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Jared saw Rita chewing on her lip. “Can we speak to someone about pressing charges for harassment?” he asked. “My girlfriend’s ex won’t leave her alone.”
The woman looked at him flatly. “Is she making the complaint, or are you?”
Rita squared her shoulders. “I am,” she said. “But I want him to come with me while I file the complaint, if that’s all right.”
The woman’s eyes took her in, and something shifted in her expression. She grew softer and a lot more kind. “Of course,” she said. “If you say he can come in while you speak with Detective Drake, then he can.” She looked back at Jared, and her eyes hardened again. “But if she asks you to leave, you go, understand?”
Jared saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
The officer showed them to Detective Drake’s office. The man was dressed in a dark suit and sat behind a desk that looked nicer than the ones out in the bullpen.Perks of being a detective, Jared thought. He stood as they came in and reached out a hand. “Hey, I’m Detective Drake,” he introduced himself as he shook each of their hands. “What can I do for you folks?” He gestured for them to sit at the chairs across from him.
Jared looked at Rita. She was nervous again, but she wasn’t gnawing on her lip or playing with her hair. “My name is Rita Tucker,” she said. “I was married to a man named John Tucker—everyone calls him Tuck—for ten years, during which he was physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive.” Her breath hitched, and Jared slung his arm around the back of her chair. She leaned back against him, obviously needing the comforting contact.
Detective Drake kept his face relatively neutral, but his voice was soft and sympathetic. “I’m so sorry that you went through that. Are you here to press charges?”
Rita nodded, but then shook her head. “Not about the abuse,” she said. “It didn’t happen here. I…ran from that.”
“You ran?”
“Packed my bags, took my dog, and moved across country,” she clarified. “That’s not illegal, right?”
“Not…necessarily,” he said. “You didn’t have any children that you brought with you, correct?”
Rita shook her head. “No, I refused to have children with him…it led to one of our biggest fights, actually, but I was too afraid of what he would do to a child, and I didn’t want to be trapped like that.” The detective nodded along, but Jared was watching him keenly, ready to jump in if the detective made even the slightest suggestion that Rita was in the wrong. “Anyway, I’ve been in San Diego for more than two years, and life is good, you know? But Tuck sent someone to my workplace to harass me.”
“Harass how?”
Rita blushed. “He read me the first line from the song ‘Always.’”
The detective quirked an eyebrow. “The Irving Berlin song?”
She nodded. “I know how it sounds, but it was Tuck’s way of telling me that he’d found me. That he wouldalwaysfind me.”
Detective Drake sighed. “Now, Mrs. Tucker—”
“MissTucker,” Rita insisted. “I know I’m not technically divorced, but I haven’t been that man’s wife in a long time.”
“You kept his name, ma’am.”
Rita froze, and Jared leaned forward. “That’s enough,” he said. “You’re not going to sit there and stand in judgment over her.”
The detective raised his hands. “I’m not trying to judge anyone,” he said. “But let’s be realistic, okay? You left home more than two years ago, and now you think that your ex sent a man to read you a song lyric, and I’m supposed to take that as harassment and file charges? Does he even live here?”
Rita shook her head, and Jared could see tears tracking their way down her face.This was a waste of time, he thought. “No, sir,” she said miserably. “At least, not as far as I know. I can’t really be sure what he’s been up to for the past two years. I cut all ties when I left.”
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the fact is that you don’t have any evidence that clearly links a creepy guy walking up to you at work to your husband.”
Rita’s face lit up. “But I do!” She dug out her phone. “Tuck left me a voicemail a few days before that. Would that be enough?”
Jared was as surprised as the detective.Why didn’t she tell me?
The detective rested his hands on his desk. “Play the voicemail for me.”
She pressed play, and a voice so full of rage that it made Jared’s heart beat a little harder filled the office. “You fucking bitch,” it said. “You’re going to pay.” She should have told him right after she had gotten it. If he’d known, Tuck wouldn’t have had the opportunity to send anyone to her. Jared would have taken care of it.
The detective wrote down some notes and sighed. “It’s certainly not a fun voicemail to get, I agree,” he said. “But do you have another recording of your ex? To compare it with?”
Rita looked at him. “No…I got rid of anything like that when I left.”
