Her Thin Blue Lifeline: Indigo Knights Book I

by A. J. Downey

  It’d stuck with me, all these years, and I’d realized that I’d been that asshole quite a few times in the past. Handing the girl the bottle rather than taking my time with her to do it right. For Chrissy, I wanted to take the time and do it right and honestly, not because she needed me to, but because I wanted to.

  “All I’ve got, sorry…” I murmured before emptying a generous amount of my shampoo into my hand. She had a hell of a lot of hair compared to me, so I imagined I’d need a lot more soap… just saying.

  Shit. I don’t think I’d ever been so nervous to do such a simple task in my life. I mean, what if I didn’t do it right? She took a deep breath and turned around giving me her back, her scars, her most vulnerable side and I slicked my hands through her hair, burying my fingers in the clinging strands and working the soap through it.

  “Lean against me if you don’t feel steady,” I murmured and she did, as soon as I’d gathered up all her long, thick hair, she put her back against my chest, her good arm raised, hand curved around the back of my neck, her other arm hanging limp and straight to her side.

  I had a perfect view over her shoulder of those perfect goddamn tits of hers and my cock was so not complaining. I wasn’t trying to be about that right now, though. I was trying like hell to be what she both wanted and needed in a man because I wanted to believe that when the crisis was over, when it’d been averted, that she’d maybe stick around this time because I knew I wanted to.

  If there was going to be a split between us this time, it wasn’t going to be a mutual one. I didn’t want her to go. I enjoyed our talks. I loved how easy things were with her. I really loved that she got it, even though she was technically batting for the other team, she knew what it was to be with a cop and around a bunch of other cops.

  I was seriously regretting that we hadn’t tried to make it work years earlier. I feel like I’d missed out on so much.

  “Turn, careful now, tip your head back and rinse… that’s it.”

  She clung to me, trusting I had her as she tipped her head back, eyes closed so that the warm water from the showerhead could slick through her long tresses and rinse the white lather away. I spent some time washing her body and then quickly did my own despite her protests that she would at least like to do something in kind.

  I gave her a cheeky grin and told her, “If you wanna, I won’t turn down a blowjob later.”

  She laughed, high and bright and nodded, and the mood wasn’t so somber anymore, yet remained comfortably intimate. I pulled her close, kissed her gently and then twisted to turn off the tap. I got out of the tub first so that I could reach out and steady her. The bathmat one of those memory foam things, was one of the best buys I’d ever made for this house when my parents had turned it over to me.

  They hadn’t died, far from it, they’d retired down to Florida and my brothers, one older, two younger had all gone on to do great things. Well, greater than a cop’s salary anyhow. I’d been an apartment dweller for a fair bit and when my parents had decided that the Maryland winters were too much and wanted to move to sunnier climates, they’d let me buy them out and take over payments on my childhood home. It was fuckin’ huge for one person, but there wasn’t much left owed on it and I could use the boost.

  It was as if Chrissy’d read my mind. I wrapped her in a towel and she took a breath as if to ask me something but stopped before she voiced anything. I chuckled and said, “Go on; ask.”

  “It’s rude,” she said and I stopped rubbing her down through the towel and sighed.

  “So was having our first time together be on my dining room table. I’d like to think we’re at a stage with things that what might be considered rude by polite society’s standards is just plain straight talk between two people who are comfortable enough with each other to do it on said dining room table.”

  She smiled and laughed a little and said, “You should have been a lawyer.”

  “Now that’s rude,” I said. “Now what were you gonna ask me?”

  She scoffed and slapped me lightly on the shoulder and said, “What’s wrong with being a lawyer!?”

  “Nothing, precious, but that wasn’t what you were gonna ask me.”

  “Oh my god! You’re incorrigible!”

  “I’m aware… now spill.”

  “I was going to ask… isn’t this place a little big for just one person?”

  I chuckled and said, “I was just thinking that”, and launched into the explanation.

  “You mean there’s four of you? Your poor mother!”

  I laughed, hard and loud and pulled her into my arms, kissing her soundly as she giggled against my mouth, too.

  “No, baby. There’s only one of me. My brothers are a handful all on their own.”

  “So I imagine.”

  I told her about my family, led her across the hall into my room and showed her some pictures. I helped her into one of my button down shirts. I know, I know, she had her own stuff here. Probably a few of those lacy, sexy nighties made it into the mix, too… but there was something about a beautiful woman in nothing but your shirt that… mm.

  She sat on my bed, her long legs curled under her and stared at the framed photo of my family in my hands. It was an old one. Taken the day I’d graduated the police academy, but it was one of the few I had with all of us in it. I looked over her shoulder while I brushed her hair and told her stories about each of my brothers as she pointed them out. None of them particularly flattering, of course.

  It was comfortable, it was nice, and I found I was seriously enjoying brushing her long hair. Mostly for how much it calmed her, her body relaxing. A tension she and I both didn’t realize she held all the time just slipping away.

  I could do this forever, but unfortunately, we both needed to eat and get some sleep. She was coming into the precinct, into the city with me, tomorrow. It was gonna be a big day for her. Still, when she started to talk, I let her.

  “I miss my parents,” she said softly. “My mom always knew what to do, you know? She would know just what to say to make things better.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath and set the photo of my family aside and said, “I don’t know what she would say about all of this, though, and it makes me miss her even harder.”

  “Maybe it’s not about what your mom would say this time,” I said.

  “I don’t follow,” she murmured.

  “Maybe it’s about what your dad would say,” I suggested. I mean, it stood to reason. Typically it was the man of the family who traditionally dealt with violent situations.

  “He’d honestly probably tell me I never should have taken the case,” she said with a bit of a bitter laugh.

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah,” she said and I could hear a hint of a smile in her voice. “He wouldn’t mean it like that, though. My dad was sort of the absent-minded professor. He would say the most socially awkward things sometimes and it totally would be what he meant without actually being what he meant, you know what I mean?”

  “What did your dad do?” I asked, I couldn’t ever remember if she’d told me.

  “Linguistics professor at the university. He was kind of a savant when it came to languages. Spoke seven, but his specialty was Italian. My mother was a housewife and pretty much needed to be to keep him in line or he’d disappear for days poring over old texts and translating them. He was kind of a nerd.”

  I chuckled, and put my arms around her, hugging her back into my chest and lightly resting my chin over her shoulder. I looked down at my big family, mom, dad, and all four boys and couldn’t imagine life without my brothers in it. It must have been pretty lonely for her growing up like that.

  “I can’t imagine being an only child,” I said finally, watching her fingertips caress over my image behind the glass.

  “I wasn’t, really. Sami was right next door. She moved there in the third grade and we might as well have been sisters.”

  “Yeah?
”

  “Mm-hmm. If my mom or her mom found one of our beds empty in the middle of the night, it wasn’t anything, they knew where we were. My mom and her mom ended up best friends, too. It was nice. A little dicey through puberty,” she laughed, “but we made it through.”

  “Sounds like one of those one in a million friendships.”

  “It was.”

  “You guys doing okay?”

  She heaved a big sigh and said faintly, “I think so. I mean, it hurts, but Janine, Sami’s mom, made it around to see me a couple of more times since the day of the funeral. David, her brother, too. I don’t think Bob, her dad, can handle it. Sami was a daddy’s girl. The press was hounding Bob and Janine so bad, they had to leave the city and get away for a while, otherwise I think they would have come around more.”

  She fell silent and I nodded, asking finally and in a total attempt to change the subject, “What would you like for dinner? I’m pretty good at the whole cooking thing, always liked doing it, but really got into it out of self-defense with my ex.”

  “Before or after our disastrous attempt at dating?” she asked, laughing.

  “Before,” I said honestly. “Hasn’t really been anyone since you. Another stab at it, here or there, but nothing beyond a couple of weeks or a one-off fling that wasn’t gonna go anywhere.”

  “I tried dating another lawyer,” she said. “It was only for a minute and pretty much ended the same way we did except…”

  “Except what?” I asked when she fell silent.

  “Except without the regret.”

  I smiled and smoothed my fingers through her long hair, petting it almost, when I realized what I was doing and that it was kind of weird. It kind of tickled me pink that she’d regretted walking away, almost, if not more, than I had.

  “Yeah, about the same for me too, you’re the one that got away, Franco.”

  “You mean, the one?” she asked.

  “Ah, yeah.”

  “Wow, didn’t think I made that strong of an impression.”

  “Well, you did and you do.” I slid off the bed from behind her and stood up, holding down my hand to her. “Come on, let me fix you something to eat, then we can hit the hay. You’ve got a big fuckin’ day tomorrow.”

  She nodded tiredly and let me help her to her feet.

  “That I do,” she agreed but I could tell she was thinking. I could tell she was thinking hard. Truth be told? I was, too.

  Chapter 16

  Chrissy

  “Nervous?” Tony asked me the next morning.

  “Yeah.” I gave him a nod and he buttoned the last button on my blouse for me, Roscoe looking on from the bed. Tony rested his hands on my shoulders, barely touching the left one and made me look him in the eyes.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he said and it was definitely an order. I laughed lightly. He sounded like because he said it, I simply wouldn’t be and surprisingly it worked to some degree. As if his confidence in me was somehow transferable and he transferred some to me.

  I smiled small and he asked, “What next?”

  “Um, I typically tuck it into my skirt and zip that up, and I guess now we put my arm back in the sling.”

  He’d already helped me into my pantyhose, which I’d deemed absolutely necessary if only to hide how badly my legs were in need of a waxing. He’d chuckled and asked why I didn’t shave and I’d been honest, “Waxing lasts longer and the hair grows back finer.”

  “Interesting. Maybe we can get that taken care of today, too.”

  The plan wasn’t exceptionally brilliant but necessary. He couldn’t take the time off from work to drive me back to his place in the middle of the day and so he’d arranged for me to stay with people he deemed safe and who could look out for me after the lineup was concluded.

  “Don’t ask me to do your make up,” he said when he’d gotten my skirt and shirt smoothed and centered.

  “I think I can live without it this time.”

  “Good, ‘cause you’d probably end up looking like a clown.”

  I laughed and he chuckled with me and I knew he was trying so hard to help hold me together. I slipped into a low set of kitten heel pumps and he helped me to strap into my sling. He’d pulled up half my hair into a pewter barrette that I’d liked that had vaguely Moroccan design origins. The cabochons on it made of hematite, a silvery black stone that sometimes was magnetic. It matched the iron gray satin blouse I wore tucked into a form-fitting black pencil skirt.

  I looked professional, but when I turned to look in the mirror I felt like I also looked half done. Usually I had my makeup done and my hair was much more elaborate than simply half up. I looked in the mirror and the sling crossing my body and felt… less. I was somehow less than I’d been before and the man who’d made it that way, made me feel that way, I was about to be face to face with.

  My heart did a somersault in my chest but I refused to let it plummet. Instead, I stood up straighter and asked Tony who was tucking a light blue button down shirt into a pair of lighter gray Dockers behind me, “How do I look?”

  “You look good,” he said, “why?”

  “Feeling a little uncertain, I guess.”

  “Nope, not allowed.” I tripped on a laugh at his deadpan delivery and he said, “Oh no, don’t laugh, I’m dead serious, precious. You are,” and he pulled me gently by the hips into the circle of his arms, “one seriously badass woman. You pretty much single-handedly defended one of the highest-profile cases in the history of Indigo City, and won. You survived internet trolls, two gunshots to the back, more than a few downright terrifying threats, the media, and living with me for three days straight without being up on murder charges of your own.” I laughed, and Tony quirked a smile, “My point is, baby, you’ve got this.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. I mean, he was right. The hardest part about this is maintaining professionalism and by that, I mean, keeping my hands to myself when I was sure to want to take shelter against Tony.

  I let out a pent up breath and nodded saying, “You look good, too.”

  “Aw, thanks.”

  “Like you better in the leather and denim though.”

  He chuckled and said, “Me too, now let’s get out of here.”

  He slipped on a pair of professional looking brown loafers and pulled down a blazer and I went out the door before him. Down in the dining room he retrieved his gun and holster and his badge off the table and threaded them onto his belt. He gave his jacket and cut a fond pat, and let out a gusty sigh laden with regret.

  “I hate it when I have to get in the monkey suit almost as much as I hate getting back in the bag.”

  “Back in the bag?” I asked, unfamiliar with the terminology.

  “Yeah, it’s a cop thing, means back in uniform.”

  “Ah.”

  “After your lineup, I have just enough time to get you over to the Ten-Thirteen before I got to be in court.”

  “Joy.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Come on, coffee’s on you.”

  I barked a bit of a laugh and he opened the door to the garage. I plucked my purse down from the coat tree and said, “Oh, shit. I forgot my phone…”

  “On it.” He ran upstairs for me and brought it down. Every time I looked at it, my heart sank a little more. Voicemail box full, but never any messages that I’d want to hear. Never anything personal. It was as if I didn’t even exist to the firm anymore and I had just earned them a lot of money. I’d received my cut of that money and my bank account was still healthy, even after breaking my lease, so there was that. I’d canceled all my cable and things while I’d been in the hospital, so there’d been very little to do there. I just had to move everything out by the end of this month. Still had plenty of time, but still…

  “You’re going to be fine, I believe in you,” he repeated, misreading my melancholy. I put on a brave front, forced a smile and nodded.

  He held the door open to his two car garage and I stepped careful
ly down the steps, his truck was daunting, parked on the other side of his bike. It was a big Chevy, newer and clean. Didn’t look like it’d been driven much, but with the motorcycle, I understood why.

  He opened the passenger door for me and pulled a footstool over from the corner, he stood close to spot me and said, “Use your good hand, grab the ‘oh shit’ handle.” I handed him my purse and took his advice, but still, it hurt like a mother getting myself up into the cab. I would be thrilled when I could take a pain pill again. I’d pretty much weaned myself down to two a day, and was pleased that I’d gone as long as I had without completely needing to take one. I worried that addiction was a possibility after my injuries, but so far, so good.

  Tony handed me my purse and shut the door. He threw the low stool he’d brought out as a stepladder into the bed of the truck and rounded the hood to the driver’s side. I swallowed hard, the anxiety over what I was about to do resurfacing. I think he knew, because he laced his fingers between mine and held my hand the entire drive into the city.

  It was almost forty-five minutes and I realized that I’d missed the city, but the time away from it had been good. I felt myself tense when he turned into the core’s traffic, and I took my hand back reflexively. He let me and said, “Probably a good idea,” in a conceding tone of voice.

  I gripped my hands together in my lap and took deep and even breaths. By the time he pulled into the garage at his precinct, I felt like I was a dead woman walking. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  Getting out of the truck was much easier than getting into it had been and Tony was again there to catch me or steady me. We were careful of being too familiar with one another, in fact, we’d talked about it at length over dinner. How it would be unseemly or could get him into trouble if he were perceived to be too close to a victim. I understood it. Anyone and everyone would jump on even a whiff of impropriety and I didn’t want that for him. Things were already bad enough.

  Nobody knew where I had disappeared to, no one knew where I had gone or when I’d be back or that I was even here. I kept telling myself that with every clack of my heel against the cement on the way to the elevator. When we got on, Tony selected the fourth floor and I swallowed hard.