I was still pissed off over the breakfast ambush by the time I made it to the station. I didn’t know who I was more angry with: Lucian for overstepping, Knox for being a stubborn asshole, or Lina for still holding back on me when I’d been nothing but honest with her.
She’d texted three times saying she wanted to talk.
My guess was she was worried about what Lucian told me. Right now, I was in the mood to let her worry.
Or maybe this roiling inner rage was directed at myself.
At this point, it didn’t really matter. Everyone was pissing me off.
“You’re supposed to tell me where you’re gonna be, Morgan.”
I turned around and found an equally irate-looking U.S. marshal storming up the sidewalk toward the station’s side door.
I was not in the mood. “I’m already pissed off at two assholes who dragged me out of bed this morning. I were you? I wouldn’t be in a hurry to add your name to that list.”
“Look, shithead. I’m not happy about this assignment either. You think I like camping out in Deliverance banjo territory watching your ungrateful back for some threat that probably doesn’t even exist?” Nolan snapped back.
“Gee, I’m sorry you’re bored, Graham. Do you want a coloring book and some crayons? I’ll pick some up when I go get you a thank-you card and fucking balloons.”
Nolan shook his head. “Christ, you’re a dick. If I hadn’t seen you dealing with those kids yesterday and making that fuckhead cop piss his pants, I’d think the condition was permanent.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it is.”
To illustrate my point, I didn’t hold the door for him.
I acknowledged the round of “Mornin’, Chief,” with a curt nod as I headed straight for my office where I could shut the damn door on the whole damn world.
No one said anything to Nolan when he stomped in after me.
“Where’s Piper?” Grave asked, holding up a bag of the pet shop’s gourmet doggie treats.
Fuck.
Lina had the dog. I might not have wanted the damn dog, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Lina keep her.
“She’s with a neighbor,” I said.
Officer Will Bertle stopped me just shy of my door. He was the first Black officer I’d hired as chief. Soft-spoken and unflappable, he was well-liked in the community and respected in the department. “You’ve got a visitor, Chief. He’s waiting for you in your office,” he said.
“Thanks, Will,” I said, trying to tamp down my exasperation. The world did not seem inclined to leave me the hell alone today.
I headed into my office and stopped short when I spotted my visitor.
“Dad?”
“Nash. It’s good to see you.”
Duke Morgan had once been the strongest, funniest man I’d known. But the years had all but erased that man.
You didn’t have to look far past the clean, baggy clothes, the neatly trimmed hair and beard, before seeing the truth of the man in my visitors chair.
He looked older than his sixty-five years. His skin was weathered and lined from years of neglect and exposure to the elements. He was too thin, a shadow of the man who had once carried me on his shoulders and tossed me effortlessly into the creek. His blue eyes, the same shade as mine, had bags under them, slashes of purple so dark they almost looked like bruises.
His fingers nervously traced the stitching on his pants over and over again. It was a tell I’d learned to recognize as a kid.
Despite my best efforts to save him, my father was a homeless addict. That failure never got easier for me to stomach.
I was tempted to turn around and walk out the door. But just as I recognized the tell, I also recognized the need to confront the bad. It was part of my job, part of who I was.
I unhooked my belt and hung it and my jacket on the coatrack behind my desk before sitting. We Morgans weren’t huggers and for good reason. Years of disappointments and trauma had made physical affection between us a foreign language. I’d always promised myself that when I had my own family, it would be different.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
Duke rubbed absentmindedly at the spot between his eyebrows. “Good. That’s kind of why I’m here.”
I braced for the ask. For the no I’d have to deliver. I’d stopped giving him money a long time ago. Clean clothes, food, hotel rooms, treatment, yes. But I’d learned early on exactly where cash went as soon as he got his hands on it.
It didn’t make me angry anymore. Hadn’t in a long time. My dad was who he was. There was nothing I could do to change that. Not getting better grades. Not performing on the football field. Not graduating with honors. And definitely not handing him money.
“I’m going away for a little while,” he said finally, stroking a hand over his beard.
I frowned. “You in trouble?” I asked, already jiggling my computer mouse. I had an alert set for if and when his name popped up in the system.
He shook his head. “No. Nothin’ like that, son. I’m, uh, starting a rehab program down south.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He ran his palms over his knees and back up his thighs. “Been thinkin’ about it for a while. Haven’t used in a bit and I’m feelin’ pretty good.”
“How long is a bit?” I asked.
“Three weeks, five days, and nine hours.”
I blinked. “On your own?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Felt like time for a change.”
“Good for you.” I knew better than to be hopeful. But I also knew what effort it took for an addict to get to this mental space.
“Thanks. Anyway, it’s a different kind of place than the ones I did before. Comes with some counseling, medical treatment plans. Even get a social worker to help with after. They’ve got outpatient support programs, job placement.”
“That sounds like it’s got potential,” I said.
I wasn’t optimistic. Not with him and not with rehab. Too many disappointments over the years. I’d learned that having expectations where he was concerned only guaranteed my own disappointment. So I made it a point to always meet him where he was, not where I wanted him to be. Not where he’d once been.
It helped me in my job too. Treating victims and suspects with respect, not judgment. Despite the fact that he’d turned into a toxic father figure, Duke Morgan had made me a better cop. And for that, I was grateful.
“You need anything before you go?”
He shook his head slowly. “Nope. I’m all set. Got my bus ticket here,” he said, patting his front pocket. “I leave this afternoon.”
“I hope it’s a good experience for you,” I said and meant it.
“It will be.” He reached into the same pocket and pulled out a business card. “Here’s the number and address of the place. They’ll limit phone calls to emergencies for the first few weeks, but you can send letters…if you want.”
He put the card faceup on my desk and slid it toward me.
I picked up the card, looked at it, then pocketed it. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Well, I’d best be gettin’ on,” he said, getting to his feet. “Gotta see your brother before I hit the road.”
I rose. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Not necessary. I don’t wanna embarrass you in front of your department.”
“You’re not an embarrassment, Dad.”
“Maybe in a few months I won’t be.”
I didn’t know what to do with that. So I clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed.
“You healing up okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s gonna take more than a couple of bullets to keep me down,” I said with feigned confidence.
“Some things are tougher than others to get over,” he insisted, those blue eyes locking on to mine.
“Some things are,” I agreed.
Bullet holes and broken hearts.
“I didn’t do right by you and your brother.”
“Dad, we don’t have to get into this. I understand why things happened the way they did.”
“I just wish I woulda kept trying to look to the light instead of sinking into the dark,” he said. “A man can learn to live in that dark, but it’s no life.”
I spent the next hour reviewing case reports, time-off requests, and budgets with my father’s words echoing around in my head.
Maybe the dark was an empty, meaningless existence, but it was the light that could burn you. I needed something from Lina that she didn’t seem willing to give. Something that was as essential to me as oxygen. Honesty.
Sure, she’d shared bits and pieces. But what she did share was shaded and spun to tell the kind of story she wanted. She’d made it seem like she’d run into Lucian and had a benign conversation with him. She hadn’t told me that my oldest friend had hunted her down and threatened her over the time she’d been spending with me.
I was almost as pissed off about the fact that she’d decided to handle it on her own as I was over Lucian’s overprotective, asinine actions.
But despite the fact that I knew for sure that Lina wasn’t telling me the whole truth, I felt something I couldn’t identify, something a hell of a lot like need. And the scales wouldn’t be balanced unless she needed me back.
Something Lina Solavita wasn’t programmed to do.
Something I wasn’t prepared to deliver on. Who would need me in this state? I was a fucking mess.
Hell, I’d just spelled my name wrong signing a PTO request.
“Fuck,” I muttered and shoved away from my desk.
I was too restless to hide from the world. I needed to do something that felt productive.
I grabbed my jacket and belt off the hook and headed out into the bullpen.
“Headed out,” I said to the room in general. “I’ll bring back lunch from Dino’s if y’all text me your orders. My treat.”
There was a flutter of excitement that all cops got at the thought of free food.
I paused at Nolan’s desk. “Feel like takin’ a ride?”
“Depends. You gonna take me out to the woods and leave me for the banjos?”
“Probably not today. Thinkin’ about paying an inmate a visit.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
“What’s with the change of heart?” Nolan asked as I hit the highway.
“Maybe I just want to save the environment by carpooling.”
“Or maybe you’re in the mood to have a chat with Tina Witt and you don’t want to get any of your officers in trouble with the feds.”
“You’re not as dumb as that mustache makes you look,” I said.
“My wife—ex-wife—was really into Top Gun,” he said, running his finger and thumb over the ’stache.
“The things we do for women.”
“Speaking of—”
“You mention Lina’s name and I will leave you for the banjos,” I warned.
“Noted. What about her friend? The blond librarian?”
“Sloane?” I asked.
“She single?”
I thought about Lucian this morning at breakfast. A slow, vengeful smile spread over my face. “You should ask her out.”
We rode in silence until I took the exit for the prison.
“Those kids yesterday,” Nolan said. “You talked the manager out of pressing charges.”
“I did.”
“Then you kicked the ass of Officer Fuckhead.”
“You got a point rattlin’ around in there somewhere, Graham?”
He shrugged. “Just saying you don’t suck at your job. Some local lawmen would have thrown the book at the kids and let that officer slide.”
“My town saw enough of the good ol’ boy style of leadership. They deserve better.”
“Guess you’re smarter than those bullet holes make you look.”
The Bannion Women’s Correctional Facility was typical for a medium-security prison. Out in the middle of nowhere, the perimeter was protected by tall fences, miles of barbed wire, and guard towers.
“You gonna run and tattle to the feds about this?” I asked, swinging into a parking space near the entrance.
“Guess that depends on how it goes down.” Nolan released his seat belt. “I’m comin’ in.”
“Less problematic for you if you don’t know what I’m doin’ in there.”
“I got nothing to do but wonder how many assholes are lined up to make a move on my ex since she moved to DC and wait for some low-level criminal to ask you to dance again. I’m comin’ in.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Get anything useful out of her yet?” he asked.
“Dunno. This is my first visit.”
He shot me a look. “Guess Studly Do-Right takes orders seriously.”
“Was really hopin’ that nickname would die.”
“Not likely. But seriously, Idler tells you let the big girls and boys handle it and you just sit on your hands? If I were in your shoes, I’d sure as hell be running my own investigation. Hell, these are local players. They’d be more likely to talk to you than to a bunch of feds.”
“Speaking of,” I said, looking pointedly at his department-issue suit. “Lose the jacket and tie.”
Nolan had just thrown his jacket between the seats and was rolling up his sleeves when a leggy brunette strolled out of the prison and into the parking lot.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Well, well, well. Looks like Investigator Solavita is up to something after all,” my passenger mused. “What are the odds—”
“Zero in a million,” I said as I glared at her reflection in my rearview mirror. I watched her hang up her phone and get into her car.
I called up Lina’s last text on my phone.
“Aren’t you gonna bust her?” Nolan asked.
“Nope,” I said as my thumbs moved across the screen.
Me: Lunch sounds good. Meet at Dino’s in ten?
My phone rang a few seconds later. Lina.
“Hey,” I said, fighting to keep my tone neutral.
“Hi,” Lina said.
“Is Dino’s in ten good?” I asked, knowing full well it wasn’t. Nolan snickered from the passenger seat.
“Actually, I’m out running errands. Can I meet you in an hour?”
She was lying to my face…well, my ear. My blood pressure spiked. “I don’t think I’m gonna be free then,” I lied. “What kind of errands are you running?”
“Oh, you know, just typical errand stuff. Groceries. Pharmacy.”
A visit to a women’s correctional facility.
“How did breakfast go this morning?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Breakfast was fine,” I lied. “Piper with Mrs. Tweedy?”
“Yeah. She’s sleeping off her puppyccino on Mrs. Tweedy’s couch.”
The woman had taken my dog for a treat and now she was lying to me. Lina Solavita was maddening.
“Hey, listen. If you haven’t hit the pharmacy yet, mind grabbing me a bottle of ibuprofen?” I asked.
We were both going to need it later.
“Sure! I can do that. No problem. Is everything okay?” She sounded nervous. Good.
“Yep. Fine. Gotta go do cop stuff. See you later.” I hung up.
Thirty seconds later, the cherry-red Charger zipped past us before flying out of the parking lot with a chirp of tires.
I got out and slammed my door harder than necessary.
Nolan got out and jogged to keep up.
“That was cold, my friend,” he said with just a hint of glee.
I grunted and stabbed the intercom button outside the main entrance.
When the heavy door buzzed open, we stepped into a squeaky-clean lobby. Guards waved us through the metal detector and directed us to the front desk behind its protective glass. I’d been here before for hearings and interviews, but this time, it was personal.
“Well, hello, gentlemen. What brings you to my fine establishment today?” Minnie had been working the desk at this prison for as long as I could remember. She’d been threatening to retire for the past five years but claimed her marriage wouldn’t survive retirement.
The truth was, the prison would probably fall apart without her. She was a grandmotherly figure to inmates, visitors, and law enforcement alike.
I produced my badge. “Good to see you again, Minnie. I need to see a list of all the visitors Tina Witt has had.”
“Ms. Witt sure is popular today,” Minnie said, giving us the eyes. “Lemme talk to the boss lady and I’ll see what I can get you.”
