Holding Out For A Hero

“I’ll see if I can’t get her to open up,” Riley said. “Usually talking to them at the station works. Doesn’t matter, male or female. It’s all about turf. If that doesn’t help, I’ll get a subpoena, make sure we can legally get to her phone messages. I can’t believe that she packed up her belongings, didn’t inform her landlord, was heading out of town and is unwilling to tell us where or why. Something’s going on. She didn’t act this hinky back when we were dogging her about her husband’s whereabouts.”

Riley got in his vehicle, but before he started the engine, Oscar rapped on the window until the man rolled it down.

“Everything’s happened so fast today. I probably should mention that Shelley Wagner and I have met in the past.”

“Really?” Riley frowned. “Where?”

“Here. I spent a summer with my aunt when I was twelve.”

“Anything I should know about?”

“Not really. Look, for what it’s worth, I think she’s telling the truth about what she saw. It’s what she’s omitting that has me worried.”

Riley just shook his head.

“Why is she omitting anything?” Oscar went on. “Why would she do that? What will it get her?”

It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and Oscar didn’t have an answer. He pressed on. “Call it a gut feeling, and what would her motive be?” Oscar waited, hoping the other man would do a little back-and-forth, share scenarios.

Riley waved Oscar away before starting his vehicle and driving toward the station.

Oscar stood for a moment. He’d overstepped the boundaries set between new cop and seasoned cop. He’d questioned when he should have listened. He’d argued when he should have reasoned. He’d tried to lead when he needed to follow. Going undercover for the FBI meant playing the role, not risking everything because of passion.

He wanted the people who had hurt Candace. Wanted them bad. He hopped on the back of his Harley, gunned the engine and followed Riley’s vehicle. It made no sense to him, this insane feeling he had for Shelley. So what if he’d been watching her with Ryan, watching her idly rub her stomach? She was alone and determined to do right by her children. No, that wasn’t what had him wanting to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

But this wasn’t the time to be empathetic. Catching hardened criminals was part of his day-to-day job with the FBI, and each one had a sob story. Here, in Sarasota Falls, he might run into a hardened criminal—what? Once a year? Maybe. This wasn’t what he wanted, was it?

Still, Oscar hadn’t expected to like Sarasota Falls so much. He hadn’t been crazy about it the few times he’d visited as a kid. There hadn’t been a skate park or an indoor trampoline facility. Now, though, he was interested in other things. Things that had nothing to do with his job. First of all, there was his aunt. What a tough old bird. Oscar wasn’t sure, but he thought that Aunt Bianca was more angry at being ripped off by Wagner than she was hurt. When Oscar had called to say he was coming, she’d laughed, insisting she was fine. When she opened the door to invite him in, she continued to be fine. Now that he was living in one of her guest rooms, she claimed to be more than fine.

She liked his company.

Parking next to Riley, Oscar followed his boss to the station’s entrance and said, “Innocent until proven guilty. I don’t think Shelley Brubaker had anything to do with Candace’s death.”

“Here’s an idea,” Riley offered. “Since it doesn’t appear your Ms. Brubaker is having an affair with Cody Livingston, maybe we should consider that your friend Candace was having an affair with Shelley’s ex-husband. Maybe Larry Wagner—”

Oscar laughed, interrupting the chief. “Candace hasn’t even been married a year. She married her high school sweetheart. Beginning of the school year, they were moving into their first house and talking about which bedroom would be for their someday baby. Not the time to stray.”

“Best time, one last fling. You think you know someone...” Riley entered the station.

Oscar didn’t follow but stood thinking. His first thought was that Candace was smarter than that. But from what he could tell, so was Shelley. And maybe, right now, Riley wasn’t talking about either of them.

Everyone at the precinct was aware that Riley’s wife had left him years ago. According to Lucas, the cop who knew the scoop on everyone and everything and shared all of it, Riley had been gone too much and available too little. It was a common enough problem. Oscar’s last girlfriend had balked when he started training for the FBI. She claimed she’d have been afraid to answer the phone or door should he get a dangerous case. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have responded with “They’re all dangerous.” It had taken him a whole month after the breakup to realize that since he’d picked the career over her, he must not have loved her enough.

“But I believe you’re right about Shelley when you said she hadn’t had an affair with Cody,” Oscar said. “Trust me—”

This time, it was Riley who interrupted with a wry laugh. “As a cop, you can’t afford to trust.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “Trust me on that.”

Oscar knew all about trust and its power. He could say the word even if he couldn’t believe in it. He’d learned the hard way that trust was fleeting, and now he stayed away from commitments unless they were to his immediate family or his job. Most of all, he spurned serious relationships. He didn’t want to marry, have a family, only to have it fall apart due to his work hours and conditions.

He never wanted to disappoint those who believed in him.

No one had been able to find his father. Now Oscar worked for an organization who not only found people but also actually made the world better.

Oscar would find Larry Wagner.

He would find Candace’s killer.

Unlike the police in his hometown, he would not give up. Funny how he’d wound up on the Sarasota Falls force. It was even smaller than Runyan’s.

Oscar wondered if that was why Chief Riley hadn’t paid more attention to a stranger named Larry Wagner when he’d come to town. Oscar would have.

Chief Riley wasn’t perfect, but he was a decent cop. Oscar hurried to keep up. “Candace wasn’t someone who would cheat.”

“You never know what really goes on behind closed doors.”

“Why don’t you let me talk to Shelley? Maybe, because I’m new and closer to her age, she’d be more likely to share.”

Riley raised an eyebrow. “You do much interrogating? That badge is still pretty shiny. And she already knows you were watching her even before the Livingston woman’s murder.”

“Can’t learn without opportunity.”

Riley shook his head. “I think she’d trust you more because of that fool dog of yours, not your age, but go ahead. Shelley’s car is over there. Convince her to get out of it and come in the station. She’s probably got cold feet.”

Oscar turned around. Sure enough, Shelley sat in her green Impala with her head leaning forward against the steering wheel. Slowly he walked toward her, trying to figure out what to say.

He thought about his job, his town, his state of mind. Maybe right now, as restless as he was, he needed to be here. Needed the ordinary before the extraordinary. He’d decided to be a cop when he was just ten years old and caught a rerun of some old cop show featuring a hero in every single episode. Oscar’d been enthralled. This cop would never run out on his wife and children. He’d wanted to protect people. Oscar figured the FBI was one step beyond that.

Extraordinary.

As much as he wanted excitement, craved it, he’d also loved how just a simple helping hand made a difference. He’d wound up changing a tire while on duty and heard later that it did indeed fall under his job description. Riley called it community policing.

He wished that was all he was doing with Shelley.

He rapped on her window. The look in her eyes as she climbed out of her vehicle told him how unhappy she was, yet she kept a smile for Ryan, who was just waking up and crawling over the seat and out of the car after her. He held a toy truck in one hand and a cookie in the other. “Want to go home. Now. Want Pooh.”

“Not yet,” Shelley said, pulling Ryan close to her side. “We’re just stopping by to answer a few more questions.”

“Don’t like it here,” Ryan said.

“Officer Bailey—that is, Leann—is on her way,” Riley said as they escorted Shelley and Ryan into an interrogation room. “She’ll be here in five minutes to watch over Ryan.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Shelley said, for the first time her voice soft, no edge. “Can’t he stay with me?”