by Sarina Bowen
“Are we all going together?” I ask, trying not to let my disappointment show. I want to sit up front with Mac and watch him work.
“Yes and no,” Mac says. “Lance will be driving another cruiser, and a trainee will ride shotgun with him.”
“Oh. Good.” I brighten up immediately. “I brought enough moanies for all of us.”
“Moanies?” Lance asks. “Is that, like, food that makes you moan? I like it already.”
“Yep. And moan loudly,” I say. “They’re right up Mac’s alley. Did you know our apartment building has really thin walls?”
Lance practically keels over laughing, while Mac scowls. “Are we gonna stand around here all night or what?”
“Let’s do this.” I clap my hands. “Lead on, Coppers.”
“This only works if you stay in the car,” Mac says as we approach the cruiser. “I can’t do my job and worry about you at the same time.”
“Can I roll the window down?” I ask. “I need to hear you.”
“Sure. Fine. So long as your butt is in that seat, it’s all good.”
“Fair enough.” I watch him check the tires on the cruiser, then open the driver’s side door. His posture is straight and forthright, and I feel my spine lengthening already. This is why research is so helpful with acting. When you see someone who lives it, it’s easier to step into their shoes. Metaphorically, of course.
I climb into the passenger’s seat, and a few minutes later we’re cruising the southeast side of the city, listening to the radio. It’s all gibberish to me—numbered codes passed from cop to cop.
Mac picks up the radio transmitter while we’re stopped at a red light. He barks something like “This is 23. I’m 10-8,” into it.
“What’s 10-8?” I ask.
“In service. Available for assignment.”
I scribble that down. “Okay, what other codes am I going to hear?
“Oh, some 10-28s.”
“What’s that?”
“A vehicle registration request. It’s not all action, Meg. A lot of police work is deterrence. Cruising around, making your presence known. Without serious action.”
“Just like my sex life,” I point out.
He snorts. “When I work a daytime shift, there’s more detective work. I’m often following up on investigations in progress. But this graveyard shift is all about helping people in trouble, and spotting drunks behind the wheel.”
I’m still asking questions a few minutes later when the radio squawks with: “Available units south for a 10-31.” Or something like that.
I notice Maguire’s body language shift slightly. He’s more alert. More engaged. Like something in him is cocked and ready.
“Unit 23,” Maguire barks. And then they have a rapidfire back and forth that ends with Maguire stepping on the gas.
“What’s a 10-31?” I ask as we accelerate.
“Possible breaking and entering in progress.” He turns a corner quickly, handling the car like a speedway driver.
My heart rate kicks up as I experience an adrenaline surge. “This is so exciting!”
Maguire glances my way for a split second. “You’re staying in the car.”
“I won’t forget.” And I won’t. You may notice that my response is not quite the same thing as saying I’ll obey him.
He flips a switch on the dash, and immediately I see the reflection of the cruiser lights on the shiny hood of the car.
“Oh! Can we use the siren? I know there aren’t that many cars on the road...” That’s putting it mildly. There are two other cars in view at the moment, and both of them have pulled over to let us pass. “But it would mean the world to me. I’ll give you an extra moanie later.”
He sighs and then points at another switch. “Go ahead, you drama queen.”
I am, in fact, a drama queen. So I flip that switch before he changes his mind. And the siren starts up right away. It’s glorious. Mac steps on the gas again, and the cruiser leaps forward. We fly for another quarter mile, until Mac turns left onto a residential street. He also kills the siren, but it was good while it lasted.
We make two more turns and pull up in front of a small house with a brightly lit bay window. I roll down my window immediately so I don’t miss anything.
“Stay put,” he says, getting out. A man steps out of the shadows and I open my mouth to scream.
But I can tell from Mac’s body language that he already knew the man was there. And anyway, it’s just an elderly man in a University of Michigan sweatshirt, and he’s waving Mac down as if the cavalry has arrived. “He’s still in there! I tried to look in the window but the drapes are closed.”
“Okay, sir,” Mac says calmly. “This is your home?”
“My son’s. I’m dog-sitting for the weekend.” He holds up a key.
“And where’s the dog?” Maguire asks.
“Ooh, good question,” I whisper to myself.
But that’s when a furry dog emerges from the shrubberies, his tail waving happily. So Fido is unscathed.
“Start from the beginning,” Mac says. “Did you see someone in the home?”
“I was nappin’ in the chair.” The old man points inside. I note that the Michigander accent is strong in this one. “When I woke up, the first thing I heard was a loud bump in the master bedroom. And the dog barked.”
The hair on my arms stands up. This sounds serious. A little scary.
I freaking love it.
“I called out hello, you know? But nobody answered. That bumping kept happening, though. So I called 911 and then went outside, like they told me to do.”
“You’re sure you’re home alone?” Mac asks.
“Of course I’m sure.” He looks indignant. “My son took his lady to the lake for the weekend.”
Another cruiser pulls up behind ours, and Lance and the rookie climb out. Maguire waves them over.
“No fair,” I call out of the window. “Why does the trainee get to help and not me?”
Maguire doesn’t even dignify this with an answer. The three of them spread out around the house, poking into the shadows and looking for a point of entry.
They’re back in seconds, though. And when Mac and Lance enter the house to search it, the trainee gets stuck outside with the old man, holding the dog.
But as I watch Maguire ease into that house, his gaze scanning for trouble, his body moving like a cat’s, I feel tension in my belly. Mac’s the guy you summon when you hear a bump in the night. He pulls up, guns blazing (metaphorically, anyway), and does the scary thing you’re not willing to do yourself.
Seriously. Is there anything hotter than that? No sir.
My hands are clenched with nerves as I watch the house, waiting to see what will happen.
Lucky for my poor heart, the wait isn’t long. Mac appears in the doorway and beckons to the old man. I unclench every muscle in my body and sort of ooze back against the seat with relief. He wouldn’t do that if there were any danger.
But as soon as my heart rate drops into the normal range, I get curious. So I open the car door and gallop across the lawn to see what they learned.
And I only have to get as far as the front porch, anyway. I can see Lance in the living room. His face is red, and he has all the signs of a man who is trying not to burst out laughing. Red face. Flashing eyes. Shaking shoulders.
He’s holding a Roomba. You know—a robot vacuum.
“I’ve never seen one of those in my life,” the old man says, shaking his head. “It sounded just like a robber bumping into the furniture. I thought maybe he forgot to put on his glasses or somethin’.”
Mac’s scowl is firmly in place. “Your son should have warned you, maybe,” he says. “You have a good night, okay?”
I’m just leaping off the front stoop, laughing, when Mac comes out of the house. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“Sorry.” I giggle. “And you’re right. Those Roombas are dangerous.”
“I’m never gonna live this
one down,” he grumbles. “But you still have to stay in the car, okay? Next time the perp won’t be a vacuum cleaner.”
“Should I write that down in my notes?” I bat my eyelashes at him.
“You do that.” He cranks the engine and then sighs. “A Roomba. What will it be next?”
I sort of wonder what will be next too. I’m actually a little apprehensive about it. I mean, what would happen if he got a call for a domestic disturbance or something. I love seeing Mac apprehend a Roomba, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about him apprehending someone who actually wanted to harm him. It suddenly occurs to me that Mac could get hurt doing this job. He could get worse than hurt. He could get dead.
I don’t like this thought at all. In fact, it makes me a little angry. Also a little scared.
“You got quiet all of a sudden,” he says.
“I’m sorry!” I blurt out.
“For being quiet? No need to apologize. Quiet is nice sometimes.”
“No, not sorry for being quiet. Although that does feel a bit unnatural to me. I’m sorry I got out of the car when you said I shouldn’t.”
He nods.
“I thought you were just being bossy and I wasn’t really thinking about the possible, um, ramifications.”
“Of a Roomba?” he says, deadpan, but I can sense the smile just below the surface.
“Don’t be a dick. I mean, what if it wasn’t a Roomba? What if it’d been a homicidal maniac? Who bumped into furniture a lot? Because he had really bad vision?”
We both laugh at that.
“Seriously, Mac, you could’ve been hurt. Or worse. And I could’ve gotten in the way.”
He nods again. “It’s all right, Trouble. I knew what I was taking on when I agreed to let you do a ride-along with me. That’s why I asked for this shift in particular. Usually, this is the time of day, that time between day and late night, where things don’t get too bad. It’s the next shift where things fall apart.”
“So a Roomba isn’t falling apart?”
“A Roomba is comic relief,” he tells me.
We drive around for a while more. He answers some basic questions. We chitchat. It’s nice and easy and I almost forget I’m researching a role. It’s more like I’m researching Mac.
There’s a twinge in my belly, because I like what I’m learning about him.
Stop it, Meg, I remind myself. You’re researching a role, not a romantic partner.
Mac doesn’t do romance.
Not yet, anyway.
16 Code 415
Maguire
I knew I’d like having Meg in my car. But I like it way too much. And it’s a slow night, so I can’t even complain that she’s too distracting.
At last, on Lake Drive, I spot a swerving Mini Cooper. “Hit the lights, Meg.”
She lets out a squeal that’s really fricking adorable, and then flips ‘em on.
The driver doesn’t fight it. She pulls right over, stopping abruptly. I pull in right behind her. “Same rules apply,” I tell Meg. “You keep your cute butt in that seat.”
“Yessir.” But it isn’t flirtatious. She looks nervous, watching me with tense eyes as I get out to approach the vehicle. And I’m cautious, even though this will probably shake out to be the world’s least interesting drunk-driving incident. But you never know. And even run-of-the-mill drunks can become angry and volatile when they realize they’re about to get arrested for a DUI.
Not this drunk, though. The vehicle’s only occupant is a tearful college girl. She apologizes profusely all the way through her field sobriety test.
“My boyfriend ditched me!” she cries after failing to walk a straight line. “He went home with another girl!” Then she leans against my uniform shirt and sobs.
Oh, man. Tears! It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for her. Almost. “That’s what Lyft is for,” I say gently. “These gentlemen are going to take you down to the station.” Lance and the trainee are just walking up to us.
“Don’t throw me in the slammer, Officer!” she slurs.
I glance at Meg, who’s rolling her eyes in the passenger seat. “I’ve seen better acting jobs in porn.”
Lance chuckles as he leads the sad little perp to the back of his cruiser. “You can ride along with me any time, Meg.”
I growl.
But then Lance drives off, and Meg and I are alone again. “You were so kind to her,” Meg says softly. “Aren’t you angry that she’d drive around that drunk?”
“Well, I don’t like it.” I shrug. “But, to paraphrase Hemingway, as a cop ‘you should not judge, you should understand.’”
“What’s there to understand, though? You don’t get to see the reasons that people do things. She fed you that line about her boyfriend dumping her. But we don’t even know if it’s true.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her as we cruise around another quiet neighborhood. “The law doesn’t care why she’s driving drunk. And it’s not my job to hate her for it. This might just be the wake-up call she needs, you know? To stop taking risks that endanger herself as well as others. Everyone makes mistakes, Meg.”
She’s very quiet for the next half hour, while I respond to a couple of calls that are canceled before I’m even on the scene.
“Are we having those brownies yet?” I ask. “Sounds like something that would go nicely with our coffee.”
“Later,” she says with a smug little smile.
“They’re just brownies, right?” I have to ask. “Law-abiding brownies?”
“Oh, these brownies don’t break any laws. But they are especially sinful.”
I’m about to ask why when we get another call. Code 415. The dispatcher gives me an address in a nice enough neighborhood.
But my jaw tenses and then locks right up. “Fuuuuck,” I murmur before I can stop myself. Why on God’s green Earth does it have to be that address?
“Everything okay? What’s a 415?”
“Disturbing the peace.” Especially mine.
“And that wrecks your day?”
To distract her, I point at the switch for the flashing lights. “Go on. You know you want to.”
She flips the switch. But she also gives me a look, like she knows I’m trying to change the subject.
And I am.
I drive in silence, feeling more dread with every block we pass. Of all the houses in a city of two hundred thousand, this is the one I would most like to avoid.
Because it belongs to my brother. The one I haven’t spoken to in years. Please let it not be Morris who’s disturbing the peace. Not again. Officers have responded to my brother’s address before. He’s a big drinker. And a mean drunk, sometimes.
But I’ve never been the one to get the call. And I can’t imagine that it’s me he wants to see turn up on his doorstep.
Meg is watching me from the passenger seat. She’s the most observant civilian I know. Hell, I hope she can’t read minds. Mine is full of regret, grumpiness, and horny thoughts about her.
She obviously can’t read minds, or she wouldn’t be sitting here.
On that wacko thought, I pull up to their house, followed by Lance, who’s back already from booking the drunk girl.
“There are times when this job is boring as fuck, and times when you wish it was boring as fuck,” I grumble.
“Which is this one?” she asks.
“Vote’s still out.”
I get out of the car, my senses locked and loaded. I just hope I don’t have to get into it with my brother over his drinking.
But even as Lance walks over to meet me, I hear the ruckus from the neighbors next door. That other house is lit up like a Halloween pumpkin, lights flickering, the sound of their speaker bass an actual physical sensation. It’s a throb that goes straight to the guts, and not in a fun way.
“I’m thinking I know the problem,” Lance says.
“Agreed,” I’m relieved to say. Still, I need to check in at my brother’s to let them know we responded. I coul
d make Lance do it, but that’s a pussy move.
Meg pokes her head out of the open window. “This call is just about a loud party? That’s all the action I’m getting?”
Lance chuckles at her choice of words, and I whack him in the arm to shut him up.
That’s when I spot her. Julie. She’s standing in the open door, her shape silhouetted by the lamplight behind her. Any other night, I might have lost my calm just seeing her. But tonight is different. I’m still wearing a half smile, courtesy of Meg. And as I walk toward the house, I’m wondering what Meg will get up to in my squad car while I’m gone. Is she touching any buttons she shouldn’t be touching?
Which makes me immediately think of her touching my buttons, and most definitely in a good way. One specific button, in fact. The big one right between my legs.
First, Julie.
There were moments in my past when Julie was all I could think about. Julie and Morris. The betrayal. My nightmare come to life. Those were some really dark days.
But as I make my approach, I realize I haven’t thought about her in a while, though. In fact, before this family wedding popped onto my radar, it had been months.
Interesting.
I give one last glance back at the squad car. It looks like Meg is behaving herself. I’m a little disappointed actually. Her sass is pretty damned irresistible. Luckily, I’m immune to that sort of thing. Or I try to be.
“Evening, Julie!” I call out, my voice surprisingly even.
She opens the door and steps out onto the porch. That’s when my bravado starts to crumble. I’m looking at the woman who destroyed me. I used to be a happy guy who thought he had the whole world figured out. Until she twisted the knife.
And—fuck—I forget to breathe. Because the baby is on her hip. She’s holding the nephew that I’ve never met. He has a round face, and one fat little hand is clutching his mother’s hair.
Then he turns that chubby little face toward mine. And there’s just enough light so that I can see his eyes widen. He opens his mouth and begins to babble. “Dadadadadada!” And his short arms reach for me.
Goosebumps. Suddenly. Everywhere.
Holy. Shit. I’m not prepared for this. The baby thinks I’m Morris. Just when I thought things were already weird. And I swear to God I thought I was done with all this. I thought I’d already felt all the feelings I had coming to me. Wrong again.
