Within seconds, I’m turning on my lights and sirens as I’m merging on the highway. Papers scatter across my dash and my sunglasses slide from one end to the other as I take the sharp curves. Another five minutes pass by quickly as I fly down the road. I look at my clock that reads almost six thirty in the morning. The sun still hasn’t come up, but it won’t be much longer. This will be my last call. Once I’m finished with this, I will be off duty. But the funny thing about a call is that you have no idea how long it will take.
*****
KATHERINE
I stand in my hooker heels and little slutty, denim shorts with my arms crossed over my chest, trying to cover up my hard nipples. It’s freezing in this room. I shouldn’t have dressed this way in the first place—not only do I look like I belong on Eleventh Street, but I also don’t even match. But clothes are the last thing on your mind when you have to rush the only man you’ve ever loved to the hospital.
Releasing a heavy sigh, I lean forward and place my forehead on the cold glass. A chill runs down my back. I close my eyes and try to think happy thoughts. None comes to mind. Don’t get me wrong, my life isn’t a disaster by any means. I just can’t think of anything to give me hope at the moment. Hospitals will do that to you. They have a way of sucking the life out of you. Which is weird for me to say, considering I work at one. It’s different though when you’re visiting a family member.
I open my eyes and look out the now foggy window due to my breathing. The lights of St. Louis still glow as the sun starts to rise in the distance. I look down at the streets and watch all the people drive to work, preparing themselves for another busy day at the office. Their lives are boring and repetitious; I pray that I’m never like that.
“Katherine?”
I turn around to see a nurse in dark red scrubs who I don’t know standing at the door to my father’s hospital room.
I nod my head, as I look over at my father. He’s sleeping from the medicine he was given after his fall. It scared me to death. All I heard was a loud crash and then found him lying at the bottom of my stairs. I don’t even know what he was doing upstairs anyway. He laid there lifeless in a puddle of blood. Glass from the pictures he pulled off the wall as he looked for something to grab onto for support was shattered around him.
My eyes go back to hers and I catch her as she looks me up and down in disgust. Judging. For my lack of clothing. She probably thinks I’m his mistress or some over exaggerated bullshit. People really do have overactive imaginations these days.
I clear my throat and straighten my shoulders. “Is there a reason why you’re in here?” Bitch, is probably her next thought, and she would be totally right. What can I say? I may be daddy’s girl, but I’m very much my mother’s daughter. Total bitch!
“I was just going to give you these.” She reaches out her hand, and I now realize that she holds something in it.
I take what she’s offering, and my eyes scan the material. “A home?” I ask once they register.
She nods. “I wanted you to look over your options.”
I toss them onto the chair that holds the only thing I was able to grab as I stormed out of our house. My cell. Which is dead—piece of shit. “There is only one option,” I snap at her.
She actually looks surprised by my words. As if I was just going to drop him off at a home and forget about him until he died and collected his money. Dress like a hooker and people will think you’re a gold digging whore just waiting for an elderly man to give you his life earnings. What is the world coming to?
“I understand you want to…”
“No, you don’t.” I interrupt whatever bullshit she was about to come up with. “I have taken care of him for the last two years. I’m not going to stop now.”
“He needs twenty-four hour care,” she reminds me.
“You can’t tell me anything that I don’t already know.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. “Can you be there twenty-four seven?”
A simple question warrants a simple answer. But the answer is no. I work. That’s all I do, but it takes up most of my time.
She gives me a warm smile at my silence. I want to fucking punch her lights out, but I’ve had to take anger management before. I really don’t have time for it again.
I look back over at my father and walk over to him. I can feel her eyes staring at my exposed thighs, and I sit down on the chair next to his bed to obscure her view.
“You don’t have to make a decision right now. He will be here for a while.” With that, she walks out and leaves us alone.
I grab his cold hand and take it in mine. “No worries, Daddy,” I whisper to him. “You’re not going anywhere.” And I mean that. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll hire someone. Hell, I’ll move someone in to take care of him while I’m gone.
My throat tightens and I feel the sting of tears in my eyes but I push that feeling back.
Be strong, Katherine. Keep your eyes open. You never know when the lights will go out.
My mother once said that to me. She spoke those exact words the day she walked out on my father and me. I was six, and my father raised me from then on. And that’s what makes this even harder. I should be taking care of him now; I shouldn’t be giving up on him.
I run my hand softly over his silver hair. My dad has changed a lot over the last two years. He went from being a man to being a toddler. I’ve had to bathe him, feed him, and dress him. The list never ends. I went into nursing because of him and now I feel like I’m just pawning him off on another.
I lean down and kiss his cold cheek. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Daddy,” I say, and I feel a knot start to form in my throat, but I swallow it down. I don’t cry.
*****
Pulling up to my house, I grab the pamphlets and my dead cell phone off the passenger seat. Once inside, I go into my kitchen and throw them onto the kitchen table.
“So…”
I jump and spin around, throwing my back up against the fridge with my hand over my racing heart. The liquor bottles that rest on top of the fridge rattle from the movement. “What in the hell are you doing here?” I snap.
Leaning up against the countertop in my kitchen stands my ex-boyfriend. My annoying, trashy ex-boyfriend. Do you ever look back at pictures that your parents took of you in middle school—hell, even high school—and wonder what in the hell was I thinking? I thought that outfit was cute? Or what was I trying to do to my hair? That’s what I think every single time I look at him. What in the fuck was I thinking being with him?
“Why the hell are you here?” I ask narrowing my eyes on him. He looks like shit. His longer blond hair is slicked back into a low ponytail. His white shirt looks dingy and his ripped jeans are hanging so low that if I were standing behind him, I would probably be able to see his boxers along with his ass crack. What can I say? I know how to pick them.
He reaches up and runs his fingers through his blond beard. “To get my truck.” God, just the sound of his voice sounds like nails to a chalkboard and makes me cringe.
I shake my head. “I already told you. You’re not taking it.” I might have bought that truck for him, but it isn’t leaving here. “Coming here won’t change my mind.”
“Well, if you’d answer your fucking phone, then you would know that I’ve been here for three hours. I’m not leaving until you give it to me.” His voice rises as he speaks.
“I was busy.” And even if my phone hadn’t been dead, I still wouldn’t have answered. I’m that type of girl—when it’s over, it’s over.
His chest rises and falls as he tries to calm his anger. He looks around and then his eyes are back on mine. “Where in the hell have you been anyway?” he demands as his eyes look over all my exposed skin. They actually darken when they rest on my chest. He still hates the fact that I got them done. But he learned a simple lesson—never tell me that I can’t do something. His eyes finish their descent down my stomach and then legs. He reaches down to adjust himself, and
I roll my eyes.
“None of your business,” I respond turning away from him.
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s gone.” I throw over my shoulder. I hate how it sounded. It was almost too convincing as if I really didn’t care. But when in reality my father is the only person I care about.
“He died?” His voice softened at his question, and I hate it. He doesn’t give a flying flip about my father or about how I feel. He only ever cares about himself. He’s proved that to me several times over.
“My father is also none of our business,” I say refusing to answer his question.
Just as I go to step out of the kitchen, he speaks. “You put him in a home!”
I spin around and see he has found the brochures on the kitchen table. He’s holding one in his hand as he skims over it.
“Of course, you did,” he says before I can respond. “I’ve been telling you to do that for two years and the moment you break up with me, you get rid of him so you can be a little slut and whore around.”
I feel a sharp pain in my mouth as I bite down on my tongue. The bastard has always known exactly what to say to piss me off. I roll my shoulders and try to relax. I’m tired. All I wanna do is get out of these clothes, get a few hours of sleep, and then get back up to the hospital to spend some time with my father. “I’m not discussing this with you,” I finally say as nicely as I can manage. “I’m going to bed. Show yourself out.” First thing, when I get up later, I’m gonna change the locks. I haven’t had the time to do it with all that has happened with my dad.
I turn around, but before I can take a step, his hand lands on my shoulder and I’m yanked back. I almost fall off my six inch heels. “I told you that I wasn’t leaving without the truck, bitch!” he snarls.
I look up into his eyes and I can feel the anger boiling inside of me. “Vas te faire encule.” Fuck you. I know how much he hates when I speak in French. And I can’t help but smile when his eyes narrow at mine.
He reaches up and grabs my face with such force that my cheeks dig into my teeth. He shoves me back into the fridge so hard that a bottle falls to the kitchen tile and breaks.
Wrong move! I’m in no mood for him right now. Without thought, I rare my hand back and punch the motherfucker in the face.
CHAPTER TWO
PARKER
“10-105,” Deceased body. I hear an officer say this into his radio as he stands to the right of me in the middle of the highway. I swallow thickly at what that means. I hear it so often, yet it still affects me. It still makes me sick to my stomach.
Wreckage.
Violence.
Blood.
Victims.
All of these things equal total chaos. It would amaze you how much cruelty there is in this world. You may lie in your comfy bed at night with your loved one next to you as you see it on your TV and think oh my God, how does someone do that to another? But I live it. I see it every single day. And it never gets any easier. No matter what they tell you or try to prepare you for in training, a person does not acclimate to the horrors that I see when I’m on a shift.
Being a police officer takes a certain type of person. And there are times that I feel like I may not be that person. I’m a grown-ass man and even I will admit that I have shed a tear or two. I’m not heartless by any means—although I know some women who would beg to differ with me on that. Don’t get me wrong, I can be a total dick. That’s who I am, most of the time.
But as I stand here in the middle of a highway, sweating in my uniform even though it’s the early morning, I look at the traffic backed up for miles. People just trying to make it to their everyday boring jobs. I wonder how many take their life for granted. I wonder how many are living in a loveless marriage, or how many times they’ve been in love. That thought reminds me of my parents, and I immediately push it away. This is not the time and place for my personal issues, of which I have many. Don’t we all?
I sigh heavily as my eyes drop to the carnage that lies at my feet—nothing but broken glass and shattered dreams of a little girl and my heart breaks.
She was only two.
A two-year-old little girl who wore a pink Disney princess dress that was glittered in sparkles was killed only minutes ago. I’ll never forget that for as long as I live. She looked so peaceful yet destroyed at the same time. It made me sick. She’ll never have the chance to grow up. She’ll never have the chance to fall in love. She’ll never have the chance to be a mommy herself. All because her father didn’t secure her car seat correctly.
He survived—the ones not responsible for the act usually end up paying the price. He wasn’t drunk or under the influence of any drugs. He was a normal guy working two jobs trying to support his family. He fell asleep on the way to drop his daughter off at daycare so he could get to his morning job on time and hit a guardrail, flipping the vehicle. Although he was not wearing his seatbelt, the airbags inflating saved his life. Their little girl, however, was thrown from the car and died on impact.
Calls like this stay with you forever. No matter how much time passes, the memory will always remain as if it happened yesterday—the ones you couldn’t save.
I breathe heavily as I run from my cop car, arriving at the traffic scene. An SUV sits upside down in the middle of the lanes, and the family’s personal belongings are scattered across the highway. I see a little girl lying face down in a puddle of blood to my right and a man lying on his back screaming. Two guys try to hold him down while another officer tries to talk to him.
“Sir,” the officer shouts to try to get his attention.
“Oh, my God,” he cries. “Sarah,” he cries as he looks over at the little girl lying in the middle of the road. “Please.” He closes his eyes tightly. “Please, God, no.” His body shakes.
I kneel down beside him as I look over his cut and bloodied face. He looks up at me, and he reaches up to grab my arm. His hand shakes and red tears run from his green eyes. “Please help her,” he sobs. “I didn’t mean to do it.” He shakes his head. “It was an accident.”
I nod my head as I try to give him words of encouragement, but nothing comes out. I know she’s dead, and he knows she’s dead. I can’t save her. There’s nothing I can do to help her.
The ambulance arrived then and took him to the hospital. We covered up the little girl’s body while waiting for the coroner.
Now, I continue to stand here with a heavy heart.
“We need to wrap this up,” Mason, an officer, says looking at what’s left of the family’s SUV. Red pieces of the door lie only inches from my shoes. Glass litters the road and the wadded up SUV lies upside down across two lanes. “Cars are backed up for more than two miles.”
His concern for the traffic pisses me off. “So what?” I scowl. “The fuckers will be late to work.” I shrug carelessly. At least they’ll get there safe and sound. “The tow truck is on its way,” I say as I turn to walk away.
I take a few steps and look down when I feel something soft under my boot. My throat tightens when I see a little pink blanket with a unicorn in the brightest yellow on it. I bend down and pick it up. I give it a shake to remove the glass and broken pieces of the car, but the blood of the child remains on it.
It breaks my heart to think of what her mother and father will face in the coming months. No parent should ever have to go through this—losing a child.
I fold the blanket up and carry it with me back to my patrol car.
I get into my car and dispatch comes through my radio, “10-16 in progress.” Then they proceed to give me the location. Domestic trouble. Great! Just what I wanna fucking deal with right now.
I sigh heavily as I look at my watch. I’ve been off for over an hour. I’m tired and I’m grouchy as fuck. But that’s part of the job.
“2388 en route,” I say before pulling away from a scene that will continue to haunt me.
*****
I slow down as I cruise through a nice neighborhood—definitely up
per class. It’s probably some housewife who allows her wealthy-ass husband to beat her. I’m not trying to stereotype, but I see it all the time.
I pull up to the house that already has one cop car parked in the driveway. A man is standing outside—his white shirt shredded as it hangs off his chest and shoulders. His jeans dirty and falling off his body. His face is red with rage while a police officer who I know well by the name of Jimmy is standing in front of him as he speaks. I get out of my car and the guy is screaming.
“That is mine. I’m here to get it. As soon as I get it—I’m out of here,” he says pointing over the shoulder of the officer.
“What’s the problem?” I ask walking over to them.
Jimmy looks at me. “He and his girlfriend got into it. She wouldn’t allow him to leave.”
Girlfriend? If he looks like that, then she must look like shit. He doesn’t seem like he would just sit back and take whatever a woman would dish out. I look the guy up and down with a scowl before I turn around in a circle looking over the very well-manicured, vacant front yard. “Looks like she’s not here to stop you,” I state, and Jimmy rolls his eyes. I have a problem with getting into trouble on the force. I’m not the best guy to send on a domestic dispute. I tend to make matters worse sometimes. My boss calls me a liability, and I call it getting into character. Obviously, we have different opinions on how I need to handle things.
“She won’t let me have my truck,” he says pointing to the blue Chevy once again that sits in the driveway. He reminds me of a child—mad because his mother won’t let him play with his favorite toy.
“That’s because it’s not yours.”
I turn around when I hear a woman’s voice. Normally a woman in hooker heels and Daisy dukes would turn me on. But at the moment, I’m tired as hell and the fact that I just saw a little girl die has me on edge. I’m in no mood to put up with a couple who wants to fight in their front yard only to make up tomorrow.
The UN Series Complete Box Set Page 163
