Angry Betty

by Jamie Lee Scott

  “Underwood?”

  What do you know? It was work. “Yeah,” Jake replied.

  “You need to come down to the station and pick up your girlfriend,” Kate snapped.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Kim Vega.” The words couldn’t have sounded more clipped.

  “What the hell?”

  “She says you’re her boyfriend, and she’d like you to come pick her up. Jake, we need to have a talk. Get here ten minutes ago.” Kate hung up before Jake could respond.

  He must have looked worried or scared, because when he walked back into the kitchen his uncle asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Too weird, but that was work.”

  “How is that weird? You just said it probably was.” Tucker smeared about a pound of butter on his rye toast.

  “Never mind. I have to go in.” Jake grabbed his car keys from the hook, slipped into his sandals by the back door, and walked out.

  * * *

  Kate stood outside the station as Jake drove up. She marched up to his car and opened the door before he could even put it in park.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Before you start jumping all over me, could you please tell me what’s going on?” He got out and stood close to the door, just in case he had to make a run for it. Kate scared the crap out of him.

  “You’re shacking up with a suspect in our drug case?” She grabbed Jake by the chin with one hand and squeezed. “Don’t you like being a cop?”

  “I love being a cop, but that’s beside the point. Are you going to tell me why you called me to come pick her up? What’s she doing here, and how does it have anything to do with me?”

  As if her energy had been drained, Kate sat on the curb. Stepping away from the car, Jake closed the door. It felt weird to be looking down at her, but he didn’t dare sit next to her.

  “She came to the station early this morning. She stayed in the waiting area until I arrived. Said she’d only talk to me.” Kate shook her head. “It’s my day off too, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “She had a story to tell. She wants out. She wants help. She decided to snitch out her housemates in order to get into the S.A.F.E program. Kim’s no dummy. She knows the system well. Said she wanted to talk to the D.A., but only if she could do it today, and only if he’d give her the deal.”

  “It’s Saturday morning. The D.A. isn’t going to come in on a Saturday.” Jake felt too tired mentally and suddenly physically to stand and sat next to Kate. Seeing Kim again turned out to be more than he bargained for.

  “He’s here right now. He’s been here about an hour.”

  Jake looked at his watch. It was just after eight. “She must have some good shit, huh?”

  “You have no idea.” Kate rocked back and forth. “And this is the part you’re going to love…” she hesitated, then just stopped talking.

  “What, Kate? What did she say?”

  “It’s more about what D.A. Anderson said.” She now picked at the seam on her jeans.

  “Corporal Darby, please tell me what’s going on.” Jake realized Kate wasn’t his friend in this, she was his trainer and his boss.

  “Well, Officer Underwood,” the disdain in her voice thick, “You’re going to have custody of her until the trial. And she’ll be remanded to you after she sees the judge on Monday.”

  “Is she in custody?” Jake asked.

  “No, she made bail, remember? You picked her up, or did you forget already that you’re knee deep in this?”

  Oh, shit, Jake had really rolled in it this time. “But I was just giving her a ride home from the jail. She looked lost when she walked out, and I asked her if she needed a ride.”

  She looked him in the eyes. “And what the hell were you doing at the jail to begin with? And don’t tell me it was work related. I hate liars.”

  Jake looked at the ground. “I went to see her.”

  “You foolish little boy.” She stood. “You’ve stuck your foot in it all the way to your ankle, so now you’re stuck with her for the duration of the S.A.F.E. program, or until she’s back in jail.”

  “I can’t be responsible for her. I can barely take care of myself.” He ran his fingers through his short hair.

  “Now you have the equivalent of a small child. She’ll have to check in with the judge at least once a week and be piss tested daily. And she’s all yours.” She leaned down and grabbed Jake’s hand. “Come on, the D.A. wants to have a chat with you.”

  Jake felt ill as he thought about how he was going to explain this to his uncle.

  S.A.F.E program stood for Stop Addiction For Ever, and it was what the D.A. agreed to in lieu of dropping all of the charges. Kim would plead no contest to the charges and start the program right away. This all came after a long sit down with D.A. Anderson and Sergeant Gwilly.

  “Start naming names, Miss Vega, or I’m not going to be able to help,” Anderson said.

  Kim took a long drink from her water bottle. “I already told you.”

  Kim said she knew the who, what, when and where of a major drug buy going down within the next two weeks. She’d sign the deal, and give up names, places, and transaction details. Anderson grinned so big, Jake could barely see the rest of his face when they sat down together.

  Kim sat quietly on the far side of the table, not looking at Jake as D.A. Anderson spoke to him.

  “She says you’re her rock, so you should know, you’d better be Stonehenge unmovable on this,” Anderson said.

  “Her rock?” Jake said. “I barely know her.”

  He looked at Kim. She looked down.

  “The S.A.F.E program is the only way she gets to stay out of prison. And she knows it. I’ve already explained the details of the program to Kim. Do I need to explain it all to you, too?”

  Jake shook his head. He’d heard about the program from Kate. It could work, but the person had to want to get clean.

  Anderson explained it anyway.

  Kate hadn’t been joking. Kim would be drug tested daily, and she’d have to meet with the judge a minimum of once a week in the beginning, and every other week after she graduated to the next steps in the program. If she broke the rules, she’d be remanded to prison to serve out the full sentence of her felony charge. If she stayed clean and graduated out of the program, she’d have the felony removed. But she had to be under a sort of house arrest, and needed someone to answer for her. She gave them Jake Underwood’s name.

  Uncle Tucker was going to freak, Jake knew it, and his fingers trembled as he dialed his number.

  “Uncle Tucker?” Jake’s voice cracked.

  “Yes, she can stay with us.” He didn’t even wait for Jake to ask, or hesitate.

  “What? How did…?”

  “I had a long talk with that girl last night. Then on the way home she asked me what I’d do if I were her. I told her I’d leave that life behind.” He sighed. “I asked if she wanted me to stay with her, but she declined. I suspected she wasn’t going to follow through on what she told me she should do. It takes a lot of guts to give up everyone you know and start over. It’s the hardest part of addiction. All of your friends are addicts, and they want you to be the same as them, they pressure you, so you fall back.” A pause. “Maybe together, we can keep her from falling back.”

  Jake breathed a sigh of relief. Uncle Tucker being on board would make it easier. Not that he’d ask him for anything, but at least he wouldn’t have to lie. He hated even lying by omission. “Thanks, Uncle Tucker.”

  “Don’t thank me. I may have just made your life a living hell. And I have no intentions of throwing you a lifeline when you start drowning. Call this a life lesson.” He hung up the phone.

  The paperwork signed, Jake Underwood was now the guardian for Kim Vega. It would’ve been nice for her to ask his permission first, but who was he kidding? He’d have agreed to nearly anything if it would get her clean and back to the sweet Kim he r
emembered from childhood.

  They say you can never go back, and as Kim sat beside him in the car, her arms crossed, not saying a word, Jake realized there was the equivalent of the Berlin Wall between them. She didn’t want help; she just wanted out. She wanted to be free, not in prison, or jail. Jake was her “get out of jail free” card. And in his ignorance, he thought she’d be grateful. Thought she’d be happy to have help getting clean.

  “Don’t judge me,” were her first words.

  Jake didn’t respond.

  “You don’t have any idea what my life has been like since the accident.”

  He looked at her, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Afraid to let his guard down because he didn’t know what was real and what was a lie. “What accident?”

  “The accident that killed my family. I wish I’d been killed that day.” The tears were coming faster, and dripping onto her crossed arms.

  Wanting to slam on the brakes, pull off to the side of the road, and just listen, Jake felt conflicted at not believing her. It was the first time she’d offered to share anything about her life, or her past. He didn’t know if he should ask for details. “Is that what you and Uncle Tucker were talking about last night?”

  “Yeah. He was the one called 911 that day. It happened in front of his restaurant.” She dropped her arms to her sides.

  “I never heard about this.”

  “I don’t think we had been to the lake house for a few years when it happened. A drunk driver came flying around the curve. You know that one north of Lucien’s?”

  Jake knew it. He also knew of one other accident when a car lost control on the wet road and slammed into the restaurant sign. The guy had been drunk, got out of the car, and walked about half a mile away. They found him dead on someone’s front lawn. Sad part was that if he’d had stayed at the car, the paramedics could have saved his life. If he hadn’t been driving drunk, he’d still be alive, Jake reminded himself. “I know which curve you’re talking about.”

  “It was raining hard. Anyway, he lost control of the car in the turn, and it started spinning. The cops called it hydroplaning. His car slammed into the driver’s side of my parents’ car, then flipped over the top of it, crushing us. My parents died at the scene and my sister died a week later. I survived with a minor fracture of the vertebrae in my back. Lots of pain, but I didn’t have any spinal damage. Just lots of pain, both physical and mental.”

  “Back pain is debilitating enough without the pain of losing your family.” He wondered why he never heard about the accident. Wondered why Uncle Tucker never told him.

  “I went to live with my grandmother. She didn’t want a teenage girl in her house. She blamed me for the accident because I’d been the one who wanted to go to Arlington for the weekend. Six Flags, you know? Anyway, my grandmother had a few bad habits she shared with me. I went from an addiction to her prescription pain meds to illegal meds, and then I went hard after she died. I’ve been an addict since I was sixteen.” She turned and looked at Jake. “Not how I thought my life would go.”

  “My boss said one of your arrests was for robbing your grandmother. Is that true?”

  Kim looked out the window. “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. And I’ll probably screw up a few more times before it’s over.”

  He could feel her looking at him now, but he stared straight ahead at the road, navigating the narrow streets near the lake house. “I’m so sorry we lost touch.”

  He thought about the conversation Kim had with his uncle. She said her family had written her off. And it didn’t seem like she’d been talking about her grandmother, it seemed as if she’d been talking about her parents. He wanted to ask Tucker about the accident, but it would have to wait until Kim couldn’t hear. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t believe her. Not a good start to this guardian relationship.

  “Me too. Somehow, I think things may have been different if we still had the lake house. Still had the old friends. My grandma’s neighborhood, the trailer park, didn’t have the greatest influences. And I was weak.”

  “We’re all weak in one way or another.” Jake realized in that statement she was his weakness. “I’ll do my best to be strong for you, Kim, but I don’t know if I’m up to the task. And I can’t let this interfere with my uncle’s life, either. We’ll have to work out some rules.”

  She reached across and grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers in his and said, “Thank you. If you hadn’t come to get me yesterday, I don’t think I’d have come to this decision. It’s been so long since I’ve seen how other people live. I forgot that life. Being with you and talking to your uncle, I know I want more.” She gripped his hand hard. “I don’t want to die in prison.”

  Jake squeezed back. He had no words.

  “I know everyone is expecting me to fail, but I’m telling you, I won’t. That Darby cop hates me. I can see it in her eyes. She thinks I’m going to bring you down.” She tried to let go of Jake’s hand.

  He held fast. “Kate just knows how real life works. She’s been a cop for a long time. She’s a good lady. When you prove that you're serious about changing, she’ll come around.”

  Oh, God, Kate was never going to let him live this down if Kim reoffended. He didn’t think he could handle the disappointment in her eyes when Kim got carted back to jail. Yes, she was his senior officer, and no, he didn’t have a thing for her, but he did want her to be proud of his decision to intervene.

  Tucker had put on a fresh pot of coffee, and left a note beside it.

  Had to go to the restaurant. Kim will need a job, so I expect to see her at Lucien’s at 4:30pm sharp, so we can do the paperwork and start training. Clean the coffee pot when you’re finished, and load the dishwasher. We’ll discuss more chores tomorrow.

  Love,

  Uncle Tucker

  “He’s a good man, you’re lucky to have him.” Kim opened the cabinet and pulled down two cups. “This is about as much of a drug as I’ll be able to have from now on,” she grinned.

  Jake held up his hand. “I’m good for now. I need to go take a shower and think.”

  She stepped in close and stood on her tiptoes, kissing him on the cheek.

  Not knowing what to say, or how he felt, Jake just turned around and walked out of the room.

  The hot shower should have been a cold shower, because all he could think of was a future with Kim. How she’d get clean, and they’d live happily ever after. He wondered if she wanted kids. He wondered how great she’d be in bed. He fantasized long enough the water turned cold. Stepping out of the shower and into his bedroom, he wiped himself dry with a towel. When he looked up, Kim was lying on his bed.

  “I know you didn’t want to do anything last night, but today is a new day. You didn’t pick me up from the cop shop so you could get laid. But I see you,” she looked Jake’s naked body up and down, “and I know you want me.”

  Hormonal Jake won out. He went to her, climbed on top of her, and kissed her like he wanted to since they were kids. “You taste like coffee.”

  She pulled back. “You taste like toothpaste.” Then she pushed hard against him and the kisses were bruising in their need.

  Their teeth clicked. She bit him on the ear lobe; he sucked at her bottom lip. He felt as if he hadn’t made out with a girl in years. This felt new and primal.

  She shook her head and whispered in his ear, “Baby, you have a condom?”

  And if that didn’t ruin the mood. He didn’t have any condoms.

  Chapter 12

  Both Kate and Zane had come to the station, even though they had the day off. Afterward, they went to Kate’s new house. She wanted Zane to see it, get his approval for some reason. Bryce had fallen in love and already had plans to move out of his apartment.

  “This place is amazing,” Zane said as they walked up the grand stairway to the second floor.

  “It’s a bit much. I thought about sleeping here last night, but then chickened out. I figured there are probably many ghost
s in this place and I couldn’t sleep here alone.”

  “Bryce didn’t offer to stay with you?”

  Kate turned and glared at Zane. She knew he liked Bryce, but she also knew he hated that she shared more with Bryce than with him. Bryce knew all of her secrets and skeletons, Zane not so much.

  “He’s making plans to move in,” Kate said.

  “Isn’t it a little far from the hospital?” Zane asked.

  “He works in the morgue. It’s not like he’s going to get a late-night emergency call for a woman in labor.”

  She felt the urge to reach out and take his hand, but that would lead places neither of them needed to go. Her heart hurt with how much she still loved him and how much she still needed him. But they had to move past that.

  “It’s crazy how they fit the bathrooms into the layout when you know there weren’t bathrooms or indoor plumbing in the original structure.” Kate opened the door to a massive bathroom off the upstairs hallway.

  “The fixtures are true to the time period. Love the clawfoot tub.” Zane walked around the bathroom and as he did, Kate realized the room was larger than her bedroom in her current place.

  “Wait until you see the bedrooms. Straight out of a romance novel, I swear.”

  She showed him all the rooms, but stood in the doorway, not daring to enter a bedroom with him. One of the two of them might make a move they couldn’t back away from.

  “Victor said these cotton sheers will be replaced with heavy velvet drapery come October or November. They apparently think the sheers are better for keeping the house cool. I think the heavy drapery with closed windows would keep the sun out and be better.”

  “Before air conditioning, they’d open all the windows and let the air blow through the house, so I see the point. But it looks like someone installed central air in recent years.”

  The day hadn’t warmed to the point of stifling yet, so it hadn’t dawned on Kate that the air conditioning was blowing. She walked over to an ornate metal grate and felt the cool air.

  “Let’s go sit in the parlor,” she said.