. Worried. Things were just starting to go okay, you know? Like my debt wasn’t budging, but the shop was getting regulars, and we’d just received that huge order, and—” The memory of the order that would’ve saved her shop made her break off in another bout of tears.
“Hey there,” I said sternly. “I’m on the case now, so you better believe I’m getting to the bottom of it. The bakery will be back up and running in no time, even better than it was before.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I added on jokingly, “And in a few days, or weeks, you can thank me by making my favorite — key lime pie.”
She whispered, “I love key lime.”
“Well perfect, it’s a deal.”
“I make my own crust, you know.”
I laughed, and replied, “I’d expect no less than that from a world-class baker.”
She snuggled deeper into my arms, and whispered, “I am a world-class baker. I am, I am.” She sounded lik
e a child trying to convince herself.
“You most certainly are,” I encouraged.
Pausing, I grew more somber, and said, “I won’t let you down, Zoe.”
She lifted a trembling hand up and pressed it to my cheek. Her fingers were cold.
“I know,” she uttered. “I trust you.”
Just then, a crackle of glass underfoot broke the mood. We both turned to see Joe, the newest officer in Fallow Springs, stepping over the broken window frame.
“Hey, Dylan. I got the call about the B&E here. Guess I’m guarding the scene tonight.”
“Hey, thanks. I’ll take her home.”
“Do you think you’re able to walk?” I murmured into her ear.
I watched her silently take stock, waiting until she gave the feeble response, “I don’t really know.” She looked so disappointed in herself, as though her immobility was some sign of weak resolve.
Without hesitation, I scooped her up, pressing her shaking body close to my own. She was limp in my arms like a deflated balloon. It was like carrying a sack of russet potatoes. She had the almost hollow bones of a bird, with tiny wrist and ankles that belonged in an eighteenth-century family portrait.
I hugged her tighter, afraid the wind might shatter her delicate body, and carried her to my car, tenderly easing her into the front seat before reaching above her shoulder to grab the seat belt and buckle it. Zoe was so far gone that she didn’t make a move to take over the reins, just numbly let me go about my work.
Luckily, I’d seen her address on the registration forms earlier and had remembered the number, possibly because it was only a few fateful blocks from my own, and possibly because I was thinking about how I might want that information in the future if fate stopped putting roadblocks in our way.
We drove there in absolute silence as I nervously resisted craning my neck every few seconds to check that she was alive and breathing. I couldn’t help it — her well-being had, over the course of mere hours, become a priority for me. I didn’t know what to do with this sudden turn in my psyche. For a man who hadn’t experienced new love — er, affection, at least, it’s too soon to say love, right? — since high school, this discovery of my romantic inclinations was startling.
