Page 15 of Last Chance Christmas
“I have no idea.” She stood up, stretching her arms above her head and rolling her shoulders. “But I doubt anyone at the department is going to rest until these three guys are back in custody. One of the corrections officers is still missing, and the other is in no condition to tell us anything. We’re relying on what Damien Wallace has told us happened.”
He wanted to ask her out for coffee, but it would have to wait until she was done with this case. Maybe she’d want to come with him to the firehouse Christmas party.
Izan watched her leave and saw how exhausted she was in her movements as she walked to her squad car.
He clocked out and, instead of going home, drove to the hospital. Junior stood in the waiting area, his arm in a sling. Talking to a shorter woman with red hair, wearing scrubs. She laughed at something he said, shifting on her white canvas shoes.
Izan knew that look on Junior’s face.
The problem was the woman he was speaking with.
“And here I was gonna buy you a cup of coffee on the way home.” Izan nearly turned around and walked back out. She could take him home if she was that eager to spend time with him.
She spun around. “Izan.” All red hair, freckles, and wide eyes. Totally innocent.
Yeah, right. “Ainsley.” He looked at Junior. “You’ve met my sister. Ready to go?”
Junior looked between Ainsley and Izan. “Your sister?”
He’d kind of thought everyone knew he was adopted. “Let’s go.” He turned away and heard her tell Junior she was glad he was all right.
Junior followed after Izan. He caught up as the doors slid open. “Bro, I had no idea she was your sister.”
“It isn’t like you did anything wrong.” Izan glanced over. “Or did you?”
Junior was the kind of guy who’d laugh and say Not yet. So Izan braced for it. But instead, the guy shrugged one shoulder. “It’s been a long night. Coffee sounds good.”
Izan drove his buddy back home so he could rest after getting stitched up, hitting the pharmacy on the way to fill Junior’s prescriptions. When he finally got home to his little rental house, tucked at the back of a cul-de-sac and hidden from the road between two houses, he sat in the drive for a second. Exhausted didn’t quite cover it. He was dragging, but if he wanted to maintain some semblance of a sleep schedule, he had to push through and not take a nap until after lunch.
He grabbed his duffel bag and headed for the side door that led into his kitchen.
Two steps into the house, the door closed behind him of its own accord. Izan spun around and faced a man wearing his clothes. A man who could’ve been his brother.
“Alonzo.”
The escaped convict lifted a gun and pointed it at Izan. “Hello, cousin.”
Seven
Olivia pulled onto Izan’s street but parked close to the turn-in because there was a fence where she wouldn’t block anyone’s drive or mailbox. She’d clocked out, changed clothes, and come in her personal car, but in a situation like this, she wasn’t about to go unarmed. There were dangerous criminals roaming the streets, and all the cops in Last Chance County were out looking for them.
She’d been ordered to clock out for six hours minimum and get some rest, but that didn’t mean letting her guard down.
One quick chat, and she was going to get some sleep. There was no way she could leave their conversation the way it had ended at the firehouse. On duty, she had to be a cop. Now that she was off shift, she could be Olivia Tazwell, a woman with a mega crush.
Not that she was going to act on it.
She didn’t feel like she needed to apologize for asking those questions. She’d been doing her job, after all. She hadn’t done anything wrong. But she did feel like it was worth at least clearing the air between her and Izan.
Olivia headed for the kitchen door without thinking much of it, since the last time she’d been here—months ago now, for a summer barbecue—Izan had everyone come in the side or go right to the cute little backyard he had.
She was kind of jealous of it, even though the place could use some TLC. Weeds needed to be pulled and maybe some flowers planted. But the whole area was so peaceful. The kind of spot where you could sit and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Raised voices interrupted her thoughts.
Olivia’s footsteps stalled. She instinctively reached to her gun, but didn’t pull it. As a cop, resting her hand on her weapon meant something far different than drawing it. She unsnapped the catch that held it secure in the holster.
Ready.
