Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series Read online

  Scratch that.

  Once Codie could actually hear Pete’s words, she heard him giving her an ultimatum, telling the woman if she didn’t cool it, he was going to cuff her and drag her in. And, oh, the sound of his voice. It was continuing to have an unexpectedly inappropriate effect on Codie that she never would have expected.

  Holy hell.

  But she made it to the front steps. There was a closed screen door but the inner door was ajar and she could see and hear everything through it. Pete’s back was to the door so he couldn’t see her—and she knew better than to simply barge in—but she hung back and listened. Apparently, the couple had been having a knockdown-drag-out fight and a neighbor had heard the ruckus and called it in. Both were denying injury or fear to Pete, but it was starting to sound to Codie like the woman was ready to beat her significant other’s skull in with a cast-iron skillet.

  Pete spoke again. Even though Codie had a hard time understanding the man’s muttering and the woman’s shrieking, she had no trouble hearing Pete’s forceful words. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to back away some.” Another couple of seconds and Pete added, his voice firmer, “A few feet.” Codie could imagine the look on his face as he tried to communicate to the woman that he meant business. “Now, I need you to tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

  Codie could hear the man talking again, but it wasn’t loud enough for her to make out any actual words. The woman then started yelling again. “That’s bullshit, Vern. Bullshit! And you know it, ya bastard!”

  “Ma’am, I’m not going to ask you again. I need you to keep some distance between you and your husband while he tells his side of the story.” It was relatively quiet for a few seconds, save the TV droning in the background, and Codie inched closer to the house before Pete said, “Sir?”

  “Like I said, I just sat down with a beer when the old lady started throwin’ shit at me.”

  “I wasn’t just throwin’ shit at you, Vern! It was the goddamned cable bill that we can’t afford!”

  Over her voice, Codie could hear Pete telling her once again to back off, but soon those sounds were drowned out by the short blast of the siren from another cop car. Codie turned around and saw the red and blue lights whirring on top of it, but the driver turned the siren off. It almost sounded like the cop had turned it on for just a second so the people inside the house knew he was there.

  Oh. Not he. She. The cop was a woman. It wasn’t hard to tell once she was out of the car, because the uniform hugged her like a glove, and there was no mistaking her feminine figure. The look on her face, however, was determination and attitude. Codie knew she wouldn’t want to mess with this cop.

  Unfortunately, she was on the cop’s radar, and before she could even turn back to the action to hear what was going on inside, the cop said, “Hands up!” The cop pulled out her gun, pointing it toward Codie.

  Why was it now that she didn’t feel the freeze instinct? Jesus Christ, she was going to get herself killed.

  Chapter Three

  CODIE COULDN’T SEE the cop’s face, even though the red and blue behind her highlighted her body, because there wasn’t enough light from the porch and the front of the house to illuminate her expression, so Codie couldn’t get a read on her. She knew, though, that the cop thought she was part of the problem, and Codie needed to nip that notion in the bud right this second.

  “I’m not—”

  But the cop wasn’t listening, and she rushed at Codie before she could finish her sentence. The cop shoved her up against the side of the house next to the screen door, pushing her face into the siding and twisting her arms behind her back. In seconds, she could feel the cold metal of the cuffs digging into her wrists. Because her face was mashed into the wall, speech was difficult. She wanted to try talking once more anyway to tell the cop that she was with Pete and not a criminal, but she suspected it wouldn’t be worth the effort. The cop would find out soon enough.

  It wasn’t until the officer led her by the wrists behind her back into the house that it got all straightened out. As soon as Pete saw the woman shoving restrained Codie around, he said, “Breske! She’s not a suspect. She’s on a ride-along. Uncuff her!” In the meantime, he was cuffing the woman who’d been yelling. The husband just stood to the side, and Codie tried not to laugh. The guy had to be pushing seventy—same with the woman—and here they were, yelling at each other like passionate youth.

  Well, not so much. They were probably just set in their ways.

  Once the cuffs were off Codie’s wrists, she rubbed her skin because it already hurt. She could see the red marks the metal had dug into her flesh. The tight-faced cop said, “My apologies, ma’am.”

  Pete looked half-amused, half-pissed when he said, “Breske’s just an eager beaver. You’ll have to forgive her.” Breske frowned but said nothing.

  Codie tried not to give away that she was upset, but she didn’t know that her face could quite hide how she felt at the moment. In spite of the strange feeling of embarrassment and anger, she shrugged and said, “It’s cool.” She knew it was a better move to forgive and try to forget than to be whiny and bitchy.

  Breske, though, said the words but her acting was horrible. She didn’t act sorry in the least. Pete might have been oblivious to it, but Codie could feel waves of indignant anger coming from Breske, washing over her like waves of nausea. Codie knew it would be best to play it cool and be grateful that all she’d gotten out of it was red wrists and a sore cheek. It could have been much, much worse, especially with a cop her friend had described as overly eager.

  It was already in the past, as far as Pete was concerned, and he addressed Breske. “Can you get her side of the story? I’ll question the husband and we’ll go from there.”

  “Ten-four” said the eager beaver. It took all Codie had to not roll her eyes.

  Pete turned his attention to Codie. His voice was low when he said, “You. Stay there and don’t move.”

  After getting past the part of herself that found ultra-masculine Pete quite titillating, Codie felt her eyes grow wide and she nodded. She couldn’t tell if he was angry at her or not, and she tried not to feel a bit of irritation herself. When she’d first talked to Pete about going on a ride-along, she’d made it quite clear that she’d wanted to see the action. Up close, mind you. Sitting in a cop car, staring at a house, and listening to a lot of nonsensical chatter on the radio with nothing to do and no idea of how long she’d be doing it was not what she’d had in mind. In fact, it sounded a little less fun than lying in a dentist chair while some tech scraped on her teeth.

  Add to it, she was pretty sure other people would have gotten to follow him inside—whether that would have been male citizens or just people who weren’t Codie, she wasn’t sure, but she suspected he was trying to protect her.

  And that kind of misguided chivalry—especially when she hadn’t asked for it—pissed her off.

  Pete had no idea of her internal conflict and continued working. He asked the man a couple of questions, but it was a matter of minutes before the woman’s voice started rising again, even though she was in another part of the room and not part of the Q-and-A between the two men. Codie figured Breske’s prickly-pear attitude didn’t help the situation much, but the woman was riled up already—Breske just seemed to make it worse. “I told him I’m tired of him sittin’ in that damned La-Z-Boy day in and day out, watchin’ TV we can’t afford and drinkin’ beer we can’t afford. He’s—”

  “Dammit, woman,” the man barked back, no longer looking at Pete. “I earned them comforts!”

  Pete was on the one side, trying to pull the man back to their own conversation, while Breske was doing the same with the woman, but it was no use. This was an argument the two seemed destined to play out, law enforcement be damned. The woman continued screeching, but then Pete moved over to block her some, and only then was he able to recapture the older man’s attention. “I just need to know if either of you is in danger.”

&nb
sp; “Mean am I gonna beat her or kill her?” Pete’s facial expression didn’t change and Codie was impressed, because she could feel the incredulity changing her own features—either that, or she was going to start laughing at any moment, because the situation was becoming comical. But then the man said, “No. We fight all the time, but she’s just extra feisty tonight.”

  Feisty. Yeah.

  Pete said, “Describe what you mean by fight.”

  “Bicker. Having words, you know.”

  Pete nodded. “No physical altercations?”

  The man grinned. “Eh. She’s not worth the effort.”

  Codie could barely register the action as it happened, but the woman suddenly pushed herself past both Breske and Pete and no one could stop her. The woman started slapping the man on both sides of his face repeatedly, as though she were a boxer training with a speed bag. Codie had no idea what had set her off this time, if anything, but she wasn’t surprised when Breske cuffed her with just a couple of quick motions and started marching her out the door. Codie could hear the woman kept yelling all the way toward Breske’s cruiser, but her voice faded as they got farther away.

  She and Pete stayed with the man a bit longer and Pete then took a full statement from him, telling the man his wife would probably be out the following day but that she’d probably have a restraining order. “That means the two of you shouldn’t be around each other.”

  “Eh…her bark’s always worse than her bite.”

  Pete tried doing some low-grade counseling with the guy, but Codie could tell her friend felt out of his league and uncomfortable as hell doing so. And the guy obviously wasn’t interested. He just wanted to get back to whatever he was trying to watch on TV so he could nurse a beer or two—and now he could do it in peace and quiet.

  Once they were back in the car, Pete told Codie that they sometimes had to arrest both parties in domestic violence situations, but here it was clear who the aggressor was. He typed out a quick report on the laptop before driving off. When they stopped at a red light on Main Street, he arched an eyebrow before glancing sideways at Codie, and his forceful tone of voice returned. “You do know who’s the cop here, don’t you?”

  Codie was quiet for a few seconds, because she knew why Pete was irritated with her. She’d disobeyed a direct order from him. Now, granted, he wasn’t her boss or her father or anyone who should matter, and at this point she didn’t really care if he was angry with her or not.

  But she didn’t want him to end the ride-along. She wasn’t nearly ready to go home yet.

  “Look, Pete, I know you’re mad at me—”

  “I’m not mad at you, Codie. Yeah, I’m a little peeved that it’s like you didn’t hear a word I said, but I’m not mad.”

  Huh. His voice told her otherwise…but Codie wasn’t going to say another word. Instead, she turned her head to look out the passenger side of the window. She had never spent hours driving around their little town, especially in the dead of night. There’d never been any reason for it. She’d always figured it was a lot like when she was a little kid—maybe one car somewhere on the road shrouded by the shadow of darkness, and you were lucky if the largest convenience store stayed open till midnight and reopened at six. The bars stayed open later than any other business, and even they rolled up shop fairly early. But nowadays the small town never fully slept, and even though Codie had known that, she hadn’t witnessed it. The truck stop at the edge of town was open 24/7—but that hadn’t been the edge of town when she was a kid. That particular business had been out of town a bit. Now it was part of Dalton and the town wholly embraced it. There was also another coffee and pancake restaurant in the middle of town that stayed open twenty-four hours, plus two convenience stores, and a good many businesses stayed open till eleven PM. Oh, and the giant super center on the west end of town never closed—except for Christmas.

  Yeah, lots had changed.

  Pete’s voice pulled her out of her introspection. “Thing is, Codie, I still have to protect you. That’s my job. You might have heard that one before? ‘To serve and protect’? That still applies, even to you, even if you’re riding along.” After a second, he said, “And if you’re getting ready to argue again that you were never in any real danger, let me tell you something. The supposed suspect, who we were told had fled on foot, was still there, drinking a beer and chilling in front of his TV. It doesn’t even matter that the supposed victim was actually the aggressor. What does matter is what if the guy had been really violent? What if he’d had a gun? If you’d bebopped in the house without a care in the world while I was trying to hold the guy at bay, someone could have gotten hurt. You, me, the victim. There are all kinds of possibilities, none of which are pretty. And if the situation had gotten hairy, I would have had you in the way, making my job even harder than it already is.”

  Codie understood where he was coming from, but it was lame. “Then why’d I even bother?”

  Pete sighed. “Look…we usually have ride-alongs wear a vest and sign a release, so if they get hurt, it’s on them, right?”

  “I signed a release.”

  “Yeah…”

  And then something began to dawn on Codie. “Why didn’t I get a vest?” Pete turned a corner in the cruiser and kept his eyes on the road. “You were supposed to give me a vest, weren’t you? What the hell’s going on, Pete?”

  Chapter Four

  PETE LET OUT a heavy sigh, but Codie saw no signs of defeat in this man. After a pause the length of the Mississippi River, he said, “Yeah, we were supposed to give you a vest.” He blinked a couple of times before he added, “But a body like yours shouldn’t be covered up like that.”

  Of all the things she’d expected Pete to say, that wasn’t it. She felt herself frown as she tried to wrap her mind around it. Was Pete still attracted to her all these years later?

  Holy shit. Was there a chance?

  But she couldn’t let that cloud her judgment. She should have been given a vest, no matter Pete’s personal feelings on the matter. “So I’m being punished because—”

  Pete suddenly pulled the car over and parked it, switching off the lights, and Codie felt her heartbeat begin to race as she lost her train of thought. What the hell? She half expected Pete to pull her close (which would be difficult in the cop car but not entirely impossible) and profess his undying love. But when she looked over, his eyes were focused outside the car. “You know where we are?”

  Codie shrugged. They were in north Dalton. Whoop-de-doop. Looked the same as any residential area in south Dalton, east Dalton, west Dalton, central Dalton. Most of it looked exactly the same…especially without the sun beating down on any of it. “No clue.”

  “You remember the Dalton Devils—at the bar early this evening?”

  “Uh, yeah.” She put as much duh into her voice as possible. “The biker gang.”

  She could barely hear the sardonic sound of Pete’s voice when he said, “They prefer the term motorcycle club. Like how calling a strip joint a gentleman’s club seems to make it classier.” A voice on his radio broke a short silence as Pete scrutinized the house. “This is the house of the president of the Devils. Right next door is the junkyard. Did you know the junkyard is owned by the Devils?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” The better question was if she cared.

  “What you might not know is their clubhouse is directly in the backyard of the president’s house. Now…the club pretends they only have legitimate businesses and everything’s on the up-and-up, but we know better. It’s just hard making shit stick to ‘em. They have a good lawyer too.” Codie’s ears perked up at that. Her sometimes-boyfriend Slade wasn’t their lawyer, was he? If not, Slade was sure to know who was. “So I make sure I drive out here at least once during every shift, sometimes twice, and I just observe.”

  “That’s not illegal? Or harassment?”

  The lights on the dash allowed Codie to see the slight grin appear on Pete’s face, but he didn’t say a word. After ano
ther minute, the radio caught his attention again, and he picked up the mike. “Eighteen here. Go ahead.”

  “A possible one-eight-seven at 807 Central.”

  “Roger that. On my way.” Pete turned on the ignition, and they were once more speeding down the highway, the force of his acceleration pushing her back in the seat. What the hell was the hurry?

  “What’s a one-eight-seven?” Codie asked.

  “Murder.”

  “Murder? Oh, shit.”

  Pete didn’t blink, keeping his eyes on the road. “Oh, shit is right.”

  * * *

  Even though it only took a few minutes to get to the address of the murder, there were already two other police vehicles there, one in the form of an unmarked car. Pete unbuckled and looked over at her, saying in a voice that offered no arguments, “Stay here.” She watched him get out and walk over to a plainclothes officer standing beside the other cop car. They chatted for a few minutes, their faces focused on the house, but there was no way Codie could have tried to eavesdrop without being noticed. The window was rolled up and the car off. More than that, though, was the constant police radio. The sound of that damned thing was going to drive her nuts. In the darkness, Codie tried to make out the neighborhood. She knew she’d been here before, and she was fairly certain it was a part of Dalton where one of her middle school girlfriends used to live. It had been a newer subdivision at that time, but the trees at least seemed taller nowadays.

  Soon, Pete walked back to the car and opened the passenger door. “Want to come inside?”

  Holy shit. Did she ever. Now this was what she’d signed up for. She didn’t want to seem too eager, though, so she tried to keep her voice calm as she stood up. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Let’s go.” She followed pace with him and the other guy. “Not a word.”

  “Okay.” She was finally getting her wish, so if Pete needed her to keep her trap shut, no problem.