Page 44 of No Second Chances

My heart stutters in my chest, almost coming to a standstill. Then I remember there is no way. Kennedy literally left me at Taco Bell maybe twenty minutes before the call, and she is going to an appointment, dragging Parker along with her. That doesn’t do anything to my blood pressure, though.

“It’s not Kennedy.” The relieved sigh on the other end gives me more information than anything I could have collected on my own. “I’m en route. Send backup.”

Before I can say anything else or get distracted, I pull out onto the main road in Birch and head toward Oak Street. The entire time, my lights and sirens clear the road, and thoughts of what I may find when I get there keep flashing in my mind.

His front door is open when I pull up to the house, and I get out of my cruiser after telling dispatch I’m on scene with my gun in my hand.

Yes, I have problems with Royal. Yes, I think he’s a fuckin’ prick. But no matter what, I’ll treat him with the same dignity and respect that I will for anyone I’m responding to a call for.

“Birch Police Department,” I call out before entering the residence. I also make sure that my body cam is turned on, because I’ll be damned if Royal comes back and says that I didn’t do my job. “Birch Police Department. I’m coming into the residence.” As I step inside, I hold my gun and flashlight together to make sure that I can see in the darkened rooms. There aren’t any lights on, and there must be blackout curtains on the windows.

For the first ten feet or so, I can’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Once I make my way into the hall of the single-story ranch, I hear muffled sobs coming from the kitchen at the end of the corridor.

“Hello?” I raise my voice, praying to everything I hold holy that I’m not about to see someone whom I care about in Royal’s kitchen. “Birch Police Department. We received a report of a disturbance. The front door was open. Can you hear me?”

Something metal in the kitchen clangs and falls to the floor with a loud crash. I step into the kitchen with a wide arc of my flashlight. A shock of red hair is the only thing I see, and I slam my hand onto the light switch on the wall so that I can see exactly what I’m dealing with.

For a fraction of a second, I think I’m wrong. I think Kennedy is sitting there at the kitchen table with a steak knife clutched in her hand. Instead, I look down into Mallory’s black-and-blue face, red with blood under her nose and on her mouth. Her face is so swollen I almost don’t recognize her. But the blue eyes hit me. Ones that I found condescending and lifeless before are now filled with fear and pain.

“Mallory? Mallory Mitchells? Are you okay? Is he still here?” I put the gun away and grab the mic at my chest when she shakes her head in the negative. “Dispatch be advised, one party on scene; she’s denying the male party is present. Please send an ambulance for the female subject. I haven’t cleared the house yet. How long until backup arrives?” I gently pull the knife away from Mallory, and she lets me take it without so much as flinching. I set it on the counter behind me.

“Unit 10 on scene now,” comes the response, not from Teri but from Amie.

Teri responds, “10-4. Dispatching an ambulance now.”

I move to the hall and shine my light for Amie when she appears at the doorway. “Do you want to stay with her while I clear?”

The look on her face, in the light that the outside offers in the shadows, clearly tells me to go fuck myself. Amie has her gun and light out, and she immediately goes in the opposite direction. I look over my shoulder to see that Mallory hasn’t moved from her spot, and she still stares at the doorway, at me, with fear.

“Mallory, I’m going to stay right here until Officer Lee comes back in the room. While we wait, do you want to tell me what happened? Or do you want me to wait?”

She shakes her head woodenly. “He made me color my hair, Linc. Held me in the shower while he poured red dye all over it and made me do it. He said he thought I looked better. But you know why he did it, right? He’s trying to make me her.” Mallory’s tears are almost enough to make me offer her comfort. But she is still the same person who tried to physically harm Parker. She is the one who took out Royal’s anger at Kennedy on everyone she cares about.

“Mallory, the ambulance is on their way, okay? We’ll get you taken care of. You can press charges, and you can file a restraining order against him.”

Thankfully, Amie walks into the kitchen right then, because Mallory goes fucking crazy. She starts screaming and dives for the knife on the counter.

“What the shit, Linc?” Amie grabs her, and I get the weapons out of the way.

While Amie puts Mallory in restraints, more for her own safety than for ours, I clear the kitchen of all the knives and wonder what the hell I said wrong.

“You’re going to be okay,” Amie whispers, trying to soothe the obviously distraught woman.

“He didn’t do anything,” Mallory insists as she refuses to look at me. “He didn’t do anything, and I won’t press charges against him because I fell.” Her eyes move wildly between the two of us and I fight the urge to snap and rage against the lies she is telling. The pain she endured at the hands of Royal sends a jolt through my body.

I have my phone in my hand, taking photos of her face and arms before the ambulance gets there to make sure I have them before she is cleaned up. Not only will we need them for the report, but whether or not she presses charges, I want it documented.

Abusers don’t start with what we are looking at. They escalate from somewhere. They start with a minor act. Something they like that makes every dark and perverse desire they have stand out. Pain.

Kennedy. Kennedy had been engaged to him. She’d broken it off, and she’d run away from her life with him. Hell, I can still smell her perfume in his fucking house, and she hasn’t been there in months.

“Is he obsessed with her?” The question tears from my throat like a tornado ripping through the countryside. “Is he planning on hurting her, Mallory?” The thought makes me sick, and I struggle to keep my lunch from coming back up.

Mallory doesn’t meet my eyes. She doesn’t move an inch. She doesn’t say a word. And as much as I want to shake her, to demand that she tells me the truth, I can’t. She is a victim too, even if she is an unlikable one.

Bootsteps approaching have both me and Amie turning to see the paramedics arriving on scene for Mallory. The entire time they talk to her, prod her, and assess her injuries, Mallory doesn’t say a word.

If she hadn’t just gone off on us, I’d think that she is in a catatonic state. As it is, there isn’t much we can do other than file a report.

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