Free Don't Call Me Hero by Eliza Lentzski

especially in front of the town’s newspaper reporter, but there was really no way to get the answers I wanted if I didn’t ask the questions.
    “Who? Julia?”
    My lips curled up in a smile. So she had told me her real name.
    “Yeah. Julia.” I really liked how the name felt on my tongue. I recalled really liking the way Julia herself had felt on my tongue, too.
    Grace seemed to shudder as she stood. “She scares me.”
    I wasn’t expecting that response. “Her? Why?”
    “She just … has this aura about her. I mean, she’s Julia frickin’ Desjardin. She’s the daughter of the richest family in town—the Mayor’s daughter, in fact. Plus, she’s smart as a whip being city attorney and all.”
    “City attorney?”
    “Hence why she always looks like she just fell off the pages of a Banana Republic catalogue. But that’s just Julia,” Grace said with a shrug. “She’s always been like that.”
    “So she grew up here?” I couldn’t help licking my lips as I regarded the woman who continued to fill her grocery cart with fruits and vegetables, apparently unaware of the double set of eyes on her.
    “Yeah. She went away for college, of course, but she came back maybe five or six years ago. Her dad used to be the district attorney, but when he became mayor, everyone moved up the ladder. The city attorney job opened up, and her family dragged her kicking and screaming from the Twin Cities to take the job. Or so the story goes.”
    “Is she married?” I was embarrassed the moment the words came out. I was sure Grace would be able to see through me.
    “The Ice Queen?” Grace’s face took on a comical look. “No man would be brave enough to even ask her on a date, let alone ask to marry her,” she chuckled. “She, my friend, is untouchable.”
    My fingertips still burned with the memory of Julia’s skin. Untouchable? Perhaps not.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    I met up with David Addams the next day at the start of second shift. It felt strange to me being a plainclothes police officer while David patrolled in his dark brown uniform, but I’d get used to it eventually.
    My first impression of David had been unfair. He’d seemed like a misogynistic playboy, but the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. He talked about Embarrass with true passion rather than the annoyance and resentment of someone who’d been unable to escape his hometown. He’d seen the world, and in the end, he’d chosen to come back to the only place he’d ever considered to be home. If pressed I would have probably called St. Cloud home. It was the town where I’d grown up and where my parents still lived, but I couldn’t imagine ever moving back there for good. Maybe that meant I was still looking for home.
    We patrolled up and down the city streets and just beyond the city border for the majority of the night. David treated me to dinner at Stan’s, and we swapped a few innocent war stories about our time in Afghanistan. Like the day before, the evening had been uneventful with no calls to either the non-emergency number or the in-car radio.
    The squad car idled in front of one of the biggest houses I’d seen in town. The two-story home was constructed of red brick with light blue wooden shutters that framed the large windows. The house was significantly longer than it was tall, and the landscaping looked professionally maintained.
    I whistled under my breath. “That is one big ass house.”
    “It’s the Mayor’s house,” David supplied. “Biggest house in town for the biggest man in town.”
    I stared out the window at the house, all lit up. “Does his daughter live with him?”
    “Julia?” David sounded surprised that I knew the Mayor had a daughter, let alone knew her name. “No. She lives out in the country. It’s just the Mayor and his wife in there.”
    “What do you think about the Desjardins?” I asked.
    “They’re rich. That’s enough to know I’ll never have