Turn Me Loose Page 6

  “Don’t start with this,” Swarthmore said. “This isn’t your area of expertise. You left the field as soon as you could. You’re not McCormick or Dorchester. A few drug buys doesn’t qualify you; anyone who’s gone to college knows how to score drugs. You’re not prepared for a long-term undercover operation. You’re first in line for my job. You want a big arrest to boost your résumé?”

  Everyone knew Ian didn’t specialize in long-term undercover work. Swarthmore was pushing him now. Normally this kind of thing didn’t get a rise out of Ian. He knew the tactics too well, heard them described at backyard barbecues and tailgating parties. But this mattered too much. “Yes, sir.”

  “You want my job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your dad’s?”

  “Yes, sir. Eventually.” He could control his career, even if he couldn’t control anything else. His body. Riva.

  “That’s quite the little dynasty. You think this is your department?”

  “It is,” Ian said. “The department is only as good as the cops who wear the badge make it. Trust, integrity, respect are hard to earn and easy to lose. If we don’t clean this up, stop it at the source, we’re going to lose more than a few cops to prison.”

  “Save the sound bite for the cameras,” Swarthmore said, but his voice lacked heat.

  “I’d be good at the job,” Ian said.

  “You will be, if you don’t lose your chance at it because you’ve got a big shit stain on your shiny reputation. Getting to a captain’s desk, or the chief’s, is as much about avoiding the sewer as it is getting the commendations.”

  Ian didn’t need a lecture about interdepartmental politics. “I know that, sir.”

  “My answer is still no. If Ms. Henneman wants to go back home and ingratiate herself into her father’s confidence, then turn over the information, that’s entirely up to her.”

  The thought of sending Riva into danger without him made his blood run cold. Ian leaned back in his chair and met Swarthmore’s gaze head-on. “I’m taking a leave of absence.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “You’re in the middle of a major operation, Lieutenant.”

  It wasn’t good when Swarthmore started using Ian’s rank. “I’m aware of that, Captain. McCormick’s undercover work is well established. He’s got Dorchester, who is trained for UC work, and Sorenson, who knows more about policing than anyone else in this building. We’ve got warrants ready to go. What we don’t have, sir, is the supplier. The man who’s corrupted our department. I’m not taking the chance that he slips away. Again.”

  Swarthmore chucked his pen on his desk, where it skittered against his inbox. “Dammit, Ian, I can’t deny you a leave. I also can’t remember the last time you took a real vacation, and you’ve got the time banked. But if you do what you could hypothetically do, you’ve got no backup. No support if it all goes to hell. You are not going in there as LPD, but as Ian Hawthorn. A civilian. Got me? And if you go and shit goes south, best-case scenario you’ll end up suspended, maybe up on disciplinary actions when you get back. No captain’s bars. No stars.”

  “I’ll take that chance.” Because shit wasn’t going to go south. He could do this, quiet and under the radar. The department would get the bust, he’d clean house and step into his mentor’s job at the beginning of summer.

  “Why?”

  Good question. Because smoldering under his calm surface was a growing anger with Riva, blending into the desire they’d never satisfied. Because he’d gotten used to sending Riva Henneman into difficult situations and protecting her while she risked her life. “I can’t let her go in there alone, sir. And she will.”

  “Not. Your. Problem. If anything, it’s the CPD’s problem.”

  “They have jurisdiction, but they’ll make it a thing. An operation, with a code name and a hierarchy. They’ll make noise. Lots of it. That kind of thing starts shaking the web, and Kenny will hear about it.”

  “How am I supposed to explain your leave?”

  “Medical,” Ian said without hesitating.

  Swarthmore’s eyebrows shot up. “Medical.”

  “Tests or something. There are just enough rumors about my medical history to say I’ve gone somewhere for tests.”

  “You’ve never used your history before.”

  Because it would make him look like he was playing for sympathy. Ian shrugged. “If it makes me look weak, or lets me hide something to my advantage, I’ll use it.”

  “Riva Henneman needs to let that kid go. And you need to let her go.”

  “Not going to happen,” Ian said.

  “Since when do you break every rule in the book?”

  Since Riva had showed up again. Since he’d gotten the second chance he never thought he’d have with her. But Swarthmore was right. It was out of character for him, taking him back to the kid he was after his first diagnosis and the angry young man he was when he first met Riva. He was going back to a dark place, when he’d been a man he didn’t like very much.

  He had no other choice. The roots of this had spread deep and dark seven years earlier. Time to finish what he’d started.

  “Fine. Throw your career away. Fill out the paperwork. I’ll sign it. But you are on your own, Ian.” He paused for a moment. “Hypothetically speaking, if you were considering doing something this stupid, and if you were to go conduct something that smells like an investigation, I’d recommend paying a visit to your counterpart in that jurisdiction. Just in case shit goes south and you need backup. Which you won’t need, because my advice is to use your time off to have a little staycation. Run yourself some bubble baths. Catch up on your Netflix watch list. This has nothing to do with the LPD.”

  “Unless it works,” Ian said. “It might. If I learned anything from running Riva as a CI, it was to be careful about underestimating her. She might not look like much, but when push comes to shove, she’s steel.”

  “Sounds like someone else I know,” Swarthmore said. “Get out of my office.”

  Ian knew dismissed in all its various forms. He headed through the bullpen to McCormick, now sitting at a desk, filling out paperwork. “Where’s Riva?”

  “She took the kid and left, just like you said. Any idea where they’re going, or am I going to have to track him down again?”

  Ian had a pretty good idea of where Riva would take Isaiah. Now all he had to do was follow her and convince her to take her with him. “You won’t have to track him down,” Ian said.

  * * *

  The sun was setting, sending shades of blush that matched his mother’s pink and punch rose bushes streaming across the sky. He turned off the state highway and onto the dirt road leading to Oasis. In addition to setting up his out-of-office response and bringing McCormick, Dorchester, and Sorenson up to speed, he’d downloaded a little research into Riva Henneman to his phone before he left the Block. He used the time at the stoplights to catch up on Riva’s new life and learned two things.

  First, the county assessor’s records indicated she owned just over a hundred acres of rolling farmland with a barn and farmhouse built in the 1920s. Second, unlike Eve or Cady Ward, Riva didn’t have much of an online presence. The farm’s website focused on the produce and growing methods, the local farm-to-table advocates whose products were used in the restaurant, and the farm’s connection with the ESCC. Same went for the social media outlets. They were all under the farm’s name, or featured pictures of the kids at work in the greenhouse or kitchen. Not Riva.

  Either she was letting her work and the earth speak for itself, or she was hiding.

  He parked in front of the house, got out, and looked more carefully around the property. The restaurant was obviously closed, the windows shuttered, the front door locked. No lights in the kitchen area. The house was dimly lit, so he climbed the steps to the front porch running the length of the house and knocked on the door. A magazine sat on the floral cushions on the porch swing.

  No answer. Hands o
n his hips, he turned and looked over the property again.

  Riva’s voice carried to him on the gentle breeze. Up the hill, he saw her walk out of a small shed, chickens scattering in front of her. Isaiah trailed behind, nodding as she spoke, following her into another small building.

  He turned and walked in the direction of the chicken coop. A six-foot-high fence enclosed several sheds that smelled far less of chicken poop than he would have imagined. The hens, he supposed, pecked at the ground, fluffed their wings and feathers, and trotted off in an outraged flurry when he opened the gate.

  Isaiah and Riva both turned when he walked into the small building. Riva stepped in front of Isaiah, her arm lifting protectively to clasp his arm and keep him behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  Maybe it was the picturesque setting, the spring breeze in the trees, the water babbling in the brook at the base of the valley. Maybe it was Riva, in jeans and a tank top and work boots. Whatever it was, for a split second he thought about the politics of touch, of the dynamics of interpersonal relationships that dictated who could touch whom, when, how. How their previous relationship turned all of that upside down. How Riva wasn’t going to willingly let him touch her. How much he really, really wanted to.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Chin high, color bright on her cheekbones, she looked at him. “Go inside,” she said to Isaiah without taking her eyes off Ian. “Raid my fridge and see what you can whip up for dinner. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Isaiah scooted past Riva, brushing up against the hens’ roosts as he sidled past Ian to the door. The hens clucked and shuffled, creating a rustling sound in the straw.

  “Interesting place you have here,” he said.

  She flushed like he’d insulted her, then lifted her chin. “What do you want?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No. You’ll just be a distraction.”

  “Riva, you don’t understand how dangerous this is.”

  At that she laughed, a sharp, ugly sound that made the chickens squawk. She reached into a roost, shushing a flustered chicken, and pulled out an egg. “Are you for real? Of course I understand how dangerous this is.”

  “You need protection.”

  “Again, probably true, but you’re not the man to provide it.”

  “Goddammit, Riva.”

  “Don’t scare my chickens. If you can’t keep yourself under control, go wait outside until I’m done.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m used to keeping an eye on you.”

  “Seven years ago you had a right to. Now you don’t. How on earth would I explain you to my parents?”

  “You’re bringing a friend home?”

  She laughed again. It wasn’t a happy sound. “I’m not a college girl anymore, Lieutenant Hawthorn.”

  “Okay, I’m your assistant.”

  The look she gave him was so incredulous he almost laughed. “If I’m going to tell my dad I want into his business because the farm’s draining me dry, the last expense I’d carry is an assistant.”

  “So I’m an apprentice. Doing an unpaid internship.”

  “You do know how old you are, right?”

  “Career change. The farm-to-table movement. Back to the land, and all that,” he said, waving his hand.

  “For some of us, the farm-to-table movement isn’t a yeah, yeah, whatever thing,” she said, mimicking his dismissive hand movement. “It’s a way of life, our calling.”

  “Of course,” he said quickly.

  “You must be really desperate if you’re willing to show up as my assistant.”

  He was. Totally desperate to get the bastard who’d corrupted his department and keep her from waltzing off into a dangerous and volatile situation without any backup. “I know how to do searches. Where to look for things.”

  “My dad’s not going to have a composition notebook full of names and dates and connections stashed in a supersecret hiding place under his mattress. He’s an early adopter of most electronics. He keeps meticulous records, but they’ll be stored on a partitioned hard drive somewhere.”

  That was exactly the kind of information he needed. A dozen questions rose in his mind, but he set them aside. He needed her to agree; then he’d start asking questions. “Data mining is my specialty. What wouldn’t make them suspicious of me?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been home much since … since then.” A foray into one of the nests came up empty. Riva absently stroked the hen’s back, then moved on. “Look, you don’t know my dad. He’d have to see you as unthreatening.”

  “Okay.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked him up and down, striking sparks along his nerves. He was used to being openly assessed by everyone: his parents, his medical team, fellow cops, criminals, women in bars. Under their gazes he felt like a miracle, an opponent, a potential hookup. When Riva looked at him, he didn’t feel like any of those things. He just felt vulnerable. “The philosophy background will help. A desk job would help.”

  “I have a desk job. I’m a civil servant in project management for the city.”

  She paused with her hand under a chicken. “Seriously.”

  “When it comes to boring the life out of someone with metrics and analytics, I’m your man.”

  He waited. She looked at him, assessing. “Your hair is okay. It’s not buzzed like most other cops.”

  Some guys could pull off the bald, sexy look. Ian couldn’t, a lesson he’d learned after losing his hair to radiation and chemo.

  “What happens when Dad Googles you?” she asked as she moved down the row.

  “I have alternate identities on social media.”

  She reached under another chicken and came back with two eggs. “Good girl,” she cooed at the hen. “I don’t want you to come.”

  The statement came out in a bizarre combination of experiment and defiance; for a moment he saw the girl he’d sent into meets with drug dealers and midlevel suppliers. He didn’t respond. The fact that she was thinking about it, arguing with herself as much as with him, worked in his favor. “I know.”

  She closed the last hutch and folded her arms across her chest. “But you could make me do it. Threaten me like you threatened Isaiah.”

  He thought of all the avenues, legal, shady, and downright illegal, he could use to make her do it. He could coerce her, threaten her, threaten Isaiah. But he wasn’t playing just for the bust. If Riva was going into a dangerous situation, Ian went with her. Period. “There’s a proud choice and a safe choice here. Make the safe choice.”

  “I always felt safe with you,” she said.

  His heart thudded hard against his breastbone as he remembered the way the air held a charge when she was around, wiring her up for busts, sitting in a warm car together, the radio playing softly, neither of them saying what was on their minds.

  All he wanted was to keep her safe. The rest he could work out on the fly. “You are safe with me,” he said quietly. “I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Can you cook?”

  “I can, but I don’t,” Ian said. “I can grow stuff, though.”

  She shooed him forward and closed the door to the chicken coop. “You can?”

  “My mother’s a master gardener. I’m good with flowers and the basic stuff you’d grow in a vegetable garden.”

  She looked at him sideways, as if surprised by this. “We’ve spent hours together, but I don’t really know you.”

  “I’ll give you the crash course on the way to Chicago.”

  She hauled open the screen door and walked into the kitchen, pausing to set the bowl of eggs on the counter, then lean over Isaiah’s shoulder. “Chicken with shallots,” he said.

  “Smells delicious.”

  “Add more white wine?”

  “Up to you. It’s your kitchen.”

  Ian lingered by the door, not sure of his welcome or his place in the room. One hip cocked against the counter, Riva absently stirred a
pot of rice with her left hand and pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket with her right. She tapped, scrolled, then lifted the phone to her ear.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said.

  “No, wait,” Ian said.

  She waved her hand at him to shush him. “How are you feeling? Oh. Well, I’m calling with good news. I’m coming home for the luncheon.”

  Her voice had the bright note someone used when they were trying to cheer someone up. Even across the kitchen and over the sounds of boiling water and sizzling chicken Ian could tell the conversational rhythms were off, her mother’s response lagging, dull.

  “We’ll talk menu when I’m there, okay? I’ve got some ideas. Set the table, please. Plates are in the cabinet to your right, silverware in the drawer by the sink.”

  Focused on Riva’s half of the conversation, Ian didn’t move. “She’s talking to you, five-o,” Isaiah said, slinging a glance over his shoulder. “Chop chop.”

  Ian opened the cabinet and found mismatched china that looked like it had been scrounged from an estate sale, the rims scalloped and decorated with roses, forget-me-nots, apple blossoms. The silverware was the same odd assortment of pieces, some obviously old. The tableware matched the kitchen, with its ancient sink and appliances and cabinets freshly painted in cornflower blue.

  “I’ll take a look at the recipes. Mom … Mom?” She looked at the phone, checking to see if the call had dropped. “Mom, did you take something … Never mind. I’m bringing someone with me. A colleague from the farm-to-table movement. He’s interested—Yes, he. It’s not like that, Mom. He’s just a guy I work with. No, he’ll get a hotel room.”

  The voice on the other end of the line had picked up in both tone and speed. “Mom, he doesn’t need to stay with us.”

  “Actually,” Ian said, precisely aligning a fork with the rim of the plate. “I do need to stay with you.”

  At that Isaiah turned around and gave him an incredulous look. The chicken sizzled in the pan. Clearly flustered, Riva patted his hand to redirect his attention back to the pan, and turned the heat down a notch.

  “We’ll talk about it when we get there,” Riva said. “I don’t know. Tomorrow? The day after? I’ve got some things to finish up here.”