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MORGAN WANTED NOTHING more than to leave the restaurant. The way Cole had been watching those boys across the room, and then one pretending that knocking over Cole’s glass had been an accident, had her stomach in knots. Austin hadn’t picked up on it, not that Morgan could tell, and the way his eyes had brightened when Cole suggested dessert had her burying her concerns. She agreed.
“They do a killer loaded brownie,” Cole said to Austin. “It’s huge. Ginormous brownie, chocolate sauce, raspberry sauce, whipped cream. And a cherry on top. Want to split it?”
Austin nodded. “Yes, please,” he hurried to add.
He was trying so hard to behave. Was he afraid he’d be sent away for anything less than perfect behavior? Didn’t he know he could act like a kid?
Give him time.
Wanting to give the guys a bonding moment, Morgan ordered a single scoop of vanilla ice cream for herself.
When their desserts arrived, Cole offered a knife to Austin. “You draw the line for how much you want. The rule is, you have to eat however much you choose.”
Austin tilted his head in Morgan’s direction, as if he thought he was being tested, then tentatively drew a line at about the one-third mark, giving Morgan another approval-seeking glance.
She patted his hand. “You’re the only one who knows how much dessert room you have. Go for it.”
With a shy smile for Cole, Austin moved the line dead center.
“That’s more like it.” Cole scooped half the dessert onto Austin’s plate.
Austin grinned and dove in.
Desserts finished, they went back to Elm Street. As Cole rounded his car for the porch, he uttered a not so quiet curse.
Austin, who was already by the front door, turned, wide-eyed.
“Sorry.” Cole grabbed his phone, took pictures of his car.
“What happened?” Morgan asked. “Did someone ding you?”
“Keyed it,” he said. “I’ll deal with it later. Let’s get your wall finished.”
They regrouped in the master bedroom while Cole did the final sanding pass.
“You’re a cop.” Austin eyed Cole warily. He sat cross-legged on the floor, petting Bailey.
“I am.”
“Someone messed with your car, right?”
“They did.”
“Do you know who?”
Cole shook his head, although Morgan thought he had a pretty good idea it was one of those kids from Burger Hut.
“If you found him, what would you do?” Austin said.
Cole glanced at Austin, but kept working. “First, I’d have to prove it was really him. I can see if there are surveillance cameras that show him doing it. Then, I could find him and make him pay.”
“You wouldn’t shoot him? Or beat him up?”
Morgan’s heart came to an abrupt halt.
Cole stopped sanding. He fixed his gaze on Austin. “My job is to protect people, not hurt them. I’ve never shot anyone, and I don’t want to have to.”
“If the person was bad, though, you could shoot him?”
Where had this come from? Cole would have to answer. She couldn’t speak for him.
“It would be a last resort,” Cole said. “First, I’d tell him that what he was doing was wrong. Tell him to stop.”
“If he didn’t stop?” Austin’s tone was curious, as if this was nothing more than typical conversation.
“It would depend on what he was doing. If he was hurting someone else, I would restrain him. You know what that means?”
“That’s when you beat him up.”
“No, I’d never beat someone up. I use just enough force to make him stop. I’d put handcuffs on him so he couldn’t keep hurting the other person.”
“You have a gun, right?”
“I do. But the only time I’d use it would be if someone was trying to shoot me first.”
“A cop beat up someone near my apartment once. Another cop shot someone.”
Morgan stifled a gasp.
Cole crouched until his eyes were level with Austin’s. “I’ll bet there are some kids at your school who aren’t nice, right?”
Austin nodded. “DeShaun’s a bully. He takes people’s lunches and beats on them if they try to stop him.”
“You’d say DeShaun’s not a nice person, then.”
Austin nodded.
“It’s the same in police departments. Most police officers aren’t like the one you said beat someone up, or shot someone. Unless you know the whole story, from both sides, you can’t make assumptions. Police departments have people who investigate cops to make sure they’re not breaking the rules.”
Morgan watched as Austin processed the information. Later, she’d have to ask what prompted the conversation.
Cole stood and ran his fingers along the wall. “I think we’re done.”
More like just beginning.
~~~
COLE CLEANED UP WHILE Morgan got Austin settled into bed. When she came down carrying sheets and a blanket, he helped her spread them on the couch. “Not much of a bed.”
Morgan tucked the sheet under the couch cushions. “It’s only for a couple of nights.”
He noticed that she’d winced and shaken out her hands. “Your carpal tunnel bothering you?”
She arranged a top sheet and blanket. “Not bad.”
Now that she’d confessed her ailment, it seemed she wasn’t as worried about admitting her weakness in front of him.
After Morgan folded the top edge of the sheet over the blanket, she stepped back, as if surveying her handiwork. “You think the kid who knocked over your glass keyed your car, don’t you?”
He’d wondered how long before she brought it up. “Either him or one of his two buddies. But, like I told Austin, without proof, there’s not much I can do. I'm heading back to the restaurant to see if they’ve got surveillance footage.”
“I liked the way you answered Austin,” she said. “I’d like to know why he asked those questions, though.”
So did Cole. “Does he—did he—live in a rough neighborhood?”
“Better than some, worse than others. I’d call it the low end of middle class. A mix of races. Heavy on black and Latino, some whites and a few Asians, too. No gangs that I’m aware of.”
“Give me the address, and I’ll see if I can find references to what he was talking about.”
“You said you talked to detectives about Kirk Webster. Did you get any answers?”
“Nothing definitive yet.” Most of what Kovak had said related to Randall Ebersold, and he couldn’t discuss that case with Morgan. If what Kovak had found held up, keying Cole’s car would be the least of these kids’ worries.
Morgan hid a yawn behind her hand.
He stroked her cheek. “You’ve had a long day. I’d better get going before we do something ... inappropriate.”
She gave him a gentle kiss. “Thanks for the wall, for everything.”
As he drove back to Burger Hut, Cole wondered if Morgan had intended her thanks to mean she was writing him off now that she had Austin to worry about.
Not if he could help it.
The surveillance footage at Burger Hut wasn’t definitive. Whoever had keyed his car had been wearing jeans, a black windbreaker, and a ball cap positioned so the brim hid his face. Cole hadn’t seen any of the three boys wearing ball caps in the restaurant, but one of them might have had a dark colored windbreaker slung over his arm as he walked out. Cole couldn’t swear to it. The move along his car was made quickly, casually, with the boy’s face averted from the camera so that a positive ID was impossible. Too many crime shows on television served as instruction manuals for lawbreakers these days.
The Burger Hut manager burned a copy of the footage onto a CD, just in case it might prove useful. Maybe Connor could perform some enhancement magic.
Cole took the CD to the station, put the disc in an evidence envelope and wrote a note for Connor to hang on to it. Neither of the detectives was in, so Cole went home. He could use public search engines to look up incidents in Austin’s neighborhood. It might show that Austin was better off here in Pine Hills than in Dublin.
Where Austin was living wasn’t the big question. It was who he was living with. If no relations were found, would Morgan have as much of a case in the eyes of the court as a registered foster parent?
Would a relationship with Morgan hinder or help? The courts frowned upon non-marital sexual encounters. Could she argue having a strong male figure in the mix was better for Austin?
The dreams he’d shared with Jazz included having children. At age eighteen, the reality of having kids was an abstract concept. Cole had never pictured himself interacting with those imaginary children. Did professions matter? Was a high risk job like being a cop a help or a hindrance?
Chastising himself for jumping so far ahead, Cole spent the next hour gathering information about criminal activity in Austin’s neighborhood.
One article stopped him. No wonder the kid had a low opinion of cops.