Inked Armour

23 HAYDEN

I rolled down the window and waited. Cross would push my buttons. It was a skill he excelled at.

“Mr. Stryker. What a pleasant surprise. License and registration, please,” Cross said icily.

I reached across to the glove box and flipped it open. Tenley had moved the contents around in her search for tissues, so it wasn’t where I normally kept it. She leaned forward to help, and the light inside illuminated her face. Her skin was blotchy from crying, her eyes bloodshot and pupils dilated. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, leaving dark streaks. On the side of her neck was a faint red mark from my teeth.

Cross rested his forearm against the doorframe and peered inside as I plucked the registration from the glove box. I flipped the compartment shut, extinguishing the light.

“Miss Page?”

“Hi, Officer Cross.” Tenley lifted her hand in a small wave.

He flicked on his flashlight and surveyed my registration while I dug into my back pocket for my wallet. I was wearing dress pants, so of course it wasn’t there. I had to rummage around in the back-seat, where all the presents were strewn, for my jacket. Cross shone his flashlight over the seat and I snatched up my coat. Retrieving my license, I passed it over. Cross was too busy looking at Tenley to notice.

“How are you this evening?” he asked, inspecting her in a way I didn’t like.

“I’m fine.” She gave him a weak smile.

“Are you sure about that? You don’t look well.”

His flashlight moved over her rumpled dress to her legs. Her nylons had a run and she didn’t have shoes on. Fuck. They were still in the garage.

“My license.” I held it up in front of his face.

He gave it a cursory glance before his cold stare rested on me. “Where are you coming from and where are you headed?”

“We were at my aunt’s for dinner and we’re heading home,” I replied, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. I didn’t want him to get a good look at Tenley.

“Have you consumed any alcohol this evening?” He continued to shine the flashlight into the car. Tenley cringed away from the brightness when it got too close to her face.

“I had two scotch on the rocks between three and five this afternoon.” There was no point in lying. The alcohol was long out of my system.

The flashlight panned over the hood, stopping at the small dent and the fresh scratches. He leaned over to have a better look and returned his calculating glare to me.

“Were you in an accident?”

“No.”

“You are aware that you have a pretty good dent in your hood and some scratches?”

“Yes.”

“Had to be something heavy considering the car. Would you happen to know where it came from?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t elaborate, although I could see he expected me to.

“Pull over and turn off the car, Mr. Stryker.”

“What for?”

“Because I told you to.”

I sighed but followed his directions. I’d already caused a scene with him once; if I did it again, cuffs could be involved. I’d never had a criminal record and starting now by ignoring a command from an officer or punching out the douche fuck wasn’t something I was keen to do.

I pulled off to the shoulder and cut the engine. Cross circled the car until he reached the hood, shining his light over the damage. Tenley’s jacket had a buckle on the back, and the repetitive hard thrusting had scratched the paint down to the steel. Cross went around to Tenley’s side, leaning in close with the flashlight. He rubbed a finger over one of the scratches and it came away black.

“Miller,” he called out as he crossed back over to the driver’s side. “Can you come here, please?”

The female cop who’d been at the station when we were last there strode over. They had a conversation out of earshot with a lot of gesturing and frowning on both their parts.

“What are they doing?” Tenley asked in a whisper.

“Cross is probably trying to find a way to arrest me for having a dent in my hood.”

“He can’t do that, can he?” She crushed the package of tissues in her hand.

I took them from her and pulled another free, wiping under her eyes in a useless attempt to get rid of the smudges.

“No, kitten. There’s no law against having dents in your car.”

“I just want to go home.”

“I know. Me, too. This shouldn’t take long.”

In my peripheral vision, Cross hiked up his pants and head toward my door while Miller approached the passenger side.

“Step out of the car, Mr. Stryker.”

“I haven’t had a drink in hours.”

“Out of the car. Now.” Cross’s hard tone left no room for argument.

“Hayden?” Tenley gripped my forearm. “What’s going on?”

I squeezed her hand as I leaned in and dropped a kiss on her trembling lips. “It’s okay, kitten. This’ll just take a minute. They probably want to check my blood alcohol level.”

I doubted that was Cross’s motivation.

“I’m not asking again, Stryker,” Cross snapped.

I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out into the cold night air. The temperature had dropped again and white flakes had begun to fall.

Tenley started to open her door, but Cross stopped her. “Stay in the car, Miss Page.” He turned to me. “Put your hands on the car and spread your legs.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Officer Miller stared at me from across the roof of the car, her expression grim.

“You question one more direct order and I’m going to charge you.”

“This is bullshit,” I said, but I did as I was told. I was already drawing too much attention; a few of the other officers checking cars had stopped to observe the interaction with Cross.

Officer Milled rapped on Tenley’s window and she rolled it down. Miller looked concerned as she leaned in, her hand on the doorframe. I could only hear Tenley’s nervous tone, not her actual replies to the questions asked.

I imagined how it looked from Officer Miller’s perspective. Aside from the tiny diamond stud in her nose, Tenley projected a girl-next-door vibe. With her outfit tonight, that was magnified. Someone like her hanging out with someone like me would be an immediate red flag for a lot of people.

Cross frisked me, searching for weapons or contraband I didn’t have.

“Come with me, please.”

“What about Tenley?”

“Officer Miller will stay with her.”

I didn’t ask any more questions because I wasn’t going to get answers. Cross went through the standard tests to check for drunkenness, making me repeat them twice because he wanted to piss me off.

Cross led me to a cruiser and opened the rear door. “Get in.”

“What for?”

“I want you to take a Breathalyzer test.”

“Why do I need to get in a cruiser for that?”

“You’re trying my patience, boy. Get. In. I won’t ask again.”

I dropped into the seat and folded my legs in the cramped space. Cross closed the door and claustrophobia set in immediately. Panic hit me like a sledgehammer, taking me back seven years to the night my parents were murdered. It was the only other time I ended up in the back of a police car. The interrogation followed.

I couldn’t separate that situation from this one, and the bad place in my head got worse, dragging me down into the past I kept buried. There was no way out of the backseat unless Cross let me out. Logically, I knew nothing could happen to me, but it didn’t stop my throat from closing up.

Behind the driver’s seat was a panel of bulletproof glass, with a thick, black mesh barrier of metal on the passenger side. Cross sat in front of the bulletproof panel and took his time setting up the Breathalyzer machine. He fed the tube through a gap in the mesh, forcing me to lean forward until my nose hit the divider. I exhaled into the little mouthpiece.

It registered a zero blood-alcohol level.

“Do it again.”

“I blew under.”

“Do. It. Again.”

I shook my head but complied. Again, it came back clean. “Satisfied? Can I take my girlfriend home now?”

She was standing beside the Camaro; shoeless with her arms wrapped around herself as the wind blew her hair around her face. She glanced over her shoulder ever few seconds, her eyes on the car that formed my prison. Miller put a hand on her shoulder and Tenley jumped, her attention moving back to the officer. There were questions and some gesturing aimed at Tenley’s feet. Miller was frowning; whatever excuse Tenley had come up with probably wasn’t very good.

She was helped back into the Camaro. The door stayed open, though, and Miller crouched down in front of her, her expression somber. A Breathalyzer test was administered once, a second time.

Cross relaxed in his seat and stared at me through the rearview mirror. “Would you like to tell me what happened to your car?”

“Last I heard, you can’t detain someone for a dent.”

“I can if you fled the scene of an accident.”

“I already told you, we weren’t in an accident.”

He sneered. “It’s obvious something happened to your car recently, though. Would I be right?”

I stayed silent.

“What time did you leave your aunt’s tonight?”

“Around nine thirty.”

“That’s more than an hour and a half ago.”

“We made a stop on the way home.” I shifted on the hard plastic seat.

“You don’t say. Is that when the damage to your car happened?”

I sighed. “Is there a point to this?”

Cross inspected his stubby fingers. “Most people would take good care of a ride like that. The last time I saw it, it was in pristine condition. Now, it kind of looks like someone had a throwdown on the hood.”

When I didn’t respond, he took a different approach. “You know, Tenley’s not looking so good these days.”

“The past few weeks have been hard for her. You know, what with her entire family being dead and it being the holidays and all.” I shot him a condescending look.

He returned the glare with a hateful one of his own. “Maybe she should find someone who can take better care of her.”

“I can take care of Tenley just fine.”

“Judging by her condition tonight, I’m going to disagree.”

“You need to back off.”

“Or what?”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

He turned around, sneer firmly in place. “Go ahead, Stryker. Threaten me. It would be my pleasure to take you down to the precinct so you can get what’s coming to you.”

“What’s coming to me? I’m taking my girlfriend home from a family dinner. I don’t see that as a criminal offense.”

“What the hell do you do at family dinners that would make her look the way she does?”

“She’s had an emotional day.”

“And you thought you’d make it better for her by using her as a hood ornament?”

“That’s not—”

Cross slammed his palm against the divider, making it rattle. “Shut your fucking mouth, you little prick. You think I don’t know what happened? You think I can’t see what’s right in front of me? She’s a fucking disaster. You won’t be happy until you’ve dragged that girl down into your bottomless pit of shit.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about my relationship with Tenley.”

“Relationship? Is that what lowlifes like you call what you’re doing with her?”

His words were like an acid bomb going off in my brain; corrosive, destructive. “You’re a cocksucker, you know that.”

He made a tsking sound. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, wait, that’s not possible.”

I exploded, a string of vile profanities spewing forth. I shut down the reaction quickly, realizing that he was riling me up on purpose.

When I was under control again, Cross smiled. “You done? ’Cause if you keep it up, I might just have to take you in. You and me, we’ve been there before, haven’t we? I’m not so sure you’ll like that option the second time around, any better than you did the first.”

“Fuck that. You can’t hold me.”

“I think this time I’ll put you in a holding cell with all the other losers until someone can come pick up your sorry ass. Then I’ll be a Good Samaritan and drive Tenley home. How does that sound?”

I nearly bit off my tongue to keep from telling him what I thought. He was goading me, looking for a reaction that would give him the reason he wanted to put me in a cell. At least for the rest of the night. There was no way I wanted Tenley in a car with him. Especially when he seemed to have it out for me.

“Decided to keep your mouth shut for once, huh?” He opened the door and got out, leaving me locked inside.

I knocked on the window, shouting after him. The threats to take me in had to be empty; he had nothing on me. He wanted to make me sweat, and he’d succeeded. My inability to protect Tenley made me feel powerless as he crossed the pavement to where she sat inside my car. The door was still open; she had to be freezing.

He leaned against the side of the car when he reached her, blocking my view.

Tenley shot up out of the seat and peered around him, her hands flailing wildly as she gestured toward the cruiser I was locked inside. Officer Miller put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in close; whatever she said calmed Tenley down. She glared at Cross and swiped at her cheeks while Miller helped settle her back in the car. Cross braced himself on the doorframe, looking the part of the concerned police officer as Miller headed for me.

It was the divide and conquer. Cross had done the same thing in the interrogation room after the murders. One of them would leave on the premise of getting coffee or taking a break. While the other was gone, they’d change tactics to see if the story would change.

Miller got into the driver’s seat and turned so she could see me head-on. “We don’t seem to run into each other on your good days.”

“Looks that way.” I sagged against the seat. Letting my head fall back, I closed my eyes. If I had to justify myself one more goddamn time, I was going lose it.

“First impressions tell you a lot about a person.”

I cracked a lid. “Guess I’m screwed on that front, huh?”

Her mouth twitched, but she remained serious. “Take your girlfriend, for instance. The first time I met her, she seemed like she had it together. This time? Not so much.”

“She’s had a rough day.”

“You want to tell me why that is?”

“You spent the last fifteen minutes with her. Are you saying she didn’t offer any details?”

“She did. But I’m asking you.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, sharp pain slicing between my eyes. I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up with a migraine. “She was in an accident around this time last year. Her whole family died. Everyone she loved is gone. Holidays are difficult.”

“That must be hard.”

“Like I said, today’s been very emotional for her.”

“I meant for you.”

I frowned. “It sucks. I can’t do anything to make her pain go away.”

“You could start by getting a handle on that temper of yours. That’s the second time you’ve gone off on a police officer in a very public place. Gotta tell ya, it doesn’t reflect well on you.”

“I don’t get heated often, and never with Tenley.”

“And how do I know that? Because you told me? Because your girlfriend will tell me the same thing to protect you? Have you ever considered where the collateral damage lies when you pull something like that?”

I looked out the windshield. Tenley was still huddled inside the car, her stocking feet curled around the edge of the doorframe. Cross was kneeling down in front of her, looking up. She leaned forward, chin jutting out in defiance. Any other time, she’d back down in the face of authority. I was the only reason she would do otherwise. It unnerved me.

“You know, I ran your background after that first meeting, and I checked your girlfriend, too.”

Which meant she knew about the crash before she asked. Running my background wouldn’t turn up much besides a couple of the interviews I was subjected to after my parents’ murder. The initial ones had likely been erased, as I’d been a juvenile.

“Other than a speeding ticket about a month back, your record is clean as a whistle.”

“Surprised?”

She got out of the cruiser and opened my door. The pounding in my head and the tightness in my throat let up a little once I was free of the cruiser.

“With your attitude? Damn right. But then I went deeper because I was sure there had to be something else. The way you acted when you came into the precinct didn’t add up. You know what I found?”

“I have no clue.”

“Nothing. You have a perfect credit rating. You have financing pending on a joint property investment in a very good neighborhood. You own both your condo and your tattoo shop. You’ve never missed a payment of any kind, and you make several charitable donations a year. Interesting for someone who presents like you, don’t you think?”

“And how do I present?”

“Like you’re giving society the perpetual bird and you’ve got an ax to grind.”

“My only problem is Cross.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. Made me wonder what the problem was, until he told me he was the lead investigator on your parents’ murder case.”

“He and his partner were first on the scene. They thought I’d done it, so they arrested me. Cross interrogated me.”

“I’m going to guess that didn’t go well.”

“You could say that.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, rocking back on my heels.

“Wanna tell me more about it?”

“There’s not much to tell. I found my parents’ bodies, called the police, and ended up in an interrogation room. I was there for a long time before I was allowed my phone call.” I wasn’t sure how much detail she wanted, or how much I felt inclined to provide. I didn’t know how closely she worked with him. “All I know is that the evidence in the case was deemed inadmissible because it was compromised. I don’t have all the details, which is why I went to the precinct that day.”

“Why’d they target you as a suspect?”

“Convenience? How should I know? I was seventeen. I came home and found my parents murdered. I called nine-one-one and freaked out because they were dead.”

If she’d read the file, she knew I’d torn apart the living room, so mentioning it was redundant.

She regarded me with a speculation that was not uncommon. “I’ve been through what’s left of the evidence. There’s not much there. I have some questions, too, but without something new it would be hard to make a case to have it reopened.”

I thought about the constant, unyielding dreams I had lately. “What if I had something? Who would I go to?”

“You think you do?”

“It’s possible.”

“Normally you’d go to the person who initially worked the case, if they’re still around. But I don’t see that going over well on either side. You can contact me, provided you keep yourself in check. I won’t deal with a loose cannon.”

“As long as I don’t have to deal with Cross, I can manage myself.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Not good enough. We work in the same precinct. Sometimes we work together. I can’t have you going off on Cross every time you run into him.”

“He screwed up my parents’ case.”

“So you say, but you were a kid. You said yourself that you don’t have the details, and from what I read, you were under the influence that night, so maybe your memory is a little spotty.”

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with the evidence. If Cross was responsible for collecting and filing it, doesn’t the blame lie with him?”

“Careful with the finger-pointing. I get that it was a traumatic experience for you. I’ve seen the crime scene photos, but I can’t help you if can’t handle yourself.”

“I’ll rein it in.”

“You’d better.” She took a step toward Tenley and Cross, then turned back. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“All that metal in your face? It makes you a target.”

“Are you telling me I need to get rid of it?”

“Nope. I’m not telling you anything. But if you came into the precinct dressed like you are tonight and all that metal did a disappearing act? You might find people react a little differently.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”