Hold Still (19 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

November 4th

The house was entirely too
silent. Jocelyn dumped her grocery bags on the coffee table, a half dozen cans of chicken noodle soup spilling out, and locked the front door behind her—both locks. She turned back and surveyed the room. A sheaf of Olivia’s drawings had fallen from the coffee table onto the floor—rainbows, butterflies, hearts, and stars. Bright, happy things. Olivia’s drawings were exquisite and yet heartbreaking in their delightful innocence, knowing what Jocelyn knew about the world. A tangle of Lalaloopsies and discarded dress-up clothes were piled high on the love seat. A pink tiara peeked out from beneath one of the cushions. Only the couch sat unsullied by evidence of the resident three-year-old.

Jocelyn walked over and stretched out on it, moaning in pleasure at the realization that she could lie down and do absolutely nothing for the next hour completely undisturbed. Her visit to the grocery store had gone more quickly than anticipated, which left her with some time to herself—a completely foreign concept post-Olivia.

After about fifteen minutes, Jocelyn began to miss Olivia. That’s how it always happened. Once, the year before, Jocelyn had caught the flu. Her entire body ached, and she could barely get out of bed. Desperate for rest, she had called Inez and asked her to take Olivia for one night, but after only a half hour alone, Jocelyn wished Olivia were still there.

Of course, she missed the sleep. What little she used to get. She checked her phone. She still had a half hour before she had to leave for work. Closing her eyes, she focused on her breathing, concentrating on the rise and fall of her chest. She was just drifting off, floating free in the nowhere place between waking and sleeping, when a noise snapped her awake. She sat up quickly and listened. There was a rattle at her front door—like someone trying to get in. Her heart hammered in her chest. She picked up her gun and went to the door. She peered through the peephole, but all she could see was the back of a man wearing a brown jacket. There was something very familiar about him, but she couldn’t place it.

Quietly, she turned the locks and flung the door open, the barrel of her gun pressed against the glass of her screen door. The man whipped around, the smile dying on his face as he stared down the barrel of her gun. She realized at that moment that she had been expecting Henry Richards. Instead, Caleb Vaughn stood on her doorstep.

THIRTY-SIX

November 4th

Face burning, Jocelyn holstered her
weapon and pushed the door—it didn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” Caleb said, pointing to the door handle. “Your doorbell is broken. I was going to knock on the door.”

She twisted the lock and opened it, smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were . . . someone else.”

He smiled as he slipped past her. “I wouldn’t want to be that guy.”

Jocelyn closed and locked the door behind him. “What is that?” she asked, pointing to a plastic container he held in one hand with what looked suspiciously like key lime pie.

Caleb’s smile widened. He arched an eyebrow suggestively. “I think you know what it is.”

She moved closer to him, trying to think of something witty to say in response, but her mind was completely blank. All she could think about was his mouth. He still had the pie in his hand when their mouths met. Jocelyn rocked up on the balls of her feet to pull his mouth down to hers. With one arm, he pulled her in, tight against his body. He smelled like coffee and aftershave. He tasted like Altoids.

The plastic container dug into her lower back. She pulled it from his hand and tossed it on the coffee table. Stumbling over a pair of Olivia’s dress-up shoes, they fell onto the couch. There wasn’t room enough for them to lay side by side, not with his large, rangy frame. They shifted so she lay atop him. His hands moved up and down the length of her body. He tugged at her waist, separating his mouth from hers. “Your gun,” he said. “We should take our guns off.”

Breathless, she raised her face to look at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. They disentangled and stood up. He pulled off his jacket and removed his shoulder holster. She took her belt off and dropped it onto the table beside his. They turned back to each other, regarding one another for a long moment before bursting into laughter.

Caleb smoothed her hair back from her face. “What
is
this?”

Grinning, Jocelyn shrugged. She caught his hand and held it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m never like this. I mean, with men. I mean, I don’t usually—”

Caleb silenced her with a quick kiss. “It’s okay. I know what you mean. I haven’t had this reaction to a woman in over twenty years.”

Jocelyn smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He squeezed her hand, and they sat next to each other on her couch. “It is,” he assured her. “But I think we should slow down.”

“Yes, we should,” she agreed, even though every inch of her body was afire and tingling with his proximity.

“How about if I take you on a date?” he suggested.

“I have next Thursday off,” Jocelyn said. She already felt guilty. She treasured her time off because she got to spend it with Olivia. But surely one Thursday wouldn’t be so bad. Inez was always after her to spend more time with adults.

“Socially,” Inez always said. “Not at work.”

Caleb grinned from ear to ear. “Thursday it is. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

Jocelyn glanced at the clock on her cable box. Hesitation rooted her to her seat even though she knew she would probably be late. All she wanted to do was drape herself all over Caleb and let things take their natural course. She kept her face averted from his so he couldn’t see the hot flush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. She pushed images of the two of them naked out of her head and cleared her throat. “That will be great,” she said. “So, uh, I’ve got to leave for work soon.”

“That’s actually why I came here,” Caleb said, inching away from her, putting some space between them on the couch. As much as she wanted to touch him, she was grateful for the small distance between them—it made it easier for her to turn her thoughts to work. Caleb went on. “I talked to Captain Ahearn about bringing you on to the Warner–Donovan case given your connection to Anita.”

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. “That must have gone over like a lead balloon.”

Caleb laughed. “Yeah, that’s about right. But I could use your help if you’re up to it. I found Raeann Church. She’s living here in Philly in a halfway house.”

Jocelyn sat up straighter, a cool little frisson of excitement shooting down her spine, dissipating some of the heat in the room. “Really? I’d like to be there when you interview her.”

Caleb nodded. He checked his phone. “I’ll meet you at Northwest in two hours.”

“Great,” Jocelyn said. “I just have to put these groceries away and then I’m on my way.”

Caleb laughed and motioned to the coffee table. “Like soup much?”

Jocelyn smiled. “Not me, my daughter. I can’t get her to eat anything else. I’m starting to get concerned about her health at this point.”

She shuffled the cans back into the bag and took it into the kitchen. Caleb followed, glancing around at her house. She never had houseguests besides Inez, Kevin, and Simon. As she followed Caleb’s gaze, she realized just how messy the place was. “I’m sorry about the mess,” she stammered, “I—”

Caleb grinned and waved a hand in dismissal. “You should see my place. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

She gave him a puzzled look but went over to Olivia’s craft bin and fished out a piece of construction paper and a crayon. “Will a red crayon do?”

“Sure,” he said, taking it from her. He plopped down at her dining room table and began drawing a chart of some kind—three columns of boxes with five boxes in each column.

Jocelyn stood over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Without looking up, he said, “What does your daughter like?”

“What?”

“Olivia, right? What kind of toys does she like?”

“Lalaloopsies—they’re dolls, but what are you drawing?”

She trailed off as he drew a crude stick figure below the chart. He gave it curly hair and a dress. Jocelyn laughed.

Caleb met her eyes, his grin somewhat bashful. “Okay, so I didn’t go to art school for good reason, but bear with me. Pretend this is a Lalaloopsy. Later you can print out a picture of a Lalaloopsy or something and glue it to the chart.”

Jocelyn folded her arms over her chest. “Chart?”

“Yeah, it’s like an incentive system. So, you see all these boxes? Every time she eats something besides soup, she gets a sticker. Once she fills up all the boxes, she gets a prize. Something she really likes, like a Lalaloopsy.”

Jocelyn studied the chart. “That is actually a great idea.”

“She’s three, right?”

Jocelyn nodded.

“So don’t make the chart too big. If she has to wait too long for her prize, she’ll get bored with it and not be motivated to earn stickers.”

Jocelyn pointed to his stick figure Lalaloopsy. “This could get costly.”

Caleb laughed. “My son—by the time he was seventeen, he had every LEGO set and PlayStation game known to man. But he graduated high school at the top of his class, and I never had any major behavioral issues with him. Oh, and he had proper nutrition.”

Caleb winked. Jocelyn hoped he didn’t notice her sway on her now wobbly legs. That wink almost brought her to her knees. He stood up and handed her the chart before going back into the living room to strap his gun on. “Just try it,” he called over his shoulder.

She studied it a moment longer and left it on the table. “I will,” she said, strapping on her own gun.

She ushered him onto the porch. As Jocelyn locked her front
door, their conversation moved back to interviewing Raeann
Church. The smell of coffee and chocolate reached her before Phil’s voice.

“Oh, I didn’t—”

She looked over to find Phil paused in his climb up her front steps. He had a take-out cup holder with two Starbucks coffees in it and a small brown bag—containing a brownie no doubt. As always, he was dressed impeccably in a charcoal suit, his hair slicked back neatly.

“Phil?” Jocelyn said. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t take his eyes off Caleb, who stared back with a bland smile. Phil’s face flushed red. He didn’t do awkward very well. “I came to—” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize you were seeing someone.”

Jocelyn regarded him silently, not giving an inch. Phil cleared his throat again. He motioned toward her with the cup holder. When he spoke, there was a bit of petulance in his tone. “I thought I might smooth things over after the other day. I felt badly about how things went.”

Jocelyn raised a brow and placed one hand on her hip. “You mean you feel badly about putting a couple of rapists back on the street after I arrested them—after I got a confession from one of them?”

Phil looked nonplussed. “No, I meant—”

“Don’t make more out of things than are really there, Phil. I’m a detective. You’re an ADA. We disagree about a case. End of story. You can go now.”

She should have known he would react badly. No one dismissed Phil Delisi. Red-faced, he turned toward Caleb. The cup holder trembled in his hand.

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Phil said. “If you were smart, you’d walk away.”

Caleb’s smile hardened into a firm, angry line. “And if you were smart, so would you.”

Phil looked from Caleb to Jocelyn and back. Then, “She’s frigid,” he blurted.

“Phil,” Jocelyn said, stepping toward him, pushing him back down the steps. “That’s enough. Leave. Now.”

But Phil would not be deterred. Although he let her shuffle him along toward his car, he called over his shoulder at Caleb. “She’s cold. You’ll see. What kind of woman doesn’t go to her own parents’ funeral?”

She gave him a final push and he stumbled, dropping the coffee cups into the street. They splattered, coffee flying up onto Phil’s pant legs. He didn’t look back at Jocelyn. He kicked the empty cups as he made his way back to his car. Jocelyn waited for him to drive away before she picked up the cups and cup holder and deposited them into her recycling bin.

Caleb waited on the porch. She swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. She wished her face wasn’t burning. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s—”

“An asshole?” Caleb supplied. “Yeah, I got that.”

Jocelyn smiled but shook her head. “What he said, I—”

Caleb reached out and tipped her chin so he could look into her eyes. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “My ex has nothing good to say about me either. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

She sighed. She opened her mouth to try once more to explain, but she had no idea what to say. Caleb didn’t wait for an explanation. He cupped her cheeks in his palms, the skin of his hands dry and soothing against her face. She nearly swayed looking up into his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted to kiss a man the way she wanted to kiss Caleb—not even Phil. She wanted to devour him. He leaned down and kissed her, slowly and deeply. Afterward, he continued to hold her face in his hands and gazed down into her eyes. “Seriously,” he said. “Forget about that guy. I would prefer you think about me instead.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

November 4th

An hour later, Jocelyn was
sandwiched between Inez and Kevin as the three of them stood in Basil Ahearn’s office. Friendly Fire was there too, on the other side of Kevin. He kept a good foot and a half between himself and the rest of them. His face was a mask of disinterest, but Jocelyn noticed the tips of his ears reddening. Ahearn sat at his desk, his cell phone in his hand, looking alternately at the phone and back at them. He pointed his phone at Finch. “You,” he said. “Consider yourself officially reprimanded. You’re to go for training on how to pat down suspects—and arrest them.”

Jocelyn and Kevin glanced over at Friendly Fire, but he remained impassive. Jocelyn thought she was the only one who could hear Kevin’s snicker, but Ahearn never missed much. He shot Kevin an icy glare, silencing him, and looked back at Finch. He motioned Finch over to his desk with his phone and handed him a piece of paper. “This is your official reprimand. The next time you see Henry Richards, you put his face into the concrete. You know he’s wanted for violating the restraining order Detective Rush’s daughter has against him and for generally harassing one of my people. Do not let him get away. And after you detain him, pat him down, Finch. Properly.”

Jocelyn looked over at Finch again. He stared straight ahead, his expression blank, but she could see a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Now get out of my sight,” Ahearn added.

Wordlessly, Finch left. She listened to his footsteps, into the common area and down the steps. Then a loud clatter, like something metal being thrown or kicked, followed by a voice she didn’t recognize. “Jesus Christ, Friendly Fire. Watch it.”

Ahearn sighed. He pointed his phone at Inez, who had cleared her throat loudly. “What?”

“Sir,” Inez said. “Friendly—Finch took on a pit bull for me.”

Ahearn’s brows drew together; then he rolled his eyes. “That’s admirable, Graham, but I don’t care. Now look, all of you, I’m not running a goddamn preschool here. Get your shit together and work it out. I don’t want the four of you in my office again for dumb shit. And keep your hands to your goddamned self,” he said pointedly, looking right at Jocelyn. “You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” the three of them said in unison. Jocelyn wanted to point out that Finch not patting down Todd Martin wasn’t dumb shit—especially since it had nearly gotten her killed. Kevin must have sensed that she was about to speak because he elbowed her. “Let it go,” he said between gritted teeth.

“And, Rush,” Ahearn continued. “You don’t like it here at Northwest or what?”

Jocelyn met his eyes. “Sir?”

“Lieutenant Vaughn was here earlier and asked if I could
loan
you to him for an SVU case.” He said the word
loan
as if it were something extremely distasteful. Like Vaughn had asked him to clean the SVU toilets for a month—with his own toothbrush.

“Anita Grant will only speak to me,” Jocelyn said.

Ahearn waved his phone back and forth in the air. “I heard it all from Vaughn. I don’t give a rat’s ass who’s talking to who. I need bodies in here, and if you’re not going to be one of them, put in for a damn transfer.”

“That’s not necessary, sir,” Jocelyn said.

Ahearn looked at her with one bushy brow arched high over his right eye. He let a moment slip by as he regarded her, skepticism in every line of his face. Finally, he said, “Just wrap this up fast, Rush. And you,” he added, pointing at Kevin. “You stay here. I need you on Northwest calls, not following Rush all over the damn place on this SVU case.”

Kevin nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Ahearn flicked his wrist, making a shooing motion toward the door. “Now get out. Go do your jobs.”

They filed out and headed back to the Detectives’ room. “Got yourself assigned to that SVU case, did you?” Kevin grumbled in her ear as they returned to their desks.

“It’s only temporary,” Jocelyn said. “I’m just helping out.”

“Well,” Inez interrupted, “if I see Richards tonight, I’ll—whoa!”

She pulled up short and gripped Jocelyn’s arm as Jocelyn’s and Kevin’s desks came into view. Caleb perched casually on the edge of Jocelyn’s desk, his head bent to his cell phone.

“Who the hell is this?” Kevin asked.

Jocelyn swallowed. Caleb hadn’t seen them yet. She paused a moment to take in his thick, tousled brown hair and the line of his jaw. She’d just seen him of course. Just kissed him on her front porch, but still, the sight of him made her limbs feel slack and boneless.

“That’s Mr. Scandalous,” Inez whispered.

Kevin turned to her, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Jocelyn gave Inez a shove and looked at Kevin. “That’s Vaughn,” Jocelyn explained.

“
That’s
Vaughn? He looks like he should be teaching high school English or some shit.”

Jocelyn laughed. “That’s exactly what I thought when I met him.”

Inez snorted. “Yeah, I bet that’s all you—” A sharp elbow jab stopped Inez from finishing her thought. At that moment, Caleb looked up and smiled. And Jocelyn’s whole body felt like a sigh.

“Good lord,” Kevin muttered as he stalked off to greet Vaughn.

Jocelyn and Inez followed him. There was a round of introductions followed by some awkward small talk during which Inez did nothing but grin like a Cheshire cat. Then Kevin interrogated Caleb on everything from his résumé to his dating history. Jocelyn pulled Caleb away, dragging him by his wrist.

“We have a witness to interview,” she said.

Caleb met her eyes, an amused smile on his face. “But I’m talking to your friends,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jocelyn said. “I noticed. That’ll be quite enough of that.”

Caleb laughed the whole way down the steps.