Kansas City's Bravest

Chapter Four

The drive into downtown Kansas City gave Meghan plenty of time to plan what to say to Alex, and then dismiss each version of her speech three times over. She wasn’t his mother. She wasn’t even his legal guardian. She was just a friend. He was a young man who needed someone he could count on. He needed a role model to learn from—someone who could teach him to make smarter choices without compromising his self-respect.

Meghan didn’t think she was up to the task. But she had to try. She had to put her own self-doubts on hold, ignore her nagging curiosity about that odd bouquet of roses, and be there for him. Whether he’d admit he wanted someone around who cared or not.

The drive also gave her plenty of time to fuel her paranoia. Every flash of white on the road seemed to catch her eye. Trucks. Cars. Even a white van.

But no red letters on the side. No florist’s logo.

Hundreds of nameless, faceless travelers shared the highway with her. Did one of them know her? Had someone followed her from the warehouse fire to the station house? To Dorie’s? Was that someone following her right now?

Or was someone from the station playing a tasteless practical joke on her?

If it was a joke, she wasn’t laughing. And if she had picked up a resourceful secret admirer, flattered wouldn’t be the word she’d use to describe her feeling about the anonymous flowers. She had no interest in gifts from admirers, secret or otherwise. If that admirer thought his boldness or cleverness would be appreciated in return, he was sadly mistaken. She just wanted to know the truth, and then she wanted to put an end to it.

But first things first. Though it was nearly 8:00 p.m., the summer sun was still bright in the sky, giving her the flagging energy of a never-ending day as she pulled up to the white stone building that served as the Fourth Precinct headquarters. By the time she’d secured her visitor’s badge at the front desk and pushed the button for the elevator, Meghan had made only two clear decisions. Her first priority would be to make sure Alex hadn’t been hurt.

And the eleven roses were going into the trash.

Beyond that? She took a deep, fortifying breath to prepare herself for whatever Alex’s story might be. She’d never had much luck with long-term plans, anyway.

The elevator opened up to a maze of desks and partitions, set apart from the hallway by a tall, circular work station. A bank of offices with blinds at each window lined the opposite wall. A handful of men and women, dressed in professional street clothes, sat at their computers or talked on phones. The bulk of the night shift seemed to be made up of uniformed officers, though, wearing their familiar light blue shirts and black slacks.

Meghan clutched at the ID card hanging around her neck and crossed to the sergeant’s desk. A tall, female officer with a strawberry-blond braid down her back was arguing with someone on the phone.

“You can’t do that.” The woman swallowed hard, probably schooling her temper. Unsuccessfully. “Dammit, Danny. You can’t keep her this weekend. You know I’m going to Minnesota to see my family. Let me talk to her. Danny?”

She held out the receiver and glared at it for several moments before finally setting it down in the cradle of the phone. The Danny who had her so upset must have just hung up on her. The woman stood and stared at the phone for several moments.

When it seemed as though she might be calming down a bit, Meghan cleared her throat, subtly diverting the woman’s attention. “Are you all right?”

The female officer laughed as she turned around to face her. “Sure, why not?” But her red-rimmed eyes looked as if they were fighting back tears. She nodded toward the phone. “My soon-to-be ex. Need I say more?” Shutting off the emotional pain she must be feeling, the officer shifted into cop mode. “Thanks for asking. I’m Sergeant Wheeler. How can I help you?”

“The front desk sent me up here to pick up Alex Pitsaeli.”

Several minutes passed as the sergeant verified Meghan’s ID and typed the information into the computer. “I’ll have him brought out. We’ve had him in one of the interrogation rooms, just to separate him from his buddy.”

Buddy? Not good. Like the other woman, Meghan clenched her teeth and held her emotions in check. She couldn’t tell if it was fear or anger or disappointment trying to make itself heard—probably a combination of the three. “Do you know what they were fighting about?”

Sergeant Wheeler shook her head. “The preliminary report doesn’t say. But from the looks of the kids when they came in, it might be gang related. His buddy’s got a Warrior tattoo.”

Definitely not good. One of the conditions of Alex remaining in Dorie’s home was that he sever all connections to the Westside Warriors. Though he, too, sported a stylized W tattoo on the back of his right shoulder, his career as a gang-banger had ended.

Supposedly.

“Is he free to go?”

Sergeant Wheeler nodded. “The papers will give you the date he has to appear in juvie court.” She pointed to a row of empty chairs beside the elevator. “Have a seat. He’ll be right out.”

Meghan chose to pace rather than sit. “Police reports. Court dates.” She swiped her loose hair up behind the nape of her neck, then let it filter through her fingers down her back. “How are we going to handle this one?” She supposed most kids had families they could count on. They’d have a parent or sibling who could guide them through their trouble. Right now, all Alex had was her. She cocked her eyebrows into a wry frown. “There’s a comforting thought.”

About as comforting as the anonymous love note that pressed against her hip inside her pocket. Meghan stopped in her tracks. Why hadn’t she pitched the thing? Now it was calling to her. That all-too-suspicious voice inside her head that longed for security was demanding answers. Closure.

She pulled out the wadded card and smoothed it flat between her palms.

You know I love you.

Maybe John had sent the roses, and she was blowing this whole thing out of proportion. They were getting to be pretty close friends. But a dozen roses as a platonic gesture? And wouldn’t he have signed the card? Or confessed to leaving her the rose in the fire truck?

She didn’t have any family to speak of, at least none alive who’d claim to love her.

Of course, there was always…Meghan caught her breath at the crazy possibility. She’d run into Gideon this afternoon—after almost two years apart from each other. Though he’d touched her so tenderly, his mood had been distant. Cool. As if he was trying to hide something. Surely, he didn’t still feel…he couldn’t.

Her heart did a crazy flip-flop in her chest. But she quickly squelched the foolish hope with common sense. The reasons she’d had to leave were the same now as they’d been two years ago. Gideon had talked about kids and family and forever.

How long would his love have really lasted when he found out she couldn’t guarantee him any of those things? And noble son of a gun that he was, he’d have probably stayed with her anyway—not because she made him happy, but because he thought it was the right thing to do. She refused to sentence him to a life of sacrifice like that.

Maybe the flowers were just a misguided thank-you from a dog lover who’d seen her after the fire. But then, the note didn’t make sense.

You know I love you.

She didn’t want anyone to love her like this.

She slipped the card back into her pocket, no closer to finding answers than she’d been earlier.

Her therapist had told her that she needed to tell Gideon the truth, that that would be the only way to bring closure to that chapter of her life. She’d come a long way in the past two years, developing the emotional courage she’d lacked for so long. But along with that courage came a sense of responsibility. Gideon deserved to know why she’d turned down his marriage proposal, running out of his apartment and his life with little more than a backward glance. But he didn’t deserve any more pain. And she wasn’t sure how the truth could do anything but hurt him all over again.

It seemed both a curse and a blessing to have someone else’s troubles to worry about for a change.

“Alex.” She recognized the sixteen-year-old by his short, stocky dimensions as a young police officer escorted him down the hall to meet her. What the sixteen-year-old lacked in height, he packed on with muscle. He was perfect for the wrestling program at the local high school. He’d even made the varsity team his sophomore year. But that had been last winter. Since school had gotten out for the summer, he’d been moody and mysterious and had missed Dorie’s curfew more than once.

Now he’d been detained for disorderly conduct. If he was lucky, the judge would only order community service and not assign him to a probation officer. Meghan shook her head, wishing she knew what had caused his backslide from reformation success to juvenile delinquent.