AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 2
Teagan didn't want to admit it, but she was grateful for the break. Parking her car in the attached garage of her townhouse, she quickly punched in the numbers to the code on the locked inner door. Maybe she had been a bit paranoid adding the lock to the door inside of her garage, but she had seen too many bad things in her life. She took no chances with having a stranger meet her inside her home. Speaking of strangers, she should probably text her sisters back. They had been blowing up her phone all morning.
Evie and Ro were in some sort of ridiculous debate and needed a tiebreaker. Teagan had no interest in being that person, but it would appear that they weren't going to stop texting her until she weighed in on which ice cream flavor was the best. For the past month, they had been sorting out what they had alike and what they disagreed on. As identical triplets went, they sure had more differences than she'd have imagined. Looking at the screen, she giggled to herself. Ro was convinced that strawberry was the best flavor ever. Evie, on the other hand, was sticking to her guns about vanilla.
Come on, Ro, vanilla is obs the winner. You can put any topping on vanilla ice cream and make it into a sundae. There is a reason why everyone carries vanilla but very few places carry strawberry.
Feeling a bit naughty and needing the cosmic relief, Teagan texted back. You are both wrong. The best is Neapolitan. She put her phone down on the edge of the sink and prepared for a hot shower. Looking into the mirror, she groaned. The swelling under her left eye had gotten worse; she would have a black eye for sure.
Once the water was steaming hot, Teagan got in. She let the heat wash over her, hitting her aching muscles. The water unleashed the dam that had been holding back the tears. While she sobbed, she leaned against the shower wall. While at work, she did a great job of hiding her emotions. Being a woman in a still mostly male dominated profession was tough. She didn't have the privilege of showing emotions. There was a punching bag in the corner of her bedroom, one that got a lot of her work emotions pummeled into it. She wasn't normally a crier, but ever since meeting Rowena and Evelyn, things had changed. She was finding a part of herself that she had buried deep inside—a part of herself that she hadn't allowed to emerge before now.
They were tearing down her defenses and her walls. She didn't like it, not one bit, but she was finding it futile to fight. They mirrored her reflection. It was sometimes like battling with herself. Who wins in that situation? Finding them had given her permission to look into her past, her beginning, again. Maybe this time, she would find some actual questions.
All the emotions wrapped up in having an instant family had turned Teagan on her head. The constant bombardment of questions that floated around in her brain, causing her inability to sleep. The what ifs and whys were driving her to the very brink of her sanity. The defenses that she used at work were weakened by exhaustion and distraction, two things she hadn't battled since she had been in foster care.
Taking a deep breath and inhaling the steam, she allowed herself this moment. Ever since discovering that she had sisters, not only sisters but identical triplets, she had started to rethink her theories of how and why she had been abandoned. Her first domestic violence call after meeting Evie and Ro and every call since, made her think about her mother. Was her mother a victim of domestic violence? Did she give them up because of their father? It was possible; she had seen it happen before.
Today, holding that little girl as her mother's battered body was rushed aboard the helicopter, she wondered, not for the first time, if her own mother was even alive. Could Teagan's father have killed her mother, causing the abandonment?
She also couldn't help but question her motives at making her father into the bad guy. It was easier, she suspected, to blame him for her mother abandoning them than to believe that a mother would simply walk away from her three newborn daughters within days of their birth for any other reason. It would also explain how she had never been able to find her, even with all of her detective skills and endless access to resources.
Feeling herself falling down the rabbit hole of unanswered questions, Teagan snatched up her washcloth, lathered it with soap and scrubbed her body. She scrubbed as if she could take away the pain with the dirt and sweat, to no avail. Throwing the washcloth down, she stepped out of the shower. A few minutes later, she texted her sisters to see if they were available to meet her for lunch. Evie was unavailable, but Ro was willing to meet her at Sal's, a local upscale deli, and was calling ahead to get them a table.
* * *
Master Chief Lorenzo De Luca, Luca to his friends, slammed closed the binder on his desk before standing. Leaving the office and heading down the hallway, he poked his head into his best friend's office. "I need to get out of here for a bit," he said to Octavius.
"How long do you think you'll be? We need to go over the plans for next week."
"Not long, an hour max. I'm going to grab lunch and maybe a beer. I'll have my phone on me."
"Where do you think you're going, Lorenzo?" Ro spun her chair into the doorway from the other room.
"I'm not sure," Luca said.
"I'd die for a pastrami from Sal's, but not on rye. I can't stand rye. Bread shouldn't be black, and an extra pickle! Two pickles!" Ro smiled in appreciation at him.
"Sure. I didn't have a place in mind, and Sal's has great beer," Luca said.
"Yay!" Ro spun back into her office, mumbling as she went, "That was easy."
"What was that about?" Luca asked Octavius. "I've never seen her so excited over a sandwich."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Octavius said. "But if you are going to Sal's, will you bring me back a sandwich?"
"Your usual?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Jason, you want anything from Sal's?" Luca called out.
"That would be great. My norm. Thanks." Jason's voice carried from the other room.
"Sure thing. Be back in a bit." Luca walked into Sal's five minutes later.
The hostess smiled broadly at him. "Hi, Luca! Your friend is waiting for you over at the table." She pointed to a table where a woman sat, her back to him.
"There must be some mistake; I'm not meeting anyone."
