Chapter

Dove walked out of the room and saw Office Trevose being arrested. She made a face. “But that’s not him!”

“Trust the process, Ms. Babcock,” Lieutenant Leslie said, but she seemed just as surprised as Dove. Dove wondered if the surprise was real. She felt like Leslie could hear of all sorts of crimes and feel nothing about it.

“What do I do now?”

“I’d go home and try to relax. We’ll call you if we need anything from you.”

“Right,” Dove said. She was distracted, though, hardly listening, instead watching Nate arrest Officer Trevose. He had a son in her classroom. She had held him back the year before for social issues. She wanted to ask if that had anything to do with it, but she knew it wasn’t her place to get involved. She turned and walked out of the station, and began walking home.

As she was walking, Teressa pulled up beside her in her car, apparently having just finished her breakfast shift. Dove couldn’t believe it was only lunchtime. “Hey, you hitchhiking?” she called out.

“Only if you’re the one picking me up,” Dove said, and hopped in the car.

“What were you doing at the precinct?” she asked.

“Guess.”

“Well, it must have something to do with your stalking. Unless you went just to flirt with Nate.”

“Ha,” she said. “Very funny.”

“So, what was it?”

“We caught my stalker.”

“Oh, that’s so awesome! How did this happen?”

“Well, he broke into my house and found me hiding in the closet.”

“Oh, that sounds so scary! I’m so sorry, Dove. Do you want to go back to my house? I’ll make lunch. I’m sure you don’t want to be back in your house right now.”

“I don’t know if I even can. Is it considered a crime scene?”

“I have no idea. Let’s just go to my place.”

“They arrested Officer Trevose.”

“But it wasn’t him.”

“I know. I don’t know what’s going on. But he was arrested, and the guy that broke in. He was the same guy, at least.”

“Did he have a weapon?”

“No. That’s the stupid thing. I hid and cried and all that and he didn’t even hurt me.”

“That’s not stupid at all,” Teressa said. “He could’ve hurt you without a weapon. Besides, you couldn’t have known he was unarmed. You had every right to be scared.”

“Nate saw me cry.”

“And if he thinks any less of you for that, I’ll kick him in the particulars,” Teressa said. Dove laughed. Teressa was such a great friend. She didn’t understand how she could ever be upset with her. “So, are you going to go on a date with him?”

“Well, what about court and all that? It’s not really over yet, is it?”

“Are you going to go out with someone else, then?”

“No … No, I think I’ll wait for him,” Dove said.

* * *

Nate sat with Jessica in their squad car. The decision had been that interrogating a cop was a little above Nate’s pay grade. He supposed he couldn’t really complain; everything needed to be done perfectly if they were going to convict him. “Do you think we’ll get him?” he asked.

“It could go either way. He’s going to have a great lawyer. Besides, has anyone ever been arrested before for hiring a stalker? Certainly not in this town.”

Nate considered that. In some ways, wasn’t hiring a stalker worse than being a stalker? He didn’t know what type of man he was hiring. Who knew what this “Ice Tea” could do? And he purposely tried to get her out of school. He wanted to ruin her career. On top of that, he used his police connections to help her be stalked more efficiently. Something about that was gross and negligent. Nate hoped, if nothing else, he had to be kicked off the force.

“I made two arrests today,” he said, quite amazed. He hardly ever made arrests.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I can call you rookie anymore. Arresting a cop certainly isn’t a rookie move.”

“Do you think Dove saw?”

“I’m fairly certain she saw both arrests. But don’t get your hopes too high. The case isn’t considered closed until there’s two convictions. We’ve got one once the DA approves, but I think Officer Trevose—just Trevose soon—will be taking it to court. He’ll probably argue that hiring a stalker isn’t exactly a crime or at least say he didn’t hire Stottlemeyer to break in, just to stalk. He may have a hard time making the argument, but he’s going to try.”

“How long will that take?” Nate asked with a sigh.

“You really want to start something with her, don’t you?”

“Did you see her today?”

“Yeah, she was a scared, crying mess.”

“Exactly! I thought of her as constantly brave, never bothered by anything. But that’s not the case. She’s scared. She has emotions. She’s human. She’s not perfect; that’s not what I want anyway. We can help each other grow. Besides, she had every right to be scared and crying. A stalker broke into her house and chased her to her bedroom. It’s good that she was scared. Maybe it was perfect.”

“You’re not making much sense.”

“I don’t care. Point is, she’s the one. At least for now. She’s the one.”

“Then you better hope this is a fast trial.”