bubbled enthusiastically through the phone moments later. That saccharine-sweet voice laced with faux cheer could mean only one thing, Lola thought. She stifled a grunt. Here we go. Another offer to advertise something aimed at the AARP crowd.
“You won’t believe who just called. They want you to—” Jill started.
“No.” Lola cut her off. Usually, she would have heard the agent out and then politely declined, but after getting shafted by her family in the company boardroom and being stalked by that silly tabloid show already today she was in no mood.
“But you haven’t even heard what the job is...”
Rolling her eyes, Lola tapped her foot against the lobby floor. She had a pretty good idea. Espresso’s senior-citizen image clung to her, and no one seemed to care that she was only in her twenties.
“Look, I thought I already made this clear. I’m not interested in being the face of a denture adhesive, walk-in bathtubs or doing commercials where I’m snuggled up to some old dude with an idiotic grin on my face because he popped a pill to get a hard-on.”
“I promise, this one is different. It’s a fantastic opportunity and absolutely perfect for you,” Jill insisted.
Lola grunted again. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
“Please. Just hear me out.”
Lola shrugged. At this point, she had nothing to lose by listening. She leaned against the wall near the windows and faced the lobby’s interior. “Fine, go ahead.”
The agent filled her in on the details, and Lola broke out in a huge grin. If she played her cards right, this wouldn’t be just a job, but the opportunity of a lifetime.
She ended the call and dropped the phone into her pit of a bag.
“Boo-yah!” Pumping a fist in the air, she whispered the words she wanted to scream loudly enough for her family to hear on the tenth floor.
“I’m back!”
Nothing could bring her down now, Lola thought. Not even the sight of the maintenance worker from the elevator removing the giant poster of her that had hung from the lobby’s rafters for years, and replacing it with one of a man wearing a blond wig and lipstick.
Police Chief Dylan Cooper hadn’t seen faces this unimpressed with what he had to say since dealing with his ex-wife.
“I hauled ten bad guys to jail last night,” someone yelled from the back of the room. “Didn’t even have to call for backup.”
“Is that all?” A snort accompanied the shouted question. “I made over fifty arrests this week, including Big Moe, from the top of the most-wanted list.”
Murmurs of approval echoed off the walls at the capture of the elusive Big Moe. They fueled the fervent bragging, each person who chimed in boasting bigger arrest statistics than the last.
“What about you, Chief? How many bad guys you take off the streets this week?”
Dylan had hauled the Henderson brothers to the county jail after they’d started a brawl at the sports bar to avoid making good on a wager. His efforts had earned him a sucker punch to the jaw from one of the lumberjack-sized brothers, while he’d been busy subduing the other two.
However, those arrests had been two weeks ago.
The metallic gleam of the badge pinned to his uniform caught Dylan’s eye as he glanced at the worn carpet. He raised his head slightly to meet the dozens of expectant faces awaiting his reply.
“None,” he said finally.
A chorus of gasps erupted, quickly followed by muffled giggles.
“However,” Dylan interjected over the din, “I run a small-town police department, not a video game controller.” He eyed the classroom of fourth and fifth grade Cooper’s Place Elementary School students gathered for his day-in-the-life career talk. “So those arrests you all made playing Cop Crackdown don’t count.”
“Not even nabbing Big Moe?” the boy in the back of the room asked.
Dylan took a moment to think it over. A few of his cop buddies back at his old precinct in Chicago played the popular video game, but none had managed to beat the last level and capture the slippery Big Moe.
Dylan stroked the shadow of beard clinging to his chin. “Well, maybe...”
“Dylan Cooper.” The sound of his name, spoken in an admonishing tone he rarely heard, grabbed his attention. He turned from the students seated crossed-legged on the floor to their teacher standing in a corner of the classroom with her arms folded over her chest.
“Yes, Mrs. Bartlett.” Dylan’s deep voice automatically adopted the singsong quality it had decades ago when she’d been his fifth-grade teacher.
She peered at him over the frames of cat-eye glasses that had slid past the bridge of her nose. Her lips were pursed into a frown, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. Time had transformed the teacher’s once dark hair to salt and pepper. However, her expression was the same she’d worn the day a garter snake he’d encountered on the way to school had escaped his backpack and slithered onto her desk.
“These students are in my classroom on this sunny July day because they spent the school year trying to apprehend Big Moe instead of doing their homework.” She paused and gave the open window a pointed glance. As if on cue, the happy shrieks of children at the small town’s playground floated in on the mild breeze.
Dylan exhaled, shoving aside a twinge of empathy for the kids’ plight. It didn’t matter that he’d once missed a summer of Little League baseball sitting in this same classroom, with the same teacher. He was the adult now as well as an authority figure.
“No,” he said finally. “Nabbing Big Moe doesn’t count as a real arrest.”
Mrs. Bartlett rewarded the statement with an approving smile. But if the grumbles filling Dylan’s ears were any indication, his stock had dropped even further with his audience.
“Isn’t it your job to arrest people?” a kid seated in front asked. “That’s what the police do.”
“Not always,” Dylan replied. “My main duty is to keep everyone safe. In a town the size of ours that could mean anything from teaching you bicycle safety to helping Devon’s grandmother across Main Street.” He inclined his head toward one of the boys and then looked over at a set of identical twins. “Or even helping Natalie and Nicole look for their lost puppy.”
Dylan acknowledged the waving hand of a boy he recognized as an old high school classmate’s son. “Got a question, Ryan?”
“Where’s your gun?” the boy asked.
“At home,” Dylan replied. “I’m not on duty today. Besides, weapons don’t belong in a classroom. I didn’t bring one here today, and you should never, ever bring a gun or anything else that could be potentially dangerous
