Just a Little Series (Parts 1 - 4) (3 page)

After ten long minutes passed in silence, I
decided that there was no better time to get the information that
I’d need for my report.

“Officer Reibeck,” I said formally, humoring
him, though it sickened me to be so polite. It wouldn’t have
bothered me so much had he extended some kind of courtesy back at
the station. But if he wanted to be less than pleasant, I was all
in.

I slid forward on the seat and leaned my
face closer to the gate separating the front and back seats.
“What’s your full name?”

“Luke,” he said, not taking his eyes off the
road for a second. “Lucas James Reibeck.”

I scribbled his name at the top of the page.
“How long have you been working for the Oakland PD?”

“Two years,” he turned onto Main Street. “I
finished junior college right out of high school, went through nine
months at the academy, and joined the force at twenty-one.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a
policeman?” I asked, still scrambling to get his previous answer on
paper.

“Never doubted it for a second,” he said.
“It’s in my blood.”

“Your father worked in law enforcement?”

“My mother,” he said. “My father owns a
floral shop in the historic district.”

I watched a smirk curve on his lips; I
wondered if he found as much humor in his parents’ chosen
occupations as I did.

“How long has your mother been active on the
force?”

He didn’t respond. He simply ignored the
question and made another slow turn on to Wiley Street.

“Okay,” I slowly looked over my notes. “How
do you prefer to be addressed? Lucas? Luke? Trigger?”

A faint laugh came from the driver’s seat.
“You picked up on that, then?”

“Charlie’s always been one for nicknames,” I
said, “but when Detective Bruno—”

“It’s just something that stuck after an
accident at the firing range last year.”

“What kind of accident?” I slid closer to
the gate.

“Target practice,” he brought the car to a
stop at an intersection. “All the guys were out at the range. I
wasn’t focused, I got distracted, and my finger slipped on the
trigger.”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“One guy,” he said, but his expression
didn’t show the least bit of remorse, “but it was a minor injury.
Just a toe.”

“Just a toe?”

“He only lost a toe.”

I tried to restrain a laugh, but it was next
to impossible. “
Someone lost a toe?
”

“Yes.”

“You act like that’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, it’s a big deal,” he said,“but it
could’ve been worse.”

I shook my head and looked out the window. I
knew better than to say anything else on the subject, but something
inside of me felt inclined to take control of the conversation.
“I’m surprised you’re admitting to that kind of mistake, especially
since
you
were the one preaching at me this morning about
all the rules that come with working on the force.” I crossed my
arms in front of my chest to imitate him. “Always be on high alert.
And I don’t use the word
always
loosely, Miss Little.”

“And how do you think I learned that
lesson?” he glanced into the rearview mirror and looked at me for
the first time since we’d gotten in the car. “There are some things
you don’t learn at the academy, kid. Experience is a valuable asset
in this position.”

He held my stare for a few long seconds. I
wanted to look away, God, I wanted to. But I simply couldn’t bring
myself to ruin the moment. For whatever reason, he seemed to be
dealing with the same struggle.

Why was he letting his gaze linger?

“Next question,” I said, trying to ignore
the sudden pounding against my chest. I had an obligation to keep
my mind fresh and focused on the job at hand. The last thing I
needed was a distraction, and Luke’s good looks alone were enough
to keep me stalling. I didn’t need his lingering stare—that only
complicated things. “What was the worst call you ever had to
respond to?”

As the light turned green, he accelerated
through the intersection and continued down the street, wearing a
contagious smile. “The worst call I’ve ever had to respond to… I’d
say it was the morning Chief called on me to cart his niece around
town, only to be hounded with a half-dozen predictable
questions.”

I glared at him through the mirror, hoping
he’d look back and see that I wasn’t impressed. But he never
did.

The hours went by slowly, much to my dismay.
Four hours in the car with Luke…
ha
! Four hours too many.
Though I questioned him for hours on end, he’d barely given me any
insight into his life as an officer, and the ride-along turned out
to be more uneventful than I could’ve ever imagined. When we
reached the station in the early afternoon, Luke got out of the car
and headed for the building, leaving me in the back seat—unable to
let myself out.

“Hey!” I yelled, pounding on the window. I
felt my face grow hotter. If he’d gained any kind of brownie points
with me during the ride-along today, he’d just lost them in the
amount of time it had taken him to lock me in the backseat and walk
away. “
Hello
! I’m still in here!”

He turned back and stared for a minute,
looking as though he’d completely forgotten I’d been in the car
with him all along. He stood there and watched me for a minute, and
all the while I seriously considered the fact that he might not
come back for me. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if that
was the case. But he reluctantly returned, opened the door, and
leaned over the doorway to block my exit.

“Julie,” he said, cool and calm, and almost
in a whisper, “it’s a job to take seriously, yes. But you’ll never
make it far in this field without a sense of humor, kid. I promise
you that.”

Saturday, September 08 | 6:00 p.m.

“I can’t believe you’re already halfway
through your hours,” I stared at my cousin in disbelief.

Matt turned and smiled, “What can I
say?”

“You can say,
Gee Julie, once I’m done
with my hours at the bistro, I’d love to come down to the station
and help you out.”

“Speaking of,” he took a seat next to me at
the kitchen island, “how’d your day with Dad pan out?”

“It would’ve been
great
had it
actually been a day with your dad, but he dumped me off on an
officer and sent me out on patrol all morning.”

“That’s not so bad,” Matt said. “You’ve been
on patrol hundreds of times.” I rolled my eyes and looked away.
“Did you see anything good?”

Other than that one little glimpse of Luke’s
dark eyes shining through the rearview mirror, nope. Nothing.

“Not really.”

“Who’d he send you out with?”

“Luke Reibeck.”

Matt choked back a laugh and looked at me
inquisitively. “You’re serious? He sent you out with Trigger?”

“You know him?”

He finally let out the laugh he’d worked
hard to restrain. “I don’t know who Dad is punishing more, you or
him.”

“Ugh, what’s that supposed to mean?” I
pulled a fresh apple from the fruit basket on the counter. Surely
he didn’t think that time spent with
me
would be punishment
for anyone. Time spent with Luke, however, was a different
story.

“Trigger’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong,”
he said,“but he takes his job way too seriously, and you don’t
respect what he does enough to earn you any of his admiration. The
two of you are a deadly combination, Julie. And to be completely
honest, I’d never want to be the poor sucker stuck in a patrol car
alone with the two of you.”

Matt jumped down from his stool and moved
over to the oven to check on the progress of our dinner.

“But then,” Matt said, turning back, “maybe
Dad knows what he’s doing. Maybe you and Luke will be good for each
other.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m just saying,” he treaded softly, “ever
since Liz and Stephen—“

“Careful,” I warned him, not in any kind of
mood to discuss my parents.

“All I’m saying is that you haven’t been
yourself since the funeral, Julie. And as much as I know you hate
hearing it, we’ve all been waiting on the old you to make a big
return. You keep distancing yourself a little more every day. It’s
not healthy.”

Matt reclaimed his seat and put his arm
around my shoulder. It wasn’t like him to talk about any kind of
uncomfortable situation, and it surprised me that he was reaching
out now, especially given the circumstances. I’d lost my parents,
yes. But they were his family too. He’d lost something the night
they died, just in a different way.

And while,
yes
, it hurt to hear my
own cousin tell me how far I’d faded, even
I
had started
recognizing some of the changes lately. Somehow I’d gone from being
a fun-loving, carefree girl to a teenager who had no choice but to
grow up far too fast.

“So,” Matt redirected the conversation back
to our original topic, “what do you think? You think you guys will
be able to make it work for another sixteen hours?”

I thought back on the first time I’d seen
Luke standing behind me with no regret that he’d scared me out of
my mind. Then there were all his rules, guidelines, and snarky
comments. And, of course, the way he’d rudely locked me in the
backseat of the patrol car.

I didn’t care for the way he acted. Nor did
I care for the way he carried himself.

But then I was reminded of that moment—that
one, single, solitary moment when he watched me from the rearview
mirror, and it made me wonder, had me wondering for hours still, if
maybe there was more to Officer Lucas Reibeck than meets the
eye.

CHAPTER FOUR

Monday, September 10

Yesterday played out like any normal day in
our household. Charlie would come and go, putting in enough hours
at the station to cover more than two shifts within a twenty-four
hour period. Matt was up at the crack of dawn, making breakfast and
checking in and out of the kitchen every hour to keep up with lunch
and dinner prep.

I, however, put most of my day into planning
my next approach in interviewing Luke. He hadn’t seemed eager on
Saturday to answer my question about his mother and her time on the
force, and even his other answers were pretty tight-lipped. He
obviously didn’t want to open up to me, which was fine. All I
needed was enough information to prove that I’d actually spent some
time putting forth effort. After all, that’s all this project was
really about, proving that we could put a little thought into a
post-graduation career.

Who needed to know that I had absolutely no
interest in the criminal justice system, or the gun-wielding men
who served our community? Okay. Yes. I had a
little
interest
in one man in particular, but that was only because he was the guy
who’d be signing off on my hours after all was said and done.

Or at least that’s what I kept telling
myself.

“You ready for your next two hours of
patrol, Little?” Luke asked as I approached the car outside the
high school. Dressed in full uniform and leaning against the hood,
he crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked on.

As instructed by Charlie, we’d planned out
my first ten hours of shadowing. My first four were already behind
me, and next on the agenda were two more. Wednesday would follow
with another two hours, and then back to the early morning shift on
Saturday for another two, finally finishing up the first half of my
job shadowing. While it seemed a bit scattered, it was the only way
to fit the hours into both of our schedules.

“I thought I was meeting you at the
station?” I eyed the patrol car. “Or did you feel like you needed
to make a big scene and show up at my school, so all of my
classmates could watch you force me into the backseat?”

“Hey, I just thought I’d be a nice guy and
save you a walk. But if you want to make the five block trip on
foot, be my guest. I’ll drive over there now and wait for you.”

“Why do you have to be like that?”

“Be like what?”

I glared at him, both of us knowing he
didn’t need to answer. He knew quite well how he was acting, and
part of me had to wonder if he was doing it just to get on my
nerves.

He nudged himself off the front of the car
and went around to the side, opening the front passenger door and
nodding. “Go on, get in.”

“In the front?”

“Unless you want me to make a scene?” We
watched each other again for a few drawn seconds. “Are you coming
or not?”

“Yes, sir, Trigger, sir,” I saluted him like
a good little soldier.

He bit his lip and fought a smile, but he
turned his head to hide his amusement.

I climbed in the car and took it upon myself
to close the door, not waiting for him to make sure I was securely
in place. The last thing I needed was for him to think I needed his
help with the simplest of tasks.

Once in the driver’s seat and cruising down
the road, Luke was the first to break the five-minute silence.

“I was fifteen when my mom died,” he looked
straight on at the traffic. “She’d spent years on the force,
fighting against the roughest, toughest, and meanest.” He took a
moment to collect a breath, so I seized the opportunity and dug
through my bag to find my collection of notes. I wrote as he
continued. “Most cops in this town go their entire career never
having to shoot their gun. Mom was never one of the lucky ones. She
always seemed to find herself in the worst situations, but she
always managed to fight her way out. She’d be caught in fights,
brawls, and accidents left and right, and somehow she managed to
walk away free without a scratch every time.”

“Brave woman,” I said, still waiting on him
to make eye contact, but to no avail.

“She was,” he said, almost proudly. “So,
when the doctors told her that the lump in her chest wasn’t benign
as we’d all hoped, none of us doubted her strength to pull through.
We’d watched her go through so much, what was a little cancer?”