Chapter 1

Elaina Wells tossed the manila folder onto her desk and sank into her chair.  Why did she continue to do this job?  Chasing drug dealers was a lost cause, because there was always another waiting to take the place of the person she arrested.  With the prescription opioid epidemic, now she had to chase doctors.  So much for the Hippocratic Oath.

“What’s up, Wells?”  Gary asked without looking up from his paperwork.

Elaina eyed the top of his gray balding head.  “This is a dead end.  This guy is just a low level dealer, and I don’t think he knows anything.”

Gary’s pen stopped, and he looked across his desk at her.  “So?  They rarely do.  Why do you sound more frustrated about that than usual?”

Elaina met Gary’s questioning gaze with a shrug.  “Don’t you ever get tired of it?  Dealing with the same thing day after day?”

Gary let his pen drop from his fingers as he sat back.  He shrugged his burly shoulders.  “Sure, but someone’s gotta do what we do.”  He waved a hand at her.  “Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it.”

She swallowed the sarcastic retort that built on her tongue.  She wasn’t going to point out that this wasn’t her first case.  Gary Olsen had been with the Wallowdale, California Police Department, long enough that he could have retired two times over.  She may have been a cop for ten years—and a detective for the last two—but she’d only been with the Wallowdale PD for a month.  Being a newbie to the department was hard enough, but being a woman on top of that made it that much tougher to adjust and fit in.  As forward thinking as many departments were, some were still very much a boys’ club.  Wallowdale Police Department wasn’t exactly stuck in the age where women weren’t able to do anything, but some of the men she worked with tended to treat her differently than they would a male colleague. 

“If you wanted more action, why didn’t you transfer to a busier department?  The LAPD isn’t a far hop from here, considering you moved here from Wisconsin.”

Elaina picked up her pen and bounced the end of it on her desk.  “I don’t want action.”  Her voice was barely a whisper.  “I just want to be somewhere I can be useful to the community.”

Gary leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his round face.  Elaina avoided his gaze.  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.  Not after what you’ve been through.”

She put her hands up, as if the gesture would stop the memories from flooding in.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”  She shook her head to clear the image of bodies and the smell of gunshots, but she couldn’t erase the ache in her chest.  She swallowed hard against the lump that formed in her throat.

“So, about the doctor you’re looking at,” Gary cleared his throat.  “Have you found anything to use on him?”

“Only the word of a drug addict, who this doctor cut off.  I’m not sure I believe him, to be honest.  Maybe Dr. Peters cut him off because the doctor figured out he was being scammed for the drugs?”  Elaina latched onto the change of subject as if it were a lifeline.

“Could be.  Or it could be the doctor cut him off because he found out the junkie was running his mouth about the doctor’s side business.”

The idea had crossed Elaina’s mind, but so far, she’d found no supporting evidence.  “Could be.”

“We’ll find something, one way, or another.  It may take a while, but we’ll get it.”

Elaina smiled.  Gary was always so optimistic.  She liked that he could still feel that way after 40 years on the job. 

“How are you settling into our cozy little desert town?”

“It’s going well enough.  I finally got all of my stuff unpacked.”  Unpacked she may be, but she wasn’t settled in.  She opted to rent an apartment in a complex just a few miles from the station.  Coming from a rural town in Wisconsin where her nearest neighbor was a half a mile away, the transition to being surrounded by neighbors was difficult.

“You meet any of your neighbors yet?”  Gary, ever so observant, always seemed to know the direction of her thoughts.  Not that it was hard to do—Elaina was an open book.

“Yep.  They all seem nice, and I really like Mrs. Brighton.  She always has great stories—and great pies to go along with them.”  Elaina chuckled.

“She’s well known for her pies.  Super nice lady.”  Gary patted his round midsection in emphasis.

“I think I’ll like it here.”  Elaina picked up her discarded folder and thumbed through it.

“I know you will.  What kind of plans do you have for the weekend?”

Elaina hesitated, still uncomfortable at the idea of sharing too much personal information with Gary, despite working with him for a month.  “I have a date tonight.”

Gary’s eyebrows shot to his hairline.  “A date?  You?”  His good-natured chuckle shook his thickened midsection.

Elaina’s cheeks grew warm.  “Yes, me.”

“How did that happen?  I thought you said you were too busy to meet…what was it you said?  ‘Men that weren’t junkies and dealers’, I think it was.”

Elaina’s chin inched higher with feigned indignation.  “And didn’t you say something about a woman of my ‘young and hip age’ using the Internet to meet people?”  She moved her fingers in air quotes for emphasis on his words.

Gary’s thin lips spread into a smile that gave way to a hearty laugh.  “At 32, you’re still wet behind the ears, but you’re of the generation that came up with the Internet.  Didn’t you cut your teeth on dial up?”

She laughed, but nodded.  “Yes, yes, Gary.  I know.  It shouldn’t have taken an old coot like you telling a young whippersnapper like me to try online dating.”

Gary roared with laughter as his round, saggy face turned beet red.  “Indeed.  There’s supposed to be a natural order to things in this world.  Technology changes as we get older, but as we get older, we’re less likely to adapt.  What is this world coming to when I have to tell you how to use changing technology?”  The sounds of his bellowing laugh echoed off the cement walls of their squad room.  It was just after six in the evening and they were the only two at their desks.  Thankfully, no one else could tease her over her reluctance to try something new.

Elaina’s stomach muscles ached from laughing.  “Okay, okay.  You were right.  There, I said it.”

Gary leaned forward, rested his elbows on his desk, and tented his fingers.  “So, tell me about this guy.”

She leaned forward, mimicking his tented fingers and seriousness.  She smiled when the corners of his lips twitched as he tried to hold back his grin.  “His name is Jack, and he’s an LAPD officer.”

Gary nodded approvingly.  “You managed to meet another cop using an online dating site?  Good, good.  Where is he taking you?”

She leaned against the back of her chair and smoothed a hand over her brown hair, the length of which she had wrapped into a tight bun.  “Some concert.  I’ve never heard of the band, or the club it’s at, but he sounded excited about it.  Said I’d love it.”

Gary sat back and whistled low.  “Your first date is at a concert at a club?”  He shook his head slowly.  “Not in my day, let me tell you.”

“What’s wrong with that?”  Elaina frowned.

“Oh, come on.  How are you supposed to get to know each other when you won’t even be able to carry on a conversation?  I don’t know how the clubs are back in Dairyville, Wisconsin, or where ever you’re from, but in LA, they’re loud and packed with people.  If the band is anyone of consequence, good luck finding enough room to breathe in there, much less have any hope of getting to know your date.”

Elaina fidgeted with the corner of the folder on her desk.  “I didn’t think about that.”  She wasn’t going to tell Gary that she didn’t mind not being able to get to know her date because of the concert.  She liked the idea of having the concert as a buffer.  She could see how he was without the concern of the conversation getting too personal.

Gary wasn’t buying it.  “Yes, you did.  I may have only known you for a month, but I know you’re as sharp as a tack.  I think you agreed to this date because you could say you went on a date without actually having to go on a date.”

She couldn’t argue, so she didn’t bother.  “If this guy shows any kind of potential, we’ll go out on a dinner type date or something your generation considers a ‘proper date’.  By the way?  Would I need to take a club in case dinosaurs turn up during this ‘proper date’?”  She smirked.

Gary waved off her jab with a laugh.  “You can joke all you want, but you can’t get close to someone if you don’t take the time to talk with them.  There’s more to life than being a cop, you know.”

“Yes, I know…”  She let her words trail off, hoping the conversation would end there.  The faint echoes of a similar conversation she had with her mother years ago wafted through her mind. 

“Well, I hope you kids have fun.”  Gary pushed his chair back, rose, and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair in a single fluid motion.  “I have a date with the missus tonight.  She’s making her famous roasted rack of lamb, and I’m taking her out dancing afterward.”

Elaina laughed as Gary danced the Tango out the door.  For a larger man, he sure could move with a graceful ease.

She glanced at her watch.  She had just enough time to go home, shower, and get dressed before she had to meet Jack at the club.  She switched off her desk lamp and headed out the door.

Elaina stepped out into the cooling evening air and rubbed her arms as she crossed the parking lot to her Camry.  The day had been warmer than usual for November, but Mother Nature seemed to be over correcting with what promised to be a chilly evening. 

Thirty minutes later, wrapped in a towel and standing before her closet, Elaina couldn’t decide on what to wear.  She didn’t want to give Jack the wrong impression by wearing a low cut dress.  Nor did she want to seem too uptight—and that was most likely exactly how she’d come across anyway.  As she flicked hangers without any real idea of what she wanted to wear, she wondered why she even signed up for the dating website.  Dating never went well for her.  If she was interested in the man, she was too nervous, which came out as her being too talkative.  Or worse—not talkative at all.  If she went on the date because a well-meaning friend had arranged it and she had little interest in the man, she found it hard to engage in the conversation.  In the five years since she lost her high school sweetheart to cancer, she’d been called stuck up, self-absorbed, aloof, or accused of talking too much without having much worth hearing.  Boring.  That was the one that hurt the most.

Then she’d met her husband through a friend of a friend.  Their whirlwind romance resulted in the two of them marrying after just six weeks of dating.  Elaina shook her head.  If only she knew then what she knew now.

She’d almost talked herself out of going when she flicked a hanger holding a garishly ugly Christmas sweater out of the way and saw her favorite shirt.

The red silky fabric called to her, begging her to pair it with her favorite pair of black fitted jeans and suede boots.  She smiled as the idea of the outfit boosted her confidence.  If nothing else went right with the date, at least she’d feel great in her choice of attire.