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“I know. I have plenty of my own. My mother abandoned me when I was in the second grade. Eight years old. My grandfather took me in and became a single parent at the ripe old age of fifty-nine. God, he was so thrilled when I joined the force. It seemed to erase his guilt some.”
“I can only imagine how happy you must’ve made him,” he said, his voice low.
“Then? Yes. Later? No. I became his second disappointment. Shortly into my service he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It took his mind fast. I wasn’t quite a rookie but I was still new to the force. I had to start caring for him and keep pulling my shifts. The pressure got to me. I couldn’t sleep after he started calling me by my mother’s name—Helen. It wasn’t long before he started shouting at me as if I were her, his biggest failure.” Nicole closed her eyes and sobbed. “I was so angry at him. I knew in my head that it was the illness, but I couldn’t get my heart around the fact that he could confuse me for my mother.”
“Chicago, that’s normal. Anyone would have felt that way. You’re too hard on yourself, sweetheart.”
“Am I?” She averted her eyes, unable to look directly at him. “I couldn’t sleep. I was going to work, coming home, trying to take care of him. I’d put my head on the pillow and my mind would spin and spin. Granddad had pain pills, prescription pain pills in his medicine cabinet. They were for his hip-replacement surgery that had occurred six months before his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. I started taking them at night just to get some rest. One a night became two and three and on and on. As they say ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ and I fell into the same mire my drug-addict mother fell into.”
He cupped her chin. “Look at me, baby.”
She couldn’t resist and raised her gaze to meet his.
“You are not your mother, Nicole.”
“You barely know me. How can you be sure?”
“Trust me, I know. You would never abandon anyone let alone a child like you were. Your mother did that, didn’t she?”
She nodded, feeling her lower lip begin to quiver. “I’m still an addict, Reed. After my grandfather’s death, I spiraled out of control. I thought I was only taking two or three pills a night to sleep but I was taking so much more.” The day of her near demise and biggest mistake had been a weight she’d carried for two years. Telling Reed seemed to be lifting it some. “I came to the station during a photo op one day for our Police Commander. You know what I did? I threw up on him while the cameras were running. Yep. I disgraced the Flowers name that day. I ran out without so much as an apology to the commander.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry.”
“Now I’ve got you saying it,” she smiled weakly. “I barely have any memory of that day I was so high on drugs. Two a night? I was delusional. It had to be much more. Patti, the only other female at the station, was my daily coffee run buddy. She found me an hour later at my apartment sprawled out on my living room floor with a bag of Oxycontin.”
“Was that the drug your grandfather was given for his surgery?”
“No. I have no idea where that bag of shit came from. Seriously, I was messed up. Jaris, my partner at the time, showed up right after Patti. I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for them. I would’ve lost my badge, too. They’ve kept my secret ever since, but they made sure I got clean. Jaris still goes with me to my addicts anonymous group three times a week.”
“Were you ever in love with him, Chicago?” His voice was steady and calm as he touched her on the cheek.
Her jaw dropped. “Jaris?”
God, he was a lot of things to her but never boyfriend material. Sure, he was good looking, but he was more brother than anything.
“Help me understand what he was to you, Nicole.”
“No. We were partners. We are friends. That’s all. Nothing else.”
He let out a long, heavy breath. “Good.”
She wondered why he cared. Was he less of a player than she’d first imagined him to be?
“So this has something to do with why you’re in Destiny?” Reed asked. “This case is connected in some way?”
“Nope. Patti and Jaris are the only people who know what really happened that day. The rest of the station believes I was suffering from the flu. It still landed me behind a desk for the past two years, but I have my badge.”
“That seems harsh to me.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. The station commander isn’t fond of me at all. He would love to see me off the force or at least out of his station.”
“Asshole.”
“Most definitely.”
“So why didn’t you leave the force?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Family history, I suppose.”
