Glancing at his screen, he hit On Scene and exited his Charger.

The sun beat down on the back of his neck and a familiar stiffness swept down his spine. He was aware of the Glock on his hip as he approached the house. Sometimes domestics were nothing more than tears and melodrama. Sometimes they were serious. And occasionally they threw curveb.a.l.l.s: he wouldn't be the first officer to be a.s.saulted or even shot at by a possessive, violent a.s.shole angry at police interference.

When he reached the door, he stood to the side and knocked, listening for the sounds of an argument or violence.

All was silent. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he hoped he wasn't too late.

"Police," he called, and knocked again.

A couple more seconds and the door swung inward.

There was no sign of the woman who'd called in. A dark-haired man in his thirties stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a white undershirt. He stared at Jackson as if he'd never seen a police officer before.

"The h.e.l.l?" He peered past Jackson, at the cruiser. "Something going on?"

"Got a call about a domestic dispute at this address. Who else is home?"

The man's jaw dropped, then tightened visibly. "There's no dispute here."

"A caller named Kate says differently. That your wife?"

His face began to redden. "Get back in your cruiser, Calder. There's no problem here."

Calder. As his name left the other man's lips, realization clicked.

"Sanders." He was an officer with the South Island PD, though he belonged to a different platoon than Jackson.

Sanders gave an irritated jerk of his head, which might've been intended as a nod, then began to shut the door.

Jackson planted a hand against it before it was halfway closed. "I need to speak to your wife."

He narrowed his eyes. "She doesn't have anything to say to you."

"She called 911 asking for help. Says you hit her."

For a few seconds, they both stood frozen with hands on the door, gazes locked. A sour taste filled Jackson's mouth, and if the expression on Sanders' face was any indication, he was experiencing something similar.

"You gonna make me call for back-up?"

Sanders sneered, then twisted to yell over his shoulder. "Kate!"

A thin brunette in capris and a cotton tank top emerged from the hallway beyond the kitchen. She was pale, and her dark eyes looked huge in her small face. Her hair had fallen or been pulled halfway out of a bun, and as she stepped into the light, the redness r.i.m.m.i.n.g her eyes became apparent.

"Calder here needs to hear from you that there's no problem."

Her gaze darted to her husband, then to Jackson. When her eyes locked with his, the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

It wasn't hard to tell when someone had really been abused. Not for someone who'd lived it. And the look in Kate's eyes planted bitter certainty in Jackson's mind.

They were wide, pleading as if she were trying to communicate with him without words. He could see her pulse jumping in the hollow of her slender neck, and her hands were shaking. She was terrified. As she opened her mouth to speak, she shrank in on herself as if she were bracing for a blow.

"Greg, I" Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, probably from crying. If it'd been from being strangled, there would've been marks on her neck.

There were none Jackson had looked immediately.

"Tell him there's not a G.o.dd.a.m.n problem!"

"I'm sorry. I can't live like this anymore. I"

"Cut the c.r.a.p, Kate! You like having a roof over your head? You don't lie to the f.u.c.king cops. You don't mess around with me like this."

Sanders' entire face was red. Jackson took advantage of the other man's distraction, moving in close enough to smell the stale tang of whiskey. He was hungover, maybe even still intoxicated.

A high-pitched cry echoed from down the hall, the reedy wail of a newborn.

Jackson tensed, his heart slamming against his ribs as disgust settled over him, thick as mola.s.ses.

Kate turned immediately, taking half a step backward. Now, she looked back and forth between Jackson and the hallway, where the baby must've been sleeping before Sanders' yelling had woken it.

"Is anyone hurt?" Jackson asked. "The baby, or any other kids?"

Kate shook her head, then dropped her gaze. "There are no other kids. It's just us."

It was something to be grateful for, but it wasn't enough. How long did that baby have before its father started beating on it too?

It'd happen, of that Jackson was certain. Unless someone put an end to this before it reached that point.

"Tell me what happened," he said, watching Sanders and his wife at the same time.

"I told you, nothing f.u.c.king happened." Sanders glared at him as if he were the densest idiot on Earth.

Jackson ignored him.

Kate's voice was so low it could barely be heard over the baby's crying. "He got mad and hit me."

She kept her gaze down and turned her palms up, as if there was nothing more to say.

"With his fist?"

She nodded, moisture making the red, puffy skin below her eyes shine.

"How many times?"

She held up two fingers. "My stomach. It ... it wasn't the first time."

Sanders snorted. "You don't actually believe this s.h.i.t, do you Calder?"

He met Sanders' gaze and saw the hatred there.

"She's p.i.s.sed at me. Who the f.u.c.k knows why? You know how women are always b.i.t.c.hing about something."

Kate flinched and shrank in on herself even further. She didn't look p.i.s.sed, just scared.

"I don't hear her giving you a hard time about anything." Jackson made a real effort to keep his voice level, as if he were talking to a run-of-the-mill loser instead of a sworn officer whose badge was probably resting on his dresser.

Sanders' face went a deeper shade of red. "I didn't touch her. You wanna know why she's so upset, ask her about her d.a.m.ned boyfriend. Maybe he hits her, or maybe she's p.i.s.sed that she has to see my face when she gets home from their little dates I don't f.u.c.king know."

Sanders' story changed as quickly as the color of his face, which was bordering on purple now.

Kate flinched again. "I don't have a boyfriend, Greg! How many times do I"

"Shut up! Just shut the f.u.c.k up, Kate."

The newborn's screaming reached a higher pitch, and Jackson half expected the neighborhood dogs to start howling.

"I have to feed the baby," Kate said, taking another step backward. Tears were streaming freely down her face, though she didn't sob. She'd had plenty of practice weathering pain in silence, Jackson was sure.

"He hit you, and you want to press charges," Jackson summarized before she could walk away.

"Yes." She was trembling.

"You heard her, Sanders. Come on."

He'd made his decision silently, as Kate had cried and her husband had raged. Her silent fear stood in stark contrast to Sanders' venom, and Jackson recognized the disparity. When you lived with a tyrant who wasn't afraid to get physical, you tried to keep your head down tried to keep them from blowing up. Letting them see your pain only fueled them.

It was what they wanted to make you hurt. To punish you for existing, for problems that had nothing to do with you. You were there, and you were their punching bag.

Sanders gaped. "Jesus, Calder. You serious? I can't believe you're that f.u.c.king stupid and I haven't heard about it yet. How many years you been with the department?"

"I'm taking you in. You know how this goes, and you know I have to do it. Don't make it any harder than it has to be."

He couldn't ignore Kate's cry for help. It'd probably taken her years to get to this point, to reach out for help. If he turned his back on her, he'd crush whatever faith she had in other people and whatever will she had to escape the cycle of abuse.

For a second, Sanders looked as if he might do anything. Throw a punch, even go for Jackson's weapon. But as the baby's crying died down, he looked Jackson straight in the eye, his whiskey breath coming in hard bursts.

"You're gonna f.u.c.king regret this, Calder."

CHAPTER 4.

Jackson drew the cuffs from his duty belt and reached for Sanders' wrists. He almost had the first one secured when Sanders moved.

He jerked with surprising speed, escaping the cuff and turning on Jackson. In a split second, he threw a punch.

Jackson barely dodged it, stepping to the right, his shoulder colliding with Sanders'.

Sanders grunted, releasing a cloud of stale liquor breath. The smell triggered a hundred s.h.i.tty memories, but Jackson pushed them out of his mind so all that remained was a feeling of disgust.

For a few seconds, he and Sanders wrestled. They had the same training, and there was no doubt that Sanders knew exactly what Jackson was trying to do and purposely made it difficult. But Sanders was clumsy with anger and intoxication.

Jackson forced him against a wall and cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Stupid f.u.c.k," Sanders huffed, his cheek against the wood paneling.

Kate appeared in the hallway, a bundle of blue blankets cradled against her chest. Jackson caught her big, dark eyes as he pulled her husband away from the wall and turned him toward the front door.

She didn't seem surprised by the struggle.

Sanders cursed her and spent the walk out to the cruiser alternating between continuing to verbally abuse her and telling Jackson how stupid he was.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h," he said as Jackson pushed his head down into the car, "you know domestics are bulls.h.i.t. You're gonna regret this."

Jackson shut the cruiser door.

How had he served on the same force with such a piece of s.h.i.t and not realized it until today?

Jackson cracked open a beer, and the memory of Sanders' whiskey breath hit him like a ton of bricks.

He compartmentalized, filing the memory away as he sank down onto a kitchen chair and took a long drink from the bottle.

He could've downed something much stronger, but it was all he had. After peeling off his sweaty uniform and vest, though, nothing tasted better than a cold beer anyway. Wearing Kevlar in South Carolina during August was like walking around with your own personal sauna on your back.

"s.h.i.t." Elijah strode into the kitchen, past the table and straight to the fridge. "I smell more like one of the transients down at the bus station than a cop. So do you, by the way."

His roommate opened the fridge and pulled a beer from the case shoved into one corner of the top shelf.

"This time of year, there's not much of a difference between transients and cops, at least as far as body odor goes."

In uniform pants and a visibly damp t-shirt, Elijah took the seat opposite Jackson. There were only two chairs at their small kitchen table, but it was all they needed. On the rare occasions anyone else came over, there were a couple barstools at the nearby island.

Elijah snorted. "Best kept secret of law enforcement. We should use it to our advantage, somehow weaponize it. Sweat's cheaper than bullets."

"You think you could've taken down that meth head last week with your stench alone?"

Elijah grinned. "Only one way to find out. Next time some junkie takes a swing at me with a steel pipe, I'm taking off the vest instead of reaching for the Taser."

"You'll get your skull caved in."

Elijah shrugged. "Chicks dig scars."