Cut and Dried

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EXCERPT ONE

And so, tomorrow had arrived and it found Denise showing the mysterious Rachel Parker into Ryan’s inner office, a small but clean operation, with Ryan’s unshaven look notwithstanding. As Rachel paused in front of his desk to be asked to sit, he looked back to see Denise making a pulling motion with her arms and vehemently mouthing the word ‘Chair’. Already standing, he hoped his quick looping maneuver from behind his desk was seen for the genuine act of offering her a seat that it was and not the belated reaction it also was.

Her expensive, tailored dark blue business suit, her still-in-place designer sunglasses and the luxurious, yet subtle fragrance of her perfume would have made it easy for someone to judge her as entitled. Ryan’s strength, however, in detective work was quickly getting past what people appeared to be and discovering who they truly were. The sincerity of her ‘thank-you’ when once seated told him more about her than her moneyed appearance.

Stationed at the door, Denise asked Ms. Parker if she would like coffee or a soft drink. Again, a polite tone carried her ‘No thank you, Denise,’ implied much about the woman. First, that she truly did appreciate Denise’s offer of a beverage. Secondly, having used Denise’s name meant Rachel Parker did not see Denise as some unimportant underling. With Rachel Parker remembering and saying Denise’s name without the slightest hint of being condescending, Ryan knew this was a woman who understood that she was merely better off from most other people, not better than.

It was an uncommon and important distinction that many did not make, like the way sympathy was not the same as pity or an interior designer knew drapes differed from curtains, or a couch was not the same thing as a sofa. It wasn’t only knowing the difference. It was a matter of knowing that there was one to begin with. Ryan Devaney always had a grasp of these differences. Denise pulled closed the door as she departed. As Ryan sat back down, Rachel finally removed her sunglasses. From a purely aesthetic view, it was worth the wait for him.

He found himself looking into a stunning pair of baby blue eyes; ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ sky blue. Luckily, his years of maintaining a stoic demeanor and the fact that she spoke first avoided the embarrassment of coherent speech having momentarily abandon him. Being temporarily struck mute was a small inconvenience to see what he saw, though. “Sorry, sometimes I forget I have these on,” she said in reference to the just-removed sunglasses, first motioning with them and then placing them in her purse.

The ability of adult speech mercifully returned to him in that short interlude. He first responded to what she said and then asked a question that would change the direction of his life. Hoping he sounded as if conversing with such a beautiful potential client was business as usual for him, he remarked, “I can never seem to be able to keep a pair of sunglasses past a week. It’s kind of a permanent ‘rent to lose’ thing I got going on. So…….how can I help you?”

She saw how he self-consciously rubbed the stubble on his chin. With her imagining he wished he had shaved, if this seemingly professional fail was bothering him, it didn’t bother her. She knew much about him, knowledge she hoped she would not need to reveal to him today. Among the information she possessed, she knew the reason the West Coast became a place he needed to leave. “Before we get to that, do you think I can change my answer to a drink? I’ve got a sudden thirst and a Pepsi or a Coke would be nice.”

“Oh, of course,” he assured her and immediately left his office for the small room off the main area. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but theorize her reasons for seeing him. As impatient as it labeled him, he reached a quick conclusion this was possible a matter of infidelity regarding a wandering husband, which meant her husband possibly was certifiably insane. He avoided those sorts of cases, the second of the two firm rules he had including the soon-to-be-defunct meeting-time rule. This, though, was a rule he would not alter.

The sad anticipation that he would have to decline her as a client had him immediately seek another choice for her presence. No, not an unfaithful spouse, he decided. Perhaps she was a stalking victim, looking for a show of muscle to discourage whoever it was overly and errantly obsessed with her. This was a service which he was capable of providing.

But how would she be aware of that? How would she know that his six-foot-one frame carrying a well maintained two hundred and ten pounds of violently experienced muscle could provide a physical deterrent? It wasn’t something advertised in his on-line ad. Of course, he’d never seen the ad and just trusted his sister when she told him it was very professional. His background, though, certainly spoke to his ability to handle trouble of the physical altercation variety.

With Ryan having only been back in the area for a short time, it meant Rachel Parker could not be aware of this. Another possibility occurred to him as he grabbed a can of Coke from the small fridge and headed back to his office. Perhaps she was being blackmailed, he thought. The occasions where great beauty and wealth often found themselves immersed in ugly matters were quite commonplace in his experience. He hoped she didn’t want him to kill someone for her. He wouldn’t. But her Femme Fatale looks might be too persuasive otherwise to say ‘no’ to anything less than that.

“Cup, moron,” Denise emphatically whispered as he walked by, causing him to retrace a few steps back into the auxiliary room. Once back in his office, he admitted to himself as he opened and poured her drink, that whatever the realm of possibilities her appearance here today conjured, her eyes held something else besides their intense beauty, something deeper. They held sorrow. After a quick, settling sip, she waited for him to sit. Finally, she told him why she wanted to hire him. His well-trained control of his reactions could not fully contain the surprise of her words. “I need you to find who murdered my daughter.”

EXCERPT TWO

He was determined to be more cognizant how close Rachel still was to this. Gaining the bitter acceptance to a child dying did not happen in seven months, let alone what was now seven weeks. Seven years might even prove to not be sufficient. “Good night, Rachel,” he said to free her of more conversation. To offer to talk about it with her was not as appropriate as when she offered to talk to him about the night he was shot. She was not far enough removed from Alison’s death for him to offer such a choice.

Then she was gone, to the bungalow next store where she had been staying for more than a month he would later learn. He put the unopened second beer in the fridge and finished the little bit that he had left in the first, and poured out the remaining contents of the can left by Rachel. The room was filled with the sexy scent of her perfume. It was a pleasant last take on the day that he dwelled on as he turned out the light, feeling not as nearly alone as he had for……well, he thought, for the last four years.

After the shooting and his departure from the I.C.U., several counselors and psychologists didn’t get much out of him in mandatory sessions. Internal Affairs needed just confirmation of details from him. They were only interested in the facts and getting the cop that sold out other cops, which they did. The effect of the incident on Ryan was not a priority for I.A.B.

The months of physical therapy and rehab that followed the four month-stay in I.C.U. was a lonely journey, with usually only his rage getting him pass the constant pain and endless, toll-taking monotony. A full year passed in his grueling endeavor to become whole again physically and he avoided the dark hole of opiate dependency. He felt such an emptiness fill him when he received the awards and accolades for his heroism that horrible day.

His only sense of uplift during the ceremony was that he insisted that a woman named Maria Sanchez be recognized that day as well. Twelve men had shot at each other and only three survived. His actions did save the life of another police officer, but a life spent in a wheelchair was to be that man’s existence. For Ryan, he knew he should have died that day. Hell, technically, he did.

The remorse he felt wasn’t spent on the only one of seven gang members to survive. Ryan’s only regret, a regret born of a hardened heart after learning of this man’s violent, cruel history, was that Ryan had not aimed better when he shot the man. That the man would live out his life in a maximum-security prison was Ryan’s only solace.

Ryan’s focus on reaching a physical level of recovery that came to closest to before he was shot did come with an ever-increasing cost. He ignored the need to talk to people about his ordeal. His frequent phone conversations with Denise or her husband, Ron, became simply exercises in him concealing the emotional trauma he avoided facing.

It became a tactic of his that finally, and luckily, would not allow him to ignore what he failed to face, something that he kept at a safe distance two years back on active duty, which was nearly three since he was wounded. He was lucky in the manner in which he finally knew he couldn’t remain a cop. Many ate a bullet when the demands of the job, or the guilt of it, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed was what he felt.

He had gone through the first two years back on the job without incident, clearing cases as if he hadn’t missed any time. It came down to one day going to execute a search warrant. The circumstances were eerily similar to the horrific day of the shoot-out. Unlike that time, no gunfire erupted. The subjects were caught unaware and were safely arrested.

Working in Narcotics at that point, Ryan was lead detective on the case. The accolades within the department for such a major bust were immediate, but all Ryan could focus on was what he felt as the door was about to be breached. What he felt was what caused him to realize he needed to step away from the job immediately, which he did. He was separated from the job within two weeks.

Feeling what he felt in that moment meant he was a danger to himself and to his fellow officers. He could not become that man, for what he felt was…nothing. To not care if you lived or died in such a situation meant he could never be in that situation again. Ryan spent the next six months trying to define what his life needed to become.