All Fall Down. Erica Spindler

want the same thing. I want what I thought I had. But it’s not going to happen. You have to leave him before he really hurts you.”

      12

      Melanie stayed with her sister until dawn. After straightening up the house, they curled up together on the king-size bed, sipping Irish creams and remembering the good times from their childhood, recalling friends they had known and fun places they had lived. Before long, Mia had nodded off.

      Even after her sister had been soundly asleep, Melanie had agonized over leaving her. But she’d been forced to. It had been obvious Boyd wasn’t going to return and she had hoped to get in an hour of shut-eye before having to get ready for work. Instead, she had lain awake, staring at the ceiling and worrying about her sister.

      Though reassured by Mia’s promise to leave her husband, Melanie wasn’t optimistic she would keep her word. It wasn’t uncommon for women caught in abusive relationships to marshal their personal reserves during a crisis, only to crumble as soon as the crisis passed. Or the man apologized and promised to do better.

      Boyd had to be held accountable, Melanie had decided as she stood under the shower’s stinging spray. He had to know his behavior was being monitored and that it wouldn’t be tolerated. She wanted him to know that she wouldn’t tolerate it.

      She had a plan.

      “Morning, Bobby,” she called to her partner as she arrived at headquarters later that morning.

      “Morning, Mel.” Her eternally youthful partner looked up from the sports section of the Charlotte Observer, and his eyebrows shot up. “Looking good today, Mel-babe. Up all night with a sick kid?”

      “In a way.” She dropped her purse beside her desk and headed for the coffeepot.

      He unfolded his lanky frame, grabbed his empty cup and followed her. He held out the cup, then frowned. “Wait a minute, I thought Casey was in Orlando with his dad.”

      “He is. Different kid.” She filled him in on how she had spent the previous evening, though she didn’t elaborate on her sister’s troubles. “I thought we might pay the good doctor an unofficial official call.”

      Bobby grinned. “And shake him up a bit.” “You got it.” “I’m in.”

      Melanie added powdered creamer to her coffee and sipped. “Anything big happen overnight?”

      “Not unless you call the high school being rolled big.” He grinned. “Oh, and old Mrs. Grady reported a masked bandit in her trash again.”

      Melanie rolled her eyes. Her brush with real detective work had made WPD business-as-usual seem more pointless than it had before. “Raccoon?”

      “Irritating little bastards, aren’t they? She demanded immediate action.”

      “Poor Will.” Melanie imagined pudgy, baby-faced Will Pepperman, the officer in charge of the night shift, dispatching a cruiser to the scene of the crime. No doubt he had gotten an earful from the lucky patrolman who had answered that call. Better him, though, than Mrs. Grady. Shrill would be a kind way to describe her voice.

      They crossed to Bobby’s desk and she perched on the corner. “How about the phone banks? Anything come in?”

      “Anything promising? No. Anything at all? Yes.” He handed her a printout. Melanie skimmed her gaze down the pages, a ball of frustration forming in the pit of her gut. “There must be a hundred calls here.”

      “A hundred and twelve. But who’s counting?”

      She made a sound of resignation. “Top or bottom?” she asked, referring to which half of the list he wanted.

      “Sorry to ruin your day, but what you’re holding is the top half of the list.” She groaned and he made a sound of sympathy. “It does suck, doesn’t it?”

      “Royally.” She met his eyes, wondering not for the first time how her partner remained so upbeat about the job. She decided to ask him. “You’ve been with the WPD ten years, how do you not let all this inconsequential … busywork get to you?”

      He was quiet for a moment. When he answered, his tone was measured, for once, one hundred percent serious. “I’m thirty-eight years old, Melanie. I have four kids and a wife to support and only a two-year degree from a junior college. I make as much here as a CMPD guy at the same rank, get to carry a gun and look like a hotshot hero to my kids, but at the end of the day I know old Mrs. Grady’s masked bandit isn’t going to make my wife a widow and my kids fatherless. And that counts for a lot with me.”

      Melanie looked at her partner with newfound respect. And also with a modicum of guilt—she should feel the same way because of Casey. But she didn’t. Ambition, longing for real police work, burned in the pit of her gut. Some days it felt as if the blaze was going to consume her whole.

      She forced a smile and held up her half of the list. “Okay, Mr. Sunshine, paint this a happy shade of rose for me. Quick, while I still remember how to smile.”

      “My pleasure.” He tapped the printout. “The fact is, about a third of this list can be eliminated as outright fabrications.”

      She arched her eyebrows. “That’s supposed to make me smile?”

      “Give me a minute. Another third,” he continued, “can be eliminated simply—a phone call, a computer check, stuff like that.”

      “But the rest we’ll have to follow through in a big way.” She dropped her head into her hands. “We’ll be chasing down dead ends all day!”

      “Not all day.” Bobby grinned and leaned toward her. He lowered his voice. “After handling those irritating, go-nowhere leads, we can pay a visit to your fist-happy brother-in-law. And dish him some serious shit.”

      She lifted her face. “The day’s starting to look up at last.”

      His expression became positively devilish. “I live to please, babe.”

      Several hours later Melanie and Bobby entered the lobby of Queen’s City Medical Center. Located only five minutes from the Whistlestop PD, they had saved this stop for last—a kind of reward for the previous hours of grunt work.

      They crossed to the information desk. “Hello,” Melanie said to the woman staffing the desk. She held up her shield. “I’m Officer May. This is Officer Taggerty. We need to speak with Dr. Donaldson. Is he in?”

      The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “You can’t mean Dr. Boyd Donaldson?”

      Not drop-dead-gorgeous, ever-so-charming, top-of-his-class Donaldson? Melanie smiled sweetly. “Why, yes. That’s exactly who I mean. Is he in?”

      The woman hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll ring his office.” She did, then after a moment turned back to Melanie. “He doesn’t answer. Would you like me to page him?”

      Melanie said she would and in a matter of minutes he answered his page. The receptionist turned her back to them and spoke softly into the phone, no doubt informing the great Dr. Donaldson—as respectfully as possible—that the police were here to see him.

      The woman hung up the phone and turned to them. “He’ll be right down.”

      “Thank you.” With a wink at Bobby, Melanie turned her back to the bank of elevators, pretending interest in the people coming and going through the hospital’s front doors. She didn’t want Boyd to see her right away. She knew that her brother-in-law liked to be in control of every situation from the git-go. This was her way of making certain that this time he wasn’t.

      They didn’t have long to wait. He fell right into her ploy, assuming Bobby was the officer here to see him. “Afternoon, Officer,” Boyd said, tone genial. “Dr. Boyd Donaldson. How can I help you?”

      Melanie turned and smiled sweetly. “You’re pretty good at sucking up to the cops. Where’d you get the