“The only problem I have,” she shouted, “is you!” And with that, she bolted down the hall and slammed her door so hard the front windows rattled.
JOLENE WATCHED the emotions play across Mason Blackfox’s face while a whole different set of emotions ran through her. She was embarrassed for him, not to mention surprised that he seemed so concerned about his daughter. The way Debra had talked, Jolene had expected to find something completely different. Mason was articulate and intelligent and, yes, sober.
She hadn’t expected that.
She hadn’t expected him to be so tall, either. So broad-shouldered. So good-looking in an outdoorsy way she didn’t usually respond to. His dark hair was combed neatly away from his face, trimmed so that it barely grazed the back of his neck. Well-defined muscles stretched a black T-shirt with a faded logo across his shoulders and chest. Jolene would have bet a week’s paycheck he hadn’t built them at any gym. But what caught and held her attention was a long, narrow scar running along his jawline. She couldn’t help wondering when and where he’d received the injury that had caused the scarring—and how.
“Mr. Blackfox—”
“Would you leave, please?” He spoke without looking at her.
Maybe she should leave. Ryan certainly would. Who was she kidding? Ryan wouldn’t be here in the first place. But Jolene had never liked turning her back on someone who was hurting, and it was obvious that Mason Blackfox was in pain. So was his daughter. On top of that, they were her neighbors. How could she just turn her back and walk out the door when they might bump into each other tomorrow at the mailbox or by the pool?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This must be difficult.”
Very slowly, Mason turned to face her. “You don’t need to worry about me losing my temper and hurting my daughter, so feel free to go.”
“I’m not worried about that,” she assured him. “How long ago did her mother leave?”
He scowled. “What does Debra’s mother have to do with this?”
“I just thought Debra might be having trouble adjusting to her mother being gone.”
His lips curved slightly. “I see. Well, Sergeant, I don’t think that’s the trouble.”
“Jolene,” she said. “I live over on the other side of the complex. I don’t see any reason to be formal since we’re neighbors.”
Mason processed that too slowly for comfort. Just when she began to wonder if she’d offended him, he went on. “Debra’s mother left me nine years ago and took Debra with her. They’ve been living together in Kansas City all this time. Debra’s only been back in Tulsa for about eight weeks.”
Jolene’s next comment died on her lips. “But she said…”
Mason’s smile grew a fraction of an inch. “Apparently, she said her mother abandoned her.”
Had she? Jolene couldn’t remember. That was certainly the impression she’d gotten, but was it what Debra said?
“Well, she didn’t. Her mother is still living in Kansas City and she works for one of the major newspapers there. She’s a respectable woman with a respectable job and a brand-new respectable husband. Debra is living with me because she doesn’t like it there.”
What had the girl said? Jolene had asked if her mother was home, and she’d said… She’d said she didn’t know where her mother was. That was it. Jolene had assumed the rest.
Her cheeks grew warm and the back of her neck burned. “I must’ve misunderstood what she meant.”
“I’m sure she meant for you to misunderstand,” Mason said. “Debra’s my daughter, and I love her, but she never does anything without a reason, and she’s not the easiest kid on the planet to live with. She’s got an attitude, and she knows how to use it.”
“It’s pretty obvious Debra feels abandoned by her mother.”
Mason sank onto the couch and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “What are you, some kind of psychiatrist?”
“No, but—”
“So you don’t really know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve had plenty of experience with people, Mr. Blackfox. Debra’s perception of her circumstances has a powerful influence on her behavior.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” He glanced pointedly at the door. “Can you find your way out—?”
Jolene pulled out a business card and jotted her direct line and cell numbers on the back. “Unfortunately, drugs are readily available. Kids have them, and they know where to get them.”
“My kid shouldn’t.”
“But your kid does.” She tossed him the card. “If you hear her mention the name of the boy she was with, let me know. You might also want to look into some community service programs for teens. Sometimes another adult can get through where a parent can’t.”
An expression of distaste crossed his face.
Jolene stood and reached across the coffee table to hand him the card. “No promises, but we’ll do what we can.”
As anxious to get out as he was to get rid of her, Jolene turned abruptly and rammed into the coffee table, knocking a box filled with documents. Mason let out a shout and dived for them, but it was too late. Jolene watched as what must have been a thousand pieces of paper fluttered to the floor.
CHAPTER THREE
MORTIFIED by her clumsiness, Jolene knelt to help him gather loose papers. “I can’t believe I did that. Look at the mess I’ve made.”
“It’s fine,” he said, but his voice had a razor-sharp edge to it. “Leave it.”
“I’m the one who knocked it over,” she argued.
A scowl dragged at the corners of his mouth, but he took the small stack of documents she handed him. “It’s not mine. It’s Ike’s,” he said, dumping them onto the coffee table in a heap. The top layer began to slide toward the floor, but Mason didn’t seem to notice.
Jolene caught the sliding stack, leveled it and reached for the box at her feet. “Did he have all of this in any particular order?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mason said. “He can fix it tomorrow.”
Jolene ran a doubtful glance over what looked like hundred of pages of research and pictures. “My dad’s a history professor at the university, and he spends most of his time researching. I know how important it is to have everything where you can find it.”
“Ike won’t care,” Mason assured her. “I doubt it was in any particular order, anyway.” He reached past her for a stray document.
Jolene’s gaze was inadvertently drawn to the muscles in his shoulders. “What is he researching? Something about the Cherokee, it looks like.”
“He’s writing an article about the founding of the Cherokee Cultural Center.”
“I know the place,” she said. “It’s on the north end of town, isn’t it?” At Mason’s nod, she said, “I’ve never actually been there, but I’ve driven past it a hundred times.”
“You and the rest of Tulsa.” Mason started a new stack on the coffee table, but he took more care this time to make sure they didn’t topple. “The Center’s thirtieth anniversary is coming up in a few months. The man who raised us was one of the founders, so the elders asked Ike to write something for the tribal newspaper.”
“So you’re Cherokee then?”
Mason retrieved some photographs from under the table. “I am.”
Jolene knew people of Native American descent, of course. You couldn’t grow up in a place like Tulsa without meeting them. But her parents had never encouraged those friendships when she was young, and she was embarrassed to admit that her circle had widened only marginally as an adult.
She sat back on her heels with a handful of newspaper articles, curious to see what kind of research Ike had pulled together. The top article was a story about a donation of land to the Western Cherokee. She skimmed it briefly and flipped to the next picture of a group of people in front of a familiar adobe building.
Though the Center was larger now, Jolene had no trouble recognizing the landscape and the o
riginal facade, but the people were another story. A man of about forty stood smiling in the center of the photograph with a taller, much younger man beside him. But it was the woman next to him who captured Jolene’s attention. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn she was looking at a picture of her own mother.
She glanced up at Mason. “This is an interesting picture. Was it taken at the Center’s opening?”
Reluctantly, he leaned in close to take a look. “It was.”
Jolene could smell his aftershave and the faded scent of garlic from dinner. “And the people in the photograph? Who are they?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I’m just curious.” A trait that served her well at work, but didn’t always endear her to people in her private life.
Mason shrugged and pointed to the central figure. “That’s Henry Owle. He’s the man who raised me.” He moved his finger to the tall good-looking man with the confident smile. “And that’s Billy Starr. He died in Vietnam shortly after this picture was taken.”
“And the blond woman?”
“Margaret Starr. Billy’s wife. She wasn’t Cherokee, but Henry told me she was very involved in getting the Center opened.”
“Her name was Margaret?” What an odd coincidence. “Is she still alive?”
Mason shrugged again. “I wouldn’t know.”
There certainly was a remarkable resemblance between the two Margarets. More than remarkable, actually. The similarities were so strong, it felt almost spooky. The woman in that photograph was a dead ringer for her mother.
Slowly, she became aware of Mason watching her, a frown on his face, and the apartment suddenly felt way too small and way too stuffy. She handed him the articles and stood.
“Something wrong?” Mason asked.
Jolene shook her head. “No, I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
With a quick goodbye, she hurried down the stairs. She thought she heard him say something, but she didn’t stop to find out. In the parking lot, she let herself into her 4Runner, and immediately the sense of urgency vanished.
Confused, she leaned her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure what happened to her in there, but she didn’t like it.
“FIELDING. PRESTON. In my office. Now!”
Jolene glanced up from her computer screen to find Captain Eisley in the open doorway, red-faced and breathing heavily. He was built like a bulldog, all chest and round face, with narrow hips and short, squat legs. He was probably in his late forties, and the years had etched lines around his mouth and into his forehead.
She met Ryan’s gaze across the space separating their desks, clicked to save the report she’d been working on and stood. Ryan jerked his head toward Eisley’s office, and she followed, dreading the next few minutes.
Anything that got Eisley worked up like that was a bad thing. The fact that it had something to do with them made it even worse.
Mike Santini, one of the longtime members of the unit, grinned as she passed him, obviously delighted to think she might be on the hot seat. Jolene pretended not to notice. Mike had strong opinions about women on the force, and he never hesitated to share those opinions, even when no one else wanted to hear them. He was loud, brash and abrasive—more brawn than brains—and one of the worst practical jokers in the unit.
So far, he’d left Jolene alone, but that was just because he didn’t like her well enough to target her. If ever she found a pizza delivery sticker pasted to the side of her 4Runner or her desk in the men’s bathroom, she would know she’d arrived.
Ryan made it to Eisley’s glassed-in office first and claimed the good plastic chair for himself, which left the one with the short front leg for Jolene. Jerk.
Captain Eisley shut the door behind them—not a good sign. It didn’t matter all that much, anyway. The two large plate-glass windows that looked out over the bull pen meant that every man out there could watch what happened next.
Clearly angry, the captain launched his attack before Jolene even had all her weight in the chair. “Would one of you mind telling me what the hell happened last night?”
Jolene tried to position her feet so the chair wouldn’t tilt every time she moved. “We had to abort the operation, Captain. I found a couple of kids in the alley.”
“So you just let Zika waltz off with a heroin shipment?”
“No, sir. One of the kids took off running. I tried to intercept him, but he reached the fence around Zika’s warehouse before I could. Once Zika’s men saw him, it was too late.”
Eisley sat behind his desk, where a half-eaten dried-out sandwich lay forgotten on top of a paper bag. The scowl on his face strengthened his unfortunate resemblance to a bulldog. “Some kid outran you? How did that happen?”
Jolene would have given anything for a better answer. “I tripped.”
“You tripped?”
“Could have happened to anybody,” Ryan said in her defense.
“I was in an alley,” Jolene said. “And it was dark. There was garbage all over the place.”
Eisley waved off her explanation and linked his stubby fingers over his stomach. “This isn’t about you tripping, Jolene. This is about the fact that you took your eye off the ball. You were there to follow through on a lead. If you hadn’t been distracted, we might have gotten what we needed to put Zika away for a long time.”
The hair on the back of her neck stood up and a low warning buzzed inside her head. “There were kids in that alley, Captain. I thought they were in danger.”
“They weren’t in danger until you sent one of them running straight into Zika’s camp.”
Ryan cleared his throat. “We don’t know that—”
This time Jolene waved him off. She couldn’t afford to have the captain think she needed help fighting her battles. Back rigid, she sat forward. The chair tilted onto its short leg with a thunk. “I did not put those children in danger, Captain. The danger already existed. If Ryan had made a move and those men were armed—”
“That’s a hypothetical situation, Jolene. Yes, that might have happened, and yes, if all the stars lined up just right, the scenario might have played out the way you thought.” Eisley shook his head and set his chins jiggling. “But the point is, we’ll never know what might have happened. All we can go on now are the facts. The fact that you put that boy in danger by trying to roust him.”
The buzz in her head grew louder and Jolene could’ve sworn she could feel the hair on her arms growing. He was going somewhere with this, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know where. She forced herself to ask, “What are you saying, Captain?”
“I’m saying that there’s no room on this team for that kind of thoughtless action. We’ve talked about this before, Jolene. You know my rules. It’s all about the team.”
She couldn’t believe they were even having this conversation. Not after last night. The whole thing felt surreal. She heard Ryan take a breath and knew he was getting ready to defend her again. The chair tilted back again, so she stood. “The team would have taken a direct hit with the media if anything had happened to those kids, and you know it.”
Eisley’s cold blue eyes hardened. “We’re not talking about what might have happened in some fantasy you dreamed up out there last night. We’re talking about reality. The reality is, you’re still not focused and last night proves it. We were closer to nailing Raoul Zika than we’ve ever been, but we lost him. We may never get that close again.”
“Big Red got us the information once,” Ryan said. “He can do it again.”
“If he’s willing to talk.”
“He’ll talk,” Jolene assured him. “He made a deal with us to drop that possession charge in exchange for information. He’ll do almost anything to avoid going back to lockup.”
“Including ratting out Raoul Zika twice?” Captain Eisley laughed without humor. “We were lucky he opened his mouth once.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure he does i
t again.” Ryan got to his feet and stood beside Jolene. “I was there last night, Captain. I know what happened. Jolene did nothing wrong.”
“Loyalty is commendable,” Eisley said. “Just make sure you’re putting yours in the right place.” He sat back in his chair so he could glare at both of them. “Now get out of here and see if you can find Big Red again. Maybe you can still pull this out of the fire.”
Seething, Jolene was halfway out the door when Eisley called after her. “Preston?”
Her stomach knotted into a hard lump as she turned back. “Yes, Captain?”
“You’d better pray Big Red comes through for you.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Blow another operation like the one last night, and I’ll have no choice but to transfer you into some other less demanding unit.”
As she had a thousand times since being assigned to Eisley’s command, Jolene swallowed her pride and choked back everything she would like to say in response. Eisley might have won this round, but if he thought he’d won the war, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHORTLY AFTER NOON on Sunday, Jolene parked in front of her parents’ two-story brick house. After her discussion with Eisley the day before, this was the last place she wanted to be, but she couldn’t very well cancel now. The every-third-weekend routine had been a cherished tradition of her mother’s since Jolene’s younger brother, Trevor, graduated from high school and Margaret officially became an empty nester.
Vowing not to say a word to her parents about this latest dustup at work, Jolene reached into the backseat for the bag of goodies she’d picked up on the way. Trevor’s truck wasn’t in the driveway—she’d arrived ahead of him for once. Maybe she’d earn a few bonus points this weekend.
Not that she and Trevor were in competition or anything. It wasn’t like that. But Trevor did have that annoying habit of doing everything right. He’d chosen the right career, dated the right girls, wore the right clothes and said all the right things. He’d even been accepted at Johns Hopkins, which had sent their history professor dad over the moon when Trevor broke the news last month.
Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop Page 3
