Reunited By The Badge. Deborah Mello Fletcher

and drug samples to my brother. I asked him to run some tests for me. The samples have disappeared.”

      “Define disappeared.”

      “Someone took them. They knew he had them and they stole them right out of his lab.”

      “Do you think that someone is tracking you?”

      “I don’t know what to think, Simone. Hell, I’m not even sure what to do with what I do know.”

      “So, you called me?”

      “I trust you.”

      There was a moment that passed between them as Simone remembered what that trust meant to them both. How important it had been to protect and nurture each other. To have complete and total faith in what they shared. She suddenly resisted the urge to wrap her arms around him, wanting to pull him close to tell him everything was going to be okay. To say it, even if she wasn’t certain that it would.

      “You probably shouldn’t go back to your apartment. Not until we’re sure it’s safe. You can stay with me while we figure it out,” she said instead.

      “I need to go to the hospital. I need to follow up on patients I have here.”

      She started to argue and then she didn’t. “I need to do some research. I also have a sorority sister at the FDA. I’ll call her tomorrow to see if they have any open investigations against Lender. I hope you’re wrong, Paul, but if you’re not, I’ll do whatever I can to help you take them down.”

      Paul reached for her hand, his palm sliding warmly against hers as he entwined her fingers between his own. For as much as he trusted her, he knew Simone trusted him, too. He’d spent most of his adult life assuring her that he would never walk her into trouble he couldn’t get her out of, and until now, he’d been certain that he could do that. Now he had doubts and that uncertainty felt like a sledgehammer to his abdomen. “Thank you, but I don’t want to drag you into this. Especially if it looks like it might get ugly.”

      “You should have thought about that before you called me.”

      “I honestly didn’t think you’d come.”

      “You knew I’d come.”

      Paul held the look she was giving him. He didn’t bother to acknowledge that she was right. Nor did he admit that he hadn’t really thought it through. He knew he didn’t need to tell her that he was suddenly feeling like he was out of his element, or that he was scared. But with her by his side, he had faith it would all work out. He didn’t need to say it because Simone knew. She knew him better than anyone.

      Minutes later he had paid for their meals and they were walking back up the block toward her car. Neither had spoken, nothing else needing to be said. Both had fallen into their own thoughts, planning what needed to come next, or not. Paul carried the bags of food and Simone had looped her arm through his, lightly clutching his elbow as she steadied herself on her high heels.

      The car lock disengaged when Simone pressed her hand to the door latch. Paul opened her side door, closing it after she was settled in the driver’s seat. He moved around the back of the vehicle to the passenger side, pausing to rest their dinners on the back seat. He had just opened his door when a gunshot rang loudly through the late-night air. The windowpane in the storefront behind him shattered, glass sounding like breaking chimes against the concrete sidewalk. The building’s alarm rang loudly, the harsh tones loud enough to wake the dead. A second shot shattered the car’s back window.

      Panic hit Paul broadside, rising fear holding him hostage where he stood. He was discombobulated, but he ducked, his gaze sweeping the landscape for an explanation. Simone shouted, the words incoherent as she shifted the car into Reverse. Paul jumped awkwardly into the passenger seat as she pulled forward, grazing the bumper of the car parked in front of her. A few quick turns and they were driving seventy miles per hour on Highway 41 until both were certain they weren’t being followed. When she finally slowed to the speed limit, Paul cussed, the profanity moving Simone to toss him a quick look.

      “What now?” she asked.

      “Whatever it takes,” Paul answered, still trying to catch his breath. “We’ll do whatever it takes to shut these bastards down.

      Simone nodded. “Let’s not get killed trying to do it.”

      Paul took a deep breath into his lungs and held it. His mind was racing, his thoughts a mishmash of questions with no answers. Confusion had settled deep into every crevice in his head; it felt like sludge was weighing down his thought process. “We should find somewhere to lay low,” he said. “Until we can figure it all out.”

      “We can go back to my house…” Simone started.

      “No. Now that they’ve seen us together, I don’t trust that they won’t find us there.”

      “Then we should go to the police station.”

      “Let’s just get a hotel room. I don’t think we should involve the police just yet.”

      “Someone shot at us, Paul! We need to file a report! My brothers need to know!”

      “I know that, Simone! But I need to think this through. Please, just give me a minute to think!”

      “We might not have a minute, Paul!” Simone’s voice rose an octave and the tension between them suddenly increased ten-fold. Before either could blink, the conversation took a sharp left turn and they were yelling back and forth, each determined to prove a point when there was none. It was Bickering 101 and reminiscent of when their relationship had gone all kinds of wrong.

       Chapter 2

      The no-tell motel they’d found by the highway was fetid, reeking of debauchery and sin. The smell of cigarettes, marijuana, sex and body odor was pungent through the late-night air. Simone distorted her face with displeasure as Paul closed the door to room thirty-eight and tossed the key card on the laminated dresser. He sat down on the foot of the mattress beside her and exhaled his first sigh of relief since leaving the restaurant. Simone had finally stopped shaking and Paul felt like he could breathe normally again.

      Neither spoke. Both were still reeling from the fight they’d had in the car. Simone had wanted them to drive straight to the police station. Paul had refused, insisting that it would only make things worse. He was adamant that they needed additional proof to substantiate his claims and the only way to get that was if no one knew where they were or what they were after. Simone knew her family wouldn’t take them disappearing lightly and she trusted her brothers would look for them. They still hadn’t come to an agreement. The argument had been contentious, the intensity of their emotions palpable.

      “It doesn’t make any sense,” Simone finally said, breaking the silence. “No one we know would think our not going to the police is a smart thing to do.” There was still an air of hostility in her tone.

      And a hint of defiance in his as he responded. “No one knows what we’re up against. Even we don’t know yet, Simone.”

      “Which is why going to the police would make sense. I know my brothers would back us up.”

      “I don’t agree. All that’s going to happen is that the police will dismiss my concerns because the proof I have is shaky at best. The preliminary test results Oliver sent me still need to be analyzed and there’s more testing that needs to be done. Lender will be tipped off that we’re on to them and we won’t be able to prove what they’re doing or stop them.”

      “In the movies when people don’t go to the police, they die. They fall off cliffs, demons get them, all kinds of horrors,” Simone said facetiously.

      “In the movies I’ve seen the police get it, too.”

      “You’re watching the wrong movies.”

      “You watch