I found him three rows in.
I pulled my head back, pressed my back into the side of the shelf and took a deep breath.
Then I peeked just my head around again and called softly, “Please don’t run. You aren’t in trouble.”
He was squatting to the bottom shelf, a book in his hand and his head snapped around and up.
It was then I saw the full extent of damage to his face.
Not only a black eye, swollen shut, and a bruised cheekbone but a swollen, painful looking nose and a gash on his lip that glistened, not because it had been treated with ointment but because it was gaping and exposing flesh.
My stomach clutched, my frame froze and my throat closed. He dropped the book, shot up straight and dashed down the aisle the opposite direction from me.
At his movements, I came unstuck, quickly turned on my boot and raced down my side, clearing the shelves and seeing him darting down the stairs. No, jumping down them three steps at a time, taking him down in two big jumps that made my heart jump with him because I feared he’d harm himself.
“Please! Stop! You’re not in trouble!” I shouted. “Promise!” I kept shouting as I ran down the steps after him. “I just want to talk!”
Out the door he went and out the door I went after him, down the sidewalk to town.
The pavements were cleared, my boots had low heels and I belonged to McLeod’s Gym. I didn’t do those boot camps they had at McLeod’s because they weren’t at times I could attend (not to mention, I’d heard about them and they scared me). But I did go four times a week to spend half an hour on the Stairmaster, treadmill or rowing machine.
“A body takes care of itself or a body finds they don’t have a body no more.”
This was more of Dad’s wisdom. So I took care of mine.
This meant, I might not be ready to attempt my first Iron Man, but I wasn’t in bad shape.
Even with all this going for me, I was no match for the boy. He sprinted three blocks gaining more and more, darted around the corner into town and by the time I darted around it after him, he’d disappeared.
I stood there, breathing slightly heavy, my gaze scanning the area to find any trace of him but he was gone.
“Darn,” I whispered, hoping I didn’t scare him into never coming back at the same time knowing that was not all I should do.
He was nine or ten and regularly beaten by someone. Bullies or, God, I hoped not, family. I knew it. And I had to do something about it.
I stood in the cold without a coat, my breaths coming out in visible puffs, my mind sifting through my possible next steps.
First, I had to get back to the library. I was the only one on which meant there was no one there except patrons.
Then, I could do two things.
One, I could call my Dad, tell him what was happening and lay the problem on his broad shoulders, knowing he’d look into it then promptly do something about it.
Two, I could be a grown up, not call my Dad to hand over a burden that wasn’t mine but was all the same and I could go to the Police Station, report what I’d seen and hope they’d do something about it.
The problem with that was, Chace Keaton worked at the Police Station.
The boy’s nose, eye, cheekbone and lip came into sharp relief in my mind’s eye and I closed my actual eyes as I sucked in breath.
I opened them and turned back to the library knowing what I had to do.
I should note, not liking it.
But knowing it.
* * * * *
Chace
It was quarter to seven when she walked in.
He’d applied for the job in Carnal upon graduation from the Academy. It was the only place he’d worked since earning his badge and he’d worked there thirteen years.
And not once had Faye Goodknight walked into the Police Department. Not even when Rowdy Crabtree brought her father in on that trumped up charge for drunk and disorderly when Silas Goodknight had just been in Bubba’s, a place he didn’t frequent but he wasn’t a stranger. Silas had been celebrating a friend’s fiftieth birthday. Silas, nowhere near drunk and definitely not disorderly, spent the night in the tank. His wife, Sondra, had come in to make bail and pick him up.
Fortunately, the charge didn’t stick. And none of the Goodknights knew this but the reason it didn’t was because Chace intervened with Fuller, talking him down about targeting another well-respected, well-liked citizen. He’d explained Fuller already had enough talk in town about what was done to Walker, he didn’t need more speculation. And worse, he didn’t need to rile up Goodknight who had demonstrated, repeatedly, he was not the kind of man to go away quiet, lick his wounds and fight another day. He was the kind of man who would go down fighting which meant he’d take others with him.
Fuller had, surprisingly, relented and set up Crabtree to take the hit of a bad arrest.
Now, she was here. And he saw her eyes skid through him at his desk while they scanned the room and she moved to reception.
He figured she was there at that time because the library opened at ten and closed at six.
He also figured she was there at that time because she expected him not to be there.
Whatever reason she was there, he should leave it be. He knew he should leave it be.
But he couldn’t help but think it was no coincidence that he’d not spoken to her directly once in all the years they’d lived in the same town, now they’d spoken twice and she was there.
So he didn’t leave it be.
He got up and started to the reception desk.
Her clear blue eyes skittered to him when he was five feet away and he felt the touch of them like it was real. A hand curled around his neck. Fingers gliding into his hair. Soft, light, sweet.
That kind of real.
Fuck.
She just had to look at him, that was it, and he reacted.
He continued on his path to the last place he should be.
Close to Faye Goodknight.
“Everything all right, Faye?” he asked when he got there.
“She’s got a report to make,” Jon, the officer on duty at the desk, answered for her.
Chace didn’t take his eyes from Faye. “About what?”
Jon answered again, humor in his tone now, “We haven’t gotten that far.”
Chace’s body and mouth made a decision and carried it out again before his brain caught up.
And this was, stepping to the side and opening the low, hinged, wooden gate, eyes still on Faye, mouth saying, “Faye, you follow me. Jon, I’ll handle it.”
Her teeth appeared in order to bite her lip, she hesitated a moment then she moved to do as he asked.
Chace felt Jon’s eyes on him but he didn’t glance in his direction. It wasn’t worth the effort. First, whatever this was, he was going to handle it and he had rank on Jon so Jon had no say in the matter. Second, Jon had a big mouth and even if Chace threatened him, Jon would run that mouth. It wasn’t worth the effort to do more than threaten him. So whatever Jon was thinking about Chace intervening would be all over the Station by tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. And Faye looking the way she looked and Chace showing at reception before she even had a chance to explain why she was there, he knew exactly what would be all over the Station by tomorrow.
This last, he didn’t give a f**k about. Enough words had been whispered about Chace over the last six years. This no longer affected him.
He led Faye to an interrogation room, opened the door and kept it open with arm extended, his nonverbal invitation for her to precede him. She glanced at him then lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear as she looked away, ducked her head and walked by him.
He’d seen her tuck her hair behind her ear, often. And he’d always thought it was cute.
Seeing it close up, it was, like everything he was noting about Faye, a f**kuva lot cuter.
He stepped in behind her, closed the door and leaned his back against it, crossing his arms on his chest.
“Um… you might be mistaken,” she started, her eyes moving to the door behind him before lifting to his. “I’m not certain this needs privacy, Detective Keaton.”
“I thought we decided on Chace.”
She blinked and her head gave a slight twitch. “What?”
“I want you to call me Chace, Faye.”
“Right,” she whispered, her eyes on him having changed so she wasn’t simply meeting his but studying him.
“Now, what doesn’t need privacy?” he prompted.
“I…” She started, paused then continued, “See, there’s this…” She paused again, adjusted her torso in a way where it seemed she was trying to straighten her shoulders but failing as her eyes drifted away and she went on, “The thing is…” she trailed off, stopped and he watched as her teeth came back out. This time, they caught her lower lip on the outside then pulled in, teeth gliding over her lip and disappearing.
Christ, everything she did, having no clue she was doing it, was not only unbelievably sexy but her having no clue she was doing it was precisely why her doing it was unbelievably sexy.
“Faye,” he said softly, her gaze shot back to his and she spoke again, this time quickly.
“There’s a boy,” she began. “I don’t know, nine, ten years old. He comes into the library and steals books.”
“I see,” he murmured then guessed, “You don’t want to get him into trouble but you also can’t have him stealing books.”
“No,” she shook her head, “he returns them.”
Chace blinked.
Then he asked, “What?”
“He returns them,” she answered and kept talking in a rush. “I mean, since he steals them instead of checks them out, I can’t know if he’s returning all of them. But, for months now, he’s been coming in once or twice a week and once or twice a week I’ll have two or three books in the return bin that were never checked out. So, since I have no record what he took, I can’t know if he returns them all. But he’s a slip of a boy and although his jacket is big, he can’t lug out dozens of books. And I’ve had my eye on him. So if he’s stealing loads, I would notice. He isn’t stealing loads so, I’m not sure, but I think he returns all of them or, uh…” she faltered then finished, “the vast majority of them.”
“If this is true, I’m uncertain how there’s a problem.”
She pulled in a visibly deep breath.
And then she let it out while informing him quietly, “He’s being beaten.”
At that, Chace straightened from the door but he didn’t move from it as he whispered, “Beaten?”
She nodded.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Well, the bruise on his cheekbone I saw. And the other one around his jaw. And then there were the ones on his wrists. But today,” she swallowed, took a half step toward him, stopped and sucked in another breath before going on, “today, it was bad.”
“How bad?”