Once a Lawman. Lisa Childs

      Shaking from her argument with the lieutenant, Tessa fumbled with her keys to her ranch house. Before she could unlock the door, the knob turned beneath her palm and the door opened. She jumped back, startled.

      “Gee, Tess—”

      “What are you still doing up?” she asked her younger brother. Since summer vacation had just ended, getting him back in the habit of going to bed early hadn’t been easy.

      Christopher, clad in his superhero pajamas, stepped back from the doorway. “I just texted you a little while ago.”

      “When you should have been in bed,” she admonished the ten-year-old as she joined him in the country kitchen with its warm oak cupboards and green-apple painted walls. “And what did I tell you about opening up that door without knowing who’s on the other side?”

      “I knew it was you,” he said as he climbed onto a chair at the long oak trestle table. “I saw you drive up.”

      “You shouldn’t have been waiting up for me.”

      “What was the police academy like?” he asked, his blue eyes bright with excitement as he stared up at her. “Did they let you shoot a gun?”

      She bit her lip to hold back a smile. “No. It’s not like that.” At least she hoped not, because she should definitely not be trusted with a gun around the lieutenant. “It’s the citizens’ police academy.”

      “So what was it like?” Christopher asked, still awed. “What did you do in class?”

      She shrugged. “Not much. It was just a bunch of people talking.”

      The chief had given a rather eloquent speech with a short question-and-answer period, and each district captain had talked about the areas for which they were responsible. Then the instructor for each session had been about to speak when she had slipped away to return her missed calls. From what she could tell so far, the purpose of the academy was to teach people how the police department and police officers worked, which would be fine if she had any interest, either. But she didn’t. No interest in any police officer.

      “Tess!” Christopher yelled as if he’d been trying to get her attention. “Did you ask if I can come next week?”

      She shook her head. “No—”

      “Tess!” The little boy’s voice squeaked with indignation. “Why didn’t you ask?”

      “Because you can’t come. The class isn’t over until past your bedtime.” Although Christopher was not much smaller than her, she lifted him from the chair. Her arms and back strained in protest of the exertion. She breathed deeply, inhaling the fruity scent of his shampoo. At least he’d had a bath, but it looked as if no one had untangled his mop of dishwater-blond curls. “And that’s where you’re going right now—to bed.”

      He wriggled out of her arms and protested, “I’m not a baby, Tess.”

      “You need your sleep. You should already be in bed,” she reproached him, playfully swatting at his pajama-covered bottom as he headed down the hall.

      “Audrey?” she called out in a loud whisper for her fourteen-year-old sister, who was supposed to have been watching the younger kids while their mother was at work and Tessa had been at the damn class she didn’t have time to take. As Tessa had feared, Audrey wasn’t responsible enough yet to handle the others. Besides Christopher and Audrey, there were three more kids.

      Tessa poked her head into the first doorway off the hall, where Christopher climbed the ladder of a bunk bed to the top bed. On the bottom bunk slept their brother Joey, the blankets kicked off his small body. Tessa crept forward and pulled the covers to his chin, then pushed back his tangle of brown bangs and pressed a kiss against the five-year-old’s forehead.

      He murmured in his sleep. “Mommy…”

      “No, she’ll be home in the morning,” she assured him as he drifted back to sleep. After tucking in Christopher, despite his protests, she headed back into the hall and collided with Audrey.

      The dark-haired girl was already taller than Tessa, and should have been able to handle the younger kids at least. “Hey, Tess…”

      “Where have you been?” she asked, then answered her own question. “On the computer, of course.”

      “I had to finish my homework.” The girl’s blue eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare. “You wouldn’t help me.”

      Tessa had tried; she’d been on the phone with Audrey most of the second half of the class, when she hadn’t been calling Kevin.

      “Where’s your older brother?” she asked. “Did he go out?” Even though Tessa had told him before she’d left for the police department that he couldn’t?

      Audrey shrugged. “I dunno.”

      Tessa sighed. If Mom let him get his license, like the sixteen-year-old wanted, they wouldn’t be able to control the kid at all anymore. He came and went as he wanted now, with no regard to curfew. A headache began to throb at her temples. She would deal with Kevin later. “And Suzie?”

      “She just got to sleep.”

      Probably because Audrey had kept the seven-year-old awake when she’d been using the computer in their shared bedroom. “You better go to bed, too,” Tessa said.

      “But my homework…” Audrey whined, her lips forming the pout of which the lieutenant had accused Tessa.

      “You just said you finished it,” she reminded the teenager.

      “But you need to check it,” Audrey insisted. “I’m barely passing algebra.”

      Like Tessa had a feeling she would barely pass her class if Lieutenant Michalski had his way. She had to talk him into releasing her from her court-ordered participation in the academy. As she walked back into the kitchen to the homework Audrey had left spread across the table, lights shone through the windows as a car pulled into the driveway. Her mother wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet, not until after the bar closed. It had to be Kevin’s ride dropping him off.

      Neither Audrey nor Kevin was responsible enough to take care of the younger kids or themselves; the responsibility was all hers. Tessa had to figure a way out of the citizens’ police academy.

      “I’M GOING TO SKIP this week’s class,” Chad warned Paddy as he buttoned up his uniform shirt over the bulletproof vest Lakewood PD officers were required to wear every time they put on their uniform.

      Other officers talked and slammed lockers shut as they, too, got ready for their shifts. The long, narrow basement room, with the gun-metal gray lockers and brick walls, reverberated with noise, but Chad suspected the watch commander had heard him and was just ignoring his pronouncement.

      While Paddy sat on a bench tying his shoes, Chad glanced over at his friend’s open locker. He noticed the other man had put up new school pictures of his kids, and Chad’s heart contracted with a swift, sharp jab of pain.

      He looked inside his own locker, at the pieces of tape stuck inside the door. The pictures were gone. After Luanne’s death he’d taken down her photo. And after his premature son had died two weeks later, he’d taken down his sonogram picture. But he’d left the pieces of tape, as if he might someday have new pictures to post.

      But Luanne was gone; their child was gone. Only the pain remained. He couldn’t risk more pain; there would be no more pictures. He reached for one of the pieces of tape, picking at it with his fingernail.

      Paddy stood and as he attached his gun, two extra magazine clips, Taser, collapsible baton, pepper spray and radio to his belt, he stared at the pictures of his kids. Since his divorce, he didn’t see his children nearly as often as he liked.

      But at least he could see them.

      “I’m skipping the CPA class this week,” Chad repeated, with enough volume