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“Former,” he corrected.
“That must have been an interesting job.”
Nico inclined his head. “It had its moments.”
“Do many people go missing? I mean, you know, in general?”
“Probably more than you’d like.”
He chuckled when she felt the blood drain from her face.
“A lot of those aren’t necessarily kidnappings,” he assured her. “There’s cases of mental health, drug and alcohol problems, homelessness, suicides. Kids running away from home, sometimes running from abuse, people just wanting to escape their own lives. Plenty of missing persons are found, many of them safe and sound.”
Hesitating, Lexie asked, “And the ones who aren’t found?”
Nico looked away. She couldn’t be sure, but something about the way he reacted told her he carried a lot of pain around that question.
“Can’t save everyone,” was all he said.
Choosing to try and shift the conversation into easier territory, she asked, “What made you want to join the police force?”
“It’s been a long time since anyone’s asked me that,” he replied, coming back from whatever dark place he’d been in moments before. “I’d hate to bore you.”
“Hey, you owe me for interrupting my bath.”
“And you can’t think of a better way for me to make up for the inconvenience?”
Lexie grinned as she brought the glass bottle to her lips. “I can, but someone told me I deserve better than that.”
As she took a long pull of her beer, she watched Nico absorb her words, loving the way he worked his jaw and took a deep breath. She’d made him uncomfortable. Good. About time the shoe was on the other foot.
“Okay,” he said. “I was just out of school, working construction. One night, I stopped off at a convenience store on my way home from work. It wasn’t late, maybe around seven. I remember I was starving though, the hot dogs on the warmer made my stomach growl so loud the clerk looked at me. Funny how you remember small things like that.”
Lexie mimicked his smile as he continued.
“When I got to the counter, there was a man ahead of me asking for a pack of cigarettes. Shady as all hell, but at the time I didn’t think anything of it. Until he pulled out a gun and started screaming at the clerk to give him all the cash in the register. He was cooperating but the gunman just kept shouting at him, making him panic.”
Nico picked at his fingernails as he spoke, no doubt recalling the cocktail of emotions that must have stampeded through him in that moment. Terror. Helplessness. Confusion. Lexie had felt them once too—recognized the imprint they’d left in him.
“It was just impulse,” he continued. “But something told me this guy was going to pull the trigger regardless of whether he got the money. And a second later he did, so I charged. The clerk went down as I tackled the gunman. I didn’t even think about it, just took him to the floor as hard as I could. I don’t know where the gun went, all that mattered to me was that it wasn’t in his hand anymore. And I held him there with everything I had until cops started grabbing at me, saying I could let go.”
Lexie felt her face soften, warmth and compassion stirring inside her for the young man he’d once been.
“Something happened that night,” he said. “I felt this amazing rush run through me, this weird sense of pride. I knew if I hadn’t done what I did, he probably would have gotten away with it. I guess it felt good to right that wrong, you know?”
“And the clerk?”
“He lived. It was just a flesh wound, got clipped in the arm. Far as I know, he’s still running that little store.”
“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s intense.”
“Tell me about it,” Nico laughed. “Definitely not what I had in mind for my evening plans.”
Lexie shook her head. “How does that saying go? We make plans while god laughs?”
“Guess you just do the best with the hand you’re dealt. Not that I’m complaining. For the most part, my hand has been pretty damn good.”
“Apart from taking a rough trip down the riverbank that one time,” she teased.
