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Kinsley’s phone vibrated under her pillow. She opened her eyes a fraction and stared at the world outside her window. It was daylight, but barely. She rolled over with a smile, pulled the phone from beneath her pillow, and swiped off the alarm. Two quick taps on the little screen displayed the message she’d received just as she crawled into bed the night before.
Thx 4 your help tonight.
The words brought a grin and a sigh and sent her stomach spiraling into that funny little dance it did whenever she thought about Sean or Benjamin Conklin. She’d had a crush for months, and since they were identical twins, she’d had trouble deciding which one she liked best. Not anymore. After last night, Benjamin was the clear winner.
Kinsley crossed her arms over her chest, and with the phone held close to her heart, she flopped to her back and relived the previous night. Benjamin had been trying to get the three- and four-year-olds in line to make the trip from the gym to the auditorium. It was their turn to practice their song for tomorrow night’s VBS commencement service. One of the little guys tripped on the blacktop and skinned his knee.
She shook her head. Skinned? There hadn’t even been a red spot, but the kid was screaming to beat everything when she’d come out the side door. Kinsley offered to take him to the nursery to get a Band-Aid and a cookie, and Benjamin...the butterflies in her stomach turned into a herd of stampeding rhinos... Benjamin had given her the sweetest smile. And when she’d returned the little crybaby, sunny faced and happy once more, Benjamin had actually winked at her. She closed her eyes. He’s the one.
Not that someone as gorgeous as Benjamin would ever ask her out. He was eighteen and she wouldn’t be fifteen for another twenty-three days. Even if he did ask, she’d have to tell him no. Mom and Dad had a rule. No dating until she was sixteen. She wanted to pull the covers over her head and sleep for the next three hundred and sixty-five days. She sat up with a start. What would she do if Benjamin found someone else between now and then? The thought turned her mouth to cotton. This was going to be the longest year of her life!
“But I still get to see him tonight and tomorrow night.” Somewhat consoled, Kinsley kicked free of the covers, scrambled to her feet and planted them on the purple throw rug next to her bed. She rummaged through her dresser and tossed on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. After a short stop in the bathroom for the morning necessities, she returned to her phone to read the morning devotion posted by their youth pastor and took a few seconds to see what her friends were planning for the day. An invitation for some afternoon fun awaited her on Instagram. She typed a quick “I’ll check and let you know” response before moving on to Snapchat.
She swiped the screen closed, stretched, and took a deep breath. The aroma drifting on the air brought her nose up. Nutmeg. A second test of the air revealed a trace of vanilla.
French toast.
Dating might be out of the question for the next twelve months, but she still had the best Mom ever. She headed down the hall with sixty seconds to spare before the seven-thirty deadline and skidded to a stop just inside the kitchen door. Mom and Dad were both in uniform, both seated at the table.
“Whoa. What’s the occasion?”
Mom looked up from a whispered conversation with her dad. “Occasion?”
Kinsley motioned from her parents to the food on the table. “Breakfast for three, on a weekday.”
Mom smiled, and Kinsley frowned, sure she saw nerves playing around the edges of her mother’s cheerful expression.
Dad nudged out an empty chair with his foot and nodded at it. “You’re too suspicious for your own good.”
“Yeah, well, I get it from you guys.” Kinsley took her place in front of a generous stack of golden, skillet browned goodness. She attacked the mound with a fork and brought the first bite to her mouth just in time to catch a quick look between her mom and dad. Wariness zipped up her spine. Something’s up.
Mom popped out of her seat to refill her coffee. She returned to the table, sent another look towards Dad, and said, “There is something we need to talk to you about though.”
Um hmm... Kinsley put her fork down and stared from one parent to another.
“Oh eat,” Mom said. “It’s not a big deal. You umm...you have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. It was actually scheduled for a couple of weeks from now, and I’d forgotten to mention it. But the nurse called late yesterday, and they can see you tomorrow.”
“I’m not sick.”
“No, you aren’t,” Dad said.
“This appointment is about making sure you don’t get sick,” Mom added.
“I don’t get it.”
Dad focused on his plate, and Mom took a drink of her coffee. “There’s this illness that runs in the family,” she said. “It’s been years—”
“Your great-great-grandmother was the last person we think had it,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” Mom continued. “But it can be pretty serious, so everyone gets tested, because they can find it before it makes you sick and do some things to prevent it. We never mentioned it because we didn’t want you to worry, but it’s time to have the tests run.”
Tension rolled off her parents in waves and contradicted every word they said. “What kind of tests?”
Mom twisted a paper towel in her hands. “Some blood work and an ultrasound. Nothing painful or scary. And like we said, this thing hasn’t shown up in a long time, so you shouldn’t worry.”
They were trying awfully hard to convince her. Kinsley ate a couple bites of her breakfast. “We studied genetics in science class. Which one of you passes this thing along?”
Her parents looked at each other.
“Your mother,” Dad said.
Mom bit her lip and bowed her head at his words but not before Kinsley saw tears spring into her eyes.
“Gee, Mom. It’s no big deal. Don’t stress out over it. You said it was nothing, right? I mean, so you forgot to tell me about it. I’m not a five-year-old afraid of needles. Did you think I was going to have a meltdown or something?”
Her mother kept her head bowed over her plate. She dabbed at her leaky eyes with a crumpled paper towel before she looked up. “No, sweetheart, we didn’t expect a fit, but—”
“We didn’t want to scare you,” Dad said. “I guess we might need to reevaluate our tactics. Maybe ganging up on you at breakfast wasn’t the best option.”
Kinsley rolled her eyes. “Ya think? I thought someone was dying or something.”
Mom started to cough into her napkin.
Dad patted Mom on the back and focused on Kinsley. “What’s on your schedule for the day?”
“Emma and Piper want me to meet them at the library this morning, then Emma’s mom is making us all lunch and taking us to the pool.”
“How are you getting to the library?” Dad asked.
“Bike?” Kinsley said, a lilt at the end that turned the word into a question. Garfield wasn’t exactly the backstreets of Chicago, but with cops for parents, she was used to their caution. This was her first summer without a babysitter. “I’ll ride to Emma’s for lunch, then Ms. Howard will take us to the pool. Then I’ll ride home.” And somewhere between the books and the water, there would be a serious discussion with her two besties about ways to get Benjamin Conklin to notice her. She was wise enough to keep those plans to herself.
“Chores?” Dad asked.
Kinsley sighed. “I promise I’ll do a load of laundry and clean my room before I leave the house.”
Dad looked at Mom. “Are you OK with that?”
Mom grinned. “Well, I’d like to have time for the pool, but with yesterday and tomorrow off work, I’ll just have to be jealous. I need you home by five.”
“No problem.” Kinsley glanced at the time on her phone. “Ahhh, guys, it’s almost eight.” Chairs screeched on the tile, and Mom started grabbing plates. “Go.” Kinsley giggled. “You cooked, I’ll clean the kitchen.” She got swift kisses from both parents as they hustled out the backdoor. She followed them, pausing on the step to yell at their retreating uniforms. “Take care of my parents.” Garfield might not be Chicago, but it wasn’t Disneyland either.
***
CHARLEY SAT ON THE edge of the bed in the ER and stared at the torn knees of her uniform while she held an icepack to her cheek. The only thought she could put together was a single word. Unbelievable.
She looked up when the door opened and cringed when Chief Black entered the small room. In two steps he was beside her. He lifted the ice pack with one hand and turned her face into the light with the other before shaking his head. “What were you thinking?”
“I...”
The door opened a second time, and Jason rushed through. “Are you OK?”
Charley sucked in a breath. The air was so thick with testosterone you could cut it with her granny’s pruning shears. “I’m fine.” Her eyes went back to her boss. “I’m fine,” she repeated.
Jason crossed the room much like Chief Black had. He frowned at her, and she moved the ice pack aside a second time. His low whistle echoed in the small room.
The chief crossed his arms. His stare seemed to reach right into her soul. “Tell me what happened.”
Charley’s shoulders straightened. “At approximately one-fifteen this afternoon I was parked in front of Ground Zero. I was just about to go grab a sandwich—”
“Dispatch has you logged as ten-seven at one.”
“Yes, sir, I...I did get there shortly before one, and I notified dispatch of my out-of-service status at that time. But I didn’t get out of the car for a few minutes. I had some things on my mind.”
Nicolas Black frowned. “So you were still in the car at one-ten when the disturbance call went out?”
Charley swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“With your radio on?”
“Always.”
“So you should have also heard the follow-up call stating that the suspect had fled the scene and was headed down Main on foot.”
Words failed her, and she nodded.
“So when you finally got your personal issues sorted out and decided to get your lunch, you should have at least been on the lookout for some suspicious activity in your immediate vicinity.”
“Chief, I—”
“Instead, you climbed out of your car, oblivious to the situation and everything around you, and put yourself straight into the path of our fleeing suspect, who proceeded to knock you on your butt.”
Charley flinched and looked down at her scraped knuckles and skinned knees. She raised her head and met the gaze of her chief with steady eyes. “Knees, actually, but I didn’t stay down, sir, and he didn’t get away. Those were my cuffs on his wrists when he arrived at the station.”
Silence stretched as the two stared at each other. Finally Nicolas Black ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. He broke the stare down, reached into his pocket, and removed a small notebook. He flipped through a couple of pages. “I just left the interview with Mr. Akin. We’ll leave the facts of the original altercation out of this for the moment. This is what he had to say about his encounter with you.”
Nicholas read from his notebook. “Officer Trent: ‘In addition to the battery charges you are also charged with assaulting a police officer. Do you have any response to that charge?’
“Toby Akin: ‘No, I mean, I was running and looking over my shoulder, and when I turned around, there she was. I figured she was there to stop me, so I tried to stop her first.’”
Chief Black was quiet as he folded the notebook back into his pocket. “What if he’d been armed? I know you were ten-seven, but...” He looked at Jason. “If he’d had a gun or a knife, I might be having a very different conversation with your husband this afternoon.”
The chief shook his head. “You know what’s going on in our country right now. Cops, especially cops in uniform, have to be alert to their surroundings twenty-four/seven. We haven’t buried one of our own in a long time. We won’t start on my watch.” Chief Black shifted his attention to Jason. “Take her home.”
Charley slid from the edge of the mattress and stood at attention. “Home? Chief, it’s just a black eye. I—”
“Home,” he repeated. Some of the official stance slipped from his posture as he looked from one of them to the other. “Listen, you two, from everything you told me this morning, I know this is a bad time for you.”
Charley opened her mouth, and he stalled her words with an upraised hand.
“Officer Hubbard, you’re distracted, rightfully so. Keeping you on the street, distracted, isn’t doing anyone, least of all you, any favors.” He studied her, and his expression softened. “We’re all human, Charley. And like it or not, we’re all going to go through something that steals our focus. It’s your turn.” Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone before she could put a name to it. “And I know better than anyone the cost of a moment’s hesitation or distraction. The day is half gone, you have tomorrow off, and then it’s the weekend. I don’t want to see you until your shift begins on Wednesday. Take the time you need to work through some of this, and clear your head.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “You caught the bad guy, intentionally or not. In doing so you sustained injuries in the line of duty. It’s paid administrative leave and won’t go on your record as anything but medical.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “At least it won’t unless I see you around the office before next Wednesday.” With that threat hanging in the air between them, Chief Black left the room.
Charley collected her things, her movements jerky. When Jason draped an arm across her shoulders to steer her towards the car, she pulled away and stomped to the parking lot ahead of him.
“Charley,” Jason called from behind her.
She kept walking, battling the sting of tears she refused to allow and a hurt that went deeper than the morning’s injuries.
She was a wife, she was a mother, and she was a cop. She was darn good at all three. Charley stood by the car, her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes focused on nothing as she waited for Jason to catch up and get the doors unlocked. How was it possible to have two of the roles she cherished jeopardized in less than forty-eight hours? A small part of her heart had always known her dream lived on borrowed time. She raised her eyes heavenward. Father, show me what I need to do to reclaim my life.