remaining security officer helped them inspect their offices. There was no telling whether their visitor had unlocked and relocked them too, but nothing was amiss.
Even the Charleston police officer who filed a report on the incident concluded that the toy seemed to be the only sign that anyone had entered the office after hours.
After the report was finished and the sex toy taken away by security, Keira reopened the office door.
“Time and tide wait for no man,” she said. “Neither do admissions deadlines.”
They went about their day as usual, and as Belle lost herself in paperwork, the morning’s incident slipped farther and farther from her thoughts.
The discovery had been weird, even unnerving. But her mind was elsewhere. Apparently, it would take more than an intruder and a big green mystery dildo to get her mind off Jackson.
Which was saying a lot.
CHAPTER 5
The South Island Police Department was a three story brick rectangle located on the edge of downtown and framed by towering palms. Making his way across the second floor on Friday, Jackson felt like a model reluctantly walking the runway.
“I know I make this uniform look good,” he said to Delgado, the nearest patrol officer, “but you’re all staring more than usual.”
“You brought Sanders in yesterday,” Delgado said. “It’s all anyone’s been talking about all morning.”
He nodded. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. The weight of his fellow officers’ combined gazes felt like a spotlight as they gathered for roll call.
He knew all of them and couldn’t say there was anyone he had any real problems with. But he knew they were talking about him, reassessing their opinions of him.
Some of them would be wary of him. Some might even decide he was a traitor.
It’d been his call whether to arrest Sanders the day before, and he’d acted to protect the victim instead of one of their own.
Jackson exchanged a look with Elijah as the room filled and Sanders’ name was spoken several times.
Everyone shut up when the shift sergeant entered, and he quickly assigned an extra patrol to the area just north of a popular fishing pier where one convenience store and a beachwear retailer had both been robbed during the past week. A single thief had acted alone and had claimed to be armed, but neither of the targeted clerks had actually seen a gun. He was to be considered armed and dangerous and had been described as a white male in his twenties.
By the time roll call wrapped up, Jackson was ready to get out from under his platoon members’ gazes and into his cruiser.
He and Elijah were almost to the stairs when someone caught his elbow.
“Calder.”
It was the lieutenant. “My office for a minute. Come on.” She tipped her head to the side, then nodded at Elijah. “Bennett, you can go.”
Elijah and Jackson went in opposite directions, Elijah toward the stairs and Jackson to the lieutenant’s office.
Once there, she shut the door and turned to face him, standing in front of her desk.
He knew without being told that this was about what’d gone down at Sanders’ place yesterday. Trepidation nagged at him, but he couldn’t believe Lieutenant Aldred would give him shit over it. It was well known in the department that her ex-husband had given her the scar that ran along her jawline. In her forties now, that was years in her past, and she was known for being stern but fair.
“You did what you had to do yesterday at the Sanders’ home,” she said. “I know you know you’ll catch some shit over it, but I won’t berate you.” A muscle in her jaw shifted, straining the thin, white scar. “I just wanted to let you know that Sanders’ wife dropped the charges against him.”
“What?” The revelation hit him like a punch to the gut, and his spine stiffened.
“She dropped the charges. This morning.” Lieutenant Aldred shrugged, her mouth drawn into a compressed line.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. All that, and Kate