Breathe (6 page)

Chace

It was quarter to seven when she walked in.

He’d applied for the job in Carnal upon graduation from the Academy. It was the only place he’d worked since earning his badge and he’d worked there thirteen years.

And not once had Faye Goodknight walked into the Police Department. Not even when Rowdy Crabtree brought her father in on that trumped up charge for drunk and disorderly when Silas Goodknight had just been in Bubba’s, a place he didn’t frequent but he wasn’t a stranger. Silas had been celebrating a friend’s fiftieth birthday. Silas, nowhere near drunk and definitely not disorderly, spent the night in the tank. His wife, Sondra, had come in to make bail and pick him up.

Fortunately, the charge didn’t stick. And none of the Goodknights knew this but the reason it didn’t was because Chace intervened with Fuller, talking him down about targeting another well-respected, well-liked citizen. He’d explained Fuller already had enough talk in town about what was done to Walker, he didn’t need more speculation. And worse, he didn’t need to rile up Goodknight who had demonstrated, repeatedly, he was not the kind of man to go away quiet, lick his wounds and fight another day. He was the kind of man who would go down fighting which meant he’d take others with him.

Fuller had, surprisingly, relented and set up Crabtree to take the hit of a bad arrest.

Now, she was here. And he saw her eyes skid through him at his desk while they scanned the room and she moved to reception.

He figured she was there at that time because the library opened at ten and closed at six.

He also figured she was there at that time because she expected him
not
to be there.

Whatever reason she was there, he should leave it be. He knew he should leave it be.

But he couldn’t help but think it was no coincidence that he’d not spoken to her directly once in all the years they’d lived in the same town, now they’d spoken twice and she was there.

So he didn’t leave it be.

He got up and started to the reception desk.

Her clear blue eyes skittered to him when he was five feet away and he felt the touch of them like it was real. A hand curled around his neck. Fingers gliding into his hair. Soft, light, sweet.

That kind of real.

Fuck.

She just had to look at him, that was it, and he reacted.

He continued on his path to the last place he should be.

Close to Faye Goodknight.

“Everything all right, Faye?” he asked when he got there.

“She’s got a report to make,” Jon, the officer on duty at the desk, answered for her.

Chace didn’t take his eyes from Faye. “About what?”

Jon answered again, humor in his tone now, “We haven’t gotten that far.”

Chace’s body and mouth made a decision and carried it out again before his brain caught up.

And this was, stepping to the side and opening the low, hinged, wooden gate, eyes still on Faye, mouth saying, “Faye, you follow me. Jon, I’ll handle it.”

Her teeth appeared in order to bite her lip, she hesitated a moment then she moved to do as he asked.

Chace felt Jon’s eyes on him but he didn’t glance in his direction. It wasn’t worth the effort. First, whatever this was, he was going to handle it and he had rank on Jon so Jon had no say in the matter. Second, Jon had a big mouth and even if Chace threatened him, Jon would run that mouth. It wasn’t worth the effort to do more than threaten him. So whatever Jon was thinking about Chace intervening would be all over the Station by tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. And Faye looking the way she looked and Chace showing at reception before she even had a chance to explain why she was there, he knew exactly what would be all over the Station by tomorrow.

This last, he didn’t give a fuck about. Enough words had been whispered about Chace over the last six years. This no longer affected him.

He led Faye to an interrogation room, opened the door and kept it open with arm extended, his nonverbal invitation for her to precede him. She glanced at him then lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear as she looked away, ducked her head and walked by him.

He’d seen her tuck her hair behind her ear, often. And he’d always thought it was cute.

Seeing it close up, it was, like everything he was noting about Faye, a fuckuva lot cuter.

He stepped in behind her, closed the door and leaned his back against it, crossing his arms on his chest.

“Um… you might be mistaken,” she started, her eyes moving to the door behind him before lifting to his. “I’m not certain this needs privacy, Detective Keaton.”

“I thought we decided on Chace.”

She blinked and her head gave a slight twitch. “What?”

“I want you to call me Chace, Faye.”

“Right,” she whispered, her eyes on him having changed so she wasn’t simply meeting his but studying him.

“Now, what doesn’t need privacy?” he prompted.

“I…” She started, paused then continued, “See, there’s this…” She paused again, adjusted her torso in a way where it seemed she was trying to straighten her shoulders but failing as her eyes drifted away and she went on, “The thing is…” she trailed off, stopped and he watched as her teeth came back out. This time, they caught her lower lip on the outside then pulled in, teeth gliding over her lip and disappearing.

Christ, everything she did, having no clue she was doing it, was not only unbelievably sexy but her having no clue she was doing it was precisely why her doing it was unbelievably sexy.

“Faye,” he said softly, her gaze shot back to his and she spoke again, this time quickly.

“There’s a boy,” she began. “I don’t know, nine, ten years old. He comes into the library and steals books.”

“I see,” he murmured then guessed, “You don’t want to get him into trouble but you also can’t have him stealing books.”

“No,” she shook her head, “he returns them.”

Chace blinked.

Then he asked, “What?”

“He returns them,” she answered and kept talking in a rush. “I mean, since he steals them instead of checks them out, I can’t know if he’s returning all of them. But, for months now, he’s been coming in once or twice a week and once or twice a week I’ll have two or three books in the return bin that were never checked out. So, since I have no record what he took, I can’t know if he returns them all. But he’s a slip of a boy and although his jacket is big, he can’t lug out dozens of books. And I’ve had my eye on him. So if he’s stealing loads, I would notice. He isn’t stealing loads so, I’m not sure, but I think he returns all of them or, uh…” she faltered then finished, “the vast majority of them.”

“If this is true, I’m uncertain how there’s a problem.”

She pulled in a visibly deep breath.

And then she let it out while informing him quietly, “He’s being beaten.”

At that, Chace straightened from the door but he didn’t move from it as he whispered, “Beaten?”

She nodded.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Well, the bruise on his cheekbone I saw. And the other one around his jaw. And then there were the ones on his wrists. But today,” she swallowed, took a half step toward him, stopped and sucked in another breath before going on, “today, it was bad.”

“How bad?”

“Eye swollen shut, bruises on his face, nose swollen and a gash on his lip that isn’t being treated.”

“Fuck,” Chace muttered.

“It’s worse,” she whispered and Chace nodded to her to go on. “He… well, he’s very thin. And he’s not clean, as in,
way
not clean. And his clothes don’t fit him. And he’s very, very thin.”

“You said that,” Chace noted quietly.

“He’s so very, very thin, Chace, it bears repeating,” she said quietly back.

Chace held her eyes and repeated his muttered, “Fuck.” Then he put his hands on his hips and asked, “You know this kid?”

She shook her head.

“Speak to him?” Chace continued.

She shook her head again but replied, “Every time I’ve tried to approach, he runs away. I tried again today and chased him. He was terrified. He outran me then disappeared.”

Jesus, she’d chased him? The town’s pretty, curvy, quiet librarian chased a kid?

He verbalized his question. “You chased him?”

“Yeah, out of the library and into town. He disappeared the minute he turned onto Main Street. Well, not the minute seeing as I was half a block behind him but close after. And I told him he wasn’t in trouble but he still ran.”

“You chased him.” It was a statement this time.

“Yeah,” she answered anyway then he watched her body give a small jolt and she whispered, “Oh no, was that the wrong thing to do?”

“Sorry, honey, but you gotta know in case the opportunity comes up again. A kid being beaten and malnourished, which gives us an indication who’s likely beating him, and not taken care of, which pretty much solidifies who’s beating him, should not be chased. It’s clear he’s not livin’ a good life. It’s likely that life is filled with a good deal of fear. And him borrowin’ library books outside of acceptable practice says to me whatever’s happening at home means he doesn’t trust anyone so he takes every opportunity to dodge connecting even if it means checking out a library book.”

As he spoke he saw her eyes had grown wide, her lips had parted and she was staring up at him with that appealing wonder she’d stared at him with yesterday morning.

And alone in a small interrogation room while discussing an abused child it was far more appealing.

Then she whispered her cute, “Oh.”

At this point he was seeing his error at giving them privacy. Top to toe, she was an itch he’d wanted to scratch for a long time. Faye Goodknight talking and reacting two feet away, her voice coming at him, her face expressive, her scent filling the room, she wasn’t an itch.

She was a craving.

Chace buried it and asked, “He keeps coming around?”

She blinked and asked back, “What?”

“This kid, you said you’ve tried to approach, the times you didn’t chase him down the street, he kept coming back?”

He saw her bubblegum lips twitch but she nodded and added her, “Yeah.”

“Right,” he muttered, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone. “He comes back, you don’t approach. You call me.”

“Call you?”

“Yeah,” he bent his head to his phone and activated it, saying, “I wanna get a look at him. See if I know him or who his kin might be. Maybe find a way to make my own approach.”

“He doesn’t look familiar.”

Chace lifted his head and looked at her. “You lived here your whole life, Faye, but still, it’s likely I’ve met more folk around here than you have.”

“This is true,” she said softly.

Christ.

Cute.

“Give me your number,” he ordered.

She blinked.

Then she whispered, “What?”

“Your phone number. Give it to me. I’ll call you, you’ll have mine you can store in your cell.”

“Can’t you just give me yours and I’ll program it in my cell?” she suggested.

“I could. But, darlin’, things the way they’ve been…” he trailed off, shook his head and let that speak for itself. She might live in her books but the shit that’s gone down, he knew from the limited conversations they’d had, had not escaped her notice. “I’m not big on surprises. You need to call me, when my phone rings, I like to know what I’m dealin’ with before I answer it. I got your number, it’ll come up on caller ID.”

She nodded and pressed her lips together before she said quietly, “That makes sense.”

Then she stood there staring at him.

“Faye, your number?” he prompted and her body gave a slight start.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Right.” Then she gave him her number.

Chace punched it in and hit go. Her purse rang and he heard her making the moves to pull her phone out but he disconnected the call before she answered it. Then he hit buttons and programmed her into his phone while he heard her hitting buttons programming him in hers.

This meant access to Faye Goodknight’s voice whenever he wanted it.

Fuck.

He buried that as he shoved his phone back in his pocket and looked again at her.

“I also need you to bag a book he’s stolen and bring it to me,” he told her.

Her head cocked slightly to the side and she asked, “Why?”

“’Cause he might have hit the system. We can lift prints, we might find out who he is which might lead us to where he is.”

“Oh,” she again whispered, then another, “Right. Okay. I’ll do that.”

“Try not to handle it too much.”

“Uh… Chace, our books, at least some of them, are handled a lot.”

“We’ll sort out what we find, don’t worry about that.”

She nodded again.

“I need a physical description of the kid too. I’ll give it to the boys. They can keep their eyes peeled.”