The Lieutenants' Online Love

by Caro Carson

  This was serious. The suspect had already attacked an MP. He could be in the house hurting his victim. He could be in the house arming himself with a personally owned weapon.

  Thane killed the lights—not just the red and blue ones, but the headlights, as well.

  Chloe had never felt more awake in her life, her brain and body both alert to real danger. “What’s the address?”

  “There.” Thane rolled slowly past a street where another patrol car was parked with its emergency lights flashing in the night. He kept rolling along the side of the house on the corner, then braked. Waited.

  Chloe looked where he was looking. The house on the corner was completely dark. Nobody home. “This corner house?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned forward a little farther. Without taking his eyes off the night, he put the car in Park, slowly. Undid his seat belt. Waited.

  Chloe undid her seat belt.

  “Look at the back porch,” Thane said. “Do you see...?”

  They’d gone dark and were on the side of the dark house. She couldn’t see much of the back porch, only a corner of a patio awning and a few bushes.

  A bush rustled.

  “There he is.” Thane exploded out of the car and started running.

  Goddamn it, goddamn it—Chloe threw open her car door, feeling like she was moving in molasses, like one second was too long to take to get out of a car. She took off after Thane, but he shouted at her, “Call it in.”

  She didn’t have a damned radio. She kept running after him.

  “Go call it in.”

  He was the ranking officer. She had to follow orders, even if it went against every instinct to let him go after the bad guy alone. She changed direction, ran back to the patrol car, yanked open the driver’s door and ducked her head in, trying to keep an eye on her partner as she yanked the car radio’s microphone out of its clip. She pressed its key.

  “Three-ten.” Now she was the one out of breath. She released the key. There was only silence on the other end of the radio. Damn it—she’d said three-ten first, as if she was trying to reach three-ten. She was trying to reach the Fort Hood dispatcher. “Hood, three-ten.”

  “Go ahead.” The dispatcher sounded skeptical, since a woman was saying three-ten when everyone knew Lieutenant Carter was on duty.

  “Three-ten is chasing down that domestic suspect. The male. On foot. They’re headed down...the cross street.”

  Damn it again. She didn’t know where they were. She looked at the computer screen and found the domestic disturbance dispatch in a second, but the address given wasn’t this side street.

  “Street name?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Hold.” She had to drop the mic and go halfway across the street to read the sign in the dark, run back and pick up the mic. “Bundy Street. Headed...” Crap. Was this street running north-south or east-west? She didn’t know—but they’d been heading toward the airfield when they’d pulled off the main road, and they hadn’t changed directions in the housing development. “Headed toward the airfield.”

  “Roger, three-ten. All units be advised, suspect is on foot—”

  Chloe dropped the mic and backed out of the car, ready to run after Thane. As much as it was ingrained in her to obey lawful orders, it was also ingrained in her to never leave a team member to go it alone in combat. But she paused before slamming the door and joining the chase on foot. Logic ruled: minutes had passed since the chase had started. She’d never catch up.

  She got back in the car and started the engine, then drove along the fence line. One of the other MPs, either 320 or 330, was running through the backyard now, too. He made a hard turn and headed down the backside of the block of houses, so the suspect must be running through yard after yard with Thane on his tail.

  The suspect would have to come out at the end of the row of houses and cross another street. Chloe hit the gas. She could pass the MPs on foot and head the bad guy off the next street over. She looked in between every house, hoping for a glimpse of any of the three who were on foot. No luck—but just as she turned the corner, a man in a blue T-shirt and basketball shorts burst out of a backyard to cross the road.

  She was right there in her marked police car, slamming on the brakes. The suspect stopped and changed direction to run from her car, but that sent him running right back toward Thane just as he burst out of the hedges and onto the street. Thane grabbed the suspect by one arm when he tried to dodge him, twisting it up behind the man as he resisted. Both men fell forward to the ground.

  Chloe threw the car in Park and got out, running in the light of the headlights toward the two on the ground. Thane had the suspect down face-first and had control of one of the suspect’s arms behind his back, but he couldn’t get a handcuff on him because the suspect was flailing around with the other hand, awkwardly trying to reach behind himself blindly to hit at Thane.

  Chloe started to grab for the suspect’s flailing wrist, but saw the flash of a knife in the man’s hand. She reared back from the blade and stepped on his forearm with her combat boot instead. “Drop the knife.”

  He didn’t, but he was immobilized, so she knelt while keeping his forearm under her boot and started to pry his fingers from the knife, a kitchen knife by the looks of it. The guy was completely freaking out, using all his might to clutch the knife despite the fact that he was lying in the grass at the side of the road with two people pinning him down.

  Thane was breathing hard and not talking. He closed one handcuff around the wrist he controlled. Chloe placed the palm of her hand on the suspect’s shoulder. She spoke firmly. “This is over, soldier. This part is over. You know that. Let go of the knife so we can get you back on your feet and move on. This part is over.”

  The suspect was straining, holding his head up, but Chloe kept repeating herself. The suspect was under their control, his knife hand rendered useless. She didn’t see a need to use any additional force. The suspect would tire on his own; he couldn’t keep straining against them forever.

  “Open your hand,” she ordered, as calmly as she’d say pass the ketchup. “Let go of the knife. I can’t hear your side of the story until we get these cuffs on.”

  With a wordless shout of despair and defeat, the suspect dropped his forehead into the scrubby grass and gave up, his muscles going slack, his hand opening and the knife falling out. Thane grabbed his wrist and jerked his arm out from under Chloe’s boot before she could get off. She stood and kicked the knife to the middle of the road as Thane finished cuffing the suspect.

  Another MP had come out from the backyards—either 320 or 330, Chloe assumed—and now bent forward to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath. Thane stood up and dusted himself off. His breathing had nearly returned to normal. He lifted a hand to acknowledge the other MP, then wiped the side of his face on his jacket sleeve.

  “Well, that was fun,” he said.

  Chloe knew that kind of army humor. When they were in the middle of an eight-hour road march that utterly sucked and the skies decided to open up and drench everyone, one soldier might conversationally say to the next, Well, isn’t that rain refreshing? or Great, I was hoping the road would turn to mud.

  So Chloe just shook her head. “Nothing happens on Sunday night, huh?”

  “Didn’t want you to get bored.” Thane looked down at the suspect. “Let’s get him to his feet.”

  They each took an arm and hauled him up, then walked him to the cruiser. As Thane patted him down, Chloe retrieved the knife, her first piece of evidence, ever. Once Thane had seated the suspect in the back seat and Chloe had popped the trunk to get out a proper plastic bag for the knife, they stood once more on opposite sides of the patrol car. Over the roof, Thane asked, “Are you ready for some more fun?”

  “Like what?”

  “Now you get to hear his side of the story.”

  Chapter Eight

  It wasn’t that fun.

  The suspect’s side of the story consisted mostly of four-letter
words. He cursed Michaels almost exclusively, although Thane was the one who’d caught him.

  Thane told himself that it was just part of the job. He told himself that Michaels needed to get a thick skin and get it fast if she was going to spend years as an MP. He told himself that he’d heard worse said about himself. He’d heard worse said to other female MPs. He’d heard—

  “I thought you were going to tell us your side of the story?” Thane interrupted. “All we’re getting is some piss-poor attempt to impress us with your vocabulary.”

  The suspect paused in his tirade to throw a few curses Thane’s way, then resumed calling Michaels every name in the book. Thane guessed that she was a bigger threat to the loser’s manhood than he was. The suspect could tell his buddies that a man had chased him down without losing face. Clearly, he had an issue with a woman rendering his arm immobile and his knife useless. After all, this particular suspect had been beating a helpless woman. He wouldn’t want a woman to be able to fight back.

  Fortunately, it took only a minute to get back to the suspect’s house. An ambulance had arrived, contributing its emergency lights to the patrol cars of 320 and 330.

  They left the suspect in the back seat with both his seat belt and handcuffs on and headed up the walkway toward the house. Thane caught Michaels squinting away from the flashing emergency lights. If one were prone to migraines or seizures, the lights would be crippling, really. He didn’t have to worry about that with Michaels, however. He was certain Michaels was as healthy as all get-out, because...

  He pushed away the memory of Chloe in a bikini.

  Because Michaels wouldn’t have been commissioned if she had epilepsy. That was why he was certain.

  But the lights could be painful to anyone’s eyes, so as they passed 320’s patrol car, Thane opened the driver’s door and reached in to shut off the emergency lights. Same with the next car. He didn’t touch the ambulance. He wasn’t responsible for that vehicle, and the paramedics were going to be running with lights to get the victim to the hospital, judging from the chatter on his radio...radio chatter that Michaels probably couldn’t hear, standing an arm’s distance away from him. He probably should have listened to her and let her draw a radio.

  He placed his hand over the speaker clipped to his shoulder. “They’re going to take the wife to the hospital.”

  “How do you know...?” She looked at his hand. “Never mind.”

  Thane hoped he was pulling off the stoic army officer face again. A trainee didn’t need a radio. She’d said that Salvatore hadn’t given her one on Friday, either. Thane wasn’t going to feel guilty about it. “The other MPs are in the house with the paramedics. It gets crowded. I’m waiting out here, because there’s no reason to wade in there and have the MPs feeling obliged to stop and report to us. Plus, we’ve got that bozo in our back seat.”

  Michaels had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood on the street beside him, facing the front door of the house. She had that fierce look on her face again, that one that meant she was concentrating on something critical.

  Thane looked around. The situation was under control. There weren’t even any nosy neighbors to herd away. He wondered what she was concentrating on. After hearing the suspect’s F-word-laden side of the story, Thane could guess.

  “Don’t put too much stock into the suspect’s ranting. You’ll hear worse, you know. I’ve been called every name in the book by now.”

  Her gaze ricocheted from the house to him. “I’m a big girl. I can handle cursing.”

  Her dark eyes reflected the ambulance lights. Her voice was steady. She didn’t seem to be shaken up at all by the chase or by facing her first armed suspect. He felt proud of her—no, that was ridiculous. He was just glad she seemed to be able to handle herself because she was going to be part of his company. He was relieved that he wouldn’t have to coddle a thin-skinned butter bar, that was all. She was taking this in stride.

  He approved.

  Meanwhile, Michaels shrugged. “You can almost feel sorry for him. He’s the most miserable human being I’ve ever seen, really, almost like a wild thing, lashing out at anyone he can see. He’s lost everything, and he knows it. I’m sure he’ll be court-martialed and kicked out of the service. There goes his salary. There goes his house. There goes his life. It’s all his own fault. He’s made himself powerless.”

  Thane was silent. Her level of understanding, even her sense of compassion, struck him as extraordinary for someone so new to it all. He looked at Chloe’s profile, at beauty illuminated by flashes of red and white against a black night, and felt that kick in his chest again, that loss of knowing he’d never be able to have this woman in his life.

  Keep it in check, Thane.

  He did have her in his life, as a fellow platoon leader. It was good from a professional standpoint that she hadn’t taken the suspect’s ranting personally. It was interesting, nothing more, to hear her thoughts on the suspect and how he was lashing out because his life as he knew it was over.

  How long would that compassion last? This was only her second night in the real world.

  There was a commotion at the front door of the house. A paramedic, his back to them, pulled one end of a stretcher through the front door. A woman was propped up on the stretcher. Beside Thane, Michaels’s expression remained neutral, as did his own, but the victim’s expression was undeniably heartbreaking. There was all the sorrow, there was the misery that had been missing in the suspect’s rant.

  The paramedics had put one of the victim’s arms in a sling. With the other, she clutched a towel to her head, a white towel soaked in red blood, vivid in the red and white ambulance lights.

  Michaels took in a single deep breath, then turned around and walked back to the patrol car.

  Maybe she was hiding her shock at the extent of the injuries. Maybe she was hiding tears. She’d handled the chase, the apprehension, even the suspect’s insults just fine, but seeing a helpless victim, that must be Michaels’s weakness.

  Thane couldn’t blame her. The injured woman looked so small on the stretcher, so much smaller than the man who was locked in his back seat. It infuriated Thane that a man could even think about using fists and knives against a person so defenseless.

  “Carter,” Michaels called. She didn’t sound weak. She didn’t sound shaken.

  Thane turned around.

  She was standing at their patrol car, directly in front of the window where the suspect sat. “Come here and help me block his view of her. He shouldn’t get to gloat over his handiwork, the bastard. God knows she shouldn’t have to see his face right now.”

  So maybe Michaels wasn’t weak or tearful at the sight of the victim. Maybe she was pissed and protective. A good combo. She had great potential. Great instincts. His first impression of her, that she was something special...

  Forget that first poolside impression.

  Thane stood beside her and helped her block the victim’s view of her attacker. Through the closed car, the suspect’s voice was muffled as he ranted at the world some more. Thane paid as little attention to it as Michaels did.

  She watched the paramedics loading their patient into the ambulance. “What’s next?”

  “Now, we get to enjoy the beauty of being three-ten.” Thane crossed his arms over his black vest and leaned against the patrol car. He could feel the suspect kicking the door, a little thunk of vibration against Thane’s back. “We’re going to put this wonderful human being in three-twenty’s car. This is his case. He gets to transport the suspect to the holding cell at the station and handle the paperwork. You and I will get back on the road and wait for the next call.”

  As the duty officer, he was required to go to all felonies and domestic disturbances. Other than that, 310 basically served as backup to the entire post, rolling by when they were near a call, checking on every MP who was out there at least once during the shift. They could go to any call that sounded interesting, a perk of being the duty officer instead of a
regular patrol confined to one smaller area of post. There had to be some perk for these thirty-six-hour shifts.

  “If there is another call, that is. Sundays really are boring.”

  * * *

  Chloe could feel Thane staring at her as he sat behind the steering wheel, buckling his seat belt.

  She glared back.

  Thane put the car in gear and headed out of the housing development. “Let’s go back to the Shoppette and get that coffee.”

  Chloe pushed her seat belt lower across her lap, under her belt full of equipment that she hadn’t used. There was only one item she’d needed at the scene. “I don’t need coffee. I need a damned radio.”

  “Look, you did really well. Using the car to cut off his route was a great idea. I don’t know what all your pissed-off-ness is for. You did fine.”

  “The reason I had to drive the car was because you ordered me to stay behind to use a radio that was attached to the car. You ran after him alone and put yourself at risk. What if I hadn’t gotten there?”

  “Then I would have taken him on my own.”

  “He had a knife.”

  “I’m aware of that. You don’t always get a partner, Michaels. If you weren’t there, I would have dealt with it. You better be able to handle things solo, too.”

  “This isn’t about me being solo on some future hypothetical call. It’s about you failing to use your resources wisely. I am your resource tonight, but you wasted me on a radio call.” She waited for him to tell her she had a lot of nerve, calling herself a resource when she was the new kid on the block.

  He didn’t say that. “I didn’t waste the fact that I had an extra person with me. Someone had to call it in.”

  “Someone could have made the call as she ran, if she’d had a handheld radio. You set me up for failure, and in this case, that could have been deadly. For you.”

  “I set you up for failure? Failure?”

  “You asked me to do something you knew I couldn’t do. I didn’t have a radio and I didn’t know what to say. I told you I’m barely catching all the call signs, and you didn’t even tell me which street we were on. I looked like an idiot. Or I sounded like an idiot.”