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“One of those days?” I ask and grab another beer.
“One of those weeks is more like it.”
“Tough case?”
My father is a detective for the Silver Falls Police Department. Has been for the last twenty-four years. Before that, he was an officer for four years. He’s recently been playing with the idea of retiring, but I’m not sure he’ll follow through with it. He loves his work too much to give it up yet.
“Yes.” He sighs, throwing the towel on the counter. “We’ve had a string of break-ins recently over in West Point Hills.” West Point Hills is a big, middle-class subdivision on the outskirts of town. “Up until Wednesday, no one’s been hurt. They come in at night, somehow getting past alarms, and people don’t realize until they wake up the next morning and find half of their valuables gone. A girl, thirteen-year-old, woke up to get something to drink and walked in on one of them raiding the living room. They fucking gave her a concussion when they knocked her out.”
“Damn,” I mutter. “No leads on who they are?”
“Not a damn one,” he answers, his jaw ticking. “One of the neighbors saw them flee the property and gave chase, but he lost him. All we have is that one is a white male and the other a black male. Both of average height.”
“How’s the girl?”
“She’ll be fine. Scared, but she seems to be a trooper.”
“She didn’t see either of their faces?”
“No. She said it was too dark.” He downs the rest of his beer and tosses the bottle in the trash. “And to top off an already shitty week, the mayor’s son went missing yesterday.”
My brows rise. “Really?”
“Yeah. Apparently, he was sick so he stayed home from school. When the mayor’s wife came home, he was gone. No sign of a struggle or forced entry, and nothing else missing, which rules out a burglary gone bad.” Dropping his head, he scruffs his hand across his forehead. “The department has been on pins and needles, waiting on a ransom call.”
“Are they sure he didn’t run away?”
He lets out a tired breath. “It only happened yesterday, so there hasn’t been much time to investigate, but on first glance, there seems to be no reason he would just leave. The mayor and his family have always been upstanding citizens.”
The thought of someone in our small town being mentally unstable enough to kidnap a kid sends a shiver down my spine. Crime happens in Silver Falls, but it’s usually minor shit.
I walk over and slap him on the back. “I’m sure it’ll be resolved soon.”
Dad’s always been very passionate about his job. That’s why he was made detective after only four years of service to the police department.
Going to the stove, I take the lid off the pot and a wave of spices fills my nose. “This smells damn good.” I replace the lid. “Is there anything I can help with?”
He jerks his chin to the back door. “You can go get Aleah. She’s been out there for hours. She’s bound to be burnt to a crisp by now.”
Setting my beer down, I leave through the back door, immediately spotting Aleah lying on her stomach on a lounge chair. My lips twist as I detour to the side of the house, turn the spigot on, and grab the water hose. Because I’m not a complete dick, I make sure the pressure is on low as I creep across the lawn. Ten feet away, I squeeze the nozzle and aim the spray at Aleah. She squeals and jumps off the chair. Whipping her now wet hair away from her eyes, she turns to face me, a glare firmly planted in place.
“You’re an asshole, you know that, right?”
Chuckling, I spray her again. “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
“Right at this second, what I feel for you is not love. Will you stop that?” She growls the question when I spray her again.
“Dinner’s ready,” I tell her.
“And you couldn’t just say that?”
“Nope.” I grin. “It was much more fun doing it this way.”
“Jerk-off,” she mutters, snatching her damp towel off the back of the chair and tramping toward the back door. “Payback is going to bite you in the ass,” she tosses over her shoulder sassily.
Laughing, I turn and return the hose to the side of the house.
Aleah is my step-sister. Her mom and my dad got married six years ago when Aleah was eleven and I was twenty-seven. Despite the age difference between Aleah and me, our parents were close in age. Dad got mom pregnant when they were both fifteen, married her, then got divorced when I was nine because mom couldn’t hack being the wife of a cop. Dad met Aleah’s mom through one of his cases. Deena was the sister of a hit and run victim. All was right in marital bliss world for my dad until a couple of years ago when he came home from work and found a note from Deena saying she had left him. Come to find out, she had been having an affair with the mailman. Cliché as fuck, but no less true. The real kicker though, was she left Aleah behind and hasn’t been in contact since. Aleah has no other family to speak of, and there was no way Dad was going to give Aleah to the state, so she’s been living here. She’s a good kid—has excellent grades, respectful for the most part, and is driven to make something of her life once she graduates. She only has two vices, and one I wouldn’t really consider a vice. She’s got a potty mouth—definitely in her negative column—and she hates her mom and gets pissed anytime she’s brought up. I can’t say I blame her. It took me years to get over my ill feelings toward Mom when she left Dad and me. At least with my mom, she stayed active in my life. Aleah doesn’t have that.
