Other
than the fact that the initials spelled out “D.A.D.”, Alex thought it sounded
pretty good; and he didn’t doubt that it would be soon. He fingered the brim of
his cap, picturing the string of “scrambled eggs” (as they called the braided
yellow roping across the brim of the senior officers) he would see there soon.
As of this week, he had been an officer for longer than he stayed a rookie. For
a young man like Alex Davis, that was really saying something.
Not
that Alex was lazy or anything; he preferred to consider himself “choosy.” He’d
always been choosy about the kind of jobs he’d do, even around the house. With
two brothers and three sisters, being choosy hadn’t been hard. Alex did the
easy chores, the small tasks, and let his brothers and sisters handle the rest.
They all did the work so much better than he ever could, anyway. Even if he
decided to get up and do the job, one of his sisters was guaranteed to come
behind him and re-do it; so why bother lifting a finger in the first place?
Alex
was “choosy” in the field of academics, too. Whenever he could, he would find a
“study buddy,” or a teammate who didn’t mind doing most of the work in the
assignment or the sport. Alex would contribute only slightly above the average
minimum, and his partner would handle the rest--especially when it came to the matter of books. He moved in with a roommate
while the two of them attended college so that he would only have to pay just
barely under half the rent, while his roommate footed the rest. In fact, about
the only thing Alex ever actually set his mind on working hard at was becoming
a police officer, and at least there, he had succeeded.
As
a rookie officer, it was harder to be “choosy” about which beats the senior
officer he shadowed would take, but once Alex became the one to decide the
beats, he found that he rather enjoyed being the one to drive out and break up
the parties with the hot chicks, or the one to chase down a purse-snatcher
because the victim couldn’t run in her stilettos, or the one to pause in his
patrol of the highway to help a poor innocent standing beside the road with her
hood propped up and jumper cables in her hands. There were plenty of other guys
in his precinct to handle the druggies and the old ladies’ cats stuck in trees
and the little boys who hit their baseball through somebody’s window. Alex
could have his pick off the scanner, and the dispatcher knew it. She’d be
calling out codes in her dry, dutiful voice, to whoever was closest to the
scene, then she’d announce, “Patrol 145 (Alex’s car), we have a female
situation on the shoulder of Hartford Road, would you mind covering that one?”
Alex
would pick up his mic and respond, “Dispatch, this is Patrol 145, I’m on it.”
“Have
fun,” the dispatcher sometimes replied, and everyone knew Officer Alex Davis
was going to be another damsel’s hero.
They
would tease him about it back at the station. “Who are you going out with
tonight, Al?” whooped Chris Tanner, an officer who was only two pay grades
above Alex, even though he’d logged almost twice as many patrols. “The jumper
cables on I-60, or the domestic disturbance from Main Street?”
“I
had a nice-looker stop and ask me for directions and my phone number in the
same breath,” offered Senior Officer Zack Van Derby, “I had to tell her I was
already married, but do you mind that I gave her your number and told her to
watch out for Patrol Car 145?”
Alex
snorted, “Ha, ha; y’all are funny.” He was interested in Van Derby’s offer,
though, “Where were you at, Derby?”
“Well
now, let me see, it was about eleven o’clock this morning, so I was doing my
rounds in the Powerball Loop.”
Alex
scoffed, “A Powerball chick? You really think I’m that shallow, sir?” The
“Powerball” Loop was a low-income neighborhood that was the source of numerous
complaints to the dispatchers, and got its nickname because nearly everyone who
lived there scratched lottery tickets in the hopes of moving to a better area
of town.
“Now,
wait a minute, Davis,” Derby defended himself, “You shadowed me for a long
while, we know each other better than that. She may have been on the Powerball
Loop, but she was new in town and took a wrong turn trying to visit a friend in
Pentomino Heights.”
The
rest of the junior officers howled at this, and Alex grinned, “Now you’re
talkin’!” Pentomino Heights was a notoriously posh neighborhood, a magnet for
any celebrity (or celebrity-hunting tourist) who passed through the state. “So,
did she give you any info? Do you think her face was familiar?”
Zack
shook his head with a smile, “Well, she didn’t exactly leave a name, and I’m
sorry, son, I don’t watch much TV these days—but I coulda sworn I saw a face
just like hers when Martha was watching an episode of ‘America’s Next Top
Model.’”
“Nice!”
Alex smiled. “Well, I’m off to boogie!” He used the precinct’s slang for going
on a beat.
“Have
fun!” the officers in the break room chorused, using the exact same tone as the
dispatcher.
Alex
chuckled as he climbed into his patrol car and switched on the scanner.
“Available
units please respond to a medical emergency at 143 North Hammersmith Drive...I
have a possible B&E at the Beautiful Sun bakery on Turnkey Road…A motorist
has locked her keys in the car—Unit 145, are you on beat?”
Alex
bit back a laugh as he flipped the “call” switch, “This is Unit 145, I am just
pulling away from the station; what do you have? Over.”
“Unit
145, motorist sounds young and desperate. She’s in the parking lot of the Great
Western Mall; what can I tell her?”
“Dispatch,
give me fifteen minutes, I can be there.”
“Thank
you Unit 145; nice to have someone we can depend on; Out.”
Alex
hesitated at that last remark; was she being serious, or sarcastic? She
wondered how she could talk all day long without altering her tone of voice;
the woman was completely deadpan, no matter what she was saying. Sometimes he
found it hard to read her. Alex switched on his lights and siren and headed out
toward the highway, enjoying the way the cars in front of him politely pulled
off to the right and let him pass unhindered. How often he wished he could do
something like this on a date, but he knew he’d have to answer to the chief if
he dared use his lights or siren during off-duty hours.
In
the parking lot of the Great Western Mall, Alex pulled up behind a tearful blonde
standing next to a sea-green Volkswagen Jetta. He basked in the look on her
face as he climbed out of his car and asked her, in perfect movie-cop patois,
“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?”
“Oh,
just me being an idiot!” she sniffed, dabbing at her tears so as not to ruin
her makeup. “I went shopping—“ she pointed to a mound of bags from the
higher-end stores in the mall sitting in the parking lot next to her car, “—and
I didn’t even realize until I came back out here that I had left my keys in the
car when I locked it!”
Closer
inspection revealed a thin crack between the rim and the top of the window.
“Well, ma’am,” Alex kept up the formal speech, “today, you’re in luck, because
your window is slightly cracked, so I should be able to get in there in no
time.” Alex walked back to his patrol car and dug out a wire hanger (which he
always kept in the car for just such occasions), unbent it, threaded it through
the crack, and seconds later, he was climbing into his own car again with the
taste of her lips on his mouth and the smell of her perfume in his nose. He
reached into his back pocket where he had felt her hand, and sure enough, he
found a paper with her number on it. He tossed the hanger under the
passenger-side seat.
“Alex,
you sly thing,” he crowed to himself, “you did it again!” He loved it when the
rescue techniques he observed in other cops worked so well in his favor when he
tried them.
Alex
switched on the scanner as he moseyed around the mall for just a bit longer,
scanning the milling crowd of shoppers for another rescue opportunity.
“Unit
145… Unit 145, please respond!”
Alex
was so intent on people-scanning that he almost missed that the dispatcher was
now calling for him. “Dispatch, this is Unit 145; over.”
“Unit
145, there is a request for backup from Unit 823 on Maverick Highway; are you
still at the Mall?”
“Dispatch,
yes I am.”
“Unit
823 chasing white male on foot, headed your direction; traffic’s a beast.”
“Maverick?
He’ll have to run right past me.”
“Yeah,
well, don’t let him, 145, you copy?”
“Copy
that, Dispatch.”
Alex
flipped on his lights again, just enough to clear the immediate area, then he
pulled roaring out of the parking structure. Two blocks down, and one left
turn, and he was out on Maverick Highway; he couldn’t even see Patrol Car 823,
which he knew was Officer Van Derby’s unit, but his “cop-sense” kicked into
gear when he saw a white man in a brown ski jacket pushing through a couple
people and glancing over his shoulder.
“Dispatcher,”
he called quickly, “Verify: target is a white male, 6’1”, dark hair, brown
jacket.”
“That’s
the one; do you have a visual, 145?”
“I’m
going in!”
The
man was so busy glancing over his shoulder he didn’t even notice Alex’s car
coming at him until it was too late. Alex pulled the car to a stop and almost
in the same motion jumped to his feet and pulled his gun. “Freeze! Put your
hands where I can see them!”
A
few people screamed, but the man knew better than to bolt. He lifted his hands
next to his face.
“Kneel
on the ground,” Alex instructed, “and put your hands on your head.”
The
man obeyed instantly.
Alex
touched the “call” button on his intercom unit. “Unit 823, this is 145, I’ve
apprehended your suspect.”
“Fourteen-five,
this is Eight-twenty-three,” he heard Officer Van Derby’s voice crackling over
the speaker, “Do you have him in custody?”
“No
sir,” Alex responded, “Waiting on your call, sir.”
“Cuff
‘im,” Derby confirmed, “He’s one of four I caught in a narc bust, and when he
saw there wasn’t room, he tried to slide out the other side before we could
catch him. Are you in the middle of something, or would you mind bringing him
back to the station for me?”
Alex
barely concealed his chagrin; he much preferred beautiful babes to scruffy men!
But Alex learned early on that a senior officer asking a favor was
non-optional, no matter the circumstances.
“See
you there, 823.”
He
clapped handcuffs on the wrists of the suspect—now his responsibility—and quoted the Miranda rights before
he guided him into the car. Pulling back into traffic, Alex observed protocol
and restrained himself from using his lights and siren to scream through the
crawling traffic. His hand strayed that direction more than once, and his
passenger noticed.
“You
know, we’d get there faster by walking,” he egged Alex.
“Hey,”
Alex snapped back, “I think it’s sort of pointless to remind you that you are
in the back of my patrol car, wearing my
handcuffs, and since I already informed you
of your right to remain silent, I suggest you exercise that right.”
At
last, Alex made it to the freeway. His passenger slumped in his seat. “Does
this thing have A/C?” he whined.
“Up
here it does,” Alex answered with a chuckle.
The
man’s response was indistinct, and anyway, Alex was sure it was only curse
words. It served the guy right, wearing a ski jacket in late summer! He exited
the freeway, and not six blocks from the station, he saw Lieutenant Bree Munroe
standing outside her unit with two deputies and five prisoners. She flagged him
down. Alex pulled in front of her.
“What
do you need?” he asked.
“Did
you flip off your scanner or something?” Bree retorted tartly. “I thought you
must have heard from Dispatch about my little predicament.”
Alex
twitched the dial; sure enough, he recalled turning the volume all the way down
after apprehending Officer Derby’s suspect. He didn’t want to hear about all
the juicy hits he was missing.
Bree
rolled her eyes and brushed a lock of hair off her sweaty forehead. “Dispatch
said minimum three suspects hitting up that gas station over there. I had no
idea ‘minimum three’ meant five! I don’t
have room in my car. Would you mind taking a deputy and a few of these hoods
down to the station?” She grinned darkly, “Got ‘em all cuffed for ya!”
Alex
glanced over at the sidewalk. Who knew how long those guys had been waiting in
the hot sun; even from there he could see the sweat glistening on their faces,
and he did not doubt that none of them had showered in the last week. Alex did
not doubt the amount of stench he would have to undergo if he accepted, even
the short distance to the station.
“I’m
sorry, Lieutenant,” he tried to be as respectful and apologetic as possible,
“Officer Derby instructed that this man be kept alone; that’s why he’s in my
car, not Derby’s.” Alex shrugged, “You know I wouldn’t normally refuse a
request like that, but I just can’t swing it right now.”
Bree
scowled at him, “You scurvy sonuva selfish—“ she pushed away from his car.
“Fine!” she snapped, “Get on back to the station with your overflow
passenger!”
Darn;
she’d heard about it, then.
“I’m
not overflow!” The man bellowed, giving Alex the opportunity to ignore the
angry lieutenant and roll up his window, ostensibly to yell at his prisoner.
Alex
reached the station, where Officer Derby was waiting for him. Officer Derby
booked his prisoner with the others, and Alex checked in at the front desk for
any more requests. As luck would have it, somebody from Pentomino security
requested a brief drive through the neighborhood. Alex, having nothing else to
do, graciously offered to be the one to drive all the way out to Pentomino
Heights for the obligatory drive-by.
While
he was there, he “just happened” to be waved at by the newcomer brunette Derby
had spoken to earlier. Alex returned to the station with a second paper in his
pocket. One for happy hour, he surmised, and the other for dessert, perhaps? Or
would an out-of-towner visiting Pentomino Heights really just be satisfied with
a walk under the stars? Maybe the blonde could wait till next weekend… or
Sunday night, but who knew how long the brunette was staying! Be it never said
that Alex Davis missed an opportunity for a score!
Alex
tooled around for the rest of the day, performing drive-bys, reporting the
status of various sensitive situations the cops were involved in, assisting the
women of his fair city in whatever distresses they found themselves in—in
short, being an all-around good cop. Near the end of his twelve-hour shift,
just when Alex was thinking about heading back to the station for the night (he
knew if he just drove slow enough, he’d make it back to the station with just
enough time to clock out without looking like he was early), his cell phone
vibrated. Alex picked it up.
“Davis?”
it was Captain Prosser, the highest authority at Alex’s station.
“Yes,
sir,” Alex responded right away, wondering what this call could be about.
“Bobby
Tartino, from Bobby’s Tavern, just called.”
“Yes,
sir?” Bobby was an old friend of Alex’s parents, and like an unrelated uncle to
Alex.
“He
wants a favor; apparently one of his classier patrons is insisting on walking
home alone. He asked me if you could be the one to shadow her, make sure she
gets to her apartment okay.”
“I’ll
get right on it, sir,” Alex whipped out smartly. What a way to end the week!
Friday parties were always the best for scouting out potential dates, because
they were usually sober by Monday evening.
He
heard Captain Prosser sigh, “I figured you would…” Alex heard the click as the
captain hung up the phone.
Alex
started up the car and drove out to the tavern, all the way across town, as the
dispatcher droned on over his scanner:
“….All units
respond to an emergency situation on Seventh Street. Repeat, armed robbery in
progress, two victims, all units respond, repeat, all available units,
respond!”
<<<<<>>>>>
Alex
woke up to his alarm on Monday morning and yawned. He slapped the “off” button
and slowly eased himself up to a sitting position.
The
brunette had gotten herself home, right enough. In spite of being tipsy that
night, there had been no mistaking her designer clothing and her Gucci purse;
Alex consoled himself that she probably wouldn’t have drunk so much if she’d
had somebody like him at the tavern with her, to keep her from drowning
herself. He made a mental note of her address to see if he could look her up at
the station when he returned.
A
short drive and a few keystrokes later, the number and profile of Miss Adelaide
Donahue was his to survey. She looked very pretty, even in her DMV photo.
Turned out her late father was an intensely successful business magnate who
left such a profound legacy that young Miss Adelaide could go out partying like
that every night and never have to work a day in her life. Alex smiled as a
third slip of paper—this time in his own handwriting—joined the other two. Boy,
he was really getting them this time! He had slept well that night, full of
pleasant dreams of conquests to come.
Now,
at 7:30 in the morning, Alex was ready to face another day. He showered,
brushed his teeth, pulled on his uniform, ate his breakfast, and at 7:53 sharp
(as always), commenced his ten-minute walk to the station.
At
8:04, he clocked in for his twelve-hour shift. Marnie, the receptionist, barely
glanced up at him. She knew who it was; the only officer consistently late to
his beat.
“Morning,
Davis,” she muttered.
Alex
was in such good spirits that not even Marnie could dampen him.
“Good
morning!” he replied heartily.
Alex
glanced at his schedule, walked past all the other junior officers in the break
room and out to the garage, where he climbed into his patrol unit, good old
number 145. He buckled his seatbelt, checked his mirror alignment—
“Hi
there!”
“AAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!”
With a banshee howl, Alex ripped off his
seatbelt and dove out of his car. He stared through the window into the back
seat, not sure what was real or not. The seat was empty, but as he had sat in
the front seat, Alex Davis was ready to swear he had seen two people,
a man and a woman, sitting in the back of his vehicle! And was his mind playing tricks, or had the woman
actually spoken to him? But there was no one there, not even the slightest sign
that anyone had been there.
The
hackles on the back of Alex’s neck raised; he whipped around. The couple he
had seen in the mirror now stood behind him!
The
woman spoke again, “How’s it going?”
Alex
keeled over so fast he didn’t even feel his body hit the cement floor of the
garage.
<<<<<>>>>>
“You know, you really should get down.”
“Aww, but isn’t he sweet? I love his hair! This is really
so much fun, Ted!”
“Marlo, honey, I really don’t feel comfortable with you
up there.”
“Oh, don’t be such a fussbudget!”
“All right, Mrs. Brendon—“
“Oh, come on and die already! It’s not like we’re still
married! Didn’t we both say ‘till death do us part’?”
“I’m just saying, I think there are other, better ways
of—“
“Shh! He’s coming around! Watch this!”
Alex
moaned and raised his head, which felt as heavy as a sandbag on his neck. He
opened his eyes and blinked.
His
nose rested less than an inch from somebody’s collarbone. He could not feel a
thing, but his eyes told him that he had a woman in her early thirties sitting
on his lap with her arms around his neck. She giggled like a schoolgirl and
planted a kiss on Alex’s forehead; apparently his whole body was numb, because
he couldn’t feel that, either.
“Welcome
back to the land of the living!” she chirped brightly.
Alex
wasn’t even sure he could speak or move, since he evidently couldn’t feel.
The
woman slipped off his lap, and Alex sat forward and tried to bring his hands in
front of him. He heard a soft chink and
felt the cold bite of handcuffs around his wrists. A quick glance told him they
were his own handcuffs. In front of him stood the woman, with honey-colored
hair and sparkling green eyes, and a man with dark-brown hair. They both looked
dressed and ready for a date night. Seeing them reminded Alex of the last thing
he saw before blacking out just now: this same couple in the rearview mirror of
his patrol car (but not actually in his
patrol car), and then appearing in the garage behind him when he had jumped out
in fright.
Feeling
the handcuffs told Alex his body wasn’t numb, so he tried speaking. It didn’t
work as well as he planned.
“W-wh-what
are—H-h-how did—you…“ he tried to shift his position, which was moderately difficult,
cuffed to the chair as he was. Alex went for the most pertinent question. “Why
am I handcuffed?”
“Oh,
I did that!” the woman raised her hand. “I’ve never handcuffed anyone before.
It was fun!”
“Sorry
about her,” the man apologized, “my name’s Ted, and she’s my wife, Marlo. We
decided to cuff you because we were afraid you might do something we couldn’t
prevent when we tell you—“
“Tell
me what?” Alex demanded, growing more
and more fearful of this odd, obviously-insane (and strangely inconspicuous)
couple.
“We’re
ghosts,” Marlo answered brightly.
Alex
felt dizzy and nauseated at the same time. “I’m gonna pass out again…” he
muttered.
“Don’t
worry, we’re only newly-ghosted,” Marlo hastily continued, as if that was any
reassurance.
“Our
murderer killed us at about eight o’clock Friday night,” Ted added
significantly.
“B-b-but
why—“ Alex spluttered, “Y-y-you came back?”
“Well,
some ghosts do, honey,” Marlo answered matter-of-factly, “especially those
with…unfinished business.”
Alex
felt a chill run down his spine at the way she said those words. “What
unfinished business?” His words came very fast, because he was so scared. “Do
you want me to catch your killer? Find your mortal bodies? Avenge your deaths?
What?”
“Oh,
our killer’s caught already,” Ted replied, “I believe he’s in the hold right
now, and he’ll be transferred to federal prison on two counts of first-degree
murder in the morning. Your buddies took
care of that.” He said this last with such scathing bitterness that Alex
furrowed his brow in confusion.
“You
want him released?”
“Certainly
not!” Marlo shrieked.
“SHHH!!”
Alex snapped in alarm, wishing his hands
were free so he could clap them over the woman’s mouth. Finally, he found the
presence of mind to ask the question that had been bothering him ever since
they first showed up. “Okay, okay; how did you get inside this station? Did
anybody see you?”
Ted
looked at Alex like the young officer was a complete idiot. “No, of course
nobody saw us; we showed up to you.
You’re the only one who can interact with us, and we can only interact with
you.”
“But
why me?” Alex demanded, trying in vain
to calm his pounding heart, “Why now? Why here? Why you guys? I didn’t—I don’t
think I…Did I do something wrong?”
“Just
take a moment and think, Alexander
Robert Davis,” Marlo’s clear voice enunciating his full name hit him like a
slap in the face. She stalked toward him on her bright-pink t-strap sandals,
her bright, floral dress swirling around her knees. Her green eyes flashed
dangerously. “Think back over everything you’ve ever done…” her face changed to
one of pity, “You really haven’t done a lot with your life, have you?”
“Well,”
Ted cut in, finally grinning, “Except that one time in fifth-grade…”
“Oh,
right,” Marlo nodded, “And the one thing after graduation—“
Alex’s
cheeks—come to think of it, his whole body—burned with shame. “How did you
find—who told you—how do you know all that stuff?” he demanded.
Marlo
sauntered around behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck—but Alex could
not feel her touch. She must really be a ghost, Alex thought.
“I
guess since Ted and I are dead,” Marlo whispered in his ear, “we aren’t bound
by time and space. We’ve observed the entire history of your life in the last
ten minutes, Alex.”
“Which
also means we know exactly what you were doing last night, young man,” Ted
reprimanded him sternly.
Alex
shook his head as Marlo rejoined her husband, “Look, guys, I’m sorry—I would
have been there if I had not been called away…”
“Hmm…
do you remember what he was doing last Friday night, Ted?” Marlo looked at her
husband.
Ted
pretended to ponder this deeply. “I believe he was—following a girl that night, Marlo.”
“It
was a favor, okay?” Alex leaned against the handcuffs as he tried to make the
couple understand. “The bartender called my captain personally and requested I
shadow the patron home and make sure she was safe.”
“Oh,
okay,” Marlo seemed to accept this, “So while you were making sure this young,
gorgeous, rich gal could roll into her front door without smacking into a
telephone pole—“
“Marlo,”
Ted tried to rein her in, but Marlo’s cheeks burned and her ire was up.
“—You
left my husband and I at the mercy of an armed robber!” Her hand lashed out,
and Alex felt the strange sensation of his head snapping to the side, even
though he never actually felt her hand connect with his cheek, nor did his skin
tingle like it should have.
“To
think that you got that call from the bartender while you were sitting on 16th
Avenue,” Ted added mournfully, “and you chose to drive all the way across town
when there was a robbery happening two blocks away.”
“Dispatch
didn’t call it in until I was en route to the bar!” Alex protested.
Ted
raised his eyebrows, “Oh, so you did hear
about my call, did you? By that time you were, what, three blocks down? And
still two miles from the bar? If
you would have turned around right then, Alex, you could have saved us!”
“At
the very least you could have saved Ted and recovered our stolen property!”
Marlo snapped, “He killed me first!”
“I
was fighting him when his buddy made off with the loot,” Ted explained, “I was
able to keep him from using his gun, but he still had a knife, and he stabbed
me with it.”
“We
came to, standing on the street just outside our house. The police were just leaving
with the man who murdered us in custody,” Marlo continued the chilling tale.
“It took a while to figure out how to jump through time and space, but once we
did, we found you, and found out what you knew, and what you did, and—“
“—now
we’re here, talking to you,” Ted finished.
Alex
hung his head, “Look, Marlo, Ted—I’m sorry! It was a dumb decision, and I’m an
idiot and a jerk, and I promise I’ll never do anything like that again!” He
glanced up, “Can you un-cuff me now?”
“Oh,
Alex, honey, baby,” Marlo gushed in a
syrupy voice, climbing onto his lap again and taking his face in her hands.
Alex was only compelled to look at her because he could not turn his head; he
felt neither her weight nor her touch. “It doesn’t work that way,” Marlo said
with a sultry pout. “Our unfinished business can’t be tossed away with a wink
and a promise. You’ve got some work
to do, sugar!” She slapped him on the shoulder, but Alex didn’t flinch. “We
know how much you love your work!”
“So
here’s how it’s going to be, kid,” Ted began. Marlo turned toward her husband
so Alex could watch him, too. “From now on, the minute your workday begins,
Marlo and I will be here with you.”
“Mm-hmm,”
Marlo affirmed, “Let’s see, you’re supposed to clock in at, what, eight o’clock
every morning?” She grinned and mussed his hair, which immediately laid down
flat as if she hadn’t touched it, “But we know you haven’t quite made it right
on the dot every morning now, don’t we?”
“All
right, so eight o’clock, we are your official ghost-shadows.” Ted grinned,
“Like we said before, you’re the only one who will be able to see or hear us.
Nobody else will even know we’re there. We’re going to ride in your patrol
car—and we decide what calls you answer,
not you.”
“What?”
Ted
pressed his lips firmly, “That’s right; you don’t get to be ‘choosy’ anymore,
Alex. You owe us. Marlo and I will pick
your beats, and you will perform your duties like you’ve been trained.”
“Don’t
worry, Alex,” Marlo inserted, “Ted and I can make sure we don’t give you
anything you can’t handle.”
“In
return for doing what we say while on-duty,” Ted continued, “Marlo and I
promise to leave you alone when you clock out at night.”
“So…”
Alex fought to understand, “you’ll only be around when I’m on-duty?”
“The
whole time you’re on duty,” Marlo
confirmed, standing up again. “And once you’re not on duty, we’ll be gone!” She
pinched his cheeks, but he only felt the way she made his head bob up and down.
“But we’ll be back the next morning!” she finished in a singsong voice.
“We’ll
let you have all day today to get used to the idea of being shadowed by
ghosts,” Ted offered benevolently.
Alex
glanced at the clock on the wall; according to it they’d been in the garage for
almost two hours now. “All day? But it’s—“
Ted
glanced over his shoulder and shrugged, “Remember? Marlo and I aren’t a part of
time and space. Once we leave, it will be as if you just walked into the garage
and got out of your car. The time will go back as if none of this conversation
ever happened.”
“But
you’ll remember us, Alex,” Marlo reiterated.
“Ready?”
Ted grasped his wife’s hand. “Bye for now, Alex.”
“See
you in the morning…” Marlo’s voice blended
with the sound of his own thoughts.
“Hey,
Al!”
“WHAAAT!”
The voice was so loud and sudden after the
soft patter of the Brendons that it made Alex jump in the chair and fling his
hands over his head.
His
hands! Alex peered at them, feeling like his hands had been trapped for the
last two hours. Yet there were no marks on his wrists, and his handcuffs were
still securely clipped to his belt like they always had been. What in the world
had just happened?
“Geez,”
Officer Chris Tanner shook his head, “It’s okay, buddy, it’s just me—what the
heck was that about?” Chris reached out to put a hand on Alex’s shoulder, and could
not understand why his buddy flinched as if Chris had delivered an electric
shock.
Alex
blinked three times before he could speak. He looked at Chris. “Did you—were
you watching when I came in here?”
Chris
glanced sidelong at his friend, “Yeah,” he answered slowly.
“Did
you, um—see any—I mean, see me do anything?”
Chris
could not imagine why Alex suddenly looked so paranoid. “You walked into the
room, opened the door of your patrol car, closed it, and sat in the chair
looking like you’d just seen a ghost.” Chris shrugged, “That’s all.”
Alex
chortled and wagged his head, “That’s all,” he echoed. He let his head drop in
his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, “Like I’d just seen a ghost…
that’s all.”
The
young officer’s behavior was beginning to creep Chris out. “So…” he tried to
prompt Alex, “are you going to leave, or what?”
“Excuse
me?” Alex turned back to him, his eyes suddenly alert.
Chris
pointed to the car, “You’re on beat, dude.”
Alex
jumped up with alacrity. “Oh, right!” he exclaimed. “See you later, Chris!” He
crawled into the front seat, buckled his seatbelt, and pulled out of the
garage.
Chris
could only shake his head in wonder. Had his good buddy Alex Davis gone nuts?
Leslie dear, I read a lot of fiction and I think I'm a pretty good judge of a good author. And you have certainly got the gift. I will read anything you write. Keep it up. So tickled for you and very proud.
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