“Please tell me that he can’t hear you right now.” The last thing I need is for the kid to have that stuck in his mind. Negativity is always stickier than anything positive.
“I sent him to the vending machine. What do you want me to do?”
For fuck’s sake. “Give me time to get across town; I’m on my way now.” Emmett works out of the same station that our newest detective, Keenan, came from, which also happens to be the place that Quinn’s ex works. Fucking fantastic.
“We’ll be waiting. You might want to bring a shield or something; he looks like he’s ready to do battle.”
That’s what happens when a teenager has a chip on their shoulder the size of the continent.
Eli’s joined Lake and Jayden while I was on the phone, and all three of them look at me expectantly.
“New case?” Lake asks, tilting his head. I can’t help but look for a hint of disappointment or frustration, the same way it would have been plastered all over Mal’s face. That “I wish you wouldn’t let work consume so much of your life.” Never willing to acknowledge that my work/life balance is a hell of a lot better than most detectives I know. That I do my best, but that my work will always come with uncertainty.
Lake has none of that, watching me with his gorgeous open face, simply asking to know, not because he’s waiting to use it against me or pile up to throw at me later during an argument.
At least this time it’s not technically work. And if it were, Quinn would take one for the team and grab someone else to tag along and let me at least finish my meeting. “It’s a situation with Mini-Riley. I need to go pick him up.”
Lake stands immediately, alarm in his gaze. “Is he alright?”
I should have known he’d get attached to the kid, considering his bleeding heart. “Not when I get to him, he won’t be.” Fuckingshopliftingagain. What the hell is wrong with him? Not to mention, what the hell are we going to do about the foster situation? Can they even refuse to take him in like that? It’s not an area I have any kind of expertise in.
“That sounds like I should definitely go.”
I wouldn’t mind the backup. “You don’t need to stay here to go over—” I gesture at all the folders and pictures andso much of everything—fucking hell, how is there so much involved in a wedding? I don’t remember this from before—laid out over the coffee table.
“We can reschedule,” Jayden says, waving a hand. “It’s not a problem at all if you have somewhere important that you need to be.”
“You call someoneMini-Riley?” Eli asks, with a snort. “Why?”
Before I can divert this conversation somewhere less dangerous, Lake says, “There are two Rileys. One is mini, and one is big,” with a guileless smile, no idea what he’s just stepped into.
Eli’s mouth drops open. “Waitwaitwait,Big-Riley?You call Riley SinclairBig-Riley?” He sounds like all his dreams have just come true. Sometimes I need to put a muzzle on my fiancé.
“Yeah. Okay, good talk. Uh, give Lake a call, and we’ll reschedule.” I’m already guiding Lake out of the room with a hold on his elbow. We don’t have time to stand around and shoot the shit. I doubt that Riley will stick around the station forever, and without charging him with something or locking him into a cell, there isn’t much Emmett can do to keep him there once they fill out all the necessary paperwork. If the shop had decided to press charges, Emmett would have mentioned it.
“Did I say something wrong?” Lake asks, glancing at me.
“No, everything’s fine.” Big-Riley can handle himself; he’s a big boy. Hence his name.
Lake waits until we’re in the car, and I’ve pulled out onto traffic, before asking, “What happened with Riley? Is he really okay?”
“Shoplifting,” I grunt, still pissed off about it.
“Isn’t that how you met him?” Lake fiddles with the temperature until warm air is coming through the vents. I flick mine closed and let him have his warmth.
“Yeah.”
“So… it’s an ongoing problem?” Lake asks, turning on the radio and then putting the sound at a reasonable level so we can still hear each other.
“I didn’t think it was until now,” I reply honestly. One offence does not a criminal make. Neither Quinn nor I thought it was a serial thing; it was why we’d given him an opportunity to turn himself around before it got to that point. Something still doesn’t feel right. Despite his surly attitude, he likes doing work experience at the station, and he’s never struck me as the criminal kind.
“What are you going to do?”
“I need more information first.” I’d be a terrible cop if I went in with assumptions and refused to look at a situation as a whole before making a decision on what my next move is. Baseless reactive behaviour never ends well.
Lake nods and taps his fingers on his thigh in time with the music. “He doesn’t seem like a bad kid. Cautious, and scared, I think, but not bad?”
“He’s not,” I agree. His morality doesn’t seem to be the problem here, and I need to dive deeper to figure out where the disconnect is happening. I won’t be able to fix it otherwise.
