“Regret is a luxury you can’t afford,” he told his reflection.
We live in a world of broken promises, he added silently. And life is full of failure.
Chisolm undressed and took his shower. He turned the hot water up until the searing heat was as hot as he could stand. Despite admonishing himself to forget about Sylvia, he allowed himself to brood a little more as the water cascaded down on his head. He knew that if he stopped thinking about her, there was another memory standing in line behind her.
Stop chasing ghosts. Just stop.
0938 hours
Lieutenant Alan Hart drummed his fingers on the desktop. The rhythmic thud echoed through the empty office.
He stared down at the file in front of him, his eyes skipping over the words in the report that he’d already read three times and nearly had memorized.
According to the report, Officer James Kahn drove through the Life’s Bean Good coffee stand several times a night. He bought coffee each time, tipped generously, and asked the nineteen-year-old barista out on a date. She reported being flattered at first, then uncomfortable with his advances. When she told her boyfriend about it, he made her call in a complaint.
Identifying Kahn had been no problem. Skirt chasers were common enough, but Kahn gave the barista his business card with his cell phone number on the back. He insisted she call him by his first name. Besides that, when she came into the office, Hart directed her to the picture wall that held every officer’s photo but no names. She immediately pointed right at Kahn’s picture.
Hart flipped the page and read the transcript.
Question: How often did the officer visit your place of business?
Answer: Two or three times a day, at least.
Question: Did he buy something each time?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Did he ask you out on a date each time?
Answer: No, but more than once. And he flirted with me a lot.
Question: Did you ever feel afraid of him?
Answer: No.
Question: Threatened? Unsafe?
Answer: No. I just didn’t want to go out with him.
Question: Did his demeanor ever change when you turned him down?
Answer: Not really. He just smiled and kept trying.
Hart sighed and closed the file. He’d been assigned to Internal Affairs for almost a year and here he was, reduced to investigating some patrol cop trying to get laid. That wasn’t why he took the job.
He glanced around the empty office and smirked. When the Chief decided to assign a lieutenant to Internal Affairs, he pulled out all four of the previously assigned detectives. Hart had no support staff and even had to type his own reports. He knew the Chief did it as a form of punishment, but he refused to let it get to him. He might be banished from patrol and investigations, but he still intended to have an impact on the department.
Kahn’ file stared up at him. He snatched it up and replaced it in his active cases drawer. What a waste of time. The worst the guy would get is a verbal reprimand from his sergeant and told to stay away from Life’s Bean Good. He’d just go find another barista. There was a coffee stand on every corner in River City.
Besides, these cases were a smokescreen. They had to be. Hart knew there were things happening out there that he needed to find. Cops stealing. Faking evidence. Beating people. Just because River City was nestled in Eastern Washington, right in the center of the Pacific Northwest, didn’t mean there wasn’t corruption. Maybe not New York or Los Angeles level corruption, but Hart knew it was out there. The cops were covering for each other, that was all.
They thought they were so smart.
But Hart knew they weren’t as smart as him.
1122 hours
Patricia Reno wished there were an easier way to get thin. Jogging was too painful.
She’d started jogging almost a month before, finally tired of the weight that never came off after Joshua, her second son, was born. Sit-ups, she discovered, did not burn fat and she couldn’t afford a gym membership, so she took up jogging.
As her feet thudded heavily on the pavement, she felt her thighs and belly jiggle. Her breasts flopped uncomfortably. She vowed for the tenth time to buy a sports bra. At least she was starting to notice a little difference in her body. She was now able to just squeeze into clothes she’d worn early in her pregnancy.
If only her husband, Roger, would notice.
Patricia's breath labored in and out of her lungs, but she no longer experienced the ragged throat sensation that she had for the first week. Her wind had improved quickly. That made it easier for her to avoid smoking again. She’d quit the day she learned she was pregnant and hadn't started back up yet, but it was hard. Especially since Roger smoked like a chimney.
She spotted the small park less than a block away. As soon as she ran through that, she would only be five blocks from home. That meant four blocks of running, one block of walking to cool down.
Despite the discomfort, Patricia found that she was beginning to enjoy her daily run. She still struggled with it too much to have a chance to think while running, but with two kids to worry about, the solitude was nice. So was the sense of accomplishment. She hadn't stopped during a run since that first week.
The air became cooler as she entered the park and ran along the twisting trail that led into the small wooded area. The tree roots and turns of the trail forced her to adjust her gait. That nearly killed her three weeks ago, but now she did so much more fluidly and deliberately. She watched the ground, not wanting to trip on the damp earth.
She caught a flash of movement, but before her mind could register and identify it, someone forced a towel into her face. A strong arm encircled her waist and carried her several yards before she felt herself hurled to the ground. A hard heavy body fell on top of her. She lay on her back with her right forearm pinned under the small of her back.
The towel restricted her air. She panicked and flailed frantically with her free left hand, struggling to breathe. The cloth slid up, exposing her mouth. She took a deep, ragged breath. An iron hand clamped over her mouth.
“If you scream, I’ll lay the whammo on you.” A male voice rasped in her ear. “Understand?”
Patricia lay still, stunned.
He jerked her head powerfully. “I said, do you understand?”
Patricia nodded, whimpering beneath his hand.
“Good.”
The hand came away from her mouth and Patricia sucked in a grateful breath. He tugged at her waistband, sliding her sweats and panties down over her knees.
Should I resist?
She gulped more air.
Will he kill me?
He pulled her clothing over her running shoes and tossed them aside. She heard them land on a bush, a moment's rustle, then still.
There was a long pause. She heard paper tearing.
Should I beg? Or just be quiet and let him do it?
How could this be happening to me?
She gasped in pain as he thrust inside her forcefully.
“Oh, my sweet little bitch,” he moaned in her ear, thrusting slowly.
Patricia began to cry softly.
“Unnnnh, Unnnnh,” he moaned, pulling the towel more tightly across her face.
Patricia tried to stop crying, but instead she broke into a sob.
He stopped.
She thought for a moment that it had been her crying that made him stop, that it touched him or even enraged him. She stopped crying, quivering as she waited. He lay across her with the dead weight of a spent man. That was when she realized he was done.
After a few moments, he pulled out of her and rolled her onto her stomach. Panic surged through her again. When he pulled the towel from her head, she sighed in relief.
“Don't look up,” he told her gruffly.