Uncovering Officer Smith (The Discovering Trilogy #2) (20 page)

“Take a walk.”

“Take a—?”

“Now.”

With one last glare at the prick bartender, I steal my notepad off the bar and walk away.

I step out onto the back patio. Matt is right. Maybe I’m too close to this case. Just the thought of someone touching Becca makes me want to cause physical harm to them and everyone they love.

I don’t know how long I stand there staring at the back steps before Matt seems to pop up beside me. My partner just stands there until he sighs and says, “I want to meet this girl.”

My head turns. “Huh?”

“I think I should meet this girl that has you all up in arms.”

“She does
not
have me up in arms.” I glance back out toward the parking lot.

“Oh no?” Matt’s eyebrows quirk up, amused.

“No.”

“Then, what is that between your hands?”

I glance down, looking at the tiny 4x6 photo of Becca. “I didn’t even know I had this.”

“I noticed it was missing halfway through the next interview. Looks like no one here saw what you did. We’re just going to have to put in some hard work on this one. Also, Rick gave me all the bar receipts from that night.” Matt raises a large brown paper bag. “We have some work for the next few days.”

“We better get started then.” I begin heading towards the parking lot.

It doesn’t take long until Matt catches up with me. “I mean it, you know?”

“Mean what, Matt?”

“I want to meet this girl.”

“We’ll see.”

Later that night, we lie face to face in my bed again. There is something about our time here that makes me feel… comforted. She peers at me with her baby blue eyes. Even through the dark, I can tell they are alive.

“How old are you?” she whispers.

“Twenty-six.”

“Why are you still adamant about this bachelor life?”

I pause. There is no malice in her voice. It’s sincere, curious even. “I just haven’t found the right girl.”

She rolls her eyes. “Bullshit.”

“What?”

“John, you’ve found tons of girls. You’ve just never allowed them inside. You never keep a girl for more than a night. How do you expect to really
know
them?”

This is deep;
too
deep. Everything inside me is telling me to shut my mouth. My rules are telling me to run. Becca is getting too personal. She’s getting under my skin and changing me. I make the mistake of looking into her eyes again. They compel me to respond. “It’s personal.”

“More personal than what we just did?”

I twist, staring at the ceiling. “To me, yes.”

“Hit me with it.” She moves closer, resting her cheek on my chest. I wrap my arm around her, bringing her close. It’s easier when I don’t have to look at her.

“My father left when I was young. I can’t even picture his face anymore.” I pause. “My mother died when I was a freshman in college.”

“I’m sorry.” Her fingers draw circles on my chest, centering me again.

I continue. “I was so desperate for any kind of family, I joined the fraternity. I met your brother and we pretty much had the time of our lives. He was rebelling against your uptight parents and I was just desperate to hide the pain, to feel alive.”

“That still doesn’t explain
why
you don’t date now. ”

“I tried once. It seems like a while ago now. I had actually arrested her. She was a drunken mess, clocked a grown man in the face. She was hilarious. Her green eyes just reminded me so much of my mother.” My breath falters slightly before I continue. “I never stood a chance. She had a thing with her neighbor and since then I just refused to put myself out there again.”

“So to get over this one girl, you get on top of a boat load of others?”

“Pretty much.”

Her circles against my chest stop. “Are you currently sleeping with other girls?”

“No.” Now that she mentions it, I realize that it’s true. I haven’t even looked at another girl since that night I took an unconscious Becca home. Her smell has become forever engrained in my bed sheets, a scent I’ve grown accustomed to. Another girl just wouldn’t seem, right.
Holy crap
. What the hell is going on with me?

After a few minutes, her breathing evens out. My eyes are wide open staring at the shadows scattered across my ceiling, my mind a swirling vortex of anxiety and questions.

“John? John?”

I glance up to Matt’s expectant face. “Sorry, I think I zoned out there for a second.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“No.” I rub my eyes.

“Are you still seeing that blonde?”

He doesn’t even have to mention her name before I feel my lip quirk up slightly. “I see a lot of people.”

“You know what I mean.” Matt flings a file at me.

‘SWANSON’ is scribbled on the tab. It’s Becca’s file. I glance up to meet his stern eyes.

“The lab results are in. Check it out.” He nods to me.

With hands trembling slightly, I flip the folder open. My eyes scan down the page, ignoring all the medical jargon until I focus on what I’m looking for. The box in the center says: GHB – Results: Positive.

My fists clench against the desk. I don’t know why I’m reacting as such. I knew what the answer would be. I saw the unresponsiveness in her eyes. I was prepared for this, or was I? If I were, I wouldn’t want to tear these guys limb from limb for even thinking about laying a finger on Becca.

“You okay?” Matt’s calm voice centers me again.

“We need to catch these guys,” I say behind clenched teeth.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he mutters. “Why couldn’t these two monsters have disappeared with the rest of them?”

“Fate has something worse planned.” I swing open a drawer and slam it closed before wandering towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Matt calls after me.

“I have to go inform the victim.”

Becca was still in class when I park the cruiser in the parking lot in front of the Adams Building on campus. She has Criminology today. That should be in the Old Building. I walk up the drive and around the path towards the old brick building to the right. Students begin to filter out the door, slipping around me. They shoot me uneasy looks. I guess maybe I shouldn’t have come to campus in uniform, but I have to start keeping business and Becca separate. The uniform is the only thing separating me from dealing with this situation how it should be handled.

The door opens and my little blonde is struggling with three huge books between her hands as she fumbles with the heavy door. My heart seizes when I see her.

Her blue eyes, especially clear today, glimmer in the sunlight when she sees me “John?”

A few students scamper past her. “You look awfully official—” She pauses mid-sentence, eyeing me closely. “What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”

“I… I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.” She eyes me uneasily. “Let’s go sit on the hill.” Her chin signals toward the center of the four buildings.

I nod. Becca leads the way over to the huge hill that overlooks most of the campus. Back when I went to school here, it overlooked all of it. They’ve made more additions since then. She props herself on the roots of an oak tree atop the hill and pulls me down beside her.

“You’re making me nervous. What is going on?”

I slump beside her, my gun digging into my hip. “We finally got the results back from your tests.”

“They were positive, weren’t they?”

“Yes.” I gesture, keeping my eyes straight ahead. I can’t seem to meet her eyes. I don’t want to admit defeat. I can’t admit to her and to myself that I have failed her.

We stay there for countless minutes in silence. We both stare out over the students passing back and forth across the campus. She is the one to finally break the silence. “I was prepared for this, John. I thought you were too.”

“I thought I was.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“The thought of someone trying to take advantage of you…”

She smiles softly. “But they didn’t. You were there.” Her hand is warm as it finds its way onto my arm.

“I can’t always be there.”

“And when was the last time I went out drinking? I’ve been with you almost every night. See?” She pokes me. “You’re still protecting me.”

I squeeze her hand back. “I will always protect you.”

“I know.”

The bustling of the school overwhelms our soft conversation. People start to fill the nearby area with towels and blankets as they soak up the summer sun.

“John, I have to get to my next class. Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t do anything stupid when it comes to these guys. They aren’t worth it.”

“That is the
one
thing I can’t promise.”

I rise, leaving her staring after me as I descend the hill. She never calls after me. She never attempts to change my mind.

Later, I’m sitting in class while my professor destroys the black board with a piece of chalk. My mind keeps going over the look on John’s face when he told me he couldn’t make that promise. I didn’t like it.

I’ve seen that look before. Bedford had that look a lot when he was a teenager. It meant trouble. For some reason, I don’t want John to get in trouble, especially not because of me. This is all my fault. If I weren’t stupid enough to take a drink from those losers, I would never have been drugged. I sigh, tapping my pen against my blank notebook until I realize – I also never would have met John.

My professor turns around now, still lecturing about something criminal. I should be paying attention. I should have probably read the chapter last night, but I was a little occupied.

When I just can’t take it any longer I sneak my phone out of my pocket. Propping it against the bottom of the desk and my leg as I shoot John a text:

Meet me at the coffee house when you’re off.

The rest of class drags on in a torturous silence. I am actually forced to tune into the professor for a little while to distract myself from the blank screen on my phone. The students around me start closing their notebooks and placing down their pens, a unanimous sign for the professor to wrap it up. She winds the lecture down and assigns some homework, which I quickly write down on the corner of the notebook. The number of the chapter is misshapen because my lap has finally vibrated with a text message.

John replied:
I’ll be there at three-thirty.

Three-thirty. I have an hour to change and meet him on the outskirts of town.

I couldn’t wait. It might have been the look on his face as he turned away from me or maybe my own selfish need to see him again. But, I’m walking up the walkway to the one-story Angelica Precinct. The red bricks are stark against the blue sky of this gorgeous summer afternoon. With a deep breath, I open the doors and enter. Men in uniform bustle about, this way, and that. It’s loud, too. There are men on the phone. Rowdy laughter erupts from a group across the room and others are studying their computer screens. I don’t know what I was expecting: a plaque on the desk or maybe a secretary directing me where to go. But I am met with neither. My eyes scan the faces surrounding me. John Smith isn’t here. I’m about to turn back around when a young man approaches me. He’s much younger than the other men around. His cheerful smile and slate eyes tell me he’s new here.