Cynthia Cooke - Luck And a Prayer

Tracey groaned.

Blondie turned and to his astonishment gave them both a shove. “Run!” she urged.

Jeff didn’t waste a second. He grabbed Tracey by the hand and hauled her down the street toward the van. Within minutes they were locked inside and he was pulling onto the boulevard. He expected the woman in spandex would have disappeared, but there she was holding her own with Jack’s man. One lithe leg kicked high, knocking the brute in the chin.

“She’s amazing,” he said, awestruck.

“Unbelievable,” Tracey murmured. Jeff turned to his passenger tucked safe and secure in her seat belt and said a quick prayer of thanks, though he knew his job had only just begun. A squad car screeched to a stop in front of the apartment building as Jeff pulled past them. He glanced at his watch and then at Tracey. “If we hurry, we can still make it to our campsite by nightfall. Are you game?”

She looked at him, then quickly averted her gaze. He heard a soft “Sure,” and, for now, that was enough.

“Good, now call your mother. Tell her you’re sorry for worrying her half to death, then let me talk to her.”

Reluctantly, she took the phone. When she handed it back to him, he asked Mrs. Wilcox if he could still take Tracey camping with the others. “I think it will be good for her,” he added.

Luckily, she agreed.

At least for a few more days she’d be safe, and he’d have time to talk to her without distractions and reminders of what had happened here today. Perhaps then he’d find out what had gone wrong at home and he’d have his chance to put her back on the right path.

Willa scowled as the van with Morning Star Church printed across its door drove away. She succumbed to the officers on patrol as they read her her rights, then let them cuff her and throw her into the back of the squad car. Another car appeared to take Jack Paulson and Carlos downtown.

“Thanks, guys,” she muttered as they pulled into traffic. She stretched her aching shoulders and tried to ignore the pinch of the cuffs on her wrists. “You could have been a little gentler, though.”

“Hey, we wouldn’t want to blow your cover, Blondie,” Rick snickered behind the wheel. “The way you were moving them heels—whooeee, speed lightning.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to face you in a dark alley,” his partner, Cliff added.

“Honey, if you don’t loosen these cuffs, you’re not gonna want to face me anywhere.”

“Whoa, retract those claws.” Rick laughed. “Believe me, those cuffs are the least of your problems.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“Captain’s waiting for you at headquarters and he’s not too hunky dory. Says he wants you in his office looking very contrite within twenty minutes and if I were you, I’d lose the wig.”

Willa cringed. She’d directly disobeyed an order from her captain. She’d be facing desk duty for sure now. “Hey, guys. Do me a favor and say I split. You can drop me on the corner.”

They both burst out laughing. She knew what they thought of her. Obsessed and cracked up were just a few of the terms she’d heard whispered around the department. It didn’t matter. She’d show them.

Jack Paulson should have been put behind bars a long time ago for killing her father. He hadn’t been. Now it was up to her to see that he was. And, this time, she finally had the evidence to put him away. Unfortunately, it was tucked in the back pocket of that cute pastor’s jeans. She took a deep breath. As soon as she got it back, she’d have Jack right where she wanted him.

But first she had to deal with Ben. And Captain Ben Armstrong was not pleasant to be around when he’d been crossed.

At her locker, Willa quickly changed out of her hooker outfit, dragged on a pair of jeans and a LAPD T-shirt, wiped her face clean with one of those instant makeup removers, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She jogged on canvas shoes that didn’t make a sound to the captain’s office and silently slipped into a chair across from his desk.

He lowered a handful of reports and glowered at her. “Well?”

“It’s Saturday, Captain. Technically, I’m off duty.”

“Then technically, I can have you locked up for assault and disturbing the peace.”

“Yeah, I suppose you could.”

“Yeah.” The word hung suspended between them.

“But you won’t.” She cocked him an elfish grin.

His expression hardened. “I pulled you from the Paulson case. In fact, I distinctly remember telling you to go home and rest that arm. In no uncertain terms, I warned you to stop your renegade antics.”

“Yes, sir, you did.”

Captain Ben Armstrong leaned forward in his chair and scrutinized her. It was a hard look, and one she still hadn’t grown accustomed to no matter how many times he’d directed it her way. She shifted and bit her lower lip, swallowing the defensiveness rising in her chest.

His tone softened. “I want to help you, Willa. Really I do. I know what getting this guy means to you, and I think you know what it would mean to me, but your obsession is impacting my department.”

A spring tightened in Willa’s back. “Obsession?”

“Do you deny it? How many times have you gone back to that apartment alone without even bothering to check in? And word on the street has it your brother’s been there, too.”

“Johnny has as much right to Paulson’s throat as I do.” Even though he’d been older than her twelve years at the time of their father’s death, Johnny took it even harder than she did. No matter what Ben said, no matter how close he’d been to her family over the years, he would never understand what it had been like for them to suddenly lose the strongest force in their lives.

She had to give Ben credit for trying, but a surrogate dad could never replace what they’d lost. Her dad had been everything to them, the one who was home most days when they got home from school, the one who helped them with their homework, bandaged their bruises and dried their tears. How she longed to have him sit across the table from her and smile as she relayed the events of her day. Even just one more time.

“The bottom line, Captain, is that I’m doing what I have to do to get the job done.”

He took a deep breath. “There are a lot of ways to get the job done, you’ve chosen the one you’ve decided works best for you.”

“Your point?”

“You need to start doing what’s best for the department. If you want to continue working here.”

Willa’s eyes narrowed.

“There isn’t an officer in this precinct that will work with you,” he continued, treading deeper into uncharted waters. “They don’t trust you will be there for them when the chips are down.”

Like you were for my dad? Her teeth wrestled a grasp on her tongue to keep the long-unsaid words from escaping.

“You refuse to play by the rules or follow directions. We are a team here and you need to be a part of it. Out of loyalty and an obligation to your dad’s memory, I’ve given you more warnings than you’ve deserved, but now you’ve left me no choice. I’m pulling you off the street.”

“You’re what?” Incredulity rose in her voice. “I’m the best cop you’ve got.”

“You’re a loose cannon, and one of these days you’re going to get someone besides yourself hurt.”

Willa’s self-control skittered out the door. “You can’t take me off the street. I’ve got it this time. I’ve got evidence that Jack is serving up young girls—babies—as the main course at his twisted dinner parties. He’s moved onto prepubescent girls. I can’t let him do it. This has gone way beyond what he’s done to my family.”

“What kind of evidence?” he said, portraying no outward reaction to what she’d just told him. Surely, he couldn’t be that cold, that jaded.

“A videotape. I got it on one of those cameras that look like a pen.”

“One of Johnny’s gadgets, I presume. Hand it over, then go see Donna about a desk duty schedule,” he dismissed her, burying his nose back into his paperwork.

“I can’t.”

Exasperated, he looked up and let out a deep sigh.

“I don’t have it.”

“You’ve just rambled on about evidence you don’t have? Why are you wasting my time, Willa?”

“I had it. And I’ll have it back in an hour, tops!”

“Where is it?”

“I ditched it in a minister’s back pocket.”

“You what!”

“I had to get rid of it. Carlos knew something was up with the pen and I couldn’t take the chance of losing it.”

“So, you put a civilian in jeopardy? And a minister at that! You never should have gone back into that apartment without backup. This just proves my point, Willa.”

“No, it doesn’t. It proves that I’m the one with the guts to roll around in the manure and not let the stink do me in. I’m the one who got the goods on Jack and you’ll have the evidence as soon as I get it back from the Morning Star Church in Pasadena.”

Without a word the captain picked up the phone. “Send whoever is closest over to the Morning Star Church in Pasadena. I need one of those camera pens picked up from a minister. No, no name, but he was on the strip this morning. Can’t be more than one up there. I want a call as soon as we have it.”

“Then we bring Jack down,” she said triumphantly.

“So what?” he answered, his tired eyes void of emotion. “There are a hundred more Jack Paulsons ready to take his place.”

“And I’ll get them, too. But first, this slimeball is going to pay for killing my dad.”

The captain scrubbed his face with his hands. “I want you to see Louis.”

“I’m not seeing a shrink.”

“I told your mother fifteen years ago you needed counseling. Margo and I have lost countless night’s sleep worrying about you and the decisions you’ve made. We’ve done everything we could think of to help you, especially after your mother died, too. We even abided by your wishes when you refused counseling. But by God, I’m going to make sure you get it now.”

A deep well of long-lived frustration bubbled inside her. “I told you then and I’m telling you now, I don’t need to see a shrink.”

“You need to get over your father’s death or you’ll never be the cop you want to be. You’ll never be the person you can be. When was the last time you had a personal commitment to anybody or anything other than Jack Paulson?”

“Leave my personal life out of it.”

“That should be easy since you don’t have one.”

Cold fury froze Willa’s heart. “I’m the cop I want to be, now.”

“You’ll never be a good one, Willa.”

“I am good.”

He slammed both fists on his desk. “No! You’re not. As of right now, you’re a desk jockey. And if you ever want to get away from the phones, you’ll see Louis, and you’ll continue to see him until he gives you a clean bill of health.”

“I won’t!” Willa jumped to her feet. The aluminum chair crashed to the floor behind her.

Ben scowled. “You will, or you’re out of here.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Watch me.”

Willa bit back some choice words as the phone rang. Stunned, she stared at it, trying to catch her breath and calm her temper as she righted the overturned chair.

His lips tightened into a straight line as he banged the receiver into its cradle. “Your so-called evidence has headed for the hills.”

“What?”

“Your minister took a bunch of kids backpacking through Sequoia.”

Willa collapsed back into the chair. “Sequoia? As in National Forest?”