The phone rang again.
It was Apollo. Queen rolled her eyes and abandoned the search for her mother’s documents. She took the photo and stuck it in her back pocket, and grabbed the birth certificate. Before she left, she made a sick stop into the hallway bathroom. Queen brushed her teeth and gurgled with mouthwash. She hurried in, making sure she smelled fresh, and there were no traces of liquor on her, and then sprinted out of the house to her own home. It was a twenty-minute drive, so she used the time to call Delilah. She didn’t get an answer, but he left a message. “Hey, not sure what time it is over there. Thought I’d take a chance. When you get a moment call me. I found something. Need your advice.”
Queen traveled several dark roads. The streetlights were sparse. Falcon Cove wasn’t heavily populated. The ranch town was spread out across the foothills of the mountains.
When she arrived home, she saw Apollo leaning against his car. She’d known him all her life, but it wasn’t until five years ago that they became friends and partners on the force. Apollo was over six feet tall with deep pecan brown skin and heavy native features in his high cheekbones, dark set of eyes, and chiseled nose. He looked up at her and then down at his watch like an expectant husband. Apollo was a complicated man. Never aggressive and rarely a talker, he only shared and cared for two things. His six-year-old son was the first. The boy was born out of a previous relationship. The second was his career as a police officer. It was one of the reasons why Queen liked him. She thought there would never be any attachments. Once they introduced sex into their relationship, things felt different. He was getting too close, and she didn’t like it.
“Where were you?” Apollo asked when she got out of the car.
“I don’t answer to you, Apollo,” she mumbled as she started toward her house.
“I know you don’t. But I was worried,” Apollo changed his tone.
“I had some errands to run. It’s late, I need to—”
Apollo stopped her at the front door. He rubbed her shoulders then cupped her face in his hands to make sure she looked into his eyes. “We’ll catch him, Queen.”
“No, we won’t. He comes in and out of this town murdering children, and we haven’t stopped it.”
“We will. This time we will. You and I will find this bastard and make him pay for what he’s done.”
She grabbed his face and brought his lips down to her mouth. The kiss was a duel of passion and resistance, and she savored the desire she calmness she found each time she tasted him. Apollo’s touch was the magic to make her despair lessen, and tonight she needed him. He knew it. Thank God for him.
“Unlock the door,” he said between deep breaths. Queen let go of him, but his hands were all over her. She fumbled with the keys, barely inside the door before he was stripping her of her suit and tossing her gun and badge aside. Apollo came out of his shirt with superhero force, revealing his broad chest. Even in his pelvis, he was all muscle, and she could feel the power within him with each hard thrust of his dick. They never made it to her room. He took her right there on the floor. Deep diving pelvic slams and thrusts had her crying out appreciation for his attention before climaxing while holding tight to him.
QUEEN WOKE.
At some point, she and Apollo took their passion to her bedroom. She lay naked with half her body over him. She could see the empty beer bottles they shared after sex scattered on the floor—her idea, of course. She felt lethargic from the sex and drinking, but she had never let go of her troubled thoughts. Nothing controlled her. Queen slipped away from him and left him alone in her bed. She covered her nudity with her house robe and crept out of the room, careful to not wake him. In the living room, her clothes and weapon lay where they were dropped. She began to pick things up. She fished out the picture she saw earlier and went and sat on the sofa.
“Where do you go?” Apollo asked.
“What are you talking about?” she answered.
Apollo stood under the threshold of the door bathed in moonlight. He pulled on his dick and glanced to the window, then back to her. “Sometimes you disappear. Not physically, you know, emotionally. You disappearing on me again tonight, Queen. It worries me.”
“I don’t disappear. Stop with your superstition.”
“It’s not superstition sweetheart, it's deeper than that for me. You know that,” Apollo said.
Queen sighed and looked up at him. “I don’t belong to you. We’re co-workers, friends, that’s it.”
“If I’m your friend, then talk to me. Where do you go?” he asked.
“I found a picture,” she said.
“Really?”
She turned the picture around. “It’s my mama. When she was my age, or a little bit younger. Before she became a mean drunk. Before she had me.”
Apollo walked over and took the picture. He stared at it. “Who are the other people?”
“Delilah’s mom Delores and Tyson Montgomery,” Queen said.
“Montgomery? Your mom was friends with Senator Tyson?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t think so. Mama sure said more than once she hated all Montgomery’s. But look at her. She’s smiling. And she kept this locked away in her room.”
“What does that mean?” Apollo asked.
“It’s not the picture that has me curious, Apollo. It’s the person taking the picture. Mama is smiling for that person. What if it’s my father?”
Apollo looked from the photo to her. He then studied the picture once more. “Yea, she’s definitely smiling for the person taking the picture. You never found out who he was?”
Queen shook her head no. “Delilah and Goodiva have moved on. They have children and their own families now. I’m stuck chasing a kid-killer in a small town with no future, really. All we have is family, and I never knew who my father was. I’m a detective. Don’t you think it's time I find out?”
“I can help,” Apollo offered.
“No thanks,” she stood and took the picture from him. She ran her hand down his chest and stopped at his penis. She touched him. “I need you to leave. I want to sleep and you lying next to me is too much of a distraction.”
“Don’t push me away.”
“I know what you need, Apollo. I can’t give it to you. It feels weird that we crossed the line. We’re friends. That’s all. I want to be alone.”
Apollo touched the side of her face. He looked disappointed, but she saw more understanding in his eyes than she found with anyone. Queen carried disappointment with her like a shield. She knew how to use it as a defense instead of giving in to hope. She wasn’t looking to escape into some mushy relationship. She wanted answers. She wanted an identity. She wanted to know why her mother hated her all her life. And maybe finding her father could solve that mystery.”
“Whatever you say, sweetheart. I’ll go,” Apollo said and kissed her brow. “But someday soon, you will see what I see and stop disappearing.”
“Never,” she mumbled. “I’ll never surrender.”