Page 4 of Catch Him
Chapter 2
“Really Dad? Seriously?”
Sinead came out of her bedroom to find her father counting twenty-dollar bills on the living room table.
“What you don’t know, you don’t have to worry about.”
“I’m a cop, for crying out loud.”
He glanced up at her over the rim of his readers. “Please,” he snorted. “You’re a Mill Valley cop. Doesn’t count.”
He said it all the time, and she knew better than to rise to the bait, but she was anxious about tonight so she was a little more on edge than normal. “Yeah, and why is that? Is it because the SFPD wouldn’t have anything to do with another cop named O’Hara?”
“Sinead, I do not need your attitude right now.”
Sinead took a deep breath and summoned her patience. “All I’m asking is that you make an attempt to hide the result of your criminal activities from me. You have a bedroom. Use it.”
Her father ignored her and instead took the time to take in her appearance. “You’re all gussied up.”
Sinead shook her head. Only her father still used words likegussied. She hesitated and then told him the truth. “I’ve got a date.”
That had him raising his eyes again. It was no secret dating wasn’t something she did a lot of. The truth of the matter was, Sinead was a pretty reserved person and had been since losing her mother as a teenager. She had a few close friends, her work and her father.
Who she was still living with at the age of twenty-eight.
A fairly sad commentary on her life. Except housing in the Bay area was ridiculous. And for some reason their two-bedroom apartment in the Shady Oaks complex in the south side of San Francisco was affordable as long as they were both contributing.
She just wasn’t overly thrilled with how her father got those contributions. He told her what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
“A date huh? I know this guy?”
“No.”
“He a cop?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t trust cops.”
Sinead shook her head in disgust. “You used to be a really good cop.”
“Yeah well sometimes life takes a turn, doesn’t it?”
Taking a turnwas code for her mom’s death. Something her father never recovered from.
“Don’t wait up for me,” she finally said and headed for the door.
“This guy,” her father called out before she could leave. “He can’t come knock on a door to pick you up?”
Sinead looked around the shabby apartment, her father’s take from who knew what on the living room table, and thought it all looked a little crooked. Then she thought of David’s voice on the phone when he’d called her earlier. His accent had literally made her wet.
“No, he offered but I didn’t want him to see where I lived.”
She let her father sit with that and she skipped out the door, closing it behind her. She made her way down the steps of the complex through the courtyard, which to her looked even sadder thinking about how David might look at it.
The empty pool in the center of the courtyard was filled with dirt, broken beer bottles and cigarette butts. There were some broken lawn chairs around it. And every once in a while people gathered to drink or smoke together if it was a nice night. Not that she was ever asked to join. Not the lone cop in Shady Oaks.
Leaving all of it behind her, she focused on the night ahead. She ran her hand down her hair. Hoping the late August heat wouldn’t ruin all her effort. What her father called gussied was probably her nicest outfit. A soft cotton skirt, sandals and a light green sweater that brought out the green in her eyes.
