SWAT Standoff

by LENA DIAZ,

  “I screwed up,” he admitted. “I didn’t want the suspect to get away, so I chased him to the barn. I assumed Donna would follow. But I lost her.”

  “No kidding. She was scanning the woods, searching for the suspects, and when she turned around, you were gone. Not exactly a team move.”

  Blake clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Not that he’d use them. He and Dillon were both a couple of inches over six feet and equally brawny. No doubt a fight between them would be long, bloody and painful. But that wasn’t why Blake wouldn’t hit him. Blake respected Dillon, even if the sentiment wasn’t returned. He’d never raise his fists against him.

  Too bad Dillon didn’t share the same compulsion.

  Blake waggled his jaw to ease the ache. “I had no reason to believe that Donna was in jeopardy. I would have come back to look for her, but the suspect holed up in the barn, giving me the perfect opportunity to pursue him. Once I took him out, the other suspect appeared. What was I supposed to do? Ignore him? Let him go?”

  “What you’re supposed to do, always, is follow orders. Your primary objective today was to stick with your partner. I made that crystal clear this morning. Failing that, when I signaled for you to report to me, you ignored my signal.”

  “I couldn’t turn around. I would have missed my shot.”

  “You could have responded to me over the radio if you were worried about losing your sight line of the suspect. But you didn’t.”

  “Not at first, no. I couldn’t risk the noise alerting him. I did call later, after—”

  “After the rest of the team was ambushed? And killed?”

  Blake clamped his jaw shut. Why was he even trying to explain? As usual, Dillon refused to listen. He was a great leader and friend—to the rest of the team. But he’d disliked Blake from day one and made no secret about it. The only thing Blake could figure was that Dillon resented him because the chief had hired him without asking for his input.

  If Chief Thornton hadn’t offered him a job when he’d run into Blake at the Knoxville Police Station and gotten a taste of the drama going on there, Blake would be unemployed by now, with no prospects for another law-enforcement job. He owed a lot to the chief, including his silence about Blake’s past. Blake hadn’t wanted to share the details of what had happened, because he didn’t want to prejudice his new team against him in case they didn’t agree with his side of the story. But on days like today, he wondered if they’d both made a mistake. Their pact of silence meant that both of them had to lie to the team in answer to their questions about Blake’s past. And lies were the worst sort of foundation on which to build trust. Which was why he always felt as though he were running in quicksand around here, never gaining traction no matter how hard he tried to fit in.

  Except with Donna.

  Beautiful and smart, she was the one bright spot in his life in Destiny, the one person who treated him as if he mattered. And he’d gone and screwed up with her, too. He’d run off after a suspect when he should have stuck by her side, training exercise or not. She probably despised him just as much as Dillon now.

  He raised his hands in surrender, trying to defuse the situation. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone after the suspect on my own. I see that now.”

  “Gone off on your own? It’s not that simple. You risked your partner’s life. And don’t you dare tell me it was just a paint-ball fight. This weekend’s exercises are designed to test our instincts and improve our reactions, just as if this was the real thing. If this was the real thing, you just proved you can’t be trusted to watch over your partner or follow instructions.”

  “You’re overreacting. If this had been a true SWAT situation, I would have stayed with Donna.”

  Dillon shook his head. “You still don’t get it. You can’t act one way in training and plan on acting another way on an actual call. Training is supposed to make things second nature, so you’ll react on muscle memory, without having to think about it. You have to treat every exercise like the real thing. Didn’t they teach you that in the military?”

  Blake stiffened and glanced at Thornton. But there was no help from that quarter. Thornton wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

  “Are we done here?” Blake demanded, his patience gone. There was only so much lecturing a grown man could take with his entire team a stone’s throw away, witnessing his humiliation.

  “Yeah. We’re definitely done. Because you’re toxic—always have been. You’re a lone wolf, a rogue who has to do things his own way. People like you get people like me killed. The chief saw something in you when he hired you. I’ll admit that I never did. But I worked with you, gave you every opportunity to prove my doubts wrong, to figure out how to be a member of this team. But all you’ve managed to do is prove me right. And I’m not willing to risk the lives of everyone here for your ego.” He motioned toward Chief Thornton. “And neither is he. We both agree on this. It’s over. Go home, Blake. You can turn in your equipment Monday morning. You won’t need it anymore. You’re fired.”

  Chapter Three

  Donna entered the sleazy establishment that passed as a bar in this corner of Sevier County. Back in Destiny, this place would have been condemned and torn down, deemed unfit for even pigs to slop around in.

  There was a plus side, though. It was quiet, too early in the evening to have more than a handful of patrons. And none of them had felt inclined to feed any money into the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner of the room.

  Wrinkling her nose at the smell of urine and stale beer, she forced herself to step all the way inside, even though she was tempted to make an emergency run for a can of Lysol first.

  A familiar figure sat on a bar stool at the far end, accepting what she hoped was his first drink of the night from the bartender. If Blake Sullivan was plastered, that was going to make her little crusade that much more difficult.

  When he lifted the shot glass to his mouth, his hand shook and he sloshed some over the side.

  So much for hoping that he wasn’t plastered.

  He downed the amber liquid in one swallow and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Donna flexed her hand against the pistol holstered at her waist. If it had been loaded with paint balls instead of nine-millimeter slugs, she’d have already shot him. She was that ticked.

  “Hey, lady,” the bartender called out. “No guns allowed in here.”

  Blake slowly looked at her, his reflexes obviously dulled by the liquor. A sober cop would have jerked around to assess the danger as soon as the bartender mentioned a gun.

  She pulled her badge out of the pocket of her jeans and flashed it. “Cop.”

  The bartender’s expression turned frosty, his eyes as dark and deadly looking as the ones on the cobra tattoo snaking up his neck. “Makes no difference to me. No guns.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not staying.” She put her badge away and strode across the room, her boots echoing on the scarred hardwood floor. Stopping beside Blake’s stool, she motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  He scowled at her. “Another whiskey.” His words were slurred, his face ruddy.

  The bartender stepped toward him with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Before he could refill the shot glass, Donna slapped her hand over it. “He’s done.”

  “No. He’s not.” Blake yanked the glass away from her and held it out toward the bartender. “Fill ’er up.”

  The bartender lifted the bottle.

  “He’s drunk,” Donna warned. “You pour that, and he gets behind the wheel, I’ll arrest both of you.”

  He hesitated, shrugged and moved down the bar to a patron who promised to be less trouble.

  Blake glared at her through bleary eyes. “This isn’t Blount County. You can’t arrest anyone here.”

  “He doesn’t know that.” She jerked her thumb toward the bartender.

  Blake swi
veled around and slouched back against the bar. “How did you find me?”

  “Call tree.”

  He frowned. “Call what?”

  She sighed. “One of many things you’ve failed to learn, even though I’ve told you about it before. Destiny’s a very small town, so—”

  He snorted. “No kidding.”

  She wanted to punch him. Instead, she forced a smile. “Unlike you, I consider Destiny’s cozy size to be one of its many assets. Case in point, the call tree. Someone goes missing, I can make one call, and pretty soon, half the people in the county are looking out their windows. It’s more efficient than a big city’s AMBER Alert system.”

  His mouth quirked up. “You put out an AMBER Alert on me? I had no idea you cared so much.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know,” she grumbled. “Maybe you should pay more attention.”

  His brow crinkled in confusion, but his inebriated brain couldn’t seem to grasp what she meant. Thank goodness. Admitting she cared about the brute while in a bar that smelled like pee wasn’t something she wanted sober Blake to remember.

  “My point is that one of the benefits of living in Destiny is that we watch out for each other. After a few calls, I knew you’d left town and what road you’d taken. Unfortunately, just like with my jurisdiction, my useful contacts end at the county line. So I had to do a bit of searching on my own after that.”

  He picked up his empty shot glass, frowned and thunked it back onto the bar. When he looked at her again, he blinked as if surprised that she was still there.

  “What do you want?” he slurred.

  She eyed the few people in the room, noting how closely they were paying attention to the exchange. It was bad enough that they were witness to Blake being drunk. If word got back to Chief Thornton or Dillon, there was no way she could fix what was probably already an unfixable situation and get them to rehire him.

  “We need to talk. Alone.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I like it here.”

  She snorted. “Yeah. It’s real nice. Great ambience. You could mark your territory right where you’re sitting, and I bet no one would bat an eyelash.”

  His brow wrinkled again. “Huh?”

  She counted to ten and tried to remember all the reasons she liked this man enough not to shoot him with real bullets. But she couldn’t seem to think of even one at the moment. “Just step outside so we can talk. You can drink yourself under the table later.”

  “Bar.”

  It was her time to frown in confusion. “What?”

  “Drink myself under the bar.” He thumped the polished surface for emphasis. “You called it a table.”

  “No, I...” She drew a deep breath. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  “Nope. You have something to say to me, say it right here. Then you can skedaddle on home and let me drink in peace.” He waved toward the bartender and held out his glass.

  The bartender took one look at Donna and shook his head. “Sorry, man. No can do.”

  She snatched the shot glass from him and set it out of his reach. When he opened his mouth to complain, she stepped closer, sandwiching her hips between his open thighs. The way his breath caught when she leaned in close would have been satisfying if she thought he was reacting to her as a woman. But as drunk as he was, there had to be another explanation. Like maybe the smell of shampoo and soap from her recent shower was too startling a contrast to the odor of urine and stale cigarettes he’d been basking in this afternoon.

  She whispered in his ear. “You smell like a brewery, so I’m betting your bladder is full. I’m also betting you’d rather not wet yourself in front of all your lovely friends—which is exactly what you’ll do if I have to come back in here with my Taser and take you on a five-second ride.” She stepped back and shrugged. “Your choice. Walk out of here on your own with me. Or wait here for my Taser.”

  Her threat carried the weight of sincerity. She wasn’t bluffing. He mumbled some coarse words and threw a few bills on the counter. But he didn’t argue anymore as he stumbled after her to the parking lot outside.

  When they reached her previously white Ford Escape, courtesy of the muddy back roads she’d slogged through to find him, she leaned against the front passenger door. A raindrop splatted on the top of her head.

  She glanced up at the dark, ominous-looking clouds. The weatherman had predicted more thunderstorms tonight, which was why Dillon had cut their training exercise short. He’d wanted them to have enough time to thoroughly clean and stow their equipment, real guns or not, before it started to pour.

  Normally Donna would have been right there with her teammates, helping out. But she’d been so upset over Blake getting fired that she couldn’t focus and started making mistakes. Dillon had finally told her to go home and come back fresh in the morning for the second part of the training.

  After a hot shower failed to make her feel any better, she’d done the only thing she could think to do. She’d called Blake. A lot. And texted. When that failed to get a response, she’d started to worry. That was when she’d put out a few feelers, trying to figure out where he might have gone.

  Now, watching him sway on his feet in front of her, she was questioning her sanity in thinking she could undo the damage that he’d done today. After all, he’d accomplished what no one else had ever done.

  He’d made Dillon Gray give up.

  For goodness’ sake, Dillon lived on a horse rescue ranch. He and his wife ran horse clinics every summer to help disabled and underprivileged children. He believed every living being could be helped or rehabilitated if given enough trust and support. For him to wash his hands of Blake was a shock that still had Donna reeling. But even if Dillon was ready to give up on him, she wasn’t.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “I’ll make this quick before we get soaked,” she said. “I think Dillon overreacted. Calling you toxic, staging our fake deaths in that exercise to try to shock you and make his point, then firing you anyway, was a bit extreme.”

  “No kidding,” he drawled, a note of bitterness creeping into his voice.

  “But,” she continued, “I do agree that you’re not a team player. And he had every right to kick your butt after the stunts you pulled today.”

  Thunder sounded overhead. But it was nothing compared to the dark look in Blake’s eyes as he stared down at her.

  “I got two of the perpetrators all by myself. Two.”

  “Whoop-de-do. Any one of us could have done what you did. But that wasn’t the point of the training.”

  He arched a brow. “Seriously? Catching the bad guys wasn’t the point?”

  “Well, yes, of course it was. But not on your own. The purpose was to teach us how to operate together, to have each other’s backs.”

  “I need another drink.” He started back toward the building.

  She jumped in front of him, boots crunching on gravel as she shoved him against her car. “I drove halfway across this county looking for you. It was only through dumb luck that I drove past this place and saw your truck out front. The least you can do is listen to what I have to say.”

  He arched his brows. “Call tree didn’t work the way you’d hoped, huh?” he mocked.

  “You fool.” She shoved him again. “I wouldn’t have even known that you’d driven out this direction if it hadn’t worked.” Another raindrop plopped onto her cheek. She wiped it off and glared up at him.

  “I never asked you to come after me,” he said. “What the heck do you want, anyway?”

  “What I want is to know that I didn’t waste the last four months of my life trying to turn your sorry butt into a decent detective and SWAT team member. I’ve been showing you everything that I know—”

  “Stuff I already know.” He thumped his chest for emphasis. “This whole teach me how to do things
the Destiny way is an insult. I was in the military before I became a cop. Surprisingly, I never once needed a babysitter. And I wasn’t too shabby a detective in Knoxville after that. And yet you people all treat me like I’m a rookie. I’ve been putting away criminals just as long as any of you—longer than some. But you ignore any suggestions I make and criticize every little thing I do. You feel like you’ve wasted your time with me for the past four months? Welcome to my world, lady. I’m not exactly feeling like coming to Destiny was my smartest move either.”

  She blinked up at him, surprised at both his words and the hurt and resentment in his tone. Did he really feel that way? Or was it the liquor talking? He sure sounded coherent, even if his words were slurred. More important, could he be right? In their zeal to help him fit into the team, had they done just the opposite? Pushed him away?

  “Blake, I don’t know what to—”

  He waved his hand in the air as if to erase their conversation and stepped to the side, forcing her to turn to face him.

  “Forget it,” he said, sounding angry and weary. “You wanna light me up with fifty-thousand volts? Be my guest. It won’t be the first time I’ve been on that ride. But I’m not hanging around to listen to another lecture. I’m done.” He started toward the bar.

  “Blake, wait.” When he didn’t stop, she added, “Please.”

  He stiffened and halted in his tracks. But he didn’t turn around.

  She hurried over and stood in front of him. The defeated look on his face had guilt curling inside her even more. All along, she’d never once considered that the problem might be on both sides—maybe because blaming him was easier than facing her own failures.

  “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I never meant to make you feel like you weren’t a valued member of the team. It never occurred to me that—”