Night Shift (Nightshade Book 2)

by Carey Decevito

  The looks I received from the front desk clerk at the station made me wish that I’d taken Shane up on his back door entry option. I didn’t need that last look in the mirror before leaving the Peters’ home to tell me that my eyes were black and blue, my nose was swollen and maroon, veering to purple-green in some areas. Add the crying I had done, while both Shane and I had poured our hearts out to each other, and I knew things looked even worse. Puffier.

  “Ms. Roth?” An older man in uniform approached us. Shane’s hand squeezed mine in a reassuring manner that did nothing to calm my erratic heartbeat and the nausea churning in my stomach.

  “Em, I’d like for you to meet Charles Dodge, my captain,” Shane introduced.

  I looked between both men, and only when he let go of my hand with another reassuring squeeze and a nod to boot, did I put my hand forward to greet Shane’s boss.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

  The man took a moment to size me up, a minuscule wince detectable when he got to my face.

  “Trust me, the door did most of the damage over the man,” I mused.

  Apparently neither man thought I was funny by the sound of their groans.

  Do all cops sound the same?

  “Let me show you to the room we’ll be taking your statement in.” Captain Dodge swept his arm past him, toward a hall to his left. “Due to information that has come to light in an ongoing investigation, I’ve recused myself from my role in our Criminal Investigations Division and am helping out with our folks in Crime Prevention for the time being.”

  “Shouldn’t be for too long, boss,” Shane said, to which the man simply snorted.

  “I can use a slight change of pace, Peters.” The man eyed his former subordinate from the corner of his eye. “I’m thinking after everything is said and done, I’m retiring.”

  I didn’t miss the fact that the men seemed to be carrying a conversation that only they understood. I let them have it, despite my curiosity.

  Reaching the tiny, clinical looking room, with not-so-white walls, I noticed three metal chairs and a small table that had seen better days. As we passed what must have been an observation window, Dodge stopped and gestured for us to precede him.

  “Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink before we start?”

  My throat had suddenly run dry as soon as the man had mentioned refreshments.

  “W-water, please,” I croaked.

  Nodding once, my soon-to-be interrogator disappeared around the edge of the doorway, leaving Shane and me alone.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, as he pulled out a chair for me, then seated himself in the one next to me, grabbing my hand.

  All I could do was nod.

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about, sweetheart,” he tried to assure me.

  Of course there was! Shane Peters was merely hanging on by a thread at this point, I was sure of it. First, we’d had our emotional blowout. Second, I’d regaled him with the little delivery I’d received at that shitty motel I’d spent the night at. He’d actually surprised me by keeping his cool, but I knew he was fuming on the inside. Shane had simply asked to see the latest of my ex’s deliveries, grabbed his cell and phoned it in to Dalton, also indicating to the man that he could call off the proverbial dogs from hunting me down. Dalton had only left him with one message for me: Devolin wanted me to call her within the next twenty-four hours. I’d promised Shane that I would. There was no way I’d want that woman on my ass.

  “I know you’re not going to like what I have to say,” I explained, averting my gaze from Shane, instead having focused it on our hands laying intertwined on my lap.

  “I might not,” he started, “in fact, I know I won’t, because we’ve already discussed this, but it doesn’t mean that you can skip this part, Em.” He tugged my hand to his mouth and buffed his lips over my knuckles. My eyes remained cast downward. “Would you rather I not be here when you give your statement?”

  That made me look at him right quick. “Y-you’d do that?” He nodded, despite his discomfort with the idea clearly identifiable. This also served me with a reminder that the man led his life with transparency, truth, and full disclosure. He’d been an open book with me today.

  I owed him the same.

  Taking a deep breath, I kept my eyes locked on his. “No…” I cleared my throat. “No, I don’t want you to leave, Shane.”

  His relief was palpable throughout the room.

  “Let’s get to it, shall we?” Dodge broke us from our conversation, dropping three water bottles in the middle of the table before he took his seat across the table from us.

  Shane

  Son of a bitch!

  The more Emberlyn recounted what had happened right outside her little cottage yesterday, the more incensed I became. It didn’t matter that I’d heard the story beforehand because as I did a second time, I was certain that Casen Dodge was indeed my man. DNA put him at the scene, and he’d come and warned my woman off; that was enough for me.

  The fucker was playing with me, and he was close.

  A simple look in the captain’s direction told me that he suspected as much as I had.

  “Can you tell me anything about him, Emberlyn?” Dodge asked.

  She shook her head. “He smelled of body odor and old sour alcohol.” Emberlyn closed her eyes. I recognized it as a gesture of effort to recreate the event—something many victims or relatives and friends of victims I’d interviewed in the past had done—and a ploy highly recommended by many psychologists and profilers in higher law enforcement agencies.

  “Ember–”

  Her body tensed and her hand grasped mine in a death grip, her nails dug into my palms.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He sounds just like you!” Her eyes snapped open and darted my way. I gave her a confused look. Casen sure as hell didn’t sound like me. “Not you, Shane,” she turned to face my captain, “you.”

  Captain Dodge’s eyes met mine and I nodded, then the man proceeded to get to his feet, extending his hand toward Emberlyn. “Ms. Roth,” she reached out with a confused look, “I believe we have enough for the time being. If you can bear with me, I’ll get these notes typed up in a report and will be right back for you to review it all. Once you sign off on your statement, pending no corrections, I’ll let you get out of here.”

  “O-okay,” she whispered.

  “And a side note,” the older man paused at the door with a smirk on his face and a look of approval in Shane’s direction, “next time, should you find yourself here for another statement, make sure to clean off the stink of the range. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

  Half an hour later, Emberlyn had signed off on her statement.

  We’d been in the car for all of five minutes when she said, “I want to help with your murder case.”

  Her words were so sudden—not so unexpected because she’d voiced something about helping me when she’d come back this morning—that I stared at her, the car swerving violently.

  “Shane, watch out!”

  I corrected the car just as the driver of the vehicle in the oncoming lane laid onto his horn, pulling us back onto our side of the road.

  “What the fuck, Em!”

  “Please hear me out,” she begged.

  “No,” I argued.

  “Shane–”

  “I said no, Em!” My words were loud and hard enough to make her jump back in her seat. A few seconds passed before I realized I had been a jerk again. “Em,” I started calmly.

  Having gotten over her fearful reflex, she merely crossed her arms over her chest, jutted her chin out, and ignored me.

  “Em,” I tried again.

  Her face tilted to stare out the passenger side window as she continued to disregard me.

  Fucking cute.

  Discussion unresolved, the final ten minutes of our drive home was spent in silence, but her constant ignoring only had me smirking through the windshield as I kept forward to our
destination.

  Chapter 28

  Emberlyn

  Men were such infuriating creatures at times!

  It wasn’t enough that I was battered and bruised on the outside, but this morning’s experience with giving my statement, and dealing with difficult questions about my attack, had left my brain feeling just as beaten down. And let’s not get started on the morning’s festivities that had rung me out entirely on the emotional spectrum.

  Now, I had Shane reluctant to leave my side, say nothing for him questioning me incessantly about how I was doing; how I was feeling; what I wanted to do; if I wanted a drink…a blanket…lunch…blah…blah…blah.

  It was nearing four, and Lana Rose was about to be home from school when I felt Shane’s eyes on the side of my face. I just knew he was about to fire off another one of his stupid questions.

  “Do–”

  On a loud huff, I abruptly stood and turned, heading for the staircase, thus cutting him off before he’d had a chance to get his words out. Taking two steps at a time, I made it to the spare bedroom, then slammed the door.

  I suppose my behavior might have been childish, but it sent a message that Shane had finally received.

  At about half past four, a soft knock sounded on my bedroom door.

  “Come in.” I sat up to greet my visitor.

  “Ember?”

  “Right here, Sweets,” I smiled, despite the slight twinge in the bridge of my nose from doing so. The best part of any day had just arrived. “How was your Monday at school?”

  “Okay.” She shuffled her feet, only having entered my room far enough to close the door behind her and that was it. “Where were you this morning? Daddy said you weren’t feeling well and that you were sleeping, but I know he lied.”

  She might have been nine, but that question was a tough one to answer. I should have known that I was going to have to answer to more than just Shane and his mother. Lana Rose was no dumbnut.

  “I–”

  “I know because when I went to brush my teeth, I snuck in here and all of your stuff was gone.”

  Oh no!

  That temper I’d seen so many times already from Shane was reappearing, but in his daughter’s features, her words having bite to each of them as they came out.

  When I didn’t come up with an answer fast enough to her liking, she beat me to the punch.

  “You ran away, didn’t you?” The hurt in her eyes had shame filling me.

  “Sweets, come here.” I patted the edge of the bed beside me. “Will you let me say I’m sorry? Then I’ll explain why I did what I did.”

  “You will?” She looked surprised.

  Nodding, I continued, “I will.”

  “I thought that you’d tell me that it was too complicated, and that I was too little to understand,” she explained, as she hurried to my side.

  “It is complicated,” I told her, “but I think you’re old enough to hear some stuff, especially because it involves all of us: you…me…your dad, and Grams too.”

  “Okay.”

  “So you left because you were scared?” Lana Rose asked. The girl was cuddled into my side; both my arms were wrapped around her.

  “Yes, Sweets,” I whispered against her hair, then kissed it.

  She pulled away slightly to look up at me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask me anything, Rosie, you know that.” I smiled reassuringly.

  “Do you love me?”

  My heart beat at a staccato. I had been leading us to this during our discussion, and this child before me had beaten me to the punch.

  Pulling my arms from around her, I cupped her face, tilting it so she could see mine full-on. “With all of my heart, Lana Rose.” She smiled, and I returned the sentiment. “You’re kind of hard not to love, my dear girl.”

  “I love you too, Ember. You’re my best friend, you know,” she said so matter-of-factly. “Well, next to Daddy and Grams, of course.” She giggled at the last.

  This had me giggling along with her. “I suspected as much.” I winked.

  Then her expression went pensive as she bit down on her lower lip, signaling me that she had another question but wasn’t quite sure if she should ask it.

  “Come out with it, Rosie,” I urged. “What else is eating at you?”

  “If you love me, does that mean that you love my daddy too? And what about Grams?”

  The worry in her expressive face was comical, but the seriousness of her inquisition was more than enough to beat back any hilarity that may have manifested.

  “Your grams is one of the best people I’ve ever known,” I began, leaving the topic of her father for last. “She reminds me so much of my own mom.”

  “Where is your mom?”

  “My mommy and daddy died when I was in college, Rosie,” I explained.

  Her little arms wrapped around me and squeezed. “So you’re like me?”

  Grief filled me as I hugged her back. I missed my folks something fierce right then. “Yes,” I mumbled into her hair. “But I was lucky, Sweets. I got to grow up knowing the very best parts of them both and seeing them every day until I was much older than you are now. They taught me how to take care of myself. I was in my very first apartment, and all grown-up, by the time I lost them.”

  “I bet you miss them lots, huh?”

  “I do.”

  “I only remember Mommy because of pictures and what Grams and Daddy tell me about her,” she told me.

  Smiling, I said, “I bet you they’ve told you all of the best stories about her though, right?”

  She nodded into my chest. “They do. All of the time. Daddy doesn’t seem to run out of new stories.”

  I bet.

  A man like him didn’t strike me as someone that would miss regaling the daughter he adored with the best of the love of his life.

  That thought left a sour taste in my mouth and a piercing sensation of insecurity in my chest that faded all too slowly.

  Would he really ever be able to move on?

  Shane

  I’d been just about to knock on Emberlyn’s bedroom door, when I heard my name being mentioned.

  “So you love me, you think Grams is something extra special…but what about Daddy?”

  My fist dropped to my side, my feet shifted me sideways, then my body slumped quietly against the wall as I slid down it, my ass landing on the floor.

  “Rosie, I want you to know that no matter what happens with your daddy and me, I’ll always love you.”

  “You’re stalling, Ember.” My daughter’s whine had me smirking as I eavesdropped when I should have let the two finish having their moment.

  “I just wanted to make sure you knew,” Emberlyn said, humor lacing her words.

  “I know, jeez!” I could only picture Lana Rose’s signature eye roll, ready to bet that she’d delivered it with impressive apt.

  “To answer your question…yes. I do love your daddy, Sweets.”

  “Shane!” My mother’s voice had me scrambling to my feet.

  Busted!

  Chapter 29

  Emberlyn

  Shane?

  Cutting our conversation short, I rushed to my room’s door, only to find Shane and Nora facing each other in the hall in front of my doorway.

  My eyes flitted between the two. Nora looked annoyed, her arms crossed over her chest with her eyes remaining on her son, while Shane actually looked guilty, a blush having filled his cheeks. For a short moment, I could picture a very much younger Shane, not much older than his own daughter now, being reprimanded by his mother.

  Curbing the humor bubbling up inside, I focused on the present; loaning me with the seriousness needed in the moment. “You heard us, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” Well, he didn’t beat around the bush now, did he?

  I huffed.

  “Em–”

  “I take it that dinner is ready?” I addressed my question to a now smirking Nora.

  “That it is.”
/>
  “Let me help you set the table.” I turned to Lana Rose, who sported a beaming smile as she studied our interaction. “Come and help your grams and me, Sweets.”

  Leaving Shane behind, we ladies headed down to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to our dinner.

  Shane

  Dinner had been a little awkward, to say the least.

  While the ladies had chatted as if all was normal, I’d tried to engage Emberlyn in conversation—only to be ignored.

  Repeatedly.

  It burned my ass, but I knew it had a lot to do with my hovering over her like a mother hen all damn day.

  And maybe just a little with the way you outright refused her help before you’d heard her out.

  If there was one thing I remembered about my relationships—especially the one with my late wife—it was that when a woman said she wanted to be heard out, you sure as hell better listen.

  Lesson failed today!

  “So…” my mother nudged my side as she washed the dishes and I dried, “what’d you do?”

  I shrugged. “Too much in one day,” I muttered, “but I’ll make it right, even if I hate how I’ll be doing it.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question, Shane.”

  “I refused her help, before I even gave her the chance to hear her out,” I said, eyeing my mother from the corner of my eye, knowing I’d be witness to her disappointed headshake. “Then I treated her like a porcelain doll all afternoon, even though I knew damn well that she’s strong and was dealing with the events of the last day entirely fine.”

  “So much like your father,” she said, cupping the side of my face after having dried her hands on my tea towel.

  “I just want her safe, Mom,” I whispered. “I want all of you safe.”