by Bonnie Vanak
* * *
Joshua Avery walked through the Silver Valley Police Department, trying to remember that for the time being he was Officer Avery again and not Detective Avery. He’d asked for a temporary demotion so that he could be around more for his younger sister.
The building was unusually quiet, especially for a Friday morning. Everyone was either off, out on patrol or attending a law-enforcement conference in the next town over. He had to admit he was a little disappointed no one was around to see him back in his working blues. As a detective he hadn’t worn his Silver Valley PD uniform in more than a year, and he was grateful it still fit. He’d gotten used to his civilian clothes while he served as an SVPD detective, but had to admit that being back in uniform felt good.
“Morning, Josh.” SVPD Chief Colt Todd motioned to him to enter his office. “Don’t get too comfortable in that uniform, Josh. As soon as you get your sister settled, I’ll need you back as a full-time detective.” Tall with graying hair, Colt still looked like a man in his prime, fitness-wise.
“Yes, sir.” Josh, along with the rest of SVPD, would follow their leader through fire because of exactly this—Colt’s ability to be compassionate while still letting an employee know he thought the person was the only one for the job. Without hesitation, he’d given Josh a reprieve from the near-24/7 routine of detective work. Josh’s younger sister, a disabled adult, needed to be placed in a full-time care community, and Josh needed time to pick the right place for Becky. But Josh couldn’t afford extended leave, so going back in uniform was a good compromise for both him and SVPD.
“As for this weekend, I’ll need you to man the fort while most of the department is in Carlisle for the ROC strategy session.” Colt referred to the Russian Organized Crime deterrent conference, run this weekend at the county seat.
Josh nodded and listened as Colt ran down the issues he wanted him to keep his finger on. Since ROC had come to Silver Valley, the entire department had been putting in extra hours, scouring the community for any evidence that the criminals had sent yet another group of trafficked underage girls to the area. ROC had initiated a shipment to Silver Valley a couple of months ago, and SVPD had played a role in saving the girls, freeing them from the degrading work, legal and illegal, they’d been enslaved to before they ever touched American soil. Like the flow of ROC heroin into the area, the sex trafficking trade was relentless.
“You’re also going to be the top guy here while I’m at the conference all weekend. I’ll be back on Monday morning to check in, and of course call me with anything you need to.”
“Copy that, Chief.” He hoped the station would stay quiet so that he could go home for dinner with Becky. And to continue his search for an apartment for her, as much as he didn’t want to think about it.
“Look, Josh, I know you’d rather be in the thick of the ROC problem with everyone else right now. And I’d love to have you there. It hurts like hell to lose you as a detective, even if it’s only for a few weeks or so. I’m sorry about the setback with your sister. You’ll be working as a detective again soon.” Colt looked at him. “It’ll be no longer than a few weeks, right?”
“I hope not, Chief. The more regular hours on patrols and at the desk are better for Becky and me as we adjust to our new reality. It’s coming together. We were spoiled when she went to school every day, and then all the day camps she was eligible for in the summer. Since she graduated from high school, her requirements have changed. I’m close to finding her a more permanent living arrangement.” It killed him to say it, but he forced the words through his teeth. Becky didn’t need him as much anymore, didn’t want him as much. It was time to let her become as independent as any mentally challenged young woman could. She’d drawn a sucky hand with being deprived oxygen at birth, giving her lifelong mental difficulties that were umbrellaed under the description of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, PDD. They included developmental delays, attention deficit disorder and anxiety. To make matters worse, she’d been dealt another horrible hand when their parents had been killed in a car crash a decade ago. But she’d made the best of it and was happy, as happy as a nine-year-old in a nineteen-year-old body could be. Josh couldn’t ask for more. Except for a promise that nothing bad would ever happen to her, which he knew was impossible.
“For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you, Josh. You’ve done a fine job of raising your sister, and your parents would be pleased.”
“Thanks, Chief.” Josh stood up. He didn’t like it when people complimented him on what he’d done. It was what any other brother would do, and he never felt worthy of the praise. He did his job—he took care of his sister. “Is there anything else?”
“No, Josh. Only the usual—let’s keep it rolling and do what we can to make Silver Valley the safest place possible.” Colt dismissed him in his usual easy yet professional manner.
“Yes, sir.” Josh thought that Silver Valley’s days of suburban serenity might be over, shattered by the opioid epidemic and now ROC’s entry into the area, but he kept those thoughts to himself. And he hoped against hope that he was wrong. If it were up to him, Silver Valley would again be the low-crime-rate town it’d been when he was a kid.
After a few hours of administrative work, Josh headed for the small break area. He sent up a silent thanks for the full pot of coffee on the heating plate, and he noted the plate of cookies someone had dropped off. There wasn’t enough coffee to keep him going today. Chief Todd wasn’t someone he’d want to whine to about how the paperwork for Becky’s needs had plowed him under these past months. He’d been up all night working out the finances for Becky to be able to leave home and live in her own apartment. It’d be possible in a community with other mentally challenged adults, and he was pretty sure he’d found the perfect one for her. She’d have supervision with autonomy. It was a fine line for his nineteen-year-old sister, who still asked about their parents, long dead. Becky knew they were gone and understood that part, but she didn’t understand why she had to still feel sad about it. Lifelong sorrow was too adult an emotion for Becky. Her pain crushed him.
Josh had been at the Jersey Shore on a spring break beach getaway when he’d received the phone call that had changed both of their lives forever in that split second. There were no adults named to take guardianship of Becky, so he stepped up to the plate. Instead of continuing the scholarship to Penn State, he’d transferred to a local private school for criminal justice, allowing him to take care of Becky once she was released from the hospital. She’d miraculously survived the accident that had taken their parents. Fortunately the college had given him a hardship scholarship, and their parents had left enough to help them survive. Becky received state and federal aid, too.
Becky had suffered developmental delays almost immediately and still had emotional difficulties from time to time, but her motor skills were intact. Becky functioned completely normally, for a nine-or ten-year-old girl, socially ahead of her mental capacity, which was closer to seven years of age. She’d never grow older, emotionally. Mentally, she grasped just about everything, but lacked the practical judgment to be able to live completely on her own. As he poured a large mug of the steaming coffee, he acknowledged that it was a blessing he’d found a local program. Upward Homes would handle her disabilities, emphasize her abilities, give her a job, friends to spend time with and a chance to enjoy whatever further education she was capable of. He sipped the coffee and told himself he didn’t need the cookies. The younger officers would appreciate them more, and they wouldn’t take an extra fifteen minutes to burn off in PT as they would for him.
He knew thirty wasn’t old, but he also knew his limits. The paperwork for Becky’s application was daunting, and his protective urges were hard to let go of. But if he ever wanted to freely work as a detective again, he needed to know Becky was taken care of round-the-clock. Worrying about her being on her own at home, no matter that he had a neighborhood friend to check in
on her, was stressful. For both of them.
“Officer?” Cali, one of the SVPD’s receptionists, walked into the break room and stopped in front of him. How long had he been daydreaming about how to fix Becky’s problems?
“Hey, Cali. How’s the weekend looking for you? Because I’m going to be right here at my desk.”
She flashed a quick grin, nodded. “Been there. Hey, there’s a woman here who’s asked to talk to one of our detectives. Says she’s with NYPD and showed me a badge.”
“What about?” Cookie temptation evaporated.
“A possibility of domestic violence.”
He quickly added some French vanilla creamer to his coffee, one indulgence his six-foot-four-inch frame could still handle. He was painfully aware that at thirty, his fast metabolism days were quickly fleeing.
“Send her back to my desk.”
“Will do.”
He carried the navy ceramic mug with SVPD’s gold logo stamped on it. Before he sat down a tall, willowy redhead walked up to him. His body immediately recognized who his mind struggled to believe was standing before him. The woman he’d never expected to see again. The one who’d got away. The woman his eighteen-year-old self had thought was his one true love.
Annie Fiero.
Copyright © 2018 by Geri Krotow
ISBN-13: 9781488093128
His Forgotten Colton Fiancée
Copyright © 2018 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Bonnie Vanak for her contribution to The Coltons of Red Ridge miniseries.
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