breathed deeply, inhaling the fruity scent of his shampoo. At least he’d had a bath, but it looked as if no one had untangled his mop of dishwater-blond curls. “And that’s where you’re going right now—to bed.”
He wriggled out of her arms and protested, “I’m not a baby, Tess.”
“You need your sleep. You should already be in bed,” she reproached him, playfully swatting at his pajama-covered bottom as he headed down the hall.
“Audrey?” she called out in a loud whisper for her fourteen-year-old sister, who was supposed to have been watching the younger kids while their mother was at work and Tessa had been at the damn class she didn’t have time to take. As Tessa had feared, Audrey wasn’t responsible enough yet to handle the others. Besides Christopher and Audrey, there were three more kids.
Tessa poked her head into the first doorway off the hall, where Christopher climbed the ladder of a bunk bed to the top bed. On the bottom bunk slept their brother Joey, the blankets kicked off his small body. Tessa crept forward and pulled the covers to his chin, then pushed back his tangle of brown bangs and pressed a kiss against the five-year-old’s forehead.
He murmured in his sleep. “Mommy…”
“No, she’ll be home in the morning,” she assured him as he drifted back to sleep. After tucking in Christopher, despite his protests, she headed back into the hall and collided with Audrey.
The dark-haired girl was already taller than Tessa, and should have been able to handle the younger kids at least. “Hey, Tess…”
“Where have you been?” she asked, then answered her own question. “On the computer, of course.”
“I had to finish my homework.” The girl’s blue eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare. “You wouldn’t help me.”
Tessa had tried; she’d been on the phone with Audrey most of the second half of the class, when she hadn’t been calling Kevin.
“Where’s your older brother?” she asked. “Did he go out?” Even though Tessa had told him before she’d left for the police department that he couldn’t?
Audrey shrugged. “I dunno.”
Tessa sighed. If Mom let him get his license, like the sixteen-year-old wanted, they wouldn’t be able to control the kid at all anymore. He came and went as he wanted now, with no regard to curfew. A headache began to throb at her temples. She would deal with Kevin later. “And Suzie?”
“She just got to sleep.”
Probably because Audrey had kept the seven-year-old awake when she’d been using the computer in their shared bedroom. “You better go to bed, too,” Tessa said.
“But my homework…” Audrey whined, her lips forming the pout of which the lieutenant had accused Tessa.
“You just said you finished it,” she reminded the teenager.
“But you need to check it,” Audrey insisted. “I’m barely passing algebra.”
Like Tessa had a feeling she would barely pass her class if Lieutenant Michalski had his way. She had to talk him into releasing her from her court-ordered participation in the academy. As she walked back into the kitchen to the homework Audrey had left spread across the table, lights shone through the windows as a car pulled into the driveway. Her mother wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet, not until after the bar closed. It had to be Kevin’s ride dropping him off.
Neither Audrey nor Kevin was responsible enough to take care of the younger kids or themselves; the responsibility was all hers. Tessa had to figure a way out of the citizens’ police academy.
“I’M GOING TO SKIP this week’s class,” Chad warned Paddy as he buttoned up his uniform shirt over the bulletproof vest Lakewood PD officers were required to wear every time they put on their uniform.
Other officers talked and slammed lockers shut as they, too, got ready for their shifts. The long, narrow basement room, with the gun-metal gray lockers and brick walls, reverberated with noise, but Chad suspected the watch commander had heard him and was just ignoring his pronouncement.
While Paddy sat on a bench tying his shoes, Chad glanced over at his friend’s open locker. He noticed the other man had put up new school pictures of his kids, and Chad’s heart contracted with a swift, sharp jab of pain.
He looked inside his own locker, at the pieces of tape stuck inside the door. The pictures were gone. After Luanne’s death he’d taken down her photo. And after his premature son had died two weeks later, he’d taken down his sonogram picture. But he’d left the pieces of tape, as if he might someday have new pictures to post.
But Luanne was gone; their child was gone. Only the pain remained. He couldn’t risk more pain; there would be no more pictures. He reached for one of the pieces of tape, picking at it with his fingernail.
Paddy stood and as he attached his gun, two extra magazine clips, Taser, collapsible baton, pepper spray and radio to his belt, he stared at the pictures of his kids. Since his divorce, he didn’t see his children nearly as often as he liked.
But at least he could see them.
“I’m skipping the CPA class this week,” Chad repeated, with enough volume that Paddy couldn’t continue pretending to have not heard him.
“We’ve already been through this, Junior,” the watch commander reminded him as he closed and leaned against his locker. “You’re the resident emergency vehicle operation and traffic stop expert.”
“You don’t need an expert for this week’s class,” Chad protested, abandoning the stubborn tape. He would have to take care of it later. “You’re just doing the tour of the department.”
Paddy shook his head. “That won’t take four hours. We’re going to show some video footage, too. Give ’em a day in the life of a police officer.”
“I thought that was the purpose of the ride-along.”
“This week we do sign-ups for the ride-alongs,” Paddy informed him. “The tapes give ’em an idea of what to expect.”
Chad snorted. “We never know what to expect when we go out.” A routine traffic stop could easily become a drug arrest, or a shoot-out. Or a confrontation with an unsettlingly beautiful woman.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Paddy agreed with a heavy sigh. “And that’s why I like to share with them that you have to expect the unexpected. Hopefully it’ll inspire them to be careful on their ride-alongs.”
Chad inwardly groaned. Based on her speeding and her wanting to walk the city streets alone at night, Tessa Howard didn’t have a clue about how to be careful. “Maybe you should skip the ride-alongs this session.”
Paddy grinned. “Thinking about Tessa Howard?”
Too much, but he wasn’t about to share that with the watch commander. “She’s not the only one who might be a problem.”
“The mayor’s daughter,” Paddy added with a derisive snort. “Who’s probably spying for her daddy so he can find out where to cut our budget.”
And
