Home > Balls to the Wall (Birch Police Department #1)(7)

Balls to the Wall (Birch Police Department #1)(7)
Author: April Canavan

"Parker," Jake whispered quietly. "We're wasting time. Remy has to find him. To do that, he needs to know what happened."

"I went to bed." She sobbed. "Nox went to bed at nine p.m., after he said good night. When I finished cleaning and settled down at midnight, I didn't check on him. I fell asleep on the couch." The heart-wrenching sob that came out of her chest hit me in the gut. "I got up to pee, and he was gone."

"What was he wearing?"

"Green pajamas," Parker said. "That's all he owns. He refuses to wear any other color pajamas except green. He was wearing them."

"Okay. Do you know of anyone who would want to take him? Anywhere he might go?"

Parker shook her head, crying even harder, and her uncle wrapped her in another hug.

I walked away without saying another word. Daisy hesitated with one sad look at Parker before she followed me out the door.

"You ready to go to work, Daisy?"

She sat, her nose out, her muscles taut, and I held up Nox’s tiny jacket. Then I watched as Daisy filled her nose with his scent.

I unhooked her lead, ready for her to take off when she caught what she was searching for. Daisy shook her head, moving it away from me and shifted around until she picked up the trail, then she was off at a brisk pace. Right down the sidewalk toward downtown Birch. With my phone in my pocket, my mic attached to my shoulder, and Nox’s jacket under my arm, I followed Daisy.

For over a mile, I thought we’d head right into town, but she cut off at the cemetery. There, she turned a hard right and started trotting purposefully through the tombstones. I saw him about the same time that she barked and took off at a sprint. His blond hair shone in the lone lantern that hung on the walking path.

Nox was wearing the green pajamas that his mother described, and he didn’t look in the slightest bit disheveled. In fact, he was wearing a snow jacket and a pair of Muks on his feet.

"Nox," I said his name gently. He had his full attention on Daisy, who was currently sitting on his feet with her nose pressed against his chest. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Your mom is worried about you."

When he turned to face me, I got a clear look at a pair of eyes that could have been plucked from Danny’s head.

"Boo’s here." Nox spoke like that simple sentence explained everything. Like it excused his absence in the middle of the night from his house. Like he hadn’t just given his mother a heart attack with his vanishing act and there was nowhere else that he was supposed to be in the middle of the night.

The way he said it reminded me of exactly who his father was, as if I could ever forget. Full of sarcasm and a refusal to believe that anything else mattered, his voice echoed even though he’d almost whispered. I opened my mouth to tell him what he’d done wrong. Instead, I shut it again, realizing exactly where we were standing and why Nox had come there in the middle of the night.

Daisy, with zero fucks given, went and curled up on Danny’s grave, right next to the headstone. Nox, in true Hayes fashion, sat down right next to her with his back against the cold marble that marked his father’s final resting place.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and sent dispatch a text that the child had been found, and where. Once I got a response, I sent Jake a text telling him the same thing. I trusted that he was sitting there with Parker. After that, even though it was a complete violation of policy and protocol, I sat my ass down with my dog and Nox.

"My daddy died on the other side of the world, did you know that?"

This fucking kid, man… He gutted me without even trying.

"Yeah." I choked on my words, but I forced them out just the same. "I was there when he died. With your uncle Linc."

Nox, with more intensity than any five-year-old should have, nodded solemnly and then leaned his head back against the headstone, his eyes closed in the pale light of the moon.

Rather than say another word, I kept my mouth shut and I let the boy grieve for his dead dog and his dead father. If I grieved with him… Well, no one needed to know that.

 

 

5

 

 

Parker

 

 

French fries and ranch dressing were the only happy spot of my week. Literally the only thing that could make me feel better after the shit show that was my life. While Nox was at school, I had nothing better to do than avoid every other responsibility in my life.

"Hey, Parker."

I dropped the French fry that I’d been trying to shove into my mouth before the ranch spilled, and it landed directly on the crotch of my black pants.

"Shit," I muttered and silently cursed the man who took a seat across from me with a smile on his face.

"Sorry about that." The apologetic shine in my neighbor Artie’s eyes took the wind out of my sails. "I just wanted to check and make sure that you were okay after last night."

He was rooting around for information on why the police had been at my house, but I also knew that he wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d tell him. Unlike everyone else in Birch, Artie didn’t turn his back on me when they found out that I’d slept with Danny and ‘broke Remy’s heart’ like I had. Even if that wasn’t the truth, what could I do to fight it? Danny died, and I was left picking up the pieces. Artie was one of the few that never made me feel like an outsider.

Artie and I had a weird relationship on top of that. We grew up together, played in the band together, and I’d even asked him to go to the winter formal with me in eighth grade. But we’d never been anything more than friends. More than once, my friends called me an idiot for it, too, because Artie was built. Like, extremely built. The man had muscle on top of muscle and worked out just as much as Remy and Linc and Danny had back in the day. The only difference was that when the guys joined the military, Artie had been offered a scholarship to MIT. He went off to be a genius, and Danny went off to die for his country.

"I’m fine. Nox is fine." I didn’t bother making eye contact as I carefully loaded another piece of delicious French fry with just the right amount of ranch. Then I leaned forward and stuffed it into my mouth before it could spill. The same way I’d tried to do before Artie interrupted.

Thankfully, Artie waited until I was done chewing before opening his mouth again. But what came out of his mouth next was almost as bad as the fact that he’d made me spill my ranch in the first place.

"You look tired, Parker."

Four little words that made me want to grab the knife that sat on the other side of my plate and drive it into his eyeball. He was trying; I had to remind myself of that.

I bit my tongue, trying to stay calm. "That’s what happens when you don’t get to sleep at night, because your life sucks." A sharp inhalation met my statement, and I sighed. "I don’t mean my life sucks. It’s just been a long few weeks, Artie." I finally looked up from the ridiculous white splatter on my pants that no amount of rubbing would help with, and saw him watching me with concern.

"I’m here if you need help, Parker. All you have to do is ask. I’m sure there’s not much I wouldn’t do if you asked." His open and blatant honesty threw me off, and I didn’t know exactly how to respond.

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