Sins of the mother (Chapter-17)

Midway through the following afternoon, Brooke sat at her desk and concentrated on the reports from the previous night. She finished the suspect resistance report and moved on to entering the case notes. She checked the case files looking for any mention of the initials R.O. but found nothing of interest. She turned her attention to the red vehicle lead. She pulled the video from the convenience store where her first victim was found and cued it back to the approximate time the body would have been dumped, but she didn’t find anything.

Leaning back in her chair, she stretched, feeling her stiff, sore muscles resist. The movement pulled at her chest, and a sharp pain made her catch her breath. She knew she was lucky. Aside from the cut on her chest and her bruised head, she felt fine. The soreness would dissipate. Her mental state, however, was a bit shakier.

She felt responsible for the whole mess. She should have realized the danger and used the code words that she and Lukas had agreed upon. But it all happened so fast. What could she have done differently? She could have recognized the danger more quickly. Had she done so, nobody would have been injured, except for maybe the perp. At least she’d recovered enough to help Lukas. She’d saved him from a more serious injury. She was sure of that.

She thought of sitting at the picnic table outside the emergency room. Lukas was badly injured, yet he was the one offering comfort. He didn’t patronize her. He didn’t blame her for anything. He was just there for her, and that was what she’d needed more than anything at that moment.

She turned her attention back to the report, which would require the records from last night. She had to go back to the hospital. She sighed, grabbed her coat, keys, and purse, and headed for the exit.

The drive to Kingsport Memorial was a short one. She waited in the lobby of the records department while a middle-aged clerk who looked like she would rather be anywhere but there made copies of the medical records and incident reports. She sent a quick one-line text to Lukas: Checking on you.

Getting the records took less time than she had thought, and she found herself back at the station within the hour. Brooke made her way through the squad room. For a Saturday, it was busy. A couple of uniforms were wandering around, as was her longtime friend and partner, Sam Browning.

Sam was near the end of his career, and it had been a productive one. He’d been good to Brooke. When the others made fun of her or doubted her, Sam stood by her. He’d taught her a lot about being a detective, and she was grateful. She’d miss him when he retired, but that didn’t seem imminent. Nobody, including Sam, knew when he would hang it up.

Brooke tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Sam, did you get a call out?”

“Hey there, kid. No, I’m just going over some training material for a class I’m teaching next week. I heard you had quite a night last night. Are you okay?”

“A little sore and stiff, but I’m fine.”

“You did good, young lady. Don’t doubt it.”

“I don’t know. I feel like I should have done something different.”

“That’s normal. Every time we do something that doesn’t end exactly like we think it should, we second guess ourselves. If you go home at the end of the shift to your little girl, that’s a win. If you collar a bad guy in the process, that’s a bonus, and that’s what you did. You also may have saved that Miller guy’s ass from what I heard.”

“Well, he saved mine first.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine, I think. I’ve tried to call, but he isn’t answering.”

“He’s probably sleeping. Can’t blame him. I’ll bet he’ll be hungry when he wakes up.”

Brooke looked at Sam. He was grinning mischievously.

“Don’t go there, Sam. He’s got a girlfriend.”

“I didn’t say you should ask him to marry you.”

“I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Does the girlfriend work? I’m just saying he may need a friend. He’s your temporary partner until I get you back full-time. You should at least check on him.”

“Maybe so. But I’ve got to pick Sierra up from my parents. I haven’t seen much of her lately. I miss her.”

“Okay, girl. I’ve got to run. Do you need anything?”

“I’m good. Thanks, Sam.”

Brooke put the records in the case file book and looked over the reports from the other officers from the previous night. Overall, the operation was a bust as far as the murders were concerned. Sure, they got a predator off the streets, but the goal had been to get a lead on the murders, and that hadn’t happened.

She looked at her phone again. No word from Lukas. She thought over what Sam had said.

What the hell. An hour later she pulled into the driveway of Lukas’s house. It was a little after 6:00 p.m. She checked her makeup and hair in the mirror before walking the short distance to the door with a steaming hot pizza in one hand and a six pack of beer in the other. What cop could resist that? Lukas answered the door shirtless, wearing only a pair of blue sweatpants with a “U.S. Air Force” logo in white down the right leg.

“Oh, hey, Brooke.” His face registered surprise.

“Hi, I thought you might be hungry. Can I come in? This pizza is burning my hand.” She pushed through the door to find a surface for the hot pizza.

“Uh, sure.”

Brooke set the pizza down and shook her singed hand. She wiped it on her jeans and turned to see a woman dressed in purple scrubs walk out of the kitchen. The woman was holding a fresh gauze bandage. They locked gazes, and the woman’s dark brown eyes flashed. She swept her long, dark hair over her shoulder and stared at Lukas.

At first Brooke thought the voluptuous woman was a home nurse ordered by the department to assist Lukas with the wound dressing. But the temperature change in the room indicated otherwise. Brooke stood there with a six pack of beer in her right hand and looked back and forth between Lukas and the woman. Shit. How do I get out of this gracefully?

“Lukas?” The woman shifted her stance. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Gabriele, this is Brooke. Brooke, Gabriele.” Brooke realized she was still holding the beer. She set it down on the cluttered coffee table and walked over to shake Gabriele’s hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sorry to intrude. I didn’t mean to… I mean, I didn’t know… I just thought I’d swing by and make sure he was still alive. Again, I’m sorry.”

Brooke turned and started toward the door. “I’ll talk to you later, Lukas.”

“Nonsense.” Gabriele flashed a smile that Brooke knew was fake. “I was just about to change his dressing, but I’m running late and since you’re here, maybe you can do it?”

“Sure,” Brooke said.

“I need to get back to the ER. Besides, I’m sure you two have a lot to discuss.” She walked up to Lukas and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Call me later.”

“Okay,” he replied, his face betraying his discomfort. When the door closed behind Gabriele, there was a moment of silence. Brooke felt like she wanted to become one with the paint on the wall. She couldn’t believe she was standing in Lukas’s living room, having just chased his girlfriend off. And him shirtless no less.

Lukas walked over to the gauze and picked it up.

“Care to help?” He held up the bandage. “The one-armed man can’t quite do this for himself.”

“Lukas, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so embarrassed. But I called, and you didn’t answer. I was worried. I guess I know why you didn’t answer now.”

“Phone was dead. Forgot to charge it last night. It’s charging now.”

Brooke picked up the dressing as Lukas sat down in a kitchen chair. She started removing the old bandage from the wound.

“Sorry I invaded your Saturday like this,” Brooke said. “I should have waited until I talked to you on the phone.”

“It’s okay. Actually, I am hungry, so your timing’s good. And we need to discuss the case. Ouch.” He winced as she tore the tape off the wound. “You better hand me one of those,” he said, pointing to the beer on the coffee table. Brooke handed him a beer.

“Hurts that bad, huh?”

“Only when I breathe.”

She lifted the gauze. “I’ve seen worse, you sissy.”

“And I’ve had worse.”

“When?”

“In Afghanistan.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No. Want to see the scars?”

“No.”

Brooke finished dressing the wound and stepped back. “There. All done.”

“Thanks, Florence Nightingale,” Lukas said. “Let me grab a shirt real quick, and we’ll take that pie out on the deck.”

As Lukas walked away, Brooke noticed something that looked like an angel and some writing she couldn’t discern on the seat of his sweats. It wasn’t exactly how she pictured him dressing. She picked up the pizza, grabbed a beer, and walked outside to the deck.

The view was beautiful, much like the view at her house. A line of pine trees bordered his property, and her seat afforded a perfect view of the mountains. The sound of the screen door shutting announced Lukas’s arrival.

“I’m starved,” he said. “I see you got extra cheese. Something else we have in common.”

“It’s nice here.”

“I like it. Quiet. Peaceful. Kinda away from everything, but not too far.”

They talked a bit and devoured most of the pizza, lounging on the deck until the cool night air forced them inside. Brooke sat down on the sofa as Lukas went for another round of beers. Returning, he handed her one and sat down in the recliner.

“She’s mad, isn’t she?” Brooke said.

“No, she’s fine,” Lukas said, but he didn’t sound convincing. “She understands work is work. Don’t worry about it. So, what did we learn last night?”

“First, I need to ask you a question. And I don’t want you think I was looking at your ass. But what does the symbol and writing on the back of your sweats mean?”

Lukas smiled. “It says, ‘That others may live,’ and it’s an angel holding the world.” He stood up and turned around, giving her a perfect view of the symbol and what it covered. “See?”

Yeah, she saw, and she liked. “So much for not looking at your ass.”

Lukas laughed and sat back down.

“What’s that from?” Brooke said.

“It’s the pararescue motto.”

“What exactly is pararescue, anyway?”

“It’s a unit that was originally formed to rescue pilots who had been shot down or crashed. We were trained to conduct search and rescue operations in all kinds of environments, all kinds of terrain. Pararescue has evolved over the years and several of the units are now part of the military’s Special Operations Group. The guys are basically combat medics. They go into hot combat zones and pick up Rangers, SEALs, Green Berets, Delta operators, anyone that needs to have wounded soldiers evacuated. They even help with civilians in some extreme cases. Their primary mission is to save lives, not take them, but they’re capable of doing both.”

“So, you’ve been in combat?”

“I have, and I don’t mean any offense at all, but I’d rather not discuss it.”

“No offense taken. Are you sure you don’t wear those sweats just to get women to look at your butt?”

“My butt gets looked at plenty without them.”

“Nice to know you think so much of your butt. So how about we get back to last night? I still have a lot to learn. The guy just came at me, and I didn’t react quickly enough. It all happened so fast. It was a blur.”

“That’s what the code words are for. That’s why we went over them.”

“I guess I wanted to get this thing right so bad, to get some kind of a lead, I let it go too far. And in the process, I learned a hard lesson and almost got you killed.”

“At least it was a lesson we both walked away from.”

“Who knows?” Brooke said. “Maybe we altered our killer’s plans last night and saved a life. Maybe he was out there, and he knows we’re upping the pressure. Maybe he’ll make a mistake.”

Lukas swallowed the remainder of his beer and sat the empty bottle on the table. “I feel like we’re making progress but at too slow a pace. The leads we have aren’t getting us any closer to solving it.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I checked on the red car and the R.O. lead, but I didn’t find anything.”

“What about the patterns? Can you think of anything there?

Brooke leaned back on the couch and rubbed her temples. “I think the abortion clinic and poster are too obvious to dismiss. I’m not sure about the others.”

“The locations could just be places of opportunity or convenience,” Lukas said.

“They could be. But with all the evidence that’s building up, I’m beginning to doubt it.”

“Have we ruled out the pimp war theory?”

“I think so,” Brooke said. “It just doesn’t fit. First, there’s no connection between the pimps here and in Kingsport. And when I interviewed Nelasco, he seemed genuinely afraid. If he knew anything, I think he would have spilled it.”

“And the rope lead?”

“It’s a long shot.”

Brooke’s cell phone pinged. It was a text from her mom wondering where she was.

“Damn, it’s later than I thought,” she said. “I need to pick up Sierra.”

Lukas stood and walked her to the door. “Are you good to drive?”

“I’ve had two beers. Of course I’m okay to drive.” She turned to face him as she stepped out on the porch. “Before I go, I wanted to thank you for last night.”

“For what?” He looked genuinely confused.

“For just being there for me.”

“Oh. No problem. And thank you.”

“For?”

“Changing my bandage. And noticing my butt.”