by C. J. Pinard
By
C.J. Pinard
Copyright 2016 C.J. Pinard
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication:
This book is for anyone who has lost a loved one in the line of duty. It’s always the hardest for those left behind. God bless.
Acknowledgments:
Cover Art by:
Kellie Dennis @ Book Cover by Design
http://www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk
Chapter 1
Harper
“I used to take your breath away. Now that you have no breath to steal, I am suffocating, and cannot breathe without you.”
A shrilly scream bolted me out an already fitful sleep. I blinked rapidly and sat up, looking around my small living room. A mostly-eaten and now mostly-melted container of vanilla bean ice cream sat on my coffee table and the only light was from the TV playing a horror movie, which explained the scream.
I rubbed my eyes and wiped the drool from my chin with my finger. Fumbling around for the remote, I switched the TV off. I fluffed the pillow under my head and pulled the quilt back over me and tried to go back to sleep on the lumpy sofa. But as usual, my thoughts wouldn’t let me. I snuck a glance at the clock on the kitchen stove and saw it was 4:30 a.m. and I sighed. I had to be up in two hours, but something told me there would be no more sleep for me today.
These sleepless nights were starting to wear on me. But I suppose that came with the territory. They say when you’re grieving you’ll either sleep all the time or not at all. Guess I drew the short straw and got the latter. After lying on the sofa for another twenty minutes staring up at the ceiling, I flipped the quilt off of me and stood up and stretched. Folding the quilt neatly and piling the pillow on top of it, I left them both on the sofa and made my way upstairs to start my day.
I went into the small guest bathroom at the top of the stairs with the standalone shower. My bedroom door was closed and I eyed it briefly before entering the bathroom. I started the shower, and as it was heating up, I turned to the quickly fogging mirror. I sighed at the dark rings that so dramatically contrasted with the light blue of my eyes. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me, and if I didn’t start getting some decent shut-eye, I might be forced to resort to either some hard alcohol or an over-the-counter sleep aid.
After an uneventful but refreshing shower, I wrapped myself in a towel and padded back out into the landing at the top of the stairs and stopped in front of my bedroom door. Taking a deep breath, I turned the doorknob and breathed through my mouth to avoid inhaling in the sad, familiar scent of the room. I averted my eyes from the neatly made bed and kept them focused on the walk-in closet that was near the attached master bath. Glancing briefly at the other smaller walk-in closet that sat adjacent to mine, I saw the door was still closed, just the way I’d left it. I couldn’t deal with what was in there just yet. Maybe one day.
I plucked out an unremarkable navy blue pantsuit and white blouse. Reaching into my shoe rack, I pulled out a pair of navy blue pumps that I planned to wear with bare legs.
Grabbing undergarments from the dresser, I hurried out of the room and shut the door behind me, exhaling in relief. I took my clothing across the hall and set them on the desk in the only other bedroom of my small townhouse. It was supposed to be a spare bedroom eventually, or maybe even a nursery one day, but we never got it fixed up, so its only furniture was my large computer desk with the laptop and 21-inch monitor set on top.
After I was as ready as I would be, I applied one last coat of under-eye concealer to the dark circles and checked my reflection. It was hot, so I pulled my long, blonde hair back into a ponytail. The humidity would kill any hairstyle anyhow.
I parked my small Honda in my designated spot in the parking garage of one of Tampa’s largest office buildings. I took the elevator to the 17th floor and sucked in a deep breath, plastering a painful smile on my face as the elevator chimed my arrival and the doors began to slowly open.
“Good morning, Ms. Mathis,” said Tyler, a new intern. He pushed a mail cart with a smile on his young, handsome face.
I nodded. “Morning, Ty.”
Carrying my briefcase in my right hand and my coffee in my left, I weaved my way through the cubicles and used my hip to open the glass door to my office, which had my name embossed in frosted letters on the front: Harper Mathis, Executive Director. I set the briefcase and coffee down on my desk and immediately saw the phone flashing, indicating I had voicemails.
Probably a hundred of them.
I was continually amazed at the amount of calls a nonprofit organization got, asking for donations or charity. Our organization helped veterans fresh out of the military find jobs, get counseling, and reintegrate back into society. My husband and I had started this business three years ago, and even I was shocked at how fast it had grown.
My husband…
Angrily pushing the thought of him from my mind, I picked up the receiver of the black phone and listened to the six voicemails I had while I absently sorted through the mail on my desk. Mostly junk.
Five were solicitors; the sixth got my attention. I hit “1” again to replay the message.
“Ms. Mathis, this is Steve Bates from the VFW of Florida. We have a special case that could use your help.”
The VFW – Veterans of Foreign Wars organization rarely called me. They were a proud bunch who usually tried to help their own and almost never called on outside help. It had to have been serious if they were calling me.
I quickly dialed him back and we arranged for the veteran in need to meet with me on Thursday.
I hung up and sighed, rubbing a hand over the top of my head. I logged into my laptop and saw a million emails that needed attention, and a glance to my desk showed a stack of paperwork that needed signatures. I stared out of the window and was happy to see the sun was shining on downtown Tampa. It had rained a lot lately, which didn’t help my mood. It felt like my life had been one, big, gloomy downpour for the last year and a half. I kept telling myself I needed to snap out of it, to move forward. But what was in my head wasn’t connecting very well with what was in my heart. For now, I just got up in the morning, put one foot in front of the other, and went to work. Anything more was a chore, and I didn’t owe anyone an explanation of how I chose to cope or live my life.
The melodic ring of my office phone brought me out of my mental ramblings.
“Harper Mathis,” I answered.
“Your gym bag is in your car, right?”
I sighed, my best friend, Adria Green, was relentless. “It’s always in my car.”
I could hear her smile through her words. “Good. If you don’t meet me at Lenny’s after work, I will come after you.”
“Adria, it’s eight-thirty in the morning on a Monday. You’re lucky I’ve even showered today. It’s too early to discuss going to the gym.”
“Oh, suck it up, Mathis. Besides, you promised.”
She was right. I had promised, on Friday night when she was at my townhouse, keeping me company. I had downed half a bottle of Pinot, and promised I’d start going to the gym with her Monday. Or I should say go back to the gym with her. I hadn’t been in month
s and months; it was just too much work. I could barely slog out of bed in the morning, let alone exert what little physical and emotional energy I had at the end of the day to a Stairmaster.
“I’ll be there,” I reluctantly agreed.
“Yay!” Adria squealed in my ear.
“What are you doing up so early anyway?” I asked to get the conversation off of the gym.
She clucked her tongue. “It’s my day off. Gage and I are going out on his boat.”
“Oh, I forgot. Have fun,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt.
I tried really hard to be happy for Adria and her recent engagement to Gage, a handsome physician’s assistant at the hospital where she worked. We’d been best friends for almost ten years since our first year of college, and she had stuck with me through the good times, the fun times, and the very dark, ugly times.
“Oh, I plan on it. Now, don’t work too hard, and I’ll see you at Lenny’s at six.” She paused. “You better be there, girl, or I’ll drag your ass down there by that ponytail of yours.”
“How did you know I was wearing a ponytail today?”
I could practically hear her eyes roll. “Because you always wear that damn ponytail. You need to let your hair down every once in a while, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.” She chuckled at her own joke.
“Okay. Gotta go, I have a trillion emails to get through.”
“Bye, girlie.”
I hung up while shaking my head. She was way too chipper for a Monday morning.
I groaned when I got into my Honda at 5:30. I saw my gym bag sitting sadly in the backseat, mirroring my mood. I didn’t want to go to the damn gym. I wanted to go home and drown myself in ice cream and reality TV. I didn’t want to sweat and work and socialize. That expended too much energy. Energy I didn’t have.
I also knew that if I didn’t, the look of disappointment in Adria’s chocolate brown eyes would haunt my dreams tonight, and God knew I had enough frickin’ nightmares without adding her condescending stare to them.
I sighed and put the car in gear and headed toward Lenny’s with much reluctance.
The clock on the dash read 5:55. Yes, I was totally going to wait five more minutes before going in at six like I’d promised Adria. When it flipped to 6:00, I dragged myself out of my car, grabbed the stupid pink gym bag, and wandered without enthusiasm to the ladies’ locker room. Of course Adria was already there, dressed in her skin-tight black Lycra bike shorts and a purple sports bra. She was bent over, doing stretches with her toned arms, her short athletic legs obeying in surrender as she bent. Her olive skin and muscular stomach made me a little sick to look at. My stomach hadn’t seen the light of day in over a year and knew it would probably glow under a black light if I wore such a small sports bra. She eyed me up and down in my navy suit and a small smile twisted up on her pretty mouth.
“Hard day at work?” she asked with amusement in her warm eyes.
With my mouth closed in a frown, I licked my teeth to keep from smiling. No way was I going to let her know I was one iota happy about being dragged to the gym.
“Yes, of course. I own a nonprofit business. I don’t ever leave work not tired.”
She pointed a nude fingernail at my outfit. “Get changed, bitch. I’m gonna wear your ass out some more.”
This time I did smile and quickly changed into a pair of charcoal gray yoga capri pants and a black sports bra, which I covered up with a loose pink tank top.
Adria led me to the weight machines and informed me we were going to do some arm work first. She lifted her arm in a muscle-man pose and smacked the underside of it. “See this? A bicep shouldn’t wiggle. It’s not attractive. Nor will it look good with my strapless wedding dress.”
I turned my head to the side, watching her arm barely jiggle then looked into her eyes. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
She walked over and lifted my arm and smacked my bicep, and I watched in horror as it did, in fact, wiggle a little. “You see that? Gelatinous. Not okay,” she snarked with a lifted brow.
I had to laugh again. I wasn’t in the mood to laugh, but she made me anyway.
The nerve.
We took turns lifting some weights and doing some overhead curls, then she led me to a row of machines and told me to take my pick. “I prefer the elliptical because it works out my whole body. There are treadmills and Stairmasters, too, if you prefer that type.”
“Thanks, but I have been to the gym before,” I reminded her dryly.
“Oh, really? Well, my memory doesn’t go back that far,” she quipped.
I was seriously going to have to smack her soon but I smiled instead.
I silently chose the elliptical next her to hers, happy they were showing The Bachelor on the TV screens in front of me so I could concentrate on that and not the burning pain in my ass and thighs.
Chapter 2
Mason
Normal is overrated. I would never be, so why even try to blend in? I learned a long time ago to just roll with the punches, and when that didn’t work, just go for a total fucking knockout.
I sucked in my last breath before bending double at the waist. “Oh, hell no,” I wheezed out after Hunter jabbed me in the gut with his fist.
I wrapped my taped-up hands around my stomach and coughed twice, then stood up straight. I was not going to wimp out this quickly. He got a sucker punch in, but I was going to get him back good. I looked around the small boxing ring we were using in the gym’s backroom and could see a few people had gathered around to watch us.
I bounced from foot to foot and fixed him with a stare that meant business. He smirked at me through the sweaty blonde hair plastered to his forehead, and he didn’t even bat an eye when a bead of sweat somehow got past his eyebrow and dripped into his eye.
“Bring it, bitch.” He beckoned me with his fingers.
I had no idea why I thought this UFC-style fighting was a good idea, but if I were honest, I’d admit that it did help me expend some of the anger and pent-up energy that sometimes plagued me. I knew it was a total macho thing, but it was better than beating the living shit out of a suspect on a bad day and catching a case with Internal Affairs. I’d just beat the hell out of my willing colleague instead.
I jabbed at his chin with a closed fist but he moved too quickly and I caught nothing but air. I swore under my breath, and when he threw a pompous smirk at me, I freakin’ lost it.
In a lightning fast move, I swung again, successfully checking his jaw with my fist. His head flew back with a snap, spit and sweat flying in the air a la Rocky Balboa style. A grin of sick satisfaction lit up my face, but it was wiped off when I felt his bare foot make contact with my stomach, sending me flying backwards, flat onto my ass.
I coughed involuntarily and heard Hunter laugh again.
Fuck this shit and fuck the rules.
I got up quickly and tackled his legs. He fell on his stomach, and while he was down, I yanked his right arm behind his back and heard him yelp as I came close to breaking it. I had it twisted at an unnatural angle while my knee was in his back. His grunts and string of curse words made me grin. Until I felt a set of arms pull me off of him.
“What the hell?” I said, whipping my head around to see a big bald guy pulling me off of Hunter.
“This isn’t a fighting cage, dude,” said the guy who wore a navy blue Lenny’s Gym polo shirt, chomping on gum. The hard fluorescent lights glinted off his shiny head, his blue eyes measuring me with a serious stare.
The gym has bouncers?
I put my hands up in surrender. “Fine. But we were just getting some rec time.”
Hunter’s left hand was on his right shoulder and he rotated his arm, stretching it out as he spat, “Rec time, my ass!”
“That’s what you get for that pussy sucker punch, dick,” I said.
“Fuck you, Oliver.”
I smirked. “Let’s get changed and then go get a beer.”
“You’re buying, asswi
pe.” He put his fist out to bump, and I did.
We walked out of the ring and toward the men’s room when two very hot women caught my eye. As different as night and day, one had deep olive skin and shiny black hair with a stripe of color in it. She had a nice athletic physique, and was much shorter than her friend. The other was pale and had a blonde ponytail, and was lithe, tall, and thin. The blonde looked at me and my chest tightened when she gave me a very shy smile. She then looked back to her friend to continue their conversation. I watched as they disappeared into the ladies’ locker room, and the blonde’s super nice ass did not go unnoticed by me.
As I wandered into the men’s locker room, I was trying to remember why the blonde looked so familiar. I concluded she must come to this gym a lot because I didn’t think I’d ever seen her anywhere else. I had definitely seen her friend in here before.
After a shower, Hunter and I headed to a pub downtown called Murphy’s and numbed our cuts and bruises with beer and smooth Irish whiskey. Hunter Jenkins was a fellow detective in my precinct, and he also made a good punching bag.
“So what case are you working on?” Hunter asked as he wiped beer foam from his lip with his thumb. He followed it up with a shot of amber colored whiskey from a small glass which sat next to his foaming glass.
I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve got a department store robbery and a business invasion going right now.”
“Any leads?” he asked as he shoveled a French fry covered in ranch dressing into his mouth.
I watched in disgust. I never touched fried foods, even the smell of them made me sick. Beer was probably about as unhealthy as it got for me.
I paused with the bottle at my lips. “Yeah, a few. The business invasion looks like the M.O. of a few in Orlando. I’ve already put in a call to Orlando P.D. for the files to be sent over to me.”
Hunter nodded as he downed the rest of his beer from a glass. He signaled the very cute brunette waitress for another.
