Reckless Conduct: Blue Line Book One Read online

  “Well, if you insist. I don’t want to break some unwritten law.” The giggle that spilled from the girl’s mouth left Luke cold. It sounded forced, false. Much like the overly large breasts that she pushed into his side.

  Everything about this was fake: the woman, Luke’s desire to spend time with her, everything. She draped her arm around his shoulder, leaned in, and then ran her tongue along the shell of his ear. Luke’s dick promptly retreated, seemingly trying to take shelter inside his body from the woman he had started referring to as Notsophie in his head. This level of shrinkage had only ever been achieved before by running into the local pond mid-winter for a penguin plunge charity fundraiser.

  Never in his life had Luke been so happy to hear his phone ring. He stood quickly from his stool, almost sending Notsophie tumbling to the floor. “Sorry, got to take this, could be police business.”

  He raced from the bar, the cool spring air chasing the last remnants of Notsophie’s perfume from his nose. His phone flashed the words “Number Blocked” across the display; a shiver of unease crept up his spine. He slid his finger across the screen, accepting the call.

  “McCracken here. Who is this?”

  “We need to meet.” There was no mistaking the slimy voice. Shady.

  Luke couldn’t fathom why the scumbag would call him; criminals weren’t exactly known for ringing up the guys chomping at the bit to put them behind bars. But Shady had unwittingly done Luke a solid by interrupting what would most likely have been a huge mistake, so he was willing to give the guy a few minutes. “What can I help you with, Shady?”

  “We need to meet, tonight.” The guy whispered, his already gruff voice made even more hoarse by the low volume.

  Luke chuffed a humorless laugh. “Why would we need to meet? Unless you plan on coming clean with all your criminal activity? Turn over a new leaf and all that.”

  “Just trust me. You’re going to want to hear what I have to tell you. But you need to call off your henchmen. These assholes have been following me around all night. It’s bad for business.”

  Luke smirked as he climbed into his car. He knew putting a tail on Shady would drum up something. After getting the location of where Shady wanted to meet, Luke radioed in and called off the surveillance detail. The entire drive over, his thoughts fluctuated between Sophie’s anger and hate toward him, and what on earth Shady could want to talk about. Truth be told though, most of his brain was dedicated to the sass and fire of the woman plaguing his mind day and night since she’d walked into his station.

  Luke wouldn’t soon forget that day. It had been a few years before her father died, when she had come home from school to visit and go with her dad to an appointment. The appointment that would ultimately start his battle with cancer. Luke had been a rookie cop just starting out in the station. Sophie couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She came into the station to talk to her uncle about something, and Luke had been working the front desk while the normal secretary stepped out for lunch. He’d been stunned silent by her beauty for a good ten seconds. Long enough that she approached the window and asked to see the chief, then stood there as Luke just stared at her, his dick throbbing and hard in his pants. Just by seeing her damn face.

  It took her knocking on the glass partition to break him out of his stupor. Once he came to his senses, he slid that panty-dropping smile onto his face and flirted with her until her uncle came out to greet her.

  Each time she came home to visit over the next few years, they would chat and flirt in the station. Then, in her junior year of college, right after turning twenty-one, she dropped out to care for her dying father full time. Any time she needed a break from being a caretaker, they would meet up, go to a movie, bowling, or just sit at the bar. Anything to get her mind off the state of her life.

  Luke swore up and down he wouldn’t make a move on her. Sophie was way too good for the likes of a lowly cop trying to work his way up the ranks. He knew all too well the dangers of being the girlfriend and wife of a police officer, and he refused to do that to her.

  It hadn’t been easy.

  Everything about Sophie drew him in: her laugh, her easy-going attitude, her ability to talk about any subject, her effortless beauty. But Luke made good on his silent promise to keep his hands off.

  Right up until he couldn’t anymore.

  A rap on his window startled Luke out of his introspection. Shady’s pockmarked face hovered on the other side, looking at Luke as if he were nuts. “You getting out anytime soon, or should I just shout what I have to tell you through bulletproof glass?”

  Luke rolled his eyes as he opened the door and stepped from his car. “Simon, always lovely to see you again. Twice in one day, I feel like I’ve won the lottery or something.”

  “You think you’re such a badass calling me by that name, but don’t forget I knew you when you were a knock-kneed little freshman, pissing your pants every time a senior so much as brushed past you in the hall.” Shady sneered at Luke, his disdain written all over his face.

  Part of the problem with being a cop in his hometown was knowing personally almost all the criminals he was busting. Shady had been on his way out of their school when Luke was a freshman. They barely crossed paths, but the few times they did had been memorable. Mostly because they involved Luke getting smashed against a locker for having a cop as a father.

  Luke rolled his eyes, refusing to be intimidated or take the bait that Shady loved to dangle in front of him. Luke wasn’t that knock-kneed kid anymore. Hadn’t been for a very long time. “Sorry for the slip there, Shady. Now, you said you had something to tell. Out with it before I leave.”

  The slimeball shifted back and forth on his feet, his eyes sweeping around the empty parking lot where they had met up. “Listen dude, there are things I refuse to touch, things that aren’t worth the risk.”

  “You saying there’s a crime you won’t commit? Huh, I gotta admit, that is pretty shocking.” Luke leaned back against his car, leaving his arms relaxed at his sides, but ready to pull the gun hidden beneath his shirt if need be.

  “Fuck you, McCracken. I’m talking about drugs. I like my clients alive; that way I can get more money out of them. If I pumped ’em full of drugs, I’d be threatening my bottom line. The drugs aren’t coming from me. But they are here.” Shady shifted on his feet once again, scanning the surrounding area.

  “You know who’s bringing the drugs in?” Trusting Shady was as foreign a concept to Luke as calculus, yet something about his words rang true.

  “I might.” Shady brought his beady little eyes back to lock on Luke. “But I’m going to need some assurances that this doesn’t get traced back to me. Talking to the cops is dangerous in my line of work.”

  “Don’t worry, Simon, I don’t want anyone to know I’m talking to you any more than you do.”

  Shady shot him the bird and rolled his eyes before continuing. “Word going around is there are some new kids on the block. Trying to pick up the slack from the increase in busts in the city.” Shady ran his fingers through the greasy hair combed over his ever-expanding bald spot. “Some idiots that have watched too much Breaking Bad. From what I hear, they started off just selling pills to housewives. But they’ve ventured far beyond that now. And the junkies that can’t get their fix downtown anymore have started to get word that there is some premium shit to be found here.”

  Goddamnit.

  Of course, Luke had been following Pittsburgh’s new mayor and his anti-drug initiatives. The PPD had thrown three times as many drug dealers behind bars this year as they had the previous year. But Luke never thought the cleaning up of the city would mean his town would get all the runoff. They were a good forty-five minute drive from Pittsburgh, without traffic. These guys must be really desperate to come all the way out to Middleburg to score.

  “And you have nothing to do with this? Really?” Luke found it hard to believe there was a criminal element in their town that Shady didn’t have at least a helping ha
nd in getting started.

  “Hey, believe what you want, man. Off the record, I’m not saying I haven’t sold some weed in my day. But the crap these guys are peddling is going to result in bodies piling up fast. The guy you’re looking for, the one breaking into all the homes? He used to be a client. Had a penchant for the underground fights. But he’s been scarce lately, and word is he got mixed up with these new pushers. Owes them money, and he isn’t getting his product.”

  “You got a name, or are you going to keep talking in riddles?” Luke’s patience with this idiot was wearing thin.

  “Billy Jennings. Ran across him a few weeks back. Dude is going downhill fast.” Shady held up his hands as if to show he was washing his hands of the situation. “Like I said, I make more money off my clients while they’re breathing and making shitty bets on mediocre sports teams.” Shady started walking back to his car, still facing Luke. “Do what you want with this Sergeant, but I’m telling you, check out the local pharmacies if you want to get rid of this problem. The drugs go bye-bye, the break-ins will stop.”

  Luke stayed leaning against his car for a good half-hour after Shady drove away. He rolled the criminal’s words over in his head. Could he trust the guy? No, definitely not. But he did trust Shady’s desire to keep making money. If the new drug element was starting to affect Shady’s clientele, then what he said could hold water.

  Blowing out a huff of breath, Luke climbed into his car with the intention of heading back to the station and getting started on this new direction for the case. First, he would swing by Sophie’s house one last time, like he did most nights. It assuaged his guilt a little, knowing she was safe in her house. He longed to be in there with her, cuddled up on the couch watching some idiotic comedy. But he knew he’d bring her more pain than he ever could joy. And he couldn’t live with that. Just a drive-by would have to satisfy his craving for her.

  But as he made his way toward her house, a call squawked out of the dispatch radio that made his stomach plummet like a boulder and fear spike through him in a way it never had before.

  Chapter Six

  Sophie

  Sleep refused to come easily that night. Sophie tossed and turned, unable to shut her brain down. After hours of counting backwards, thinking about her to-do list for the next day, and even a fast and furious self-administered orgasm, she finally gave up on the idea of sleep. She flung the blankets off and made her way to the master bathroom. If she couldn’t sleep, she could at least clean. It had always been her way of unwinding. Probably another by-product of being raised by a man with less than exemplary bathroom habits.

  Cell phone propped up on the vanity, she bopped along to her favorite scrubbing music, ’60’s girl groups like The Supremes. But not even Diana Ross and scouring the tub until it gleamed could make her forget the feel of Luke’s lips.

  The delicate skin around her mouth still tingled with the memory of his rough end-of-the-day scruff abrading it. Which called to mind how that same sensation had felt between her thighs years ago.

  Sophie shook the dirty thoughts from her mind, focusing on ridding her shower of hard water stains instead.

  A distant crash pulled her from her cleaning stupor. She had no idea how long she’d been at it, but a second, louder crash made her stop and sit back onto her heels.

  Pausing her music app, she listened intently, trying to figure out where the noise had originated.

  Another crash and the tinkling of glass shattering.

  Then footsteps.

  Shit.

  Someone was in the house.

  She closed the door to the bathroom as quietly as she could, locked it, and crawled into the tub, phone in hand.

  For a moment, she remained frozen in place. The sounds of rummaging and more glass shattering filtered through the house. As if her mind had been plunged into mud, she struggled to pull her thoughts together and remember what to do. Fear like she had never known raced through her body.

  Footsteps pounding on the stairs snapped her back to reality.

  Pressing the shortcut button for 9-1-1 on her phone, she waited through two rings before a dispatcher picked up.

  “9-1-1, what is your emergency?” The operator sounded bored on the other end of the line, an occupational hazard when working in a quiet suburb.

  “There’s someone in my house. My address is 201 East Cass Street. Please send police.” The quiet, calm voice coming from Sophie’s mouth surprised her. Terror rippled through her body, begged to be released in sobs and screams, but she held it at bay, knowing histrionics would do her no good. Her heart rammed against the inside of her rib cage; for a crazy moment she thought the intruder would be able to hear the drumming of it through the layers of plaster and insulation in her walls.

  “Okay ma’am. I’m sending a police unit right now. Where is the intruder now?” The operator tried to keep her talking. Sophie recognized the tactic from first responder training the guys had to go through. Talking helped to keep the caller calm, while also giving police important information.

  “He’s down the hall. I’m locked in my bathroom. My gun and pepper spray are both in other parts of the house, so I have nothing to defend myself. My name is Sophie Gallo.” The eerie calm tone to her voice started to crack.

  “Sophie Gallo?” Silence echoed through line for two beats. “You answer the phones at the Middleburg Police Station?” Recognition rang in the dispatcher’s voice.

  “That’s me.”

  “Okay, Sophie, the car is on its way. Don’t worry.”

  The sound of feet stumbling down the hall grew closer until the stranger stopped outside the bathroom door. Low muttering sounded just inches away, so close it seemed to fill the space, though she couldn’t make out a word the stranger said.

  “He’s right outside the door,” she whispered to the operator.

  “Okay Sophie, you know what to do if he comes in. If he asks for money or medication, give him anything he wants. If he tries to hurt you, fight like hell.” That wasn’t standard protocol advice for a 9-1-1 dispatcher. But then Sophie had interacted with almost every dispatcher in their county at some point or another.

  She jumped when the doorknob rattled, straining against the locking mechanism.

  The silence that followed ramped up her fear another notch.

  The whole door shook violently. Metal grated on metal as the cheap builder-grade hinges threatened to give way.

  “Come out. I won’t hurt you.” A strange voice with just a twinge of desperation echoed through the locked door.

  The hair on the back of Sophie’s neck stood on end. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run. But there wasn’t anywhere to go; she was trapped in her own home. The same house her mother and father had brought her home from the hospital to. The place she had learned to crawl, walk, drive. Where she had posed for pictures in front of the fireplace before high school dances. The last place her father saw before he took his final breaths in the makeshift bedroom that hospice care had made in the dining room. The one place she had always felt safe.

  She didn’t dare say anything, either to the intruder or the 9-1-1 operator. Heart pounding against the wall of her chest, she closed her eyes, trying to quiet her breathing. Maybe he would give up and move on.

  “Fucking bitch, come out.” The desperation in his voice increased. “I know you’re in there. I watched you. I can hear you.”

  How long had it been since the car was dispatched? Thirty seconds? A minute? Would they get there in time?

  Wood splintered as a heavy object made contact with the door, making Sophie jump and clutch her knees to her chest. Another kick, and the cheap door hung in pieces from the hinges.

  A skinny man wearing black pants, a dirty white shirt, and rubber gloves stumbled into the bathroom. Parts of his hair clumped together from a lack of washing. Scruffy facial hair spotted his jaw and chin. Sophie cataloged every detail, knowing if she managed to survive this hell, she would need to recall it for the po
lice. For some odd reason, that was all her mind could cling to. Make sure you see everything, remember everything. You’ll need to know details later so they can catch this bastard.

  “I told you to let me in, you fucking cunt.” Boot clad feet stomped toward her, and she screamed while trying to scramble back as far as she could go in the tub. She curled into a tight ball, covering her head with her arms, making herself as small a target as she possibly could.

  Smooth rubber-covered hands gripped her biceps, ripping her from the floor of the tub. Harsh fingertips dug into the flesh of her arms. Her toes hooked on the lip of the bathtub as he hauled her over the side, making them both stumble and almost collapse onto the ground. The force of their tripping bodies slammed her into his chest. The scent of weeks-old body odor, alcohol, and tobacco made her gag, vomit threatening to push from her stomach.

  Before she could even try to regain some footing, the intruder slammed her back against the wall beside the sinks. Her head made contact with the drywall, and the room swirled around her.

  “Money, pills, where are they? I know you have some.” The man kept one hand firmly pressed against her throat, holding her against the wall and making it a little harder to breathe. With the other, he ripped open the medicine cabinet that hung over the vanity. Face wash, tampons, and over-the-counter drugs tumbled to the granite countertop.

  “I swear, I don’t have anything.” She croaked around his grip on her neck.

  “Bullshit. Everyone knows your old man was sick before he died. You have to have some good stuff left over.” His fingers squeezed ever so slightly more. But just that little pressure made her lungs burn with the struggle to get oxygen to her bloodstream.

  Unable to speak, she shook her head back and forth as much as she could, begging him with her eyes to believe her.

  “Money then. I know you have money.” One corner of his thin mouth curled in a sneer, exposing teeth so decayed they faded from yellow to green the closer they came to his greying gums. “Big house like this doesn’t come cheap, even when Daddy gave it to you.”