Marrying Mike...Again (2 page)

Of course, she would also enter without any support from the police officers and with a great deal of skepticism from the D.A.

Six months, Mayor Peterson had given her—the limited time span before the next election—to take over the beleaguered police force, turn it around and make both her and the mayor look like heroes. Right. Piece of cake.

Once upon a time, Alexandria had been the quaint small town where people moved to escape crime, pollution and poverty. Streets had been clean, lawns mowed, citizens well-off. Main Street had beautiful old storefronts run by the well-off families in the third generation of ownership. People trusted the police and people trusted one another. People thought the textile mills along the river would last forever.

It had been a long time since the 1950s and
West Side Story
had taken on new meaning in Alexandria, Massachusetts, where one-half of the town drove home to white picket fences while the rest walked through crumbling streets of bullet-ridden projects. Where the white, west-side leadership said they knew what they were doing, while the minority, east-side civilians claimed they were grossly out of touch. Where the police force said they were in control of the situation while the taxpayers accused them of breaking half of the city’s laws.

And now a thirteen-year-old kid had written a letter to the editor, threatening to shoot the next cop that drove into his neighborhood.

At Sandra’s weakest moment, around four-thirty this morning, when her alarm clock went off before the sun had even gotten out of bed, she was afraid her parents might be right.

“For heaven’s sake, you don’t know the first thing about law enforcement, Sandra. What are you thinking?”

“It’s not money is it? I thought you had managed your trust fund quite well.”

Then that wonderful moment when full horror had struck her mother’s fine patrician face.
“It’s not…it’s not
…him,
is it? Good Lord, you’ve been divorced four years. Surely you’ve realized what a mistake…surely you’ve gotten him out of your system. Sandra, really!”

Sandra really, she thought with a sigh, and picked up her footsteps.

The huge brass doors loomed ahead of her, the last barrier between her and the press. She could hear the dull roar of news vans and screeching microphones. This was it.

Sandra took a deep breath. She’d run dozens of meetings more important than this; she’d handled situations more critical. She was capable, she was efficient. She would get the job done. And yet her hand was shaking on the large brass handle and, for just one moment, she was picturing her ex-husband.

The way he’d looked at her that first day, those bright, amused eyes, that strong, massive chest. The way he’d drawled her name with a slight Cajun accent, sending shivers down her spine.

It was interesting how many things Sandra had learned to forgive over the past four years. And it was even more interesting how many things she didn’t know how to forget.

Sandra pushed open the yawning brass doors, and the lightbulbs exploded in her face.

“Chief Aikens, Chief Aikens. Is it true you’re establishing an independent council to look into corruption—”

“Chief Aikens, what is it we hear about requiring all police officers to attend ‘race sensitivity’ training—”

“Did you see the Sunday
Citizen’s Post
—”

“Will there be layoffs?”

“What about community policing—”

Sandra raised her hand to signal silence. More lightbulbs flashed, then the hordes settled down. She surveyed her audience. Half-a-dozen print reporters plus the four local news affiliates. But no Mike, she thought, and she was immediately irritated by a sense of disappointment.

“I’m planning a formal news conference at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” she announced crisply. “Until then, you have ten minutes.”

Groans, then a surge forward as the reporters fought for their questions to come first.

“What about community policing?”

“Community policing has proved highly effective nationwide and I think it’s a model we should look into. For too long the police force has stood outside of the people. It’s time to get everyone back together, working together.”

“Are you serious about a racial sensitivity course?”

She looked at the two police officers in the back—both white, both middle-aged, both stoney-faced. “I’m
very
serious about a class in racial relations. Alexandria’s track record in this department is appalling. There will be changes.”

The tough talk earned her a moment of silence, but it lasted only a moment. While the reporters hastily scribbled her reply, Sandra watched the two officers in the back turn away. She wondered if it was their job to report back to the locker room everything she had just said.

“What about the kid? What about the one who calls himself Vee?”

“I am aware of the situation,” Sandra said carefully.

“We encourage anyone who knows the letter writer to come forward. This is obviously an angry child and we’d like to do everything we can to help him. He does have choices. If he’ll come forward, we’ll help him identify those choices and get the support he needs. There is no reason for this to lead to violence.”

“Are you going to send officers into the east side, even with that kind of threat?”

“A police officer’s life is always under threat. That goes with the job.”

“There were three lieutenants who thought they deserved being promoted to chief. Now they have to answer to an ‘outsider.’ How do you think they’ll handle that?”

She smiled thinly.
With lots of hugs and kisses.
“We are all professional.”

“What about your husband?”

“Wh-what?” For the first time she faltered, not prepared for this line of questioning. The reporter appeared pleased with himself.

“Isn’t it true you were married to Detective Mike Rawlins, aka ‘Big Mike’?”

“
Were
is the key word there. I don’t see how that’s relevant—”

“Well, you have to have feelings for this man, good or otherwise. I mean, you were his wife, right?”

Sandra gave the young reporter a steady look that hid just how much she resented this line of questioning. She said without one iota of hesitation, “Detective Rawlins and I have been divorced four years. It is not an issue.”

She looked at her watch. It had been only eight minutes, not ten, but she ruled it close enough. With a last wave, she descended the steps and headed straight to her sedan. The cameramen crushed in, snapping away and forcing her to turn sideways to cut a clean line.

Finally her police officers intervened and grudgingly held back the tide.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The men did not answer back.

“So what’s she like? Come on, Rawlins, you were married to the chick.”

Leaning against the back wall of the police department’s sadly worn debriefing room, Detective Mike Rawlins arched a brow, while, in front of him, the bony police officer everyone called Weasel flushed.

“Now, Weasel,” Mike drawled, “might I recommend that you don’t start your interactions with our new chief by using the word
chick.
She might take offense. And for the record, an Aikens who takes offense…well, you might as well dig your own grave now.”

Standing next to Mike, Rusty Koontz snickered. Mike’s partner for the past eight years, Koontz dressed like a pimp and maintained the coldest eyes on the force. He liked to crack off-color jokes, chase women, and torment rookies until they broke.

Local legend had it he’d bet his last partner he could make Big Mike blow a fuse by the end of the day. Koontz had followed the former college football player for eight hours. He’d brought up Mike’s weak knee, his failed football plays. He’d attacked his faint Southern drawl, a legacy from his Cajun father who’d left New Orleans forty years ago to play pro football for the Jets. He’d even taken on Mike’s spitfire mom.

At the end of the day, the huge rookie who could’ve taken out tall, thin Koontz with a single punch had merely shaken his head and said, “You need a therapist, man. A real
good
therapist.”

Koontz had been impressed. He’d become Big Mike’s partner, and there wasn’t a pair more mismatched—or more effective—in the whole department.

Now Koontz made a show of studying his neatly pared fingernails. “Come on, Weasel. You know Big Mike isn’t the kind to kiss and tell. He considers himself to be a Southern boy. They have rules.”

“Yeah, but I still hang out with the likes of you, so that can’t explain everything.” Mike winked and the rest of the room burst out laughing, fifty cops finally getting to dispel some of the tension that had been growing as they waited for their new chief of police. The laughter ended uneasily. It was now seven-thirty in the morning. Chief Sandra Aikens was due to arrive any minute and no one was sure what that meant. Some officers paced the cheap industrial floor. Two detectives appeared to be counting water stains on the drop ceiling. One of the older cops, Higgins, who was two years from retirement and anxious about the rumored layoffs, was downing coffee and Tums in equal measure.

Up front, Lieutenants Banks, Hopkins, and Thoron sat in the cheap plastic chairs, keeping their faces straight ahead. They looked stiff and uncomfortable. Hopkins had been the most vocal about his certainty that he would be the next chief of police. Now, no one would meet his eye.

Men had a rule about letting other men eat crow in peace.

The sound of ringing heels finally echoed down the hall. To a man, they stiffened, exchanged looks. Weasel cracked a nervous joke. It promptly fizzled.

Seconds later, Police Chief Sandra Aikens appeared in the doorway, looking sharp and totally out of their league in a well-tailored silk pantsuit that probably cost more than any of them made in a week. She gave the room one long, measuring look, then headed for the podium with a take-no-prisoners stride.

“Holy—” Koontz muttered under his breath and, beside him, Mike finally faltered.

Four years, he thought. Four years since he’d last seen his wife. And sweet Lord, even after all this time, cool Sandy Aikens walked into his life like a punch in the gut.

She didn’t just enter a room, she
entered
a room. Maybe that’s what it meant to inherit your daddy’s yacht-club world and million-dollar corporation. Mike had never fully understood it, but when Sandra appeared, the planets stopped spinning and the stars started aligning. She had the look, that certain carriage that stated she knew exactly who she was and she didn’t really care if you liked it. She was going to do it her way, so put up or shut up.

Damn, he’d always liked that about her. Not just a woman, but a grade-A challenge.
Ah, ma chère…

Sandra Aikens with the crazy, curly, red-brown hair. Sandra Aikens, with those direct blue eyes that used to make him want to crawl inside her head just so he could finally learn everything she was thinking. Sandra Aikens, with those sleek pantsuits that hid the best damn collection of French lingerie ever to walk this earth. Sandy Aikens, who’d always driven him wild.

Mike could have had any woman he wanted, but from the minute he’d responded to a report of a mugging and met Sandy Aikens, he’d only wanted her. She’d run down her own mugger with her Mercedes that day, pinning the gangly kid against a brick building. Mike hadn’t known whether to laugh at the terrified look on the young mugger’s face or lecture Sandra thoroughly. He’d ended up asking her out to dinner. He’d plied her with wine. He’d watched her relax and grow a little silly from good food and good company. And his poor stupid heart had simply flip-flopped in his chest—he’d become hooked on fierce, haughty Sandra Aikens.

That’s because men don’t do any thinking with the appendage above their necks, his mama had told him later. Looking at how everything had turned out, he’d had no argument there.

Sandra tapped the microphone. Koontz, who had never liked Sandra, not even when he was the best man at her and Mike’s wedding, lit up a cigarette and pointedly exhaled toward the No Smoking sign. Like most of the men, he was ticked off by her appointment to chief. Mike just found the whole thing twisted and amusing. But then, that was his way.

Sandra didn’t say a word about Koontz’s smoking. She just flashed him the same tight, annoyed look most people reserved for gnats. Then her gaze swept the whole room, meeting everyone’s gaze but Mike’s. That made him grin. Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling their meeting in places down deep. Maybe she was also thinking about how they ended their first date—on the floor, on the kitchen island, on the sofa, the dining room table…

“All right,” his ex-wife said crisply, her gaze locking on the front row, “let’s get on with it. I’ll start with the good news and work my way down.”

“There’s good news?” Koontz murmured, and a few officers tittered.

“There will be no layoffs,” Sandra stated, and that quickly caught them all by surprise. “In fact, as of last Friday, I got Mayor Peterson to agree to allocate an additional two million dollars to the police department’s budget, the first increase in five years. There will be no layoffs. You have my word.”

The room buzzed, even Koontz looked unnerved. For years officers had been griping about being underpaid, unappreciated, and unloved. The new chief of police couldn’t have started the show better if she’d just doubled their pensions. Mike crossed his ankles. Knowing his brilliant ex-wife, he waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Of course,” she continued smoothly, “nothing is free. Let’s not mince words. This department is in shambles. I know it, you know it, the public knows it. The mayor has appropriated funds for us, but in return, we
must
deliver results. I’m talking firearms training, pursuit and capture training, interrogation techniques. I’m also talking community relations training, basic PR, and yes, the dreaded rumor you have already heard—racial sensitivity training. We will learn to be a kinder, gentler police department.”

“Great,” Koontz muttered. “Ebonics in the police force.”