Linc laughed again. "Seriously, Parker. Teri's a freaking savage when it comes to revenge. I'm just glad I managed to avoid that particular punishment."
Teri sniffed. "You couldn't have stolen my chair since you were the one I was helping. You were spared." She sounded like a queen, and the way she swept through the bullpen had me smiling widely. The other two officers, whom I didn't know, both fled in the opposite direction when she approached.
"They didn't get spared," Linc whispered loudly. "Now they know not to mess with dispatch. They can make our lives a living hell if they want to."
He walked with me through the bullpen, eyeing the envelope in my hand while Teri led the way to the detectives' office.
"What's Artie Sims got to do with anything?"
I side-eyed him and smacked my lips together. "Mind your own business, Linc."
He wasn't done pestering, but thankfully Officer Ortiz opened the door just as Teri raised her hand to knock.
"What's up?" He looked past Teri and saw that I was standing there with Linc, and he nodded. "Never mind. I'll take it from here, Teri."
Teri turned to face me with a bright smile. "Have fun. If I don't get a chance to say goodbye, we should get drinks sometime."
"Sure," I returned her sentiment with a smile. "You know where to find me."
Everyone knew where to find me. I'd been running Lucy's for years, and up until recently, I'd never even thought about leaving. After all, Birch was my home. It wasn’t until the night Boo died and everything started to go downhill that I'd seriously started to consider it.
"Come in, Ms. Hayes." Officer Ortiz stepped aside, then blocked Linc's way when he moved to follow me. "Not you, Linc."
"Oh, come on, Dom." Linc eyed the office with curiosity. "I'm so bored."
"Not my problem." He shut the door in Linc's face and I laughed.
"That was good." The walls of the office were white and empty, without even a picture to decorate them. The two massive desks in the room made up for the empty walls, though. They were both covered with paperwork and manila folders.
"Excuse the mess," he said needlessly as he moved to sit behind the less-messy of the two. "We all share these desks while there's an open investigation. Since we don't have much information on your fire, yet I'm going over all the information from the fire department."
"That's why I'm here, Officer Ortiz." Standing awkwardly in front of the desk, I held out the envelope. "My neighbor gave me this today when I went by the house to grab something." I swallowed down the sudden rise of emotion that came with remembering why I'd gone to my house.
"Call me Dom, Ms. Hayes. Please, have a seat." He took the envelope from my outstretched hand. "Artie Sims is your neighbor?" He stared at me with a raised eyebrow. "He must be the neighbor who didn't answer his door the night of the fire."
After I'd sat down in the uncomfortable chair on the other side of his desk, Dom put the envelope down in front of him and took his own seat.
"Thanks, Dom." I motioned to the envelope. "Yeah. He stopped me before I could leave my house and gave it to me. He's got surveillance cameras outside of his house and thought that maybe the recording from the night of the fire might help."
Dom inspected the still-sealed envelope. "You didn't open it to see what was there?" He didn't sound accusatory, though. If anything, he was curious.
"I wouldn't know what I was looking at." The admission didn't hurt like I thought it might. "Plus, I watch a lot of true crime shows. I didn't want to mess with the chain of custody or whatever."
He laughed unexpectedly. "That's not how the chain of custody works." Dom kept laughing until he was wheezing. "You're a funny lady, you know that?"
My answering look could only be called sardonic. "Right. Do you think it could help, though?" When he didn't answer immediately, I went on. "You know, to find out who thought it would be a good idea to try and fire-bomb my house."
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'll take any help I can get at this point. Whoever did it didn't leave any trace."
Swallowing down all of the doubt and fear that had started to bubble over ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be. I found myself struggling to breathe a moment later as panic took over.
"Hey.” Dom reached across his desk a moment later, tapping the wooden surface in front of me. “You’ve got a lot of law enforcement behind you. From your uncle, to Remy, Linc, and me, all the way up to our chief. You’re going to be fine, Parker. We’re going to figure this out. Whoever did it will have made a mistake.” When he had my attention, he leaned back and patted the envelope I’d brought. “Who knows, maybe your neighbor even caught something on his camera.”
“Thank you.” I held my trembling hands tightly together and focused on the fact that I wasn’t alone. That whoever started the fire hadn’t destroyed my house, and that they hadn’t hurt Nox.
“If there’s nothing else, then I’ll walk you out.” Dom stood up. “I want to get this video processed and see what’s on it, and there’s still a lot of work to do.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I followed him out of the office, and he guided me around the opposite side of the bullpen, behind a dividing wall.
“This is an easier way out,” he explained. “Plus, you won’t have to deal with Linc’s annoying face.”
I laughed at that, unable to stop myself. “Yeah, he’s annoying sometimes. But he means well. Plus, he feels obligated since I was … you know, married to his brother.”
Dom’s face sobered in an instant. “Yeah, I know. Danny was a good man, Parker. I was proud to serve with him.”
My heart warmed at the mention, and we both fell into a companionable silence as we walked through the halls.
“Shut the fuck up, Stryker.” Remy’s angry voice came from the end of the hall where an open door stood. “You don’t know shit about Parker.”
“I know she’s got you whipped to the point that you won’t even come out with your friends anymore,” came the response. “That’s all I need to know about her. Not to mention that she fucked Danny to get back at you in high school.”
Eddie Stryker, one of our best friends in school. At least I thought he’d been my friend. All the anger in his voice was aimed at me, and there was literally nothing I could do to avoid it.
Dom looked down at me with a concerned expression and immediately tried to usher me in the other direction. “Let’s go the other way,” he whispered.
I couldn’t even move, my feet had turned to lead, or maybe they were encased in cement. No matter how much I wanted to leave, they wouldn’t budge. Dom was left standing there, watching me struggle with the most basic of things.
“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Stryker.” Remy’s ferocious growl was met with the sound of something slamming against the wall, hard. “You have no idea what I did to that woman, or why she went to Danny. I don’t blame her; Danny didn’t blame her either. No one blamed her, and no one ever gave her shit about it. You’re not going to start now, or you’re going to regret it.”