Page 14 of No Sweet Goodbyes

At least I’ll have the upper hand when I finally corner him again. Because if he wants to be stubborn, I can be too. And he doesn’t stand a chance against me. I had two brothers who taught me how to fight for every single thing in my life.

The parking lot when I roll in is full, but that doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Honestly, seeing my brother’s truck in the crowded lot offers a huge sense of relief.

Walking in, I think about everything I’ve done. All the work I’ve put into this. And when my new boss smiles at me from behind the plexiglass window, I almost throw up from the nerves.

“Come on in, Emma.” He buzzes me into the hallway, and I follow him into my new life, hoping that I’m not too green in the face. “I’ve been waiting for you so that I could escort you in. It’s a big day.”

Photos on the wall catch my attention, and I pause to stare at Linc’s familiar face. He’s standing right next to Remy, wearing a familiar dress uniform.

“You know that’s going to be you in a few months.” Chief Townsend turns around and glances at the photo of my brother’s graduating class. “We’ll talk about it more in my office, but I’m glad you’re joining us.”

“Me too.” I smile through the queasy feeling.

He turns and walks into the bullpen toward his office, and even though I’ve been there before, I still stare wide-eyed at all the officers just milling about.

Mainly my brother and Remy, who both clap when they see me.

“Finally!” Linc whistles. “Glad to see you didn’t chicken out.”

It’s hard to keep a secret from my big brother, and even though I never told him what I was doing… it didn’t take him being a genius to figure it out.

“What’s going on?” Dom walks out of an office in the hall and freezes when he sees me. “What are you doing here?” He turns to Linc, an eyebrow raised that reminds me of the look Alta had on her face in my kitchen. “What’s she doing here?”

Linc makes a face. The kind that a little kid would make when they’re keeping a secret, and then he looks constipated.

I don’t bother answering Dom.

He deserves to be blindsided by this.

If he stayed the night before and talked to me instead of running away after the kiss, I may have said something. But it’s not like it’s some huge secret. Instead, I follow Chief Townsend into his office, and one of the other cops chimes in before I can shut the door completely.

“The new girl is hot,” echoes into the room followed by the sharp sound of someone being hit.

“That’s my sister, you peasant.” Linc’s retort has me laughing, and the rest of my unease at starting the new job fades.

Chief Townsend sits behind his desk, where I see the fine lines around his eyes and the streaks of gray in his short hair. “Tell me something, Emma.”

I glance at the chair across from his desk before deciding to stand with my hands clasped behind my back. “What, sir?”

“Why are you going to be a police officer? I know in your interviews you gave the standard answers. Wanting to help, wanting to contribute to your community. But I know you. I’ve known your family my entire life. Your father and I went to school and served together. There’s something more, and if you’re going to have a loaded weapon in my city, I want to know exactly why. The real reason.”

His words hit me like a freight train. Everyone—literally everyone—accepts the fact that I want to serve somehow like the rest of my family, without diving any deeper. They just take me at face value. Suddenly, I regret my choice to stand because my knees shake just a little bit.

I’m not going to lie to him. Not even a lie by omission.

Staring at my father’s best friend, I have to fight past the ash in my mouth to tell him something I haven’t told a single other person in my life.

“Sir,” I croak. I clear my throat and then find it a little bit easier to breathe. “Danny. My brother. He’s the reason.” My sentences are short and clipped, and I feel like an idiot because of course the chief knows my brother.

When the man across the desk crosses his hands and the smile drops from his face, I know that it isn’t enough. That he needs all of it.

“Before he died, Danny and I talked about what I was going to do. If I was going to join the military like they did. What I could do. I wanted to join the Marine Corps. I thought he’d tell me I was crazy. That I wouldn’t be able to do it. Instead, he told me to go for it. He told me I could do it.” I shuffle from foot to foot and try not to burst into tears. “That I could do anything. And then he died. When they brought him home—” I sniff. “When they brought him home, I saw the pain that it put my mom through. I saw how it hurt. How his death changed everyone around me in ways that I can see and explain and ways that I’ll never really understand. I thought about our conversation, and how he told me to do it. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ask my mom or dad to go through that pain again. So I shifted. I want to be the best. The very best that I can be. I do want to make a difference, I always have. I want to serve my community. I told the truth during my interview and every step of the way. I’ve been honest and open. But this… it’s not a dream or some random thought. It’s not something that I’m doing to mark a line on a list of things to do. I’m going to do it because I want to, have always wanted to, just like my brother. Just like my family always has. I need to.”

I don’t know what I expect from Alex Townsend in that moment. From the look on his face, I can’t tell if he’s Chief Townsend, or if he’s acting as the pseudo-uncle who has come to every party and family gathering we have had through the years. And that’s the most terrifying thing of all. Because he has the power to keep me from doing this. He can keep me from my dream, and I don’t know what I’ll do if he does that.

“Well, I got nothing, Emma. I didn’t think that was going to come out of your mouth.” He picks up a pen from his desk and spins it around with his fingers. “I thought you’d give me a line about wanting to make a difference again. About wanting to be a good cop. The same line that I get over and over again when I ask our new hires. If you’d given me that line, I might be able to look your father in the eye when I told him that it didn’t work out. But you didn’t. You’re in.” He taps the pen against the desk now. “Here’s the timeline. Two weeks here, followed by eighteen weeks at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.”

I nod, silently calculating the times and what it will mean as far as graduation dates.

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