Page 5 of Through the Fire
“Coffee’s fine, thanks.” She gave the server a smile, figuring that would be the end of the conversation, but the woman lingered.
“Are you a reporter? I hate to ask, but everyone is going to harass me all day if I can’t answer their questions about you.” The server’s words were rushed and thick with a Southern drawl. Her nerves would have been obvious even if her fingers hadn’t been clamped so tightly around the coffeepot’s handle that her knuckles had turned white. “Most of the news crews left last week, but we don’t see many other strangers around here, especially now.” Her laugh was quick and jittery. “Monroe isn’t really a tourist destination at the moment.”
Theo gave Kit a look she couldn’t interpret before turning to the waitress. “Jules,” he said soothingly, rubbing her back in small circles, “she’s not a reporter.”
“The newspeople were everywhere last week,” Hugh explained to Kit. “Like a plague of camera-toting locusts. I couldn’t go anywhere without having a microphone jammed in my face and some well-coiffed journalist demanding to know how I felt about the town exploding. It was like twenty-four-hour mandatory counseling.”
Otto grunted in what sounded like agreement, but Theo raised his eyebrows. “Well-coiffed?”
“What?” Leaning back in his chair, Hugh gave a slight pained wince. It was so quick that Kit wondered if she’d imagined it. “Are you mocking my excellent vocabulary?”
“Yes.” Even though he was looking at Hugh, Theo continued rubbing Jules’s back.
When Hugh started to respond, Otto cleared his throat gently.
“Right,” Hugh said. “Back on track. Jules, meet Monroe’s newest K9 officer, Kit Jernigan.”
Jules jerked slightly, and Kit was pretty sure she would’ve taken a step back if Theo’s hand hadn’t been there. Kit studied the woman carefully, wondering why that information had scared the waitress. If appearances were correct, Jules was dating Theo and was friends with the other two, so the presence of one more cop shouldn’t have been frightening. For some reason, though, it was. Although she tried to hide it, Jules was visibly nervous.
“Nice to meet you.” Kit tried to keep her tone low-key and friendly, but Jules still looked like she thought Kit was about to leap out of her chair and grab her.
“Hi.” Jules attempted a smile, but it trembled at the edges before collapsing completely. “Welcome to Monroe…what’s left of it, at least.” She turned her head, glancing behind her. “I’d better get back to work.”
As she started to move away, Theo caught the hand not clutching the coffeepot. “Jules.”
She smiled at him, but gently slipped free and headed for the kitchen. Theo watched her go before turning back to Kit. He didn’t look happy. “Where are you from?” he demanded.
She had been expecting this. “Gold Mill, Wisconsin.”
“PD or county?”
“Police.”
“How long?”
“Eight years.”
“All with the same department?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you leave?”
For the first time in their rapid-fire exchange, Kit hesitated. After numerous interviews, she should’ve been used to the question, but it still managed to throw her off guard, kicking up the same cloud of bitterness and grief it always did. It took a few seconds before she recovered enough to pull out her stock answer. “There was an incident that created some bad feelings. It was time for a fresh start.”
From the look on Theo’s face, he’d noticed her hesitation, and Kit knew the topic would come up again. Next time, he wouldn’t let her get by on vague generalities. “Why here?”
“Gold Mill has about eighty thousand people and a huge opioid problem. After dealing with that for eight years, I was…tired.” She almost laughed at the understatement. “When I interviewed with the chief in early September, Monroe seemed like a nice place, a peaceful place, somewhere I could be part of the community that I served. Plus, I like snowboarding, and it’s much more fun here than the tiny hills we consider ski resorts in the Midwest.” She attempted a smile at the last bit, but none of the other three returned it, so it quickly faded.
Her apprehension from driving around the bombed-out town had faded when she’d entered the VFW, but now it returned in a rush. These were her fellow officers, the people who were going to have her back when she was in a life-threatening situation—or they were supposed to be, at least. By the way they were staring at her, they’d just as soon toss her off the nearest cliff as work with her. She’d expected it to take a while before she integrated into the department, but she hadn’t thought there’d be such instant resistance.
“Yeah, peaceful.” Hugh huffed a laugh as he shifted in his chair and winced again. This time, Kit knew she hadn’t imagined it.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and all humor immediately disappeared from his face. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine.” The words came out with a sharp snap.
Otto turned his head toward Hugh. “What’s wrong? Is it your arm?”
