Page 46 of Loco

The kids had clung to me the entire time. Kairo understood just enough to be quiet and confused, and Kaida just cried because everyone else was crying. I’d held it together for their sake, butafter they went to bed that night, I sat on my bedroom floor and lost it for a while.

Now, though, we were finding a rhythm. I’d gotten them into daycare. Thank God Sayla helped with the forms because I swear those things were more complicated than police reports. It wasn’t cheap, but it was the best place in the area, and they liked it. Kairo came home with finger paint masterpieces and stories about his new friend who only wore superhero capes. Kaida was already bossing around the other toddlers. I was grateful for it—for a little bit of normalcy in the chaos.

I was back at work, too, no more working from home. Stepping into my office had felt strange like I’d been gone for years instead of weeks. Judd had caught me up as fast as he could, but there was a lot to unpack.

While I’d been gone, a complaint had come in against one of the officers we’d already suspected of playing dirty. A woman had reported him for witness intimidation—it turns out the cop’s brother was stalking her, and instead of protecting her, he tried to scare her into dropping the charges.

And just this morning, one of the newer analysts brought us a list that made my stomach turn—stop-and-search reports, traffic stops, incident reports, all pointing to another officer racially profiling half the damn town. Patterns so obvious a blind man could’ve seen them.

Judd was livid. I hadn’t seen him that pissed since the Delgado case.

“I can’t believe this shit was happening under my nose,” he muttered, pacing my office like a caged animal. “We don’t get tofix the world, Roque, but I’ll be damned if I let this department rot from the inside out.”

I didn’t have anything comforting to say, he was right to be angry. I was furious, too. But we’d start tearing it down, piece by piece, if we had to. We’d been rooting out corruption for months, and I hadn’t expected to find this much rot left behind.

And when I clocked out, picked up the kids, and saw Kaida’s entire face light up when she spotted me at the daycare door, it reminded me why I was doing this, why it all mattered.

I probably seemedflippant about what was going on at work, but the truth was, I’d spent the entire day neck-deep in reports, following paper trails and bad decisions. The case we were building was solid—ugly, but solid—and in between that, I was still attending calls, still wearing the badge like it didn’t weigh more daily. But now, I had to shut all that off.

I had two little humans in the back seat who didn’t care about corrupted chain-of-command charts or stop-and-search discrepancies. They just wanted dinner, cartoons, and a story before bed. And right now, they neededme. Not the detective, not the guy burning down dirty corners of the department—just me.

I pulled up in front of the house, headlights washing over the front porch. Habit had me glance across the street to Sayla’s place.

Still dark.

I frowned. Her car wasn’t in the drive, and none of the porch lights were on. She usually left one on, especially with the contractors still going in and out. I reached for my phone and typed a quick message before unbuckling.

You okay? Your house is dark. Is everything good?

For a second, I hesitated before hitting send, a tight feeling curling in my gut. Maybe something had gone wrong with the renovations again—or worse, perhaps something had happened toher.

The kids were laughing before I even opened the door. As soon as I lifted them out of their seats and got them inside, both dogs barreled toward us, tails wagging like they'd been gone a week instead of a few hours.

“Okay, okay,” I laughed, setting Kaida down as Kairo dropped to his knees to greet them. “We missed you too, guys.”

Even the grump, Dog, sat watching from his perch on the windowsill like some judgmental older man. He hadn’t entirely accepted the new world order yet. But then Kaida walked up to him slowly, gentle as anything, and reached out to stroke the top of his head.

Dog blinked at her. Then, in a rare moment of complete surrender, he rolled onto his back and exposed his belly.

My eyes widened. “Wow, you’re officially part of the family, Kaida. He doesn’t do that foranyone.”

She giggled and dropped to her knees beside him, and for a second, everything else faded—just the warmth of the house, the echo of tiny feet, and the soft thud of dog tails against the floor.

I picked up the mail on the way to the kitchen, flipping through the usual junk and bills. One envelope caught my eye—plain, with no return address, and postmarked locally. I slit it open without thinking.

Inside was a single photo.

Me, standing outside the daycare with Kaida on my hip and Kairo holding my hand.

My heart slowed, then sped up, beating hard and heavy in my chest.

I stared at it for a beat before pulling out my phone and snapping a picture. Then, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a Ziploc bag from the drawer, and sealed both the photo and envelope inside. Then, I slid it into the cupboard with the cups in it until I had time to bring it in.

Me:I just got this in the mail. There is no return address. It is a photo of me dropping the kids off.

I hit send to Judd with the picture attached, and within seconds, his reply buzzed through.

Judd:Bring it all in tomorrow. Make sure your alarms are on tonight.

---