Holding Out For A Hero

“I’ve never seen you like this.” Too late, he wanted the words back.

“I just met you yesterday. How would you know what I’m like? Oh, wait—you’ve been watching me?”

“Not long.”

Shelley stared at the sky. He wanted to tell her that she’d find no answers there. He doubted she’d appreciate the advice. She focused on him again and shook her head—dismissing him as she closed the trunk and turned toward the entrance.

Two steps had him by her side. “Chief Riley’s on his way. He has a few questions he’d like to ask you. Why don’t we go inside and sit down?”

He watched her hands fist, release, fist.

She quickly looked left and right, searching for something. He looked, too. Then she turned and marched back inside, past the front desk and down a hallway. Oscar stayed right behind her. He faltered at the door she passed through. It led to a combined bedroom and living area. An older man, her father, sat on the couch. His black hair was uncombed and unruly. The television was on, but the man wasn’t watching. Ryan, who Oscar had met yesterday morning, clutched a pillow, his cheeks wet, his head on Shelley’s dad’s leg. Shelley’s purse was on the floor at her father’s feet.

“Everything okay?” Oscar asked.

“No, nothing is okay, but if you’re asking if my dad and son are all right, then I think so.” She sat on the edge of the bed, looking from her dad and Ryan to him. “What do you really want?”

He recognized the tone of voice. She was trying to sound brave.

“Just for you to share what you might have seen in the neighborhood yesterday,” he said as he sat down.

Chief Riley appeared in the doorway.

Oscar watched as Shelley tensed. Thanks to her ex-husband, she probably knew that now started the questions, and more questions, and then a million more, and a file and reports to go in that file.

“So, Shelley,” Riley began. “Looks like you found trouble again.”

Actually, Oscar thought, trouble had found her. He watched as emotions danced across her face. She felt some kind of pull, a connection that he couldn’t tell whether was good or bad.

Probably bad.

It resembled the longing he’d felt ten minutes ago, wanting to pull her into his arms.

Riley glanced at her father, his face softening. “Is there someplace private we can talk?”

Oscar stood. “I noticed a few vacant rooms earlier. One of them should do.” He needed to ignore the connection between himself and Shelley and act like the professional that he was. He didn’t blink, didn’t give her a chance to say no. He stepped toward the door, expecting her to follow.

Except she didn’t move. Instead she asked, “What makes you think I know anything?”

“You want us to start with you leaving the scene of a crime and then fleeing the city?” Riley said.

She looked from Riley to Oscar, and he had to give her credit. She kept her voice steady. “I didn’t flee. I took Ryan to Santa Fe for an adventure. I had nothing to do with that girl’s death, nothing.”

“I hope that’s the case,” Riley said.

Shelley looked up sharply. “It is.”

“I didn’t like it there,” Ryan mumbled. “Mommy forgot to pack Pooh.”

“I hate when that happens,” Oscar told the little boy. “My mom once forgot my stuffed Spider-Man. I cried for an hour.”

Ryan nodded.

“I had to hold on to a pillow.” Oscar smiled. “It made it a little better.”

Ryan nodded again and clutched his cushion tighter.

Oscar sat back down, facing Shelley. “We pretty much know your every step starting early yesterday morning.”

“Because you knew who I was yesterday morning.”

He heard accusation as well as an edge of disappointment thread through the question. “Yes, I did. But—”

Luckily Riley interrupted. “We didn’t start looking for you, Shelley, until your landlord told us you’d packed up and left. With a murder just across the street, and a witness putting you at the victim’s window and looking in, you became a priority.”

She grimaced. “I don’t want to be a priority.”

“Good,” Riley said calmly. “Tell us what you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Shelley Wagner, you know plenty,” Riley accused her.

“I’m Shelley Brubaker,” Shelley corrected him.

“I knew a woman named Shelley Brubaker.” Shelley’s father spoke up from the couch. “Can’t remember if she was a relative or a neighbor. But she was a good girl.”

* * *

SHELLEY WANTED TO tell her father that Shelley Brubaker was no longer good, but if she did that, she’d start crying. No way, not in front of the cops. “Dad, I’m taking Ryan to Cara up front, and then I’m going to go down the hallway and talk to these gentlemen. I won’t go far.”

Then she looked at the two cops, the ones ready to escort her away as if she were a criminal. Bad enough to deal with Riley, but Officer Guzman was the man from yesterday, the nice one with the German shepherd. She’d thought he was just a guest at Bianca’s bed-and-breakfast.

She took Ryan by the hand. He came willingly, holding the cushion and looking up at Oscar somewhat in awe.

“I ’member you,” he said. “You have dog.”

“Peeve,” Oscar supplied.

“I like dog,” Ryan said.

Shelley silently agreed. She liked the dog, too; she didn’t, however, like the cop. She followed him, determined not to cry, noting how Riley brought up the rear, in essence trapping her.

She’d known Riley all her life. He was a good cop. He’d been the officer she’d called just six months ago after the first frantic phone call came from an irate friend who’d just been notified by her bank that she no longer had any money.

Shelley’d already been gathering the proof that her husband had taken her for every dime. She hadn’t, however, known the full range until she’d heard the shrill voice. “I went to buy Christmas presents and my bank card was rejected!”

Shelley still remembered holding her cell phone tight, letting the truth of the words sink in and knowing the black hole of her life had just gotten blacker.