CHAPTER 9
Dylan
All I could think about was how deeply I liked the feeling of Zoe in my arms. Comforting her came naturally to me. I alternated back and forth between considering how I’d make the motherfucker who did this pay for the pain they’d caused and being acutely aware of how close Zoe was to my body. I desperately willed my nascent erection to dissipate.
This is inappropriate timing, a voice in my head hissed. Keep it in your pants, dude.
The voice made a good point. I refocused my attention on being supportive.
We stood there for a while, who knows how long, her sobbing into my chest, me petting her hair and shoulders, trying all the soothing tricks I’d learned from raising Danny. It made me furious that these were the circumstances under which we should have our first embrace, romantic or otherwise, but I kept it in check, reminding myself that my rage was in no way important, except as motivation. Motivation to solve this.
At last, backup arrived in the form of Tom. His silhouette appeared in the lights of the sirens, moving to the bakery like a rotund mountain, his boots crunching over the glass. He took one look at the broken window, and me holding a sobbing Zoe.
He stopped a few feet before our statue-like jumble.
“Are you okay?” he asked me urgently, making his way completely inside the bounds of the bakery.
I nodded. “Yeah, the place was empty by the time we got here.” I gestured to Zoe, and by way of explanation added, “Whoever it was took everything.”
Tom gave me a grim look, one that I probably could have deciphered if I cared to understand its meaning. As it was, I wasn’t prepared to know what he was ruminating on. Without another word, he began to sniff around the place, unlocking cabinets and turning over dishes as I continued to hold the inconsolable Zoe in my arms. Lucky Tom was there and doing a thorough job, clearly, I’d given up any pretense of carrying out actual police work.
Finally, from across the small shop, he called out, “Dylan, I need you to come here a minute.”
I tilted my head in Zoe’s direction, indicating that I wasn’t sure she’d allow me to leave. My tilting head maybe also implied that I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave. Though Tom probably didn’t pick up on that aspect of the gesture.
“Come on, kid. You have a job to do,” Tom continued.
He was right, of course. Didn’t mean I had to be eager to do it. I guided Zoe gently down on the chair and stepped away with a fierce reluctance. She looked like a small animal, alone in a forest, at the mercy of bigger and scarier creatures. I needed, with every ounce of strength in my body, to protect her. The instinct had rooted inside me from the moment we first locked eyes, and I felt it growing, entwining around my very organs.
I didn’t take my eyes off her as I walked across the glass-covered floor to stand with Tom. The crunch of shards under my boots made me wince as I worried it would startle Zoe.
“So,” I said to him.
“So.”
“What do you make of it?”
Tom ran a hand over his bristly mustache, stroking its sharp hairs as he contemplated the question.
“First, tell me what she said about the burglary. Did she make note of anything in particular?”
I considered this, and replied, “She did say they got the most expensive equipment. I think I heard her mutter something about a blender, a set of knives, stuff like that. Some others I didn’t know the name of, so I assume they were specialty items.” I paused, and guiltily admitted, “I wasn’t listening that carefully.” Rookie error, I knew, and I was kicking myself for it.
He sighed, “That’s all right, even good cops make mistakes.” Tom’s brow furrowed as he returned to the contents of my statement. “Why would an average robber know which niche baking items to steal? Doesn’t that seem a bit implausible?”
I acknowledged that it did feel like a reach, and added, “I think that’s why she’s so destroyed by it. Not only did they take everything, but the shit was worth a pretty penny. Here I was, thinking you just needed a few baking sheets and some canola oil. Oh, and she said earlier in the day, maybe you remember, that she’d taken out tons of loans just to be able to get the shop up and running.”
“Loans, eh?” Tom queried. “Plural?”
“Piles of ‘em, from what I understand.”
“She say anything about what kind of loans? Interest rates, things like that?”
I shook my head, confused by his line of questioning. “Uh, no. That would be pretty personal banking information to share with a total stranger.” In my head, I mentally crossed out the words total stranger. Whatever Zoe and I were, it was more than strangers.
His eyes narrowed. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
I recognized that tone of voice, I even recognized the phrasing. “You got some theories, Tom?” I was ready to seize upon the most meager hint of a lead, like a basset hound on the whiff of a scent.
He shrugged his hulking shoulders, and replied, “A few, yeah.”
“Okay,” I said impatiently. “Shoot.”
“Not yet,” he responded. “Later. Meanwhile, dispatch says that because we were the first on the scene, we can take this one.”
Good. I’d be the police officer responsible for watching after Zoe, making sure that she was safe and that she got the retribution she damn well deserved. It was the kind of responsibility that doesn’t weigh you down so much as lift you up. I hungered to protect Zoe, to do right by her. I’d crack this case, even if it meant cracking a few heads in the process.
“All right,” Tom said. “Nothing else we can do tonight. Get her home, get some sleep and I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll call Joe to secure the scene overnight.”
He pivoted as if to leave, and hesitated. “One more thing. You know you can’t be, ah, involved with somebody whose case you’re working.” He shot me a meaningful look, and one in Zoe’s general vicinity. “If you’re going to… do something, you won’t take gruff from me, but this is a small town. People talk, things get around. Be careful.”
Shit. He was right, of course. Didn’t mean I had to like it. Indecision and doubt coursed through me as I tried to swallow this new complication with a poise I didn’t particularly feel.
“Just thought you ought to know,” Tom added and straightened up. “Well, I’m headed home to Gladys. She hates when I get called out on night jobs, that I’m getting too old for this shit. Suppose I’m not a spring chicken no more.”
With that, he turned and made his way out of the shop, leaving me alone once again with Zoe, whose sobs had softened into silent tears.
I knelt back down to her level, and took her chin between my fingers, lifting it so that she would meet my gaze. I needed to give her some sense of object permanence, to make it clear that there was at least one safe, stable thing in her life. Or one person, anyways.
“How are you hanging in there?” I asked. The red lining her eyes told me all I needed to know, but it was important to make her speak, in case she go catatonic with shock. That had happened to me a little over a year back and emerging from the emotional coma was as jarring as the event that had triggered it. I didn’t have a silver emergency blanket to offer, so I gave her my warm arms instead.
“I’m…” she trailed off, unable to complete the sentence. “I’m so lost. And so, so frightened. Worried. Things were just starting to go okay, you know? Like my debt wasn’t budging, but the shop was getting regulars, and we’d just received that huge order, and—” The memory of the order that would’ve saved her shop made her break off in another bout of tears.
“Hey there,” I said sternly. “I’m on the case now, so you better believe I’m getting to the bottom of it. The bakery will be back up and running in no time, even better than it was before.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I added on jokingly, “And in a few days, or weeks, you can thank me by making my favorite — key lime pie.”
She whispered, “I love key lime.”
“Well perfect, it’s a deal.”
“I make my own crust, you know.”
I laughed, and replied, “I’d expect no less than that from a world-class baker.”
She snuggled deeper into my arms, and whispered, “I am a world-class baker. I am, I am.” She sounded like a child trying to convince herself.
“You most certainly are,” I encouraged.
Pausing, I grew more somber, and said, “I won’t let you down, Zoe.”
She lifted a trembling hand up and pressed it to my cheek. Her fingers were cold.
“I know,” she uttered. “I trust you.”
Just then, a crackle of glass underfoot broke the mood. We both turned to see Joe, the newest officer in Fallow Springs, stepping over the broken window frame.
“Hey, Dylan. I got the call about the B&E here. Guess I’m guarding the scene tonight.”
“Hey, thanks. I’ll take her home.”
“Do you think you’re able to walk?” I murmured into her ear.
I watched her silently take stock, waiting until she gave the feeble response, “I don’t really know.” She looked so disappointed in herself, as though her immobility was some sign of weak resolve.
Without hesitation, I scooped her up, pressing her shaking body close to my own. She was limp in my arms like a deflated balloon. It was like carrying a sack of russet potatoes. She had the almost hollow bones of a bird, with tiny wrist and ankles that belonged in an eighteenth-century family portrait.
I hugged her tighter, afraid the wind might shatter her delicate body, and carried her to my car, tenderly easing her into the front seat before reaching above her shoulder to grab the seat belt and buckle it. Zoe was so far gone that she didn’t make a move to take over the reins, just numbly let me go about my work.
Luckily, I’d seen her address on the registration forms earlier and had remembered the number, possibly because it was only a few fateful blocks from my own, and possibly because I was thinking about how I might want that information in the future if fate stopped putting roadblocks in our way.
We drove there in absolute silence as I nervously resisted craning my neck every few seconds to check that she was alive and breathing. I couldn’t help it — her well-being had, over the course of mere hours, become a priority for me. I didn’t know what to do with this sudden turn in my psyche. For a man who hadn’t experienced new love — er, affection, at least, it’s too soon to say love, right? — since high school, this discovery of my romantic inclinations was startling.
I came to a stop in front of her home. In moments, I’d fished the keys out of her coat pocket, being careful so as to not overstep boundaries. I hoisted Zoe aloft once more, her hair pooled over my arms. And in the moonlight, she did appear almost mystically beautiful.
I bore her to the entrance, where I slid the key into the lock and heard it unlatch. It occurred to me that I was quite literally carrying Zoe across a threshold. Too soon, I scolded myself internally. You can’t think about that. It’s not fair to… to her. Both hers.
Unsure of the house rules, I carefully toed my boots off, leaving them at the front entrance, and padded barefoot into the house proper.
It was dark, and I didn’t want to turn on the lights, for fear of waking her, but the house appeared cozy, well-decorated. In the dark, I could make out heavy curtains, a chunky couch, lots of bookshelves filled to the brim. My feet sunk into what felt like shag carpet. It was reminiscent of what I would expect to find in a San Francisco artist’s loft in the seventies — minimal but comfortable. You’re too cool for this town, I wanted to tell her.
But she was fast asleep in my arms and waking her to pay a small compliment seemed cruel. It was high time to put her into bed. I searched about, nudging open one door after another, and alighted on the one I assumed led to the bedroom. All these houses were built alike, so I deduced the location based on the layout of my own, slightly larger, home. Suburbia didn’t leave much space for architectural experimentation.
I wanted to peek around her bedroom, to learn about Zoe and her passions and priorities, but in the interest of respecting her privacy, I averted my eyes, making sure not to look about too much.
Though, in my defense, it was hard to miss the large vibrator that occupied the prima position. The toy was purple, ridged, about seven inches long — stop, I said to myself fiercely. Don’t look, don’t look, no matter how much you may want to. I turned my gaze away, but my mind’s eye stayed on the toy. I imagined using it on this beautiful, feisty woman under different circumstances, running it up and down the inside of her leg, brushing it over her mound, until at last resting it on her clit. Her moans rang in my ears.
I deposited her on top of flannel sheets and cast around for something to pile over her shivering form. The house was unusually chilly, definitely more than was appropriate for winter time in Wisconsin. Was it possible that her heat had been shut off? I knew she was struggling to make ends meet, but it couldn’t be that dire. Right?
In any case, no blankets presented themselves, and wary of riffling through her things, I decided to go with plan B. I took the squad jacket off my shoulders and rested it over Zoe. She immediately snuggled into it, as if viscerally embracing the scent. The notion made my heart pound.
Unsure if she was on the cusp of sleeping and waking, I elected to hedge my formalities, and made quick goodbyes.
“I’ll see you bright and early in the morning to talk about how we move forward from here.” I paused and dropped a register. “Until then… sleep tight, Zoe. Dream of me.”
Resisting the urge to plant a kiss on her forehead, I strode out of the house and into the night.