Page 17 of Playing With Forever (Hollow Point #4)

CHAPTER TEN

“I’d ask you how your talk with Josie went, but your face says not good.”

I wasn’t sure what my face said, but I was positive my conversation with Josie went to shit the second I saw Phil in her office, his body language tense and Josie looking ready to roll out and rush to Diane’s side.

“One could say I fucked it,” I admitted.

“How’d you do that?”

“Told her she wasn’t going to the Havarth house.”

Echo whistled, confirming I didn’t just fuck up I did it royally.

Not that I needed his confirmation, but I had it all the same.

“Kent, Sanders, gear up,” Lucas Meyers said on his way past our huddle. “We’re rolling out in ten.”

No sooner had Lucas finished, my pager sounded, as did Echo’s.

“To be continued,” Echo muttered.

Ten minutes later, we were in a police SUV, Echo behind the wheel, and as a team, we rolled out.

It was never-ending.

Unrelenting.

Unyielding.

Drugs never stopped—not being smuggled in, manufactured in our neighborhoods, or being sold and bought.

Addiction—the never-ending cycle of heartbreak and madness.

Greed that led to total devastation.

It had been thirty years since I found Selene dead.

Thirty-four years since my family was torn apart by the lies, stealing, and broken promises.

Yet, I could still hear the fights between my parents.

I could still hear the excuses my father made for Selene, my mother’s demands she go to rehab, my sister screaming.

I could still see the track marks on her arms, then ankles.

I could still see the scabs and sunken-in eyes.

My pretty sister, reduced to a shell of her former self until there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get high—nothing left but a rotting corpse on a dirty mattress with the needle still stuck in her arm.

A wasted life all for a fix.

That fix supplied by some greedy motherfucker who remorselessly made money off the misery of others.

Never fucking ending.

“You’re clear to go in, but there’s nothing left,” Grady West informed us.

The man was still in his turnout gear, soot and smoke clung to him as well as on the rest of the firefighters pulling in their hoses.

“Thanks, Grady,” Echo returned.

I saw Jackson Clark and Brice Lancaster come out of the house and waited for the pair to make their way to us.

“Hey, brother, good to see you,” Jackson greeted Echo. “Sanders.”

I took no offense at the difference in greetings. Jackson was a close friend of the Kent family and one of the firefighters who’d rescued Phoenix, Griffin, Sawyer, and Josie from the Hope Center fire.

“Shit’s fucked up,” Brice started. “But it could’ve been worse. Your meth cooker was smart enough to have about a dozen fire extinguishers in his lab. He was battling the flames when we showed up.”

A smart meth cooker—not something you hear every day.

“Lab’s toast,” Jackson informed us. “But his cash room with product was on the other side of the house.”

Lucas already had the meth cooker in custody, but we hadn’t been let in to perform a search.

“Fire’s out,” Brice rejoined. “But the house hasn’t been cleared.”

That was the risk of being a firefighter no one talked about.

They rushed in to put out the fire without knowing who was in the structure and if someone meant them harm.

There were no police officers going in to clear their way.

We stood and waited for them to do their job before we could do ours.

And they did so unarmed and unprotected.

“’Preciate it,” Echo said with a dip of his chin.

“Be safe in there,” Grady called out as three firefighters walked away.

I pulled my balaclava up to help with the lingering smell of smoke. Normally for a raid we’d be head to toe in black, every inch of our skin covered, but since this wasn’t that, we were only in standard tactical gear, which left me feeling exposed.

“You get the feeling we’re being watched?” I murmured as we made our way to the front door to join the rest of our unit.

“Yep.”

Fuck.

As one, we entered the house: two-man teams broke off to clear different parts of the house.

A dance we’d practiced so many times, we could perform it in our sleep.

Echo and I veered left, clearing the first room we came to—empty.

We backed out, silently ambled to the next door, sidearms drawn, tucked close and at the ready, scanning the furniture in the room.

Echo moved to the closet, keeping out of the danger zone in case someone was in there and decided to shoot through the door.

His hand went to the knob; I nodded, and without hesitation, he opened the door.

A crouched figure stood and flew out of the closet.

In the one second I had to assess the situation, I noted the small knife in his hand, but no firearm.

I shoved my Glock into my chest holster and landed a power punch to the perp's torso.

Before I could grab his wrist, he swung wide, and his blade caught my arm.

Motherfucker. I kicked his knee out and followed him to the ground.

“Stay the fuck down,” Echo ordered.

I put more pressure on the back of the guy’s neck and added more of my body weight in an attempt to subdue him.

“Stop moving,” I issued my own demand.

Echo was there with flexicuffs, one wrist detained, the other still loose and fighting capture.

Fucking shit, the guy was high as fuck and wirily.

“Do it,” I told Echo.

A second later, the suspect went stiff under me. I rolled off and finished cuffing him.

“Taser deployed,” Echo radioed. “Suspect down.”

“Fucking hell,” I muttered as the man started to move again.

“You’re bleeding,” Echo informed me.

I glanced down at my arm, and sure enough, there was blood.

“Just a cut.”

“I need backup in room two,” Echo called in. “Officer needs medical attention.”

Echo had just signed me up for hours’ worth of paperwork and a trip to the back of an ambo.

“Dick.”

“Safety first, partner.”

Lucas came into the room, gun drawn and alert. But when he saw the suspect on the floor, his gaze cut to me, then to the slash on my arm.

“Go. The rest of the house is clear.”

Like a petulant child, I sulked out of the house to the waiting ambulance.

Fifteen minutes later, I was informed I needed stitches. My protests were ignored, as was my tantrum fit for a toddler.

Two hours later, I was sitting on a gurney in the ER, deep in my revenge fantasy when the curtain was thrown open, and in stormed a red-faced, wild-eyed Josie.

What the fuck?

“Are you okay?” she wheezed. “Echo called, said you were hurt.”

Oh, yeah, payback was going to be a bitch.

“He shouldn’t’ve called you.”

“That’s not an answer, Evan.”

I sighed and shifted on the bed, opening my legs and ordering, “Come here, Josie.”

She walked right into the space I’d made, put her hands on my shoulders, and mine went to her waist.

Apparently, a freaked-out Josie didn’t mind being told what to do.

“I’m fine, honey. It’s just a cut.”

“You were stabbed?” she asked with wide eyes.

“No, just a cut. A small one.”

One I would’ve treated back at the station with super glue now I had three stitches for no reason except Echo wanted a reason to call Josie.

Son of a bitch, as soon as I got home, I was having Lindy give me that website she’d gone on about that anonymously delivered dog shit to people’s houses. Only I was signing the card—no anonymous bullshit. I wanted him to know what I thought about this stunt.

“Thank God,” she breathed, and her forehead hit mine.

I don’t know how long we stood there in silence before the nurse came in with my discharge papers, but it was long enough for Josie to relax.

“We’ll have the results of your drug test back in twenty-four hours,” the nurse announced.

“Drug test?” Josie’s voice was three octaves higher than normal.

“Procedure, baby. Nothing to worry about.”

“Keep your stitches dry for forty-eight hours. Any redness, call your GP. Same for the area getting hot to the touch or if you get a fever.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

The nurse left my papers on the gurney next to me. Josie quickly snatched them up and grabbed my hand.

“Let’s get you home.” She stopped pulling and tilted her head. “Can you go home, or do you need to go back to work?”

Thanks to Echo, I now had the rest of the day off, but Josie didn’t, and the way we’d left things hadn’t been good.

“Home. But?—”

“Then let’s go.”

“Josie, take a breath. I promise I’m fine. If Echo hadn’t opened his mouth, I would’ve glued the cut together. It’s not a big deal. You don’t need to take me home.”

She tucked her chin into her throat, which was the most uncertain gesture I’d ever seen her do.

“You’re mad at me,” she quietly said.

I tugged her hand, bringing her back between my legs, and closed my thighs tightly around the outsides of hers.

“No. But I was a dick this morning, and you were pretty pissed at me . I don’t want you feeling obligated to take me home if you need time to think.”

“You’re not an obligation, and I’ve had enough time to think.”

Her tone gave nothing away, but she was pressed up against me, so I was taking that as a good sign she was willing to work through what happened.

“Okay, Josie, let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and stepped back. When I was on my feet, Josie’s eyes flared and did a top-to-toe sweep.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you…” she trailed off, but I didn’t miss the color hitting her cheeks.

I was still wearing my vest, thigh rig, and belt.

“In uniform,” I supplied.

Her gaze dropped to my tactical vest, and she nodded.

“Josie?” I called.

Her eyes lifted, and the pink in her cheeks darkened. I stepped closer, dropped my mouth to her ear, and quietly asked, “You having a cops and robbers fantasy, baby?”

“Something like that,” she muttered back.

I chuckled and pulled back, but not before I dropped a kiss on her forehead.

Thank fuck my earlier screw-up hadn’t led to me fucking us up beyond repair.

“Hey! I thought I saw…” Lindy abruptly stopped her excited greeting when she saw the white gauze on my arm. “What happened?”

“Nothing, girl. Just a cut.”

Lindy glanced at Josie, then back to me. “A cut that means you’re home in the middle of the day?”

“Yep.”

“Dad—”

“Lindy, sweetheart. It’s nothing. A cut. Nothing more, promise.”

Thankfully, Josie took over the conversation. “Are you in the middle of a painting, or will you be joining us for dinner?”

Why did I fucking love that Josie knew something so personal about my daughter?

Lindy narrowed her eyes at me, but they slid to Josie and then went back to normal. “Are you cooking, or is Dad?”

“Why do I feel like that’s an insult?” I asked.

Lindy’s lips twitched, and she gave a noncommittal shrug.

“I’m cooking,” Josie declared. “And I’m feeling tacos tonight.”

“Awe-some.” Lindy exaggerated the two syllables.

“Perfect. I’ll run to the store and get what we need?—”

“Let me wash up and change. I’ll come with you.”

Without missing a beat, Josie smiled. “Go do that, and I’ll wait.”

Lindy bolted out the door, leaving Josie and me staring at the place she’d vacated.

“I seriously fucked up with her,” I conceded with a sigh.

“She’s a lovely young woman, I don’t see how you can say that.”

“Josie, she’d glue herself to you if she could. And yesterday morning, she all but admitted she was setting us up and told me not to come home from our date because I needed a private life.”

Josie pinched her lips at the word private.

“Yeah, and it got worse from there. She proceeded to tell me I lived like a monk and reminded me she was an adult and it was okay if I had a lady friend—that lady friend being you, and she’d be more than happy if you spent the night here and I could put a sock on the back door to warn her I had company. ”

By the end of my tirade, Josie looked like she was about to laugh.

“That shit’s not funny,” I warned.

“I can see you don’t think it is.”

“You do?”

“I think you being flustered that your daughter hinted at you having a woman in your life and possibly in your?—”

“If you say bed, I might gag.”

Josie clamped her mouth closed and gave me big eyes.

Yeah, when she felt safe to be herself, she was cute as fuck.

Meaning I couldn’t stop myself from stalking across the kitchen and hooking her around the waist. When she was plastered against me, I dropped my lips to hers and kissed the ever-loving hell out of her.

Josie's moan vibrated against my tongue, and for a second, I lost my head. Unfortunately, seeing as I was in a haze from a really great fucking kiss, I didn’t hear the back door opening.

“Yippy! I mean, oopsie, I’ll come back.”

Fuck.

I pulled back and rested my forehead against Josie’s.

“Oopsie,” Josie mimicked.

That had to be the most unlike-Josie thing I’d ever heard her say, therefore I threw my head back and damn near busted a gut.

Yeah, of fucking yeah, thank God my earlier screw-up hadn’t led to me fucking us up beyond repair, or I never would’ve had this… standing with Josie in my arms, laughing my ass off after getting busted by my daughter for kissing my woman.

And I never would’ve heard Josie’s ‘oopsie.’