15
Linc
Remy’s annoying voice blared through the speaker on my phone, and I wanted to hang up on him, but not before I got what I was calling for.
“I need your help, man. Are you going to do it or not?”
“No,” Remy snapped irately. “I’m not. You were supposed to watch Nox yesterday but you said you wouldn’t, and now I’m trying to work from home and keep him entertained on my day off and I wanted to go pick something up for Parker as a surprise. You’re annoying me. Why would I help you?”
Squeezing the steering wheel in my cruiser so hard I thought it would break, I focused on my breathing. It wasn’t exactly easy while I sat in the parking lot of Taco Bell after meeting Kennedy for lunch. My fuckin’ cruiser wasn’t comfortable on a good day, and I definitely wasn’t having a good day.
“Because you love me, and you owe me, and I played roller derby again for you and your friend and ended up with my balls out.”
Silence on the other end of the line lasted way longer than it should have. Finally, Remy sighed, huffing and blowing loudly into the mouthpiece. “What do you want?”
“I need to switch shifts.” I tapped the steering wheel more. “Seeing Kennedy randomly when our shifts work out isn’t cutting it for me anymore.”
“What do you expect me to do about it? I’m on the same shift you are.”
“I’m gonna ask Dom to switch with me. I just want you to... encourage him to take it. If I try, he’s gonna throw the balls thing in my face and shit.”
“Fine. But you owe me.”
“Done and done.”
My radio crackled loudly, ending our conversation. “Unit 14, please call in. 10-45 in progress.”
Fuck.
Domestic dispute was the ten code for 45, and dispatch wouldn’t be requesting that I call in unless there was a connection to the police department or county in some way. I checked the CAD, my computer aided dispatch, but there was nothing there yet.
“Hey, Teri,” I said as soon as she answered the phone.
“I’ve got an active domestic dispute at 45 Oak Street.” She didn’t pull any punches. “That address is in the system belonging to Royal Prince, Linc.” There was a pause there. One that said Teri knew exactly what happened with him and Kennedy in the past. And it gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You need to know,” she started again. “The report was from a neighbor saying that it looked like he was hitting a curly-haired redhead through the front window, but they couldn’t be sure.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, almost coming to a standstill. Then I remembered that there was no way. Kennedy literally left me at Taco Bell maybe twenty minutes before the call, and she was going to an appointment, dragging Parker along with her. That didn’t do anything to my blood pressure, though.
“It’s not Kennedy.” The relieved sigh on the other end gave me more information than anything I could have collected on my own. “I’m en route. Send backup.”
Before I could say anything else or get distracted, I pulled out onto the main road in Birch and headed toward Oak Street. The entire time, my lights and sirens cleared the road, and thoughts of what I might find when I got there kept flashing in my mind.
His front door was open when I pulled up to the house, and I got out of my cruiser after telling dispatch I was on scene with my gun in my hand.
Yes, I had problems with Royal. Yes, I thought he was a fuckin’ prick. But no matter what, I’d treat him with the same dignity and respect that I would for anyone I was responding to a call for.
“Birch Police Department,” I called out before entering the residence. I also made sure that my body cam was turned on, because I’d be damned if Royal came back and said that I didn’t do my job. “Birch Police Department. I’m coming into the residence.” As I stepped inside, I held my gun and flashlight together to make sure that I could see in the darkened rooms. There weren’t any lights on, and there must have been blackout curtains on the windows.
For the first ten feet or so, I couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Once I made my way into the hall of the single-story ranch, I heard muffled sobs coming from the kitchen at the end of the corridor.
“Hello?” I raised my voice, praying to everything I held holy that I wasn’t about to see someone that I cared about in Royal’s kitchen. “Birch Police Department. We received a report of a disturbance. The front door was open. Can you hear me?”
Something metal in the kitchen clanged and fell to the floor with a loud crash. And I stepped into the kitchen with a wide arc of my flashlight. A shock of red hair was the only thing I saw, and I slammed my hand onto the light switch on the wall so that I could see exactly what I was dealing with.
For a fraction of a second, I thought I was wrong. I thought that Kennedy was sitting there at the kitchen table with a steak knife clutched in her hand. Instead, I looked down into Mallory’s black-and-blue face, red with blood under her nose and on her mouth. Her face was so swollen I almost didn’t recognize her. But the blue eyes hit me. Ones that I’d found condescending and lifeless before were now filled with fear and pain.
“Mallory? Mallory Mitchells? Are you okay? Is he still here?” I put the gun away and grabbed the mic at my chest when she shook her head in the negative. “Dispatch be advised, one party on scene; she’s denying the male party is present. Please send an ambulance for the female subject. I haven’t cleared the house yet. How long until backup arrives?” I gently pulled the knife away from Mallory, and she let me take it without so much as flinching. I set it on the counter behind me.
“Unit 10 on scene now,” came the response, not from Teri but from Amie.
Teri responded, “10-4. Dispatching an ambulance now.”
I moved to the hall and shined my light for Amie when she appeared at the doorway. “Do you want to stay with her while I clear?”
The look on her face, in the light that the outside offered in the shadows, clearly told me to go fuck myself. Amie had her gun and light out, and she immediately went in the opposite direction. I looked over my shoulder to see that Mallory hadn’t moved from her spot, and she still stared at the doorway, at me, with fear.
“Mallory, I’m going to stay right here until Officer Lee comes back in the room. While we wait, do you want to tell me what happened? Or do you want me to wait?”
She shook her head woodenly. “He made me color my hair, Linc. Held me in the shower while he poured red dye all over it and made me do it. He said that he thought I looked better. But you know why he did it, right? He’s trying to make me her.” Mallory’s tears were almost enough to make me offer her comfort. But she was still the same person who’d tried to physically harm Parker. She was the one who took out Royal’s anger at Kennedy on everyone she cared about.
“Mallory, the ambulance is on their way, okay? We’ll get you taken care of. You can press charges, and you can file a restraining order against him.”
Thankfully Amie walked into the kitchen right then, because Mallory went fucking crazy. She started screaming and dove for the knife on the counter.