Page 21 of Shielding Aubree

"She wanted me to branch out and try some approaches that I considered way outside of my wheelhouse.

"Police," she continued, "don't need Pilates as much as we need hand to hand and defensive sparring."

Henley's expression turned inward as if she was focused on her thoughts. "Is that your mindset or what's been drilled into you?

"Get out of my head." Aubree chuckled. "I was just thinking that my thoughts were all my dad." Aubree flopped back against the cushions and shook her head. "When I put in my application for the NMSP, my dad put me through a rigorous training before I went to training. "

In her head she could still hear him as he set a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to meet her gaze. "No child of mine is going to walk into police training clueless."

"Aubree?"

Aubree closed her eyes and leaned into the sensation of his voice.

When it faded completely into her memory she looked back up at Henley. "Sorry. I heard my dad's voice in my head."

Henley nodded. "Your dad worked for the Los Alamos Police, right?"

"Pretty much all of his adult life. He served a few years in the Army at the demolitions base near here. That's where he met my mom. Both of them have visited places out of New Mexico, but they've both always lived in the state." Aubree adjusted herself on the chair, leaning a little on one cushy arm to ease the tension building in her back. "When my brothers would wrestle around as kids, I wanted to join in, but they always told me that our father would kick their butts if they hurt me.

"Now, I didn'twantto get hurt. I just wanted to have fun."

"And your brothers certainly looked like they were having fun, right?"

"Oh they did!" Aubree laughed and she enjoyed the sound of her own laughter.

It had been a while.

"And even when they got bruises, they showed them off like trophies."

"Tom boy?"

Aubree bared her teeth awkwardly. "Hardly. At least not on the outside. Mary Janes. Pinafores. My mom loved dressing me up and my dad? He found the most beautiful communion dress for me. I'd never felt so pretty."

Aubree felt the heat rising in her cheeks. "I kept wanting to play games with my brothers, but that was a no go from the beginning. When my little brother Pablo became a toddler, they pulled him into the fun.

"And there were some nights I went to sleep in the wee hours of the morning because I was just angry. And I wanted to scream at everyone to be taken seriously, but that's the problem, isn't it? My dad would have given me one of his looks and said in no uncertain terms that yelling would only get me negative attention. So when he took me aside and said he'd train me before I went to training for the State Police, I felt like...

"No, I knew that I was being accepted."

"Because of his interest in helping you?"

"No," Aubree smiled, a melancholy grin, "that he wasn't going to take things easy on me."

Henley crossed one leg over the other and leaned on the armrest. "That's one way to take it."

Aubree shrugged. "Asking him what he meant wouldn't do any good."

Henley's expression became more thoughtful. "Why not? Do you think your dad wouldn't tell you the truth?"

"Hard to say. I don't think he'd keep the truth from me, but I also don't think that he's really thought about the reasons whyhe does the things he does. It's different from when he was on the police force. He was always super honest in his reports and his dealings with other officers.

"It made for difficult times for him. For the family, really."

"Can you tell me about it?"

Aubree hesitated for a moment and then she shrugged, settling into the chair, needing the comfort. "It's all public record. My father turned in his partner for taking bribes. People were trying to avoid tickets and in a few cases arrest. At first it seemed like Nick, that was his name, was just making questionable decisions, but when my dad saw Nick accept money from someone after letting them off of a pretty hefty ticket, he confronted him.

"Nick tried to explain that it was a donation for the youth athletic league. The excuse was an empty one. Both my dad and Nick knew that Nick was the guy who was least likely to get involved in anything benefiting others.

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