Holding Out For A Hero

“I do. Before this, she left at the same time every morning with a variation of only three minutes.”

Anyone else would have laughed. Not Townley. He’d taught his soldiers about punctuality. “Okay, let me know if anything changes.”

Punching the off button, Oscar lay down on his bed, sweats still on. He stared at his police uniform over the chair by the window. He was bone-tired and intrigued. He was still amazed that he worked for one law-enforcement agency and was undercover for another one.

The graveyard shift was a tough one, but he’d done worse.

Shelley Wagner wasn’t what he remembered or expected.

He’d known her briefly as a kid, but he’d not seen her in sixteen years. Nor had he kept track of her, so reading about her and studying her photos from before Larry Wagner’s departure had been informative. Ten years ago, she’d been a driven high school student; six years ago, she’d been accepted into every college she’d applied to; and two years ago, she’d come home to spend one more summer with her family.

From what he could tell, nothing had derailed her until her parents’ illnesses and her misfortune of meeting LeRoy Saunders, also known as Larry Wagner, and by a few other names—some even the FBI probably didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure why this morning’s encounter had him on edge. He’d never hesitated to think the worst of people; military intelligence had a way of wringing empathy and sympathy out of a man. He stretched out on the bed. He’d reported the encounter, knew where she was, and needed sleep. Still, his mind continued going over the scene and what was happening in the neighborhood. There’d been a black cat sleeping on the top of one of the parked cars. A child’s scooter had been tossed carelessly in one yard. A white car had driven down the road, not in a hurry.

Hours later, a light knock on the door woke him. The sun still brightened his windows, and he was due back to work in an hour. Peeve was long gone, no doubt given freedom the first time he whimpered at the door. Oscar was going to have a hard time separating Peeve from Aunt Bianca. Or would it be Aunt Bianca from Peeve?

“Oscar! Get up,” she yelled from downstairs. Aunt Bianca didn’t know how to whisper. She’d not been in the military, but she could take on any drill sergeant when it came to giving orders.

He headed for the hallway bathroom, and after splashing water on his face, he went down the stairs to the kitchen, where Aunt Bianca waited.

“I have chicken on the table.”

It was never that simple. Aunt Bianca usually had some household maintenance detail she’d like him to attend to, or worse. Tonight was the or worse.

“Abigail Simms’s granddaughter will be in town this weekend.” Bianca sounded very matter-of-fact.

Oscar didn’t take the bait. Instead, he finished his first helping of chicken.

Aunt Bianca was patient. She gave him a second helping before adding, “She’s here for Abigail’s birthday.”

“That’s nice,” Oscar said.

“I told Abigail that you had some free time Saturday and that you might be convinced to take her granddaughter for a ride on that bike of yours.”

Funny, when Oscar first arrived on his aunt’s doorstep, she’d hated the motorcycle.

“Death machine,” she’d called it.

Now it seemed the death machine was okay as long as she could connect it to a little matchmaking.

“I’m doing some undercover work this weekend,” he said, heading to the pantry to look for dessert.

Aunt Bianca placed an elbow on the table, crooked her hand and placed her chin in it, looking at him and waiting. His mother did the same thing when she wanted an answer.

Bianca loved that he’d joined the police department, never dreaming that strings had been pulled and procedures ignored. Even chief of police Tom Riley had no clue his new rookie wasn’t a rookie at all.

Somehow the deception felt wrong. He tried to blame it on keeping secrets from his aunt, but he’d grown to respect Riley and wished the man was privy to all the details.

His FBI boss, Townley, insisted on the assignment. “This legitimately gives you access not only to the files but also to the people who wrote them. If we can prevent Larry Wagner from conning even one more person, your role will have made a difference.”

Townley had that right. So far, Larry Wagner, Saunders, Templeton, whatever name he was working under, had conned a lot of people. He was an equal opportunity crook and didn’t care who he was taking advantage of.

That he’d married Shelley and left her pregnant without any remorse said it all. He was a man without a conscience, and his crimes were escalating. Sarasota Falls—a town with two squad cars and six officers—had been taken, from face-to-face fraud to account hacking. If acting as an officer, low man on the totem pole, working eight at night until eight in the morning, was what it took to bring Wagner down, Oscar would willingly do it.

Chocolate-chip cookies discovered, he headed back to the kitchen.

“You’re not working the whole weekend,” his aunt protested. “You need some time to play.”

“I’ll play when I’ve closed a few of these cases.”

Mainly Shelley Wagner’s, a woman who operated alone and who appeared to be a good—albeit hovering—mother.

“But—” Aunt Bianca started.

He put his plate in the sink and gave his aunt a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll let you know when and if I need a date, but believe me, I can find my own girl.”

“By the time you go looking,” Aunt Bianca muttered, “you’ll be too old to do more than watch television and complain about your health.”

“You’ve been talking to my mother again,” Oscar accused her.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY, he sat at his desk, finishing up his last report when his phone rang.

“Hi, Mom,” he answered, earning a few smirks from other officers in the room.

His mother filled him in on his sister’s latest antics as well as his brothers’ accomplishments. She segued to a funny story about his uncle Rudy’s garage, and finished by saying how excited she was that he had a date this weekend with a neighbor’s granddaughter.

Ah, the phone call was the result of a joint effort between his aunt and his mother.

“I’m at work, Mom, and need to finish up.” Since his return stateside a year ago, his mother had been trying to make up for lost time. She continued a moment more about family matters and then signed off. Oscar had just a few more things to do before he could go. Just as Oscar was closing up the last open file on his computer, thinking about getting to his aunt’s place and sleep, Lucas Stillwater came in, a Snickers bar in hand. On the small Sarasota Falls police roster, he was long-term, having been with the department for over twenty years, and he hadn’t been young when he joined.

Lucas now worked the day desk and no longer patrolled. The most pressing job he had was visiting schools and discussing Stranger Danger. He paused by Oscar’s desk to say, “Hey! Riley just called. We found a DB, and you’ll never guess where.”

Oscar waited. Lucas liked to play guessing games, which Oscar didn’t have time for. Stillwater talked too much and worked too little. It hadn’t always been that way. At least, that was what Oscar had heard. According to Chief Riley, Stillwater’s retirement was merely months away, and his goal was keeping alive and out of trouble. Oscar squinted at the computer screen and responded, “Where?”

“Vine Street. Right down from where you are.”

Oscar’s fingers stilled. His aunt had a few older neighbors. He hoped it wasn’t Abigail Simms from across the street. But...

“That young couple fairly new to the town,” Stillwater continued. “She’s a schoolteacher. Her husband manages Little’s Supermarket.”

Something heavy formed in Oscar’s chest. It moved to his stomach, started to churn. This wasn’t good.

“The last name’s Livingston. She...”

The chair squealed against the floor as Oscar scooted away from his desk. Candace indeed lived three houses down from him and had hung around with his little sister when they were in school. Candace and her husband, Cody, had moved here nine months ago when she secured a teaching job. Cody managed Little’s Supermarket, a chain owned by Candace’s father. Oscar stood, reaching for his badge and touching the sidearm already secure in his holster.