Page 22 of No Broken Promises

REMY

Emma Hayes is standing in front of Parker’s house, pounding on the front door with both hands when I pull up.

Just to fuck with her, I flash my lights and turn the siren on for a single whoop and laugh as she jumps into the air.

The glare on her face that promises retribution is definitely worth watching her almost pee herself. Besides, I know Linc will appreciate having video evidence of his sister being scared.

“I’m worried,” she calls out as soon as I get out of the cruiser and open the back door for Daisy. “Parker’s car is here, but she’s not answering the door. And I can’t get Nox to answer me either.”

Admittedly, when I saw the call with Parker’s address pop up on my CAD, I immediately called into dispatch. Since I’ve been worried too, I went ahead and claimed the call for my own. Although, I am not about to tell Emma that.

“And you didn’t use your spare key, why?” I don’t actually climb the stairs. I am pretty sure that Emma will kick me in the chest and send me sprawling on my ass for the question I just asked. Instead, I stand down on the walkway, cocking my head to the side as I wait for her response.

I don’t have to wait long.

“Because,” she hisses. “The spare key is gone from the usual hiding place.”

I roll my eyes, because of course it is. Parker has a five-year-old and kids are little shits. “Chances are, Nox was using it for some sort of experiment in the backyard and lost it.” At least, that’s what Danny would have done.

Emma stares at me, silently demanding that I snap into action.

“Did you call her?”

Yes, I am being a dick to Emma. But I am also doing my job. I don’t want to break into anyone’s house to check on them, not without probable cause. Even if it is Parker we are talking about.

“Yes,” Emma huffs. “I tried calling, texting, and even tried looking through the windows like a fucking creep just to see if there is a dead body on the living room floor.”

When I raise an eyebrow at her, I also cross my arms over my chest and let them rest under my body cam.

“She has a concussion, Remy. If something happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

Shit.

That spurs me into action, and I am at her front door a moment later, pushing Emma out of my way so I can crouch down and inspect the lock.

“She needs a better lock,” I mutter to myself. Then I pull my wallet from my pocket.

There is a metal card, not really a credit card, but not thick enough to be much more than that, one that I had bought specifically for this reason. After sliding it into place, I put as much weight as I can into pushing it behind the lock. With a satisfying click, I grab the handle and twist it until the door opens.

Emma, ever the impatient girl that I’ve known most of my life, pushes her way by and into the house.

“Parker. Where are you?” She wraps her hands around her mouth, hollering as she marches purposefully through the living room and into the kitchen.

I move to follow, stopping short when I see the dog tags hanging on her living room wall underneath the folded flag that she’d been given after Danny died. Hanging from a bronze hook, they are the same ones I’d pulled from his body while we were overseas. A nail stuck in the wall directly to the right of the dog tags holds a stained and dirty collar with the name ‘Boo’ engraved on it.

“Yeah,” Emma says when she walks back into the room looking a lot more relieved than she’d been a few minutes before. “She hung them up so that Nox can talk to Danny whenever he wants. And now he can talk to Boo too.”

I missed those the night Nox ran away from home, if that is the word for what he’d done.

My throat burns, and I have to blink to get rid of the dust that appears in the corner of my eye unexpectedly. “She must have loved Danny more than anything.”

Emma snorts and then rolls her eyes and turns so that she is staring at the flag alongside me. “Remy, you knew them. They got married because of the baby. Danny might have had feelings for Parker, and that’s a really big maybe, but she didn’t love him.”

The world starts to tilt to the side as I listen to Danny’s little sister bluntly putting it all out there.

“What?”

Emma shifts next to me and sighs, long and loud. “Danny and Parker didn’t have some whirlwind romance. I might have been young when it happened, but even I knew. They hooked up drunk after a party and Parker ended up pregnant. As far as I know, they weren’t even together. But I still remember that night. I remember her crying afterward and him apologizing over and over the next morning.”

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