Page 15

Chapter 15

Riley

Apparently when Nolan said he was from Seattle, he meant it in the same general way people said they were from places like Los Angeles—kind of in that vicinity, but not actually from that city.

In his case, his hometown was Redmond, which was across Lake Washington and two or three towns over from Seattle. It reminded me of some of the upscale areas in the Silicon Valley, just with a lot more trees. There were a lot of very new and swanky apartments and condos sitting on top of bougie shops and restaurants. The comparison to the Silicon Valley probably wasn’t too far off, either; there were a lot of high tech companies out here, including two of the major ones, and there was definitely money, judging by the expensive-ass cars driving around everywhere.

Our hotel was in a slightly less swanky but still reasonably nice area. It looked like it had been there since way before the tech boom—1970s, maybe—and the prices were still reasonable despite the location. That was a good thing for two enlisted guys traveling on a budget.

Would be even less expensive if we only had one room, I thought as I keyed myself into mine. Nolan was next door. I scowled at the two queen beds in my room, then rolled my eyes and started settling in. If he didn’t want to share a bed, fine. But did we really need to cough up the money for separate rooms?

Well, whatever. He wanted separate rooms, so we had separate rooms.

And, hell. Maybe I was just bitchy after a few hours in the car, but having a room of my own didn’t actually sound like a bad idea. I still had a lot on my mind, and every night, I’d have space and peace and quiet to decompress. Could be worse.

Since we’d been in the car for the past few hours, I grabbed a shower and changed clothes. Then I texted Nolan to see if he was ready to go over to his parents’ place. About ten minutes later, he said he was, and we headed downstairs to our rental car.

His parents, it turned out, lived a few miles east of Redmond on a highway that led out toward some place called Fall City. It was a lot of farm country out here, though he grumbled that the condos were creeping farther and farther out into it every time he came home.

He didn’t say much else after that. In fact, he was silent for the last fifteen minutes of the drive, which led us off the highway and along a winding road through a dense forest. Out here, there were some undeveloped areas, some farms that looked old and maybe a bit decrepit, and the odd place where rich people probably kept their horses. It was quite the mix, that was for sure.

He slowed down and turned up a steep gravel driveway beside a slightly mossy mailbox. It wound through the trees for maybe three hundred feet, then let us out in front of a dark brown split-level house with a pickup truck and a gray Subaru out front.

Nolan parked behind the Subaru, turned off the engine, and pushed out a breath. Like I had when we’d pulled up to my folks’ place, he sat there for a long moment, just staring up at the house.

I watched him in the late afternoon light. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m good. You ready?”

“When you are.”

We got out of the car, and I followed him up a concrete path littered in pine needles. Everything in this area seemed to be covered in pine needles. They were like Pacific Northwest glitter—absolutely everywhere .

At the door, Nolan paused for another breath. Then he keyed himself inside. His mom, a stout woman with gray hair and glasses, greeted him much the same way mine had—with a hug and fussing over whether he’d eaten enough in between asking how his trip was.

“Dinner’s not quite ready yet,” she said, “but I can—”

“We’re good, Mom. We can wait until dinner. Thanks.” He put a hand on my back. “This is my boyfriend, Riley. Riley, my mom, Carol.”

And here was where everything veered sharply away from how they’d played out in San Diego. Carol took one look at me, and her eyes lit up. The next thing I knew, I was enveloped in one of those hugs, and she almost pulled me off-balance.

“It’s so nice to meet you!” She let me go and smiled broadly. “We’ve never met one of Nolan’s boyfriends before.” She was practically squealing with excitement; I had to wonder if she thought we were going to announce we were getting married or something.

She herded us into the living room, and I was introduced to Nolan’s dad, John. If I’d just run into him on the street, I’d have instantly known who he was. It was like looking at Nolan in thirty years— same blue eyes and broad-shouldered build but with more lines in his face and hair that was more salt than pepper.

He, too, seemed happy to meet me. No side-eying Nolan. No suspicious glances at me. He regarded me just like my dad had regarded my sister-in-law the first time he’d met her: this is my kid’s new partner. Cool.

As we settled into the living room, a surly-looking gray tabby hopped up on the back of the couch.

Of course, Nolan zeroed right in on it. “Is this Cleo?” he asked as he crossed the room. To me, he added, “I’ve seen her on social media, but never in person.”

“Yep.” Carol smiled. “We’ve had her… three years now, I think.”

Nolan acknowledged that with a nod as he started petting the cat. She looked up at him, and even from several feet away, I could hear her purring. Her claws clicked in and out of the worn leather upholstery as she kneaded happily.

To me, Carol said, “Be careful of that one. She’s not the friendliest in the world.”

I cocked a brow, gesturing at Nolan and Cleo. “She’s not?”

“Oh, don’t assume that a cat that’s friendly to him is friendly to everyone else,” she said wryly. “They all love him, even if they hate the rest of us.”

Nolan glanced up and chuckled, then turned his attention back to the allegedly antisocial cat. She was arching her back and turning in circles, tail up and eyes squinting; she reminded me a little of ShiShi when she was enjoying affection and attention.

I laughed. “Of course, he makes instant friends with the unfriendly cat.”

John huffed a laugh and shook his head. “That’s Nolan for you. We had one when he was a kid who’d hiss at everyone and bite the hell out of you if you tried to pet him. I come out one day, and there’s Nolan, carrying him around like nobody’s business.”

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “Didn’t hiss or scratch?”

“Not once.”

“Oh, he bit me a few times.” Nolan glanced over from scratching Cleo’s back. “He liked me, but he still had his limits.”

“He’d have taken anyone else’s arm off. You?” John waved a hand. “You just got little scratches and nips now and then.”

Nolan just shrugged and continued petting Cleo. As we all settled in to chat—the two of us on the couch and his parents in their recliners—Cleo made herself right at home on Nolan’s lap.

I reached out to let her sniff my hand, heeding the warning about her being unfriendly before I tried petting her. Good thing, too—she sniffed my fingers, then narrowed her eyes and growled.

“Okay, okay.” I drew my hand back. “I won’t pet you, then.”

She kept glaring at me.

Nolan laughed and scratched behind her ears. Immediately, she closed her eyes and started purring again, kneading on his jeans. “You just don’t have the magic touch,” he informed me.

I eyed him, hoping he caught what I couldn’t say out loud in front of his folks: You weren’t complaining about my magic touch last night.

“So, Riley.” John sat back in his chair. “I understand you’re in the Navy?”

“I am. Fourteen years down, six to go.”

“Wow. And what do you do?”

“I’m a cop.”

Carol cocked her head. “So you’re one of the people at the gate?”

“Well, not anymore.” I chuckled. “That’s more for the younger MAs. I supervise a shift of about twenty of them, and I also go out on patrol, respond to calls—things like that.”

“What kind of calls do you get?” John asked. “I can’t imagine you’re investigating murders and such on a base.”

“I mean, it does happen. There hasn’t been one on Okinawa since I’ve been there, so it’s mostly traffic accidents, theft, and domestics.” I exhaled. “The domestics—there’s a lot of those.”

“No kidding.” Nolan looked at his parents and tipped his head toward me. “That’s how we met, actually. He and his partner were helping a woman who was trying to hide from her husband until she could get off the island. His partner was a buddy of mine, and he asked me to put her up until arrangements could be made.”

“That sounds like my Nolan,” Carol said with a smile. “Always helping people out.”

Nolan actually blushed, though he was mostly focused on petting Cleo.

“I’d love to say stuff like that doesn’t happen very often,” I said. “But… it does. A lot. And when we’re overseas, resources and support networks can be kind of limited, so a lot of people get stuck in really volatile situations. That’s, uh, not my favorite part of the job.”

“That’s awful,” Carol said. “Have you ever had to investigate something like a murder?”

“Once.”

Nolan’s head snapped up. “You have?”

“Mmhmm. Back in Pensacola. Murder/suicide in base housing.” He grimaced. “That was not a great day.” My skin crawled at the memory, but I tamped it down. “The poor kid who responded to that call is scarred for life, that’s for sure.”

Carol touched her chest. “Oh, I can imagine. Was he young?”

“Twenty-three, I think.”

Both of Nolan’s parents grimaced and shook their heads. Yeah, I could relate. It hadn’t been easy for any of us, but the kid who’d found them—that incident was undoubtedly going into his “why I have PTSD” file with the VA.

I cleared my throat. “Anyway, NCIS and local police took that one over, so beyond securing the initial scene and writing some reports, I wasn’t heavily involved in the investigation. Not that it needed all that much—it was, uh, pretty obvious what had happened, and they had cameras in the house anyway.”

“Did they have kids?” Nolan asked softly.

“They did,” I said. “Fortunately, they were at their grandparents’ house that night. I never found out if Dad took advantage of the kids being gone, or if he sent them over on purpose so they’d be out of the house. Not really sure I want to know.”

“I don’t blame you,” John said. “What a shame.”

“It was.” I really, really didn’t want to continue down that dark path, so I shifted a little and said, “We do get some pretty hilarious drunk and disorderly calls.”

John chuckled, and I thought I sensed some relief at the conversation’s new direction. “Isn’t that kind of a stereotype for the Navy? The whole drunken Sailor thing?”

“Well, some stereotypes do exist for a reason.”

Nolan snorted. “Yeah. Because Sailors can’t hold their liquor.”

“Pfft. We can keep up with Marines, thank you.” I looked pointedly at him. “And at least Sailors have sea legs. Put Marines on a ship, and…” I grimaced theatrically.

“Oh, come on.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s a lie.”

“No, it isn’t. And I’ve got albums full of photos to prove it!”

He scoffed. “What? You have albums of seasick Marines?”

“You better believe it!” I turned to his parents. “I was deployed aboard an amphibious ship a few years ago, and we took on some Marines before we left. They were so green for like two weeks.” I snickered. “They talk mad trash on shore, but man, as soon as they feel the motion of the ocean…”

Nolan tsked and rolled his eyes. “Bullshit.”

“Nolan,” Carol said, though she was giggling. “Language.”

He was absolutely adorable when he was chagrined. “Sorry, Mom.”

“No, you’re not,” John said. “You’ve always had a mouth. I still think you picked the Marines because then you could curse like you’d been doing all your life anyway.”

“Uh, excuse me.” I feigned offense. “I believe you’re thinking of the Navy?”

“He’s not wrong,” Nolan admitted. “It’s ‘cuss like a Sailor,’ not ‘cuss like a Marine’… even if we do it better.”

I elbowed him, careful not to disturb Cleo.

She apparently still didn’t appreciate it, though, because she flattened her ears and growled at me.

“Okay! Sorry! Geez.”

“Good kitty,” Nolan said, petting her emphatically. “What a good kitty.”

“Dick,” I muttered.

She growled again.

He just laughed.

Because of course he did.