WE FINISHED breakfast and I excused myself to call Parker. After a few rings, I contemplated hanging up when Parker’s sleepy voice said, “‘lo?”
“Hey, Parker, it’s Jeff. Why are you still sleeping?”
I heard Parker murmuring something, and then the indubitable smacking sound of a kiss reached my ear. Bedding rustled as Parker obviously got up and out of bed. A door clicked shut and a more awake Parker said, “I was worn out and I still have maybe an hour left to be at the station in time.”
“Too much information, and you’ll never make it in time.”
“I will if you don’t stall me for more than two minutes.”
“What about the letter?”
“Forensics wasn’t available last night. There was a big accident involving multiple cars on the Expressway. They were busy. I’ll go down and ask when I get to work. Williams takes the threat seriously. Either you’ll stay with Alex and the boy, or someone else will come over.” Parker rattled the information off.
Brusquely, I asked, “How many people injured?”
“Twenty-one and three dead. Seven of the twenty-one are in critical condition.”
I swallowed hard. I should be immune to death by now. I worked homicide, dammit. Hearing about dead people wasn’t new for me. Yet, car crashes always affected me deeply. My own parents had died in a mass collision. My mother had been killed instantly, but my father was able to get me out of the wreck before the car exploded. He was hit by a piece of flying debris and died with me sitting next to him, holding his hand. I had been ten years old at that time.
“Jeff? Are you still there, man?”
I shook myself from my reverie and pulled myself together. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. So, who’s going to come over to look after Alex and Sean?”
“Don’t you want to stay there?”
“No, I’ll come to the station and we can get on with our interviews.”
It would be inappropriate for me to stay with Alex, wouldn’t it? Not that it really mattered because we had already slept together last night, which certainly fell into the incredibly inappropriate category.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I snapped, “why wouldn’t I be?”
Parker drew in a sharp breath. “Your choice, man. No one but me knows about you and Alex.”
“There is nothing to know about Alex and me!”
“Other than that you had sex with me last night?”
I whirled around, my heart thundering in my ribcage. I cursed. Why didn’t I hear Alex approaching? “I didn’t mean—”
“I know exactly what you meant. My bad that I interpreted more into it. Wouldn’t be the first time,” Alex told me. “I’m going to take a shower. Sean will be with me in the bathroom. I want you gone by the time we get out.”
“Man, you have a talent of putting your foot in your mouth,” Parker drawled in my ear.
I watched Alex walking toward the kitchen. I had wanted this, right? A convenient fuck, no big emotions involved and all. Emotions only get in the way and make life way too complicated. Distractedly, I said to Parker, “Send someone over, call me, and let me know who it’s going to be. I’ll be at the station as soon as another officer is here.”
I didn’t give Parker the chance to reply. I hurried after Alex, who picked up Sean.
“Alex,” I said. I carded my fingers through my hair, simply to give my hands something to do. More words eluded me.
“What? Wasn’t I clear enough?”
“You were more than clear. Another officer will come over soon and look after you both. Forensics is overburdened at the moment and until we know more we have to take that threat seriously.”
Alex gaped at me. Sean chirped and bumped his head against his brother’s, causing Alex to wince.
“Easy, baby,” he murmured.
Alex tucked a strand of hair behind Sean’s left ear. The tenderness of that gesture struck something deep inside me. I looked away in discomfort.
Alex’s soft voice pulled me back and I gazed at him. “Is this really necessary?”
“Better safe than sorry, right? You don’t want anything to happen to—”
Alex interrupted me by a viciously bellowed, “Shut up! Okay, I’ll put up with an officer looking after us. For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great, just great.”
I sighed. Without another word, Alex walked into the bathroom and shut the door. The symbolism of this gesture wasn’t lost on me. It shouldn’t bother me. It did, though, more than I liked to admit.
Twenty-five minutes later, Alex had showered, dressed, and started to play with Sean. He didn’t even glance my way; I simply didn’t exist for either of them. His ignoring me hurt more than I thought would be possible.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Officer Paul Chandler took over. He immediately hit it off with Sean. I saw the delight in Alex’s eyes upon seeing someone unknown acting completely normal with his little brother. I bade goodbye. Paul waved cheerfully, Sean ignored me, and Alex only spared me a curt nod.
I all but fled to the car. Once inside, I tried hard to get a grip on myself. It was a challenge, one I had a difficult time facing. Before I pulled into the street, I threw a quick glance toward Alex’s living room window. For a second I saw his face, but when he pulled the curtain closed, it concealed everything. My heart leaped and my chest didn’t feel as tight as before. Feeling fractionally better, I vowed that I’d find whoever wrote those threatening letters. No matter what was going to happen with Alex and me, if anything should happen—hell, I didn’t even know if I wanted anything to happen—I owed him that much.
I MET Parker at the station where he sleepily slurped on his coffee. He greeted me and waved a folder in my direction. “Want to talk to some more parents now?”
I pulled a face. “It’s early Sunday morning. How do you think the parents will react to our visit?”
Shrugging, Parker went to his chair and slumped down in it. He winced briefly and adjusted his position. I blinked, unsure of what I had just seen. Parker forestalled any comment by mumbling, “Not a word.”
A smile tugged on my lips. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.”
I fetched myself a mug and poured coffee into it. The bitter taste evoked such a heavy shudder that I considered never drinking coffee again. At least not at the station. Sighing, I sat down on my own chair and observed Parker.
It didn’t take him long to ask, “What?”
“What about forensics? Did they find anything helpful on the letter?”
“I haven’t heard back from them. The letter wasn’t a priority in the beginning and it’ll be even less a priority now.”
“I know,” I grumbled. “I have a feeling we should take those threats seriously.”
“Of course this has nothing to do with a certain someone you might want to impress?”
A wave of anger rushed through me and settled in my stomach. Furiously I stared at my partner. “Is this your way of saying that I’m not dealing in a professional manner with this threat?”
“Jeff, you’re emotionally involved. Of course you’re afraid something might happen to the kid. Normally you’d be removed from the case, and you know that.”
“The threat is real. I already suspected something more before we found out about….” I looked around and lowered my voice before I went on, “Alex’s involvement. I might not have 100 percent professional distance but I’m not making things up either.”
“I never said you’re making things up, but you’d do anything to spare the boy trouble. I saw you. He hits all your protective buttons at once even though you don’t know how you feel about the child.”
I pressed my lips together in a tight line to prevent myself from cursing Parker. I settled for a deep scowl, which didn’t faze him one single bit. He sipped at his coffee while he looked at me in silence. Eventually, he shook his head and grinned. “God, you’ve got it real bad.”
I huffed. “Look who’s talking.”
“Exactly. Now how about we check the remaining names on our list. Mr. Clark also gave us a list of names of the staff of St. Christopherus School, including the teachers, caretaker, secretary, bus drivers, and the cleaning crew.”
I groaned and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. I hated this, absolutely hated this. I knew we had to talk to all these people. We always had to be on high alert because we wouldn’t want to miss out on any important detail, but I still loathed those endless hours of asking questions. When I opened my eyes again, I grumbled, “Hand me the copy of the list. I’ll call the teachers.”
“All right. I’ll try sweet-talking some of the parents into meeting us today and you could make appointments with the teachers for tomorrow.”
We spent more than an hour on the phone and were more than grouchy after that. “How successful have you been?”
Parker quipped, “You’ll be happy to hear that you won’t be bored for the rest of the day.”
“Great, then you’ll be similarly thrilled that we won’t be bored tomorrow either. We still have to call the two bus companies tomorrow and the cleaning crew’s company. The caretaker and the secretary should be at school tomorrow anyway.”
“Thrilled? I’m beyond thrilled, I’m ecstatic,” Parker drawled.
My face cracked into an open grin. Chuckling, I got up and grabbed my jacket. “Who’s driving?”
“You. I’d be a danger on the street right now.”
Concerned, I turned around. I searched Parker’s face for a sign of how to interpret his statement. When I couldn’t find one, I asked, “And why’s that?”
Parker didn’t meet my eyes. Hell, he even blushed. Trailing after me he muttered, “It’s not important. Come on, you usually drive anyway.”
“That’s because I value my life.”
“Wuss.”
I was about to snarl when a sudden thought struck me. I stayed silent during our elevator ride to the garage. As we got in the car, I asked, “How is it to care about coming home unharmed? Makes quite the difference, huh?”
Parker punched my arm and slouched back into the seat. “Shut up.”
“Not a chance in the world of that going to happen!”
“Want to explain to me about why Alex snapped at you this morning?”
I sent a well-measured glare to Parker before I set my foot on the accelerator. “Asshole.”
“I thought so. We’ll be driving to Arkansas Avenue, please.” Parker hesitated shortly, then added, “If you’d be so kind, your lordship.”
“Oh geez, this is going to be a really long day.”
Parker laughed and I couldn’t help but smile myself.
BY NOON we had interviewed three more students’ parents, none of them pleased to meet us. Their children were even worse off than the ones we had seen previously. Not one of the children could communicate: two were blind, the third child was deaf, and all of them had incredibly deformed bodies. The parents weren’t as fiercely protective as Alex was of Sean; neither were they as loving as the Andersons had been. Resentment about being burdened with their children hung unspoken in the air. I actually felt pity for the children and wondered if they’d be better off permanently being in professional care.
We didn’t gather much relevant information. One of the fathers told us his family had received threatening calls a while ago but when he told the caller he’d be thankful for any help in getting rid of his child, he had received no more calls. Parker and I exchanged a worried glance. I scribbled on my pad that we should get Youth Welfare involved when the father said tiredly, “You don’t have to worry. I wouldn’t raise my hand against my girl. It’s just too much sometimes and I think she’d be better off dead. I mean, look at her. She can’t see, she can’t move on her own, she can barely swallow pureed food… that’s not living, that’s vegetating, and that’s what her whole life will be.”
He turned around to blow his nose noisily. Neither Parker nor I knew what to say. It took a great deal of courage to suggest, “Sir, you might want to talk to someone from Youth Welfare. I’m sure they could help. I understand they have a service that can schedule a reliable person to stay with your daughter for blocks of time on a regular basis, I think for several hours for two or three times per week.”
I received a cold look in exchange. “She’s at school most of the day. We’re her family; we’ll take care of her. If God wanted us to take on this burden, we will not shy away from it.”
We didn’t have anything more to add, so we left. I let out a long-drawn breath when we reached the safety of the car. Parker glanced over at me and proclaimed, “Well, I feel like crap now.”
“I don’t like this case,” I admitted. I gripped the steering wheel tightly while I pulled out into the street. For emphasis I repeated, “I really don’t like this case.”
Parker spoke so softly that I had to strain my ears to understand him. “Neither do I.”