Charlie Foxtrot Read online

  It was the man’s upper body that had my jaw dropping.

  I swallowed thickly and kept my head down, surreptitiously glancing up as I got closer and closer to him.

  Oh, God. His abs were magnificent.

  I swear there were at least ten of them. Possibly even thirty eight…but who was counting?

  Was that even possible?

  And his shoulders and arms were massive. Not behemoth, I work out at the gym three times a day massive, but an honest massive. The kind you get from working your ass off doing hard labor and just living life.

  Something I hadn’t realized when they’d been hidden under those t-shirts he wore.

  If that were me, and I had that smoking hot body, I’d be wearing shirts that accentuated it, not brought attention away from them.

  Then again, I’d been praying since I was fourteen for boobs that extended over the B cup that I currently was, and I’d yet to see that eventuality.

  I kept my eyes down as I passed him, but I didn’t need to bother. He’d never even acknowledged me.

  Not even an eye twitch.

  Which only served to make my already depressed mood even worse.

  That was when I decided that maybe I should just stop caring.

  Maybe I was meant to be alone.

  Maybe, just maybe, there was no one out there for me.

  With that thought on my mind, I finally made it back to my house, on time.

  Although, when I opened my front door, what I found made me late once again.

  I could tell someone had been there.

  Who, I didn’t know.

  Nothing was overtly obvious. Only little things.

  A picture frame there. A candle here.

  My computer was on, when I distinctly remembered turning it off.

  Then there was the missing photo album.

  The one I found myself looking at last night, torturing myself over what I used to have.

  So I called the one person I knew would be there for me when I needed it.

  My daddy.

  Chapter 6

  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but lights and sirens excite me.

  -T-shirt

  Blake

  They say that, as a dispatcher, you take calls that you’ll never know the outcome to.

  They also say that dispatchers have to have a warped sense of humor because of what they deal with on a daily basis. Kind of like cops and firefighters do.

  They’re the first ones that make official contact with the patient.

  They get no letters of commendations, no awards for saving a child from a burning building.

  What we had, though, was a sisterhood.

  Our entire outfit was compromised of 15 women ranging in age from my twenty four to the eldest at seventy one.

  They all told me their stories. Some good, and some really, really bad.

  I guess I never really thought about anything that ‘bad’ happening to one of my callers.

  I was all prepared for a car accident, or a woman in labor.

  I hadn’t had very many ‘true’ 9-1-1 calls yet.

  I’d had mostly stupid calls.

  My car won’t start. My power’s out. I think my wife’s sleeping with another man.

  Why people would call 911 because of those things, I didn’t know, but they freakin’ did. Constantly.

  So as I answered my line, ten minutes past midnight, never in a million years would I have thought that I’d hear what I heard.

  “911, what’s your emergency?” I answered, tracing the call the moment I could.

  “There’s someone in my house,” a quivering teenaged voice said through my line.

  I immediately started to dispatch a unit to her address.

  “Can you tell me what’s going on, honey? Where are you?” I asked her.

  My voice didn’t have even show a hint of the fear that was coursing through my veins. I was a fucking rock.

  “I’m here alone with my little sister and big brother. My parents are away for the weekend,” she whispered. “I live in apartment 1B. Town Royal Apartments.”

  I blinked, typing the information into my computer and immediately letting the closest responding officer what was up.

  “What’s your name, honey?” I asked.

  “Amy Lynn,” she said shakily. “What’s yours?

  I assumed that was out of politeness that she asked, so, out of politeness, I answered her.

  Typing in the information I was receiving I said, “My name’s Blake. Now, Amy Lynn, can you tell me what you hear?”

  She didn’t answer, and I waited, hoping that what I thought was happening wasn’t actually happening.

  “Amy Lynn?” I asked after another few long moments of silence.

  “Nobody in here,” a deep male voice said gruffly. “Thought you said there was another girl.”

  “There is,” a young man’s voice said. “She must be gone with the parents. Let’s just get the stuff and leave.”

  “Hmm,” the gruff voice hugged. “Fill your bag.”

  My fingers were typing away furiously, letting the responding officer know what was going on, such as the number of assailants, and what I would guess their ages being.

  Since this was my first official call by myself, I’d been left alone with barely anyone in the room surrounding me.

  We ran a two woman crew. Both Pauline and I worked swing shift. Eight p.m. to four a.m.

  I’d been informed that, on holidays that were busy ‘run days’, we’d get one more person to work with us. Calls on our shift were the busiest. It was when the crazies came out to play.

  Like now, for instance.

  Two people breaking into a house while children were quivering under their beds. Utterly defenseless.

  “Ohh,” a cooing voice said chillingly. “What do have here?”

  “Amy Lynn,” I whispered. “Amy Lynn!”

  Then, an ear piercing wail rent the air, making me wince as the sound pierced my eardrum.

  “Get off me!” the girl shrieked. “Get your filthy hands off me!”

  Then, as if in a movie, she started to describe them. Almost like the girl did in Taken, the movie. Except Amy Lynn’s detailed description was a lot more…colorful.

  “You’re so fucking ugly, with your stupid black hair, and your ugly brown eyes. You’re ugly as fuck, and that green shirt is the worst I’ve ever seen. And where’d you get those stupid Khaki’s? They’re supposed to fit, not sag around your knees, you dumbass,” Amy Lynn screeched.

  My heartbeat started to pound in time with my fingers as I started freaking out.

  On the inside, that is. On the outside, I was cool, calm, and collected. Mostly.

  I switched my mic over to the police band, immediately letting the officers know what was going on, knowing that the shaking of my fingers wouldn’t allow me to type right then.

  “We need any available units to apartment 1B. Town Royal Apartments,” I said, voice quivering. “They’ve found the girl.”

  Then I listened as the girl started to get beaten.

  Slap after slap had me leaning forward and closing my eyes.

  Each distinct smash of the perp’s fists hitting Amy’s body made my stomach roil, and tears push over the lids of my eyes.

  ***

  Foster

  “Dispatch, this is unit 4. I’m on scene. The front door’s wide open with no one in sight. I’m going to breach the property,” I said as I got out of my cruiser.

  My gun was in my hand, held pointed at the ground, but at the ready, as I walked slowly towards the door.

  The moment I entered the apartment, I knew the men who’d broken in were gone.

  The boy who was suspected to be there, was on the couch.

  His throat was slit from ear to ear.

  Blood seeped into the couch as his hands clutched desperately at his throat.

  “Dispatch, I have a 217. I need the FD. Priority one,” I said urgently, dropping down to my kne
es beside the boy and picking up a blanket that was on the floor by the couch.

  Code 217 was an assault with intent to murder. If I’d ever seen anything, this was intent to murder. On a grand scale.

  “Hold this on the wound,” I said. “I’m going to clear the house.”

  Normally, I would’ve done that first, but the scared look in the boy’s eyes had me breaking protocol all over the place.

  I touched his head and walked slowly to the back bedrooms.

  The hallway from the living room had two ways I could choose. Left led to a single door on the very end that was closed, and right led to a bathroom that I could see straight into, and a bedroom with the door standing wide open.

  I could see a girl’s legs, covered in bright pink princess socks on the floor, and bile rose in my throat.

  Oh, Jesus.

  I moved slowly, pieing the corner as came up to it.

  The term ‘pieing’ was said when a person, such as myself, backed up until he could see around the corner, but the person on the other side could not. It was meant to offer protection as well as give you an idea what was on the other side without exposing your head or anything vital to the other side.

  My eyes swept the room in a fast arc before I dropped down to one knee beside the little girl.

  I was so relieved to find a heartbeat that I nearly dropped my gun.

  The only thing that seemed wrong with her was the fact that she had a large goose egg on her forehead.

  That’s when I saw the other girl.

  The teenager that must’ve been the one to call.

  She was beaten to a pulp.

  Her face, arms, and legs were a mass of bruising, standing out starkly against the white nightgown that was covering her body.

  A nightgown that had been shucked up to her waist.

  Luckily, though, it looked like the act had been interrupted, because the girl’s panties were still in place.

  After checking the teen for a pulse, I took a blanket from the bed, and gathered the little girl off the floor before placing her in the very corner of the room beside her sister. Then covered both of them with the blanket.

  Then I went to the last bedroom.

  Luckily, that room was clear.

  I went back to the front room, checked the boy who was still amazingly awake.

  “They’re all right, boy,” I said to him.

  “Dispatch, the scene is secure. Send in the medics. Gonna need three,” I said.

  “10-4,” a relieved Blake said over the airwaves.

  A flash of green caught my eye, and I realized that what the man was wearing was a near exact match to what the teenager had described over the phone not even ten minutes before was dashing through the apartment complex.

  “All units be advised,” I said quickly. “A male subject fitting the description of the attacker just ran East through the woods behind the Royal Oaks Complex. Heading towards Main Street.”

  An hour later, pumped up on adrenaline and spoiling for a fight, I pulled into the Waffle House for my lunch break.

  I took a seat at the bar, ordering myself a meal before I acknowledged the firefighters who’d had the same thought as I had.

  “How’s it going, Tai?” I asked the man beside me.

  Tai was one of the responding medics to the scene. He was also the one to call me to let me know that all three children would be making a recovery. The two elder ones would have a rockier road than the youngest, but they’d all recover.

  “I’m pissed. I can’t fucking believe he got away,” Tai said, shaking his head in denial.

  I grimaced.

  They’d caught one of the attackers. The one that’d been described, yet the other one was still at bay.

  Still out there to do the same thing to another unsuspecting family.

  The fucker we’d caught, Bruce Brenton, had refused to give up his partner.

  Had also refused to talk without his lawyer, which meant we didn’t get jack shit.

  The good thing, though, was that he’d be getting a really nice prison sentence. Assaulting a child was a felony, and he’d be spending a lot of time up close and personal with his fellow inmates for the next thirty years, if I had anything say about it.

  I knew a lot of people, and I’d make damn sure that the man never saw another peaceful day in his life.

  “I agree,” I said.

  Tai’s food was placed down in front of him, followed by mine a few minutes later.

  The other firemen sat at three booths at our backs, but we didn’t join in on their conversations. Both of our minds on what we’d heard and seen today.

  Sometimes, the job of a police officer, firefighter, and hell, even a dispatcher, was a hard pill to swallow. A lot of times the good guy didn’t win.

  A lot of times, we were the ones to pick up the pieces, and that wasn’t a very fun job.

  But there were those times where the rewards outweighed the benefits. Times when the good times outweigh the bad.

  Those times were what kept us going.

  Kept us sane and happy. Doing the job that was every bit as rewarding as it was exhausting.

  “Your dispatcher. She did well,” Tai said after he finished his food.

  “She’s not my dispatcher,” I muttered, not bothering to look up from my food.

  “That’s not what I heard you say to her after you got those kids to the hospital. ‘They’re gonna be alright, baby’ over the airwaves shouts ‘MINE!’ to me,” Tai said.

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  I hadn’t meant to say that.

  It’d just happened, and I’d heard it from everybody that was on tonight.

  Fuck me, but I didn’t know why my mouth said the things it did.

  I just felt like she’d want to hear it.

  Next time, though, I’d make a point of actually calling her instead of saying it over the radio.

  ***

  “Have you ever seen Final Destination?” Blake asked as I was driving her home later that night.

  How I’d been the one to end up with her in my car, I didn’t know. But it was the last thing I wanted to do. Especially with my mind in the state it was in.

  What I really wanted to go do was go for a nice long run. A run where I tried to outpace my troubles.

  I shook my head. “No, why?”

  She pointed to the log truck in front of us.

  The man was trying his hardest to stay on the road, but the wind from the impending storm was really throwing him all over the place.

  “That,” she pointed. “That right there. Every time I see a log truck, I think of that movie. The whole point of the movie is a couple of kids trying to cheat death. There was an order to it, and death went in that particular order. If it couldn’t, fate found a way to make it happen. This particular scene is showing a couple driving with a log truck in front of them. It keeps zooming in on the chains holding the logs down, and suddenly they just snap.”

  I could tell where she was going with the story before she even made the snapping gesture with her hand.

  “Anyway, the logs start falling off the truck, and it’s like a chain reaction. Person after person dies. A brutal, horrible death,” she whispered.

  My eyes moved to her face quickly before returning to the log truck.

  “I don’t like thunderstorms,” she said after a while.

  Since I didn’t know what to say to that, I stayed quiet.

  Was that why she had a phobia of driving in the rain?

  When we’d gone to pick her up the other day for dinner, I’d thought it weird that the chief had asked us to ride together. Now, though, I knew it was for Blake’s benefit, it made a little more sense.

  David had point blank asked the chief if Blake needed a ride, and the chief had purposefully told us to ride together so Blake didn’t have to ride with David alone, and so she didn’t have to drive herself in the rain.

  The man was thoughtful, watching out for her left and right.
>
  The curiosity, though, was killing me.

  “Why don’t you like storms?” I asked finally, not able to stand not knowing anymore.

  She sighed.

  “When I first got my license, I was driving home from a friend’s house during a really bad storm and I wrecked my car. I ended up nose first in a ditch that was filled to the brim with flowing water, and stayed trapped in it for over six hours,” she explained. “My car was the color of the water. A deep hunter green. I blended in, and I was in a part of the town that no one could hear my yells. Freaking lightening was touching down all around me, and I was so scared it’d hit the water and travel down towards me. It was the worst experience of my life.”

  “PTSD,” I said softly. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe. But it doesn’t hinder my daily living any. I just really, really don’t like driving in rain. Or storms period. That doesn’t mean I cower into a ball when one comes around. I will still drive in it, I just choose not to if I have the option.”

  I nodded. “Maybe that’s it.”

  She frowned at me, but her scowl lacked the punch it would’ve normally had since the sky chose that moment to really let the sky open up.

  Rain poured down.

  Big, fat drops.

  It was pouring down so hard that I had to slow the truck to allow the windshield wipers to keep up.

  “This. I don’t like this,” she said, gesturing to the windshield and the weather beyond.

  “Hmmm,” I said, pulling down the same street that I’d been on just twenty four hours ago.

  I pulled into her driveway, and pulled up as far as I could before I put it into park.

  “Do you…do you want to come in?” She asked.

  Her voice sounded so hopeful, and even though my mind was screaming yes, I knew what really needed to be said. “No. I’m sorry. I have somewhere to be.”

  ***

  Blake

  I closed the front door, tears threatening to pour over my lids as I locked the door.

  Why was I so undesirable to him? Why, at the mention of coming inside, had he flinched like I’d asked him to shoot himself in the foot?

  What was wrong with me that no one wanted to be around me?