Ian's Heart - 31. Chapter 31 - Adam

“Yes Ma’am, I’ll send someone right away.”

Ripping the job note from the pad I stood up from my desk, two little taps sounded on the door to my office. So weird that I have an office, at first, I felt isolated from everyone and what was happening around the pen. Now I find it comforting that I can hear myself think. Being a sergeant is a pain in the ass full of red-tape and babysitting, with the occasional call to the field. I thought I’d miss it more, but my hours are more regular, and I’m able to spend more time with my family. Definitely a plus.

“Hey Sarge,” Payne said smiling.

I looked at her, she was standing with Wade.

“How did you do in your interview?” Wade asked.

“I don’t know, it was a panel of old guys that probably haven’t seen any action in two decades and probably should have retired at least a decade ago.” I shrugged a shoulder.

Payne laughed, “That was who interviewed me too. I’m not too hopeful considering all their questions were geared to how I thought a woman could handle herself. It was just this side of sexist.”

“Sometimes they can surprise you. I think the powers that be are happy to have squeaky clean officers and detectives at the moment. Your record speaks for itself, they couldn’t justify not giving you the job; short of someone from the outside coming in with more experience.”

“True,” Payne said nodding her head.

Payne was happy in her new role as head of Homicide, she’d taken to it like a duck on water, with all the new blood around the station house, she’d commanded the respect of most of the new officers and detectives. Some of the older ones treated her harshly, but that was because they weren’t happy with the outcome of the internal investigation that had their buddies fired.

“One of our old cases has come up,” I said to Payne, “remember the house where I got stabbed that time?”

“Yeah, how could I forget.” Her eyes narrowed at me.

“The mail carrier of all people just called, she said there was a funky smell coming from the house. She couldn’t elaborate what kind of smell so I thought we’d go and check it out together.”

Payne snatched the piece of paper out of my hand. “I’m driving, Sarge.” She left the room laughing.

“Wade, grab two uniformed officers, there was an assault in front of BOA. It has nothing to do with the bank as far as I’ve been told but you may need help keeping the lookie-loos at bay or in case any of them saw something. Thanks.”

“Sure Sarge, who do you think I should I take?” Wade asked.

I clapped him on the upper arm, “You’re a detective Wade, you’ll figure it out. Be firm and direct without being a dick, they’ll fall in line, but they’ll do it while respecting you.”

“Sure Sarge, thanks.” Wade gave me a nervous smile.

I watched as he went out to the landing in front of my office that we call the perch. His eyes darted around the pen until his sights landed on who he was looking for. He didn’t hesitate but called out immediately without another thought.

“Johnston, Keselowski, you’re with me.” His arm followed in a sweeping motion to bring them to the detectives’ office.

His eyes darted to me standing in my office while I was putting on my coat, I gave him a smile and a thumbs up.

<>-<>-<>

Payne was driving, humming a tune I didn’t recognize, she seemed more relaxed, lighter than she usually was. Being in love definitely suited her.

“Have you spoken to Ian about Thanksgiving?”

She flicked the indicator, slowing down for the red light. “Uh…” Payne mumbled, then glanced at me, “yeah, Amy and I managed to get on the same flight as you.”

I nodded, “Great, that should make the logistics easier getting to and from the airport at both ends.”

“Yup.”

The lights changed to green and Payne eased the car into the lane as she turned the corner. As we were driving a car swerved in front cutting us off.

“Idiot!” Payne yelled. There’s the usual work Payne.

She flicked the blue and reds on and let the siren whoop, whoop. The car pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. Payne flew by passing the vehicle, the look on the driver’s face was priceless. I’m pretty sure she just made his day, even though he looked like he might have soiled his underwear.

“Feel better?” I chuckled.

“Yup.” She smirked as she drove.

The Rocky theme tune rang out from my phone. Payne pushed the blue tooth button.

“Hey Son,” I said as soon as the call connected.

“Hi Dad,” Pat answered.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, his voice flat, “yeah everything’s fine.”

Payne glanced at me concerned, her brow furrowed.

“Sounds it, what’s going on Pat?”

I waited patiently, his life is a little upside down at the moment, and the poor kid is feeling a little outta sorts.

“Well, um. I think…but could you, um.” He stalled again, pausing for a moment I heard him blow out a breath. “Do you think we could go and see Uncle Theo?”

“Oh,” I said surprisingly, “yeah of course. Are you sure you want to do this?”

He let out another puff of air into the phone.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to tell Declan yet. I’d like to know if Uncle Theo can help first. I want to see what he can find out.”

I nodded in agreement as Pat spoke.

“Consider it done. Did you want to go to Theo’s office or have him over for dinner or something.”

Paddy took a few seconds considering the options.

“Probably have him over for dinner, you know, just in case Dad gets worked up again.”

That stirred a feeling of pride for my son, his life is upended and he’s worried about is how Ian is taking it.

“Don’t under-estimate your Dad, he’s stronger than you think. Keep in mind that he’s fighting for you, he wants to protect you from getting hurt Pat.”

“I know Dad.” Pat’s voice was sullen and strained.

“Okay then, I’ll give Theo a call and sort something out. Do you know what you want from Theo, do you have a plan?”

“Yeah. I have questions I want answers too. Don’t worry, I’ll be polite. None of this is Theo’s fault if it turns out that the department effed it up.”

“Language Pat, Aunt Payne is in the car with me,” I told him.

“Sorry, Aunt Payne,” Pat said sheepishly.

“Don’t worry about kid. We’ve said worse in front of each other.” Payne side eyed me.

Pat actually chuckled causing me to smile, that’s the first time I’ve heard him do that in over a week.

“Shit! That’s the bell, gotta go. Thanks, Dad, love you.”

“Love you too,” I said rolling my eyes at his curse and ending the call.

Payne slowly pulled up a few doors down from the address. An elderly lady peered through her blinds as we exited the car. Looking over to Payne, I flicked my chin in the lady’s direction.

“I got it, you call Theo. Won’t be long.”

Payne sauntered to the front door to see if the woman could give us any information on the neighboring homes, their coming and goings and what not. I leaned against the side of the car watching Payne as I dialed Theo.

“Hey Price, how’s it going?” Theo asked instead of a greeting.

“Busy; you?” I asked.

The woman answered the door. I heard Payne introduce herself, then immediately the woman started complaining about going’s on in her street.

“Today has been hell, but you know, normal day really.”

“Tell me about it. I’ll make this quick. Did you and Derek want to come over for dinner tonight?” I paused watching Payne try and placate the lady, she pulled out her notepad and started writing down the elderly woman’s complaints. Jesus Christ Payne’s going to be there all night. “Actually, you better make that tomorrow night. I have a feeling we won’t be going home any time soon.”

“Um… sure I’ll check with Derek. I’m sure it will be fine though. Everything okay?”

I toed the grass in front of me, crossing an arm over my chest defensively.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s about Pat and Declan.”

Silence! Theo was quiet for longer than I expected. I checked my phone to see if the call was still connected.

“Theo?”

He sighed out loud, “Yeah, we’ll be there regardless. I’ve been expecting this call since Pat’s birthday. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t call sooner.”

“Oh, okay. Do you know anything?” I asked hopefully.

“I don’t really want to talk about this now. I have been doing some digging around since Pat’s birthday. We’ll talk tomorrow night, okay? I really have to get going this day is killing me.” I heard yelling in the background.

It was easy to hear the nervousness in his voice, it was unsettling. I couldn’t tell if it were from what he was dealing with or Pat’s situation.

“Yeah, sure. We’ll see you then…”

After ending the call I made my way to Payne, but she met me halfway down the path from the front door.

“Find out anything useful?” I asked her.

“Sure did,” Payne scoffed. “Okay, the house three doors down in that direction. He always puts his trash cans out a day early, it drives her crazy because it ends up on its side and everything spills out. It could attract rats you know. The house right next door here has two dogs and they never stop barking.”

I looked over at the neighbor’s house. “Well, they don’t seem to be barking right now. What else?”

“Betty, she lives across the street over there.” Payne pointed. “Her son is a home-o-sex-ual, and single living with Betty for the last year or so; since he broke up with his wife. I’m guessing for obvious reasons. He’s in his late forty’s in case you’re interested–”

“Jesus Payne, anything about the residence we’re here for?”

Payne flicked over a few pages of her notebook, she smirked at me when I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, here we go,” she said as if she’d forgotten. “Every Wednesday and Thursday there are a lot of cars parked on the street, but never in the driveway. Saying that however, there are usually deliveries throughout the day, vans, no signage. On Fridays, a town car parks in the driveway for about an hour then disappears.” Her arm with the notepad slacked falling to her side. “The town car never comes at the same time, and no she couldn’t give me a plate on the car or a description of the person in the town car other than, he’s handsome.”

“It would still be noticeable in this neighborhood,” I said looking around the street. “Did she say if the town car has already been today.”

“She did, and no it has not.” Payne sighed and looked in the direction of the house. “What do you want to do Sarge?”

I clicked my tongue and sucked in a breath trying to decide which road to go down.

“It seems we’re in a bit of a pickle, doesn’t it? We can’t go to Betty’s because that would probably make these guys suspicious… I really want to get a look at that house, at least through the windows and the backyard. But…”

“If we poke around we might get caught if the town car arrives.”

“Hmm,” I hummed while observing the neighbors houses either side.

“What are you thinking?” Payne asked.

“I’m thinking we knock on the door of the neighboring homes and see if we can get a look from their windows over into that house. If they aren’t home, we go around back and see if we can see over the fence.”

“Okay, better than standing here. We stick out like dogs balls in this neighborhood. Is the old bag still watching us through the window?”

I glanced casually in the direction of her front window, then back to Payne.

“Yep, what did you expect?”

“Nothing less, you take this house. I’ll get the one on the other side, meet you back at the car.”

“All right.” I didn’t wait any longer making my way to the house.

I knocked two or three times but there was no answer, there didn’t seem to be any noise in the house. I looked around the side, there wasn’t a gate, so I could get into the back yard. It was easy to see some of the windows of the residence next door from the porch, they had been blacked out too. That’s not suspicious at all – dumbasses.

The further I walked into the backyard looking over the fence I could see more windows blacked out. Fuck, this is not good. I peered over the fence into the yard, there was a rottweiler on a chain running back and forth, he looked agitated and scary. He was barking aggressively with a growled undertone, pulling on the chain to try to get to me. The back door flew open smacking the siding of the house with a bang.

“Shut the fuck up, ya fleabag. There’s no one out here.” A skinny guy walked into the yard discarding some containers and boxes on top of a pile of other trash next to the door. His shoulder-length hair looked greasy and stringy, he was as thin as a rail, and his clothes were dirty. The man looked like what you would expect from someone cooking up drugs.

I quickly ducked back down behind the fence, making my way back around to the front of the house going directly to the car to wait for Payne. Unfortunately, when I got in the car, the guy I’d just seen walked into the front yard and lit a cigarette then sat down on the front step of the house. Shit! As I scooched down, I sent a text to Payne.

Me: Don’t come to the car, perp in front of house smoking.

Payne: Yep, watching from the window inside.

At least she’s safe there, we don’t want to blow this.

I stayed low in my seat, only far enough that I could still see the guy smoking. I want to see what the hell is going on in that house. I’d certainly like to get a look at the power meter, see if they’ve bypassed the electricity. It’s not like we can go poking around with that friggin’ dog in the back yard either. I really hate cases like this, they’re volatile, it’s like your flying blind without all your sen–.

“What the hell is she doing?” I mumbled to myself.

Payne walked out of the house next door holding a clipboard as she walked nonchalantly to the house we were looking at. The god damn woman walked right up to guy with the cigarette, holding the clipboard. I opened the window an inch, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Son of a bitch. It looked like she was flirting with him, he was responding by the smile on his face and his body language. Payne giggled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. The guy leaned to his side and pulled some money out of his pocket, stripped off a bill of some denomination and place it on the clipboard.

“That’s my girl.” I smiled.

She pushed the note under the clip with her pen so she didn’t touch it while she spoke to the man. He stood from his perch walking her to the footpath. They stopped there and exchanged a few more words before he took the clipboard from her and wrote down something then handed it back. He gave her a sleazy grin then headed around to the back of the house. Payne was smart she walked to the next house and knocked on the door. I heard that mongrel dog start barking again. She waited a few minutes and came to the car opening the door and hopping in the passenger seat.

“I need a shower and a fucking flea dip,” Payne said as her whole body shivered. “Do you have any Purell or something in here.”

“So what was all that about Payne, I told you not to come out of the house,” I said sternly. “We don’t have any back up or anything. What were you thinking?”

On the inside I was happy she did what she did, but what she did was dangerous. Especially without a definite plan in place. It makes me feel like a hypocrite, but her safety is what comes first.

“I was thinking, jackass, we could confirm our suspicions. Now we can, we can test this five dollar note for any traces of meth. If that’s a meth lab you know there will be traces of it on the money, and we just may get lucky and pull a finger print. Although I highly doubt that, but that doesn’t matter anyway because now we can get one off of the pen or clipboard.” Payne snapped.

“Look, just don’t do something like that again without talking to me first Payne. That could have gone terribly wrong.” I watched for a reaction from her. I actually expected for her to get even more pissy with me but she didn’t.

“Sorry Hotshot. I guess I was focused on what we needed…” Payne looked out the window so I couldn’t see her eyes.

“You know I always have your back Payne.”

She nodded her head, then looked down into her lap.

“Sorry Sarge.”

“Sarge, not Hotshot huh?” I gave her a smile nudging her. “I’ve missed you calling me that.”

Payne smiled weakly as she glanced in my direction before focusing back on our target.

“You know what I’m wondering?” I asked my finger tapping on the steering wheel.

“Nope, what?”

“If that house has changed hands since the original investigation…”

“So what are we going to do?”

I cleared my throat, “First things first. We are going to get some plain clothes and a clean car down here pronto to keep an eye on this place while we do some background. And I want to talk to Campbell to see if this place is on their radar.”

“Okay, I’ll get this tested for any sign of drugs and see if we can’t get some fingerprints off of this clipboard. What do you want to do about the neighbor?”

“Not sure yet. Did he give you anything helpful?”

“Nothing more than what the old lady gave us. He works night shift and mostly sleeps during the day.”

I called in to get some surveillance on the house, then contacted Wade, Campbell, and the Chief to meet us back at my office. I really hope I don’t have to call the FBI back in on this. If the house has been sold since the FBI investigation we won’t have to – maybe.

“We need more intel before we do anything.” I told Payne.

<>-<>-<>

The house was in darkness by the time I got home. I really hate getting home this late when the rest of my family are already in bed sleeping. It’s been nice having better hours since I became Sergeant, I mostly get to help bath Riley and put her down for the night, then Pat, Ian, and I watch tv together for an hour before Pat retreats to his bedroom to study or chat with his girlfriend. Well, except weekends, and the nights he has boxing or Jiu Jitsu.

A dull light highlighted the gap between the floor and the door to Paddy’s bedroom. I knocked as quietly as I could on his bedroom door, but it wasn’t latched and slowly opened. Pat was sitting on his bed with his eyes closed as he cradled and comforted Riley whispering gently to her.

“Hey Pat,” I said gently squeezing his shoulder.

His eyes opened, and face lit up when he saw me, it wasn’t anything dramatic but enough to know he was happy I was home.

“Hi Dad,” Pat said with his finger going to his lip to shush me. He pointed to Riley, “I think she’s teething again.”

Pat’s voice was sympathetic, god he loved our little girl.

“Here, let me take her, Son.” I leaned down removing Riley gently from his arms.

She stirred as I slowly straightened, Paddy and I held our breath while she yawned then snuggled into me. God, she’s beautiful. Her last couple of bouts of teething had been hell on the family as well as Riley. We knew having a baby around would change our lives and be a little tough at times, but the second your eyes hit this bundle of joy we know it’s worth every sleepless moment.

“Just let me put her down, and I’ll be back,” I whispered loudly to Pat, not waiting for an answer.

I knew if I gave him a choice he’d wave me off and avoid talking. Paddy had been all alone for a long time, he has a habit of trying to tackle things by himself or ignoring it, but Ian and I don’t and won’t let him get away with it anymore. He has a family now, we will make sure he feels it too.

Once I’d put Riley down, I couldn’t help myself but watch her sleep for a moment, but I was anxious to get back to Paddy. Every time I put her down for a nap or to sleep for the night I have this uncontrollable urge to pick her up. I want to keep her close to me all the time, to keep her safe, to let her know she’s loved. It took almost all my willpower to leave her room, but I wanted to make sure Pat was also feeling safe and loved.

“Night angel girl,” I whispered as I walked out.

I pulled the door closed leaving it ajar a couple of inches when I made my way back to Paddy. He was sitting up against the headboard, his knees to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. Rain was stretched across his feet. Pat’s face was… pensive. I sat down toward the end of the bed leaving Paddy some space, so he didn’t feel smothered or pressured.

“So how are you doing, Pat? Where’s your head at?” I asked.

Pat rested his chin on his knees, his hand mindlessly stroking Rain but his gaze in line with mine.

“I’m a little…” His voice trailed off.

“A little …….?”

He looked away for a moment before looking back at me, “A little all over the place.”

I wanted him to talk, so I waited until he was ready.

“It’s like one minute I’m happy as a pig in shit that I might have a brother or something, then the next minute I’m angry. I don’t know it’s weird.”

I crossed my arms, leaning back to find a comfortable position.

“What are you angry about?”

“Just stuff,” Pat said, his eyes lowering to watch his fingers run through Rain’s fur.

“Such as?”

Pats head didn’t move, but his eyes looked up to me.

“I can’t tell you, you’ll get upset.”

“No, I won’t Pat. You can tell me anything, I’m not going anywhere,” I replied instantly.

“Okay,” he mumbled. Pat lifted his chin from his knees. Taking a deep breath, he continued. “I wonder why him and not me. Declan got adopted, and I went into foster care. I don’t get it, I wasn’t that much older than he was. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good he got to have a family growing up. But what about me? What did I do wrong that no one wanted me.”

By the time Pat had finished, I was sitting next to him. My boy had tears in his eyes as my arms went around him.

“Oh, Paddy.” I had tears myself. “I don’t know why, but I am just so happy that we have you in the family now”.

I stayed with Pat until his breathing evened out and he was yawning.

“Get some sleep son, you know where to find me and Dad if you need us. We can talk more in the morning.” I kissed the top of Pats head as I stood up from the bed. “Love you, bud.”

“Love you too, Dad.” Pat’s voice was soft while he pulled the covers over him, rolling onto his side as he cuddled up to Rain, closing his eyes.

I turned Pat’s bedroom light off, closing his door as I backed out of his bedroom. Ian was standing against the wall with his face pained and his tears had left a wet path down his cheeks. Wrapping Ian up in my arms I steered us toward the bedroom. Ian helped me undress then we slid between the sheets together. He wrapped around me as I hugged him tightly to my body.

“Everything is going to be okay, you know that right? It will be a little bumpy for a while but it’s going to work out,” I whispered to Ian.

He nodded his head slowly, “I know. It’s just… I mean how much more can be thrown at Pat. He’s been through so much in his young life. I don’t want him to ever hurt again and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“We’ll do our best to make sure he comes out the other side. He’s an amazing kid, and I for one am glad he’s ours.”

“Me too.”