The Taint by Patricia Wallace Read Free Book Online

almost hysterical when it was suggested they stay another night and have a home-cooked meal at the Wagner home.
    That was it; the range of law enforcement in Crest-view. Accidents caused by winding roads and careless drivers. An occasional assist to the forestry service during fire season. And, sporadically, a search and rescue for a lost camper.
    He settled in the chair, sipping the coffee, his eyes critically examining the room.
    Is this what he had wanted? Coming out of the service, what? Fifteen years ago, aching for action but also needing the discipline of a quasi-military order. He had always felt, and still did, a need for order, for justice. There was right and wrong, and only as he grew older had he acknowledged the in-between.
    Timothy Adams was the only one who had understood. They were in the military police, along with a lot of guys who were looking for heads to bust. He and Tim were the good guys. Professional, thorough and dispassionate. It was by the book, all the way. They never abused the implicit immunity of their work, took no favors, and gave none.
    Six months before their discharge—Tim got out a week before he did—they agreed to pursue police work on the outside. They discussed New York, which Tim felt was the most challenging city in the country, but settled on Los Angeles because he had a strong suspicion that Tim would be unable to stay that far away from his family for very long.
    And for two years it had been an exciting, exhausting life. It was tough out there, and scary, and brutal. People lived and died and it made no difference. They sweated and bled and cried, unnoticed, in the streets. He lived by instinct and intuition and a constant surge of adrenaline.
    Tim amazed him. Especially after seeing where he’d been brought up. He was a very good cop and he made no mistakes. He was fast and careful at the same time. He had the ability to talk to the street people without damaging their brittle dignity, without passing judgment.
    The strange thing was, Tim never let go. There was no discharge of emotion, no cathartic cry. No shakes. No bad dreams. No paranoia. For someone like Tim, whom he secretly thought had led a sheltered life, it was amazing.
    It might have been what killed him.
    They were both on the night shift and had met at an all-night restaurant for dinner. Tim had a letter from home, from Rachel. A week-end at home was in the works, and Rachel wanted to make sure that Tim invited him to come along. Tim winked at him.
    “I think baby Rachel has a crush on you.”
    Jon felt the warmth rise in his face. “I doubt it.” He looked at the menu with renewed interest.
    “I know my own sister. You’d better watch out.”
    “I’m not her type—I shave.”
    Tim laughed. “She’s not interested in boys her own age. Never has been.”
    “Even so . . .” He couldn’t read the look on Tim’s face.
    “Yeah, you’re right. She’ll probably get married to some peach-fuzz punk, have eight kids . . .” Another smile.
    Something about the remark annoyed him and he did not answer.
    Later, cruising the streets in the patrol car, Jon allowed himself to examine the conversation. He had blushed. A grown man, a police officer. Yet he could feel the need to accept the invitation. To see Rachel.
    He could see her gray eyes, her direct and questioning gaze. The soft reddish-brown hair she still wore long and loose, covering her bare tanned shoulders. Her slim arms, raised over her head as she stretched, the tight muscles of her legs.
    He rolled down the window on the unit and turned up the radio, clearing his head. He caught his eyes in the mirror. None of this.
    She was fifteen, now, still a child. There were laws against that kind of thing. Certainly he, least of all, should be thinking this way.
    Yet after he had parked and was sitting in the dark quiet night, his thoughts returned to her. Imagining her tender young mouth . . .
    The call came “Officer needs assistance,” and even before