“Yes. Alexandra Keller. Nice to meet you.” She chuckles, but her eyes still hold a compassionate concern. “You fainted.”
I try to sit up, but I’m still a bit out of it, so my head returns to the floor, only she cups it before I make contact, easing me into a safe position.
“Easy there,” she says. “You need to go slowly after passing out.”
“And you’re a policeman … woman?”
“Definitely woman,” she says, that amused tone still wrapped around her words.
“Right. Yes. I noticed that. During the frisk.” I close my eyes and groan.
“What force are you with? NYPD?”
“Um. No. I’m actually starting here. Monday.”
“Here? As in Bordeaux? You’re …” All the lights go on in one flash. “Alex. The new hire. Alex.”
“Yep. That’s me.”
“I’ll just be relocating now,” I say, sitting up in earnest.
I’m about to stand when the gaggle of women I’ve known since elementary school barges into the station.
“Jesse!” Lexi says with her hands on her hips, staring down at me. “Of all the things you’ve ever done. This takes the cake.”
To my surprise, Alex turns toward her cousin, standing to her full height, and says, “Go easy on him. He didn’t know me. Based on evidence, he thought I was stealing your van—and an inflatable Santa.” She chuckles softly. “If I had been, he would have been the recipient of your gratitude right now.”
“You’re right,” Lexi says.
The rest of her friends stand behind her, eyeing me with mirrored looks that say if there’d been a medal for small-town stupidity, I'd have just secured another gold.
“We lost!” Alex exclaims to the group of women.
“Oh, no,” Laura says. “You won. And then some. We’ll do another scavenger hunt sometime soon. But this one … Oh yeah. You won by a landslide.”
“She did sing to me,” I offer, standing from the floor and brushing myself off. “Up on the rooftop …”
“Jesse.” Shannon looks at me with a little more compassion than the rest of her friends. “Did she not tell you she was Lexi’s cousin?”
“Let’s drop it, girls,” Alex says. “I’ve officially been indoctrinated into my new job. Let’s go back to Shannon’s and have some of that cocoa you were raving about earlier.”
They all agree. And with parting scolding glances, the group heads out the double doors, leaving me with the echo of my own humiliation. She’ll be back here Monday, badge and all. I should start practicing how to look her in the eye—without fainting.
How am I ever going to live this down?
Chapter 3
Alex
The nice thing about living in a small town
is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does.
~ Unknown
The ground is blanketedwith snow from the past three days. Along the roads it’s a slushy grey thanks to salt and neighborhood cars. But around my house the yard remains untouched in a fluffy batten of white. I’m unpacking more boxes, trying to distract myself from the inevitable.
I start work today—two to midnight. Four weeks of department orientation before I officially get my own rotation—the split shift.
