Officer on Duty (Lock and Key Book 4)

by Ranae Rose

  The nurse was probably used to it.

  “I know it’s a lot to wrap your head around,” she said, “but you have options, and we can help you navigate them. You’re welcome to schedule an appointment for a free or low cost exam – probably free, since you’re under eighteen.”

  When Olivia said nothing, Lucia spoke up. “What would the exam involve?”

  “An ultrasound to determine gestational age and counseling from a doctor who’ll educate you on your options.”

  Lucia nodded, while Olivia was still.

  “Just to be clear,” the nurse said, “we’re here to educate and support women only. There won’t be pressure of any sort from our staff, and we don’t provide prenatal care beyond the initial screening. We also don’t perform pregnancy termination procedures here. We can refer you to an OBGYN though, and we host group counseling sessions for women affected by pregnancy, no matter what path they choose.”

  Lucia nodded again. “Olivia, would you like to schedule an appointment so you can speak to a doctor?”

  After a moment, she nodded.

  As they exited the exam room, Lucia took her hand and held it until they were in the parking lot, at her car.

  Olivia stopped in front of the passenger side door. “I don’t want to go home. I – I can’t.”

  Tears streamed down her face.

  Lucia hesitated, her heart sinking. “Why don’t we take a short walk before we leave, so you can collect your thoughts?”

  It wouldn’t be much, but it was the most Lucia dared to offer – she didn’t want to get Olivia in trouble with her parents by returning her home too late. Still, a little time to take in the news she’d just received would be better than none.

  Olivia nodded, and they started down the street.

  Lucia had no destination in mind, but she walked away from downtown and in the opposite direction, where things would be quiet and they were unlikely to be bothered. Dusk was taking over, and it helped disguise Olivia’s tears.

  They received a lingering look or two, and then they were beyond the light bustle of a small town on a Tuesday night. On a quiet stretch of street that was home to a dry cleaner, a dentist’s office and a shoe store – all closed – Lucia broke the silence.

  “Is whoever got you pregnant someone you think you can count on for support?”

  “My boyfriend.” Olivia’s voice was soft. “He’ll be a senior when school starts again – he’s seventeen. I don’t – I don’t know what he’ll say.”

  Lucia nodded. She’d never met Olivia’s boyfriend. She could only hope he had enough maturity to provide some of the support she might not get from her parents. Of course, that was a tall order for a seventeen year old.

  They neared a small park that boasted a fountain, dozens of petunia plants and lilies in full bloom, plus a couple benches.

  She wished she could empty her change into the fountain and wish Olivia’s tears away. Instead, she sank down onto a bench facing the fountain, along with Olivia.

  Maybe the gentle rush of water would be calming.

  “He’s going to join the Marine Corps after he graduates,” Olivia said. “He’s been talking about it for years.”

  Lucia met Olivia’s gaze. “Maybe—”

  A shadow rushed into her peripheral vision, and then something collided with the back of her head.

  She pitched forward, palms and forearms hitting the ground as she toppled out of her seat. The air was knocked from her lungs, leaving her voiceless.

  Olivia screamed.

  A split second later, she was on the ground with Lucia.

  Lucia couldn’t speak. Her mouth flooded with a metallic taste, and her heart pounded in her throat, making it hard to suck in air. Every nerve in her body buzzed with confusion, and then she realized she’d been stupid.

  So stupid.

  She never should’ve taken Olivia down a quiet street at dusk. Not after everything that’d happened recently.

  She’d been so wrapped up in Olivia’s dilemma that she’d forgotten. Now Olivia was lying motionless in the grass.

  Footsteps were muffled by the lush lawn, so painstakingly maintained by the town. When four black sneakers came into view, Lucia realized she was seeing double. She blinked, and a single pair of feet came into focus.

  Gasping, she pushed herself up off the ground. Every muscle in her body was shaking, but it was fight or die. Because she knew what came next – anyone who’d watched the news lately knew.

  If she didn’t stop it from happening, she and Olivia would be strangled or stabbed and left for dead. That was her last thought before everything went black.

  * * * * *

  It was a slow night, which gave Jeremy plenty of time to stew in his own thoughts as he guided his cruiser through the southwest corner of the county.

  And shit, did he have a lot he didn’t want to think about.

  Before he’d left for work that afternoon, Paige had asked him whether he and Lucia had any plans for his next day off.

  He’d told her no, but hadn’t elaborated.

  It’d disappoint Paige if he and Lucia didn’t pick back up where they’d left off – if the break turned out to be permanent. And Jeremy wouldn’t be able to blame Lucia if she wanted it to be, if his jackass behavior made her think twice about dating him.

  It’d disappoint Paige, but in the long run it’d probably be easier than continuing to see Lucia, allowing her to become more involved in their lives, and then subjecting Paige to the loss of the only mother figure she’d ever known, besides her grandmother.

  He had no doubt that Lucia would become a mother figure to her, if they continued dating, or at least a big sister figure. She and Paige clicked, and Lucia could no more stop herself from caring deeply than a picket fence could stop a freight train.

  He swore under his breath, quiet even though there was no need to be. He was alone in the vehicle as he drove by old pines that reached the dusky sky, their needles brushing the emerging stars.

  Only the sound of his radio kept him company.

  And then it turned on him.

  “On scene for an assault in Jennings Memorial Park on Main and Church.” The voice on the radio was Juarez, one of the officers under Jeremy’s supervision.

  “The complainant stated there’s a possible dead body.”

  Jeremy’s heart pounded. An assault at the tiny fountain park downtown, with the victim possibly dead?

  “Shit.” He gripped the wheel tight.

  Within the next minute, the radio blew up.

  A woman had been violently assaulted in Jennings Memorial Park, a postage stamp sized haven where people sat during the day to eat their lunches. Juarez had found her unconscious, not dead, and she was being transported to the hospital via ambulance.

  Brianna Haynes and Kaylee Wright were no longer alone in their bad luck. Their names raced through Jeremy’s mind as a sour taste filled his mouth.

  And then his thoughts shattered as more information came across the radio, and suspicion hit him like a ton of bricks.

  The woman was Hispanic, approximate age thirty. She claimed she’d had a minor in her company – a sixteen year old girl – and that she was now missing.

  There were any number of women in the county who met the first description, but Jeremy immediately thought of one. One who worked with teen girls. Maybe a less cynical man wouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion that it might be Lucia, but years of police work had dug a deep well of suspicion in his soul. It overflowed now, gripping him with gut-churning intensity.

  He turned his cruiser around and drove toward town with his lights flashing and sirens screaming.

  CHAPTER 19

  Lucia had never felt shittier. The stupid thing she’d done had spawned a tidal wave of guilt, one that had sucked her under on the way to the hospital and still held her in its thrall, making her wonder if it was possible to literally drown in misery.

  God, she had to be the biggest idiot in Riley County! Oliv
ia was gone – God knew where – and it was her fault. At first, she’d harbored hope that Olivia had run, escaped their attacker and hidden while Lucia had lain unconscious in the grass.

  But if that’d been the case, the police would’ve found her by now. They hadn’t, though. And although no one had said as much to her yet, the truth was glaringly obvious: Lucia had probably only been left alive so that her attacker could focus on Olivia.

  Fresh tears welled in her eyes as she lay on her side in an emergency room bed. The bright lights hurt her eyes, but she made herself hold them open, grasping the shred of penance. Why should she be comfortable when Olivia was probably suffering, maybe even – God forbid – dead?

  Before suturing her head wound, the ER doctor injected her with a long needle. Where all of it went with her skull in the way, she had no idea. Then came the tug of sutures in her scalp, and the doctor reminding her of what she already knew: she had a concussion.

  They wanted to keep her overnight.

  She agreed, mostly because she couldn’t imagine driving and didn’t want to call any family or friends to come get her. Calling someone would’ve meant explaining what she’d done, and she couldn’t stand the thought. Not tonight.

  All she wanted to do was close her eyes and lie alone in the dark. Sleep would probably be impossible, but she’d welcome the solitude.

  It didn’t happen that way, though. Shortly after they moved her into an overnight room, somebody rapped on the door and entered. When he first walked in, she assumed he was another cop there to question her again, a stranger.

  Then the breath was knocked out of her lungs for the second time that night.

  There was no blow this time, no assault. Just the sight of Jeremy walking toward her.

  “Concussion?” he asked when he reached her bedside.

  “Yeah.”

  “How many stitches?”

  “Ten.” As if it was a big deal when Olivia was still missing.

  A thought drifted through her aching head: maybe Jeremy was there to question her.

  She asked, and he shook his head.

  “No. I heard what happened on the radio, then when I got your name, I came to see you.”

  She considered thanking him for caring enough to show up, but there was a knot in her throat.

  “God, I was so stupid,” she finally managed to say. “Olivia’s gone!”

  “Y’all were going for a walk, right?”

  “Yeah.” How much did he know? She’d explained everything to the officers who’d questioned her, including the reason she and Olivia had been downtown. “I took her to the women’s center for a pregnancy test. I was going to drive her home, but she was upset and so—”

  A tight feeling in her throat made it impossible to finish explaining.

  He nodded. “They’re looking for her.”

  “She might be dead when they find her,” Lucia managed to say after a while, “like Kaylee and Brianna.”

  He lowered himself onto the edge of her bed, and the white hospital sheets creased beneath his weight. “Hey – listen to me, Lucia. This isn’t like what happened to Brianna and Kaylee. Neither of them disappeared. We don’t know what happened to Olivia, and there’s no point in assuming the worst.”

  “How can I not, though? You said investigators think the person who killed those girls was female, and the person who attacked us was wearing women’s shoes. How many violent female criminals can there be around here? This is my fault. If Olivia’s dead, I killed her with my stupidity.”

  “No, you didn’t. You were trying to help.”

  “You were helping when you shot that criminal, and you’ve still been beating yourself up over what happened to Richardson.” It was different – the shooting hadn’t been his fault at all. And he’d stopped it.

  But her words seemed to have cast a spell of silence over him.

  “All right,” he said after a while, “I know guilt. And I know it doesn’t do any good to let it tear you apart.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  He grasped one of her hands.

  And didn’t say anything else.

  * * * * *

  Jeremy picked Lucia up at the hospital and drove her home the next day, parking in her driveway and not giving a damn who saw.

  He had the day off work, and he was glad. Lucia lived alone just like Kaylee Wright had, and he couldn’t leave her on her own after what’d just happened. Especially not with the concussion.

  Her attacker was still out there – a fact that set his teeth on edge. How damn hard was it going to be to find a murderer in a town the size of Cypress?

  The person who’d attacked Lucia and Olivia should’ve been caught already. And yet, she was still MIA, along with Olivia.

  As badly as he longed to catch the murderous bitch, keeping Lucia safe was his priority. He’d already called his mother and told her to double-check that her doors were locked and that her security system was set. As for Olivia…

  There was nothing he could really do, at the moment. He was no detective, and it was his day off anyway. Lucia, on the other hand, he could help.

  He locked the doorknob and deadbolt himself after escorting her inside her own home.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

  Her display of manners was absurd, given the bandage wrapped around her head like a gauzy tiara.

  “Absolutely not. Wait right here.”

  He drew his weapon and left her in the kitchen as he cleared her house, searching for any signs of an intruder or forced entry.

  There were none; her home was safe.

  “I never leave without locking the doors,” she said when he returned.

  “Locked doors won’t stop someone who’s determined.” He crossed the room, aware of the fatigue in her voice and the nervous look in her eyes.

  He laid a hand on her arm and guided her toward the couch, where he took a seat beside her.

  “The doctor said someone’s supposed to stay with you for the next twenty-four hours.”

  She nodded, then winced. “I’m going to call my mom, or maybe one of my brothers. I have plenty of family in Wilmington.”

  The dent in her lower lip gave her away.

  “They don’t know what happened yet, do they?” he asked.

  “No. My name hasn’t been on the news, has it?” Her brow furrowed.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been watching.”

  She sighed. “I’m dreading telling them how I screwed up.”

  “You don’t have to just yet, if you don’t want to. I can stay here with you.”

  Her eyes widened, but she quickly lowered her lids, as if the light in the room was too much.

  He stood and flipped it off, so the only illumination was the sunlight filtering in through the curtains.

  “Thanks. You don’t have to stay, though.”

  “I don’t mind. I have the day off.”

  “I know, but we’re supposed to be taking a break while you wind down from the incident at work.”

  There was a tight, painful feeling in his chest, like someone was squeezing his heart, threatening to tear the pulsing tissue.

  Jesus, he couldn’t believe this had happened to her. Couldn’t believe she’d come so close to death.

  He was no stranger to crime, including murder. And yet this had torn some part of him he hadn’t realized still existed, injecting his mind with a personal brand of horror as traumatizing as what any civilian would feel.

  “A lot’s happened since we decided on that, wouldn’t you say?”

  Her nose wrinkled, and the expression would’ve been comical, if she hadn’t looked so miserable.

  “I hope you’re not trying to say that you want us to start seeing each other again because you feel sorry for me,” she said. “Although I don’t know why you would – everything that happened last night was my fault.”

  She sounded so miserable, he’d have done anything to fix it.

  But he knew g
uilt, and he knew it well. It wasn’t that easy to shove away.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. And Lucia, you were trying to help that girl. That was all you meant to do, and you’re an exceptional person for trying. It’s not your fault there are shitty people out there, people who will exploit the good you do at any opportunity.”

  “It’s my fault for not anticipating it, for not being more careful. I watch the news, and I even talked to you about it… I’m twenty-nine years old, and I should’ve known better.”

  The tightness in his chest was unbearable. His reservations about their relationship avalanched to bare the mountain of his admiration for the woman beside him.

  He’d told her she was exceptional, but that didn’t even begin to cover it. She was the type of person who’d shoulder other people’s burdens without thinking, carrying as much of the load as possible. Her heart was soft as silk and – now he realized – tough as nails at the same time.

  “We all make mistakes,” he said. “Look at me: I should’ve drawn my weapon sooner last week. If I had, Richardson might not have taken that bullet. I was the one in charge, the one with experience – sort of like you with Olivia. I fucked up, and there were shitty consequences. I hate that someone else has to live with them when I’m the one who should be suffering, but I can’t go back in time, and neither can you.”

  She met his gaze and blinked. Her dark eyes were shining.

  “It sucks,” she said. “I feel like the worst person on earth.”

  He reached out and took one of her hands, squeezed. “You’re not.”

  She was silent for a long time, but she didn’t pull her hand away.

  “Thanks for coming to the hospital, and for the ride home,” she eventually said.

  “Wild horses couldn’t have kept me out of that emergency room.”

  “Well, you’ve gone above and beyond being a good cop, and definitely above and beyond being a good neighbor.”

  His heart lurched inside a chest so tight he feared he might suffocate, the weight of his desire for her was that crushing. Their last conversation played on a loop in his mind. How had he ever had the strength to say what he’d said, to end what they’d just begun?