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She nods, then throws her arms around me. “We need to get Robbie a room ready. And some toys. He’ll need a new school, closer to here, and—”
I roll her onto her back. “First things first. If we’re going to be foster parents, this calls for celebratory fuck, don’t you think?”
Her mouth curls in a smile. “I do. I surely do.”
CHAPTER22
Ruth
“Oh. You’re back, then.”Sergeant Marks raises his gaze from the paperwork cluttering his desk. He peers at me over his glasses. “Took you long enough.”
I resist the urge to remind him I had an agreement with Human Resources and it’s hardly my fault if they didn’t see fit to consult him. I keep my mouth shut and take a seat at a spare desk.
“You can get on with this lot,” he grunts, shuffling the documents before him into a heap. “Oh, and get me a coffee before you start.”
It’s not really part of my job to fetch and carry for superior officers, but the police service is based on discipline and doing as you’re told. I get to my feet again and trudge out into the corridor in search of a coffee machine that works. By the time I return with a plastic cup of something resembling sludge, Sergeant Marks has transferred the pile of crime reports onto my desk. I’m bored just looking at them.
There’s nothing else for it. I fire up the computer and begin entering the details into the system.
“So, what took you so long anyway?” Sergeant Marks asks me after about an hour.
“My mother died, sir.”
“And?” he demands.
“And, I had a lot to do. Arrangements, you know the sort of thing.”
“The funeral was last month. What have you been doing since then? Swinging the lead?”
“I was…upset,” I mumble.
“You were milking it, more like.” He leans towards me, jabbing his finger in the general direction of my nose. “If you want to make name for yourself in this job, you need to get a grip. Toughen up. You can’t loll around sobbing for a month every time something goes wrong.”
“No, sir.” I can’t even be bothered arguing or trying to explain. What would I say anyway? That I was grieving for my mum at the same time as I was trying to make sense of everything else that happened to me? That I was trying to understand why my head was full of memories of a hardened criminal who reminds me of a Greek god? A man who beat me, terrified me, held me prisoner for weeks, then pulled out all the stops to save my life and made sure I was at my mother’s deathbed? A man with a criminal record to rival Al Capone but who’s worth ten, no, twenty of the law-abiding Sergeant Stephen Marks.
A man who fucked me with aching tenderness on the night of my mother’s death, then left in the morning. He hasn’t been in touch with me since, apart from sending one of the guards to return my car. At least he remembered to return my warrant card as well. I have no idea how I would have accounted for that if I’d lost it. Mislaying your warrant card is the cardinal sin among police officers.
Unless you include falling in love with gangsters, obviously.
Sergeant Marks is clearly bored with my company. He leaves the office for more exciting duties in the canteen. I’m glad of the peace and quiet.
By the end of my shift, I’m almost cross-eyed from staring at the screen for seven hours solid. The sergeant is long gone, so I sign out and head for the car park.
Tomorrow, I get to do it all again.
Jack
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Oh?” I shoot Ethan a glance. “Do we have a problem?”
Ethan’s lips flatten. He appears…uncomfortable. It’s not a look I’m accustomed to seeing on my uber-confident boss.
“Maybe. I really couldn’t say.”
I set aside the laptop to give him my full attention. The spreadsheets can wait. “Go on.”
“It concerns Ruth. Miss Lowison.”
