Free A Voice from the Field by Neal Griffin

goes on between me and Gage is privileged. If he signs off on me, I come back to work and that’s the end of it. No questions asked.”
    Ben started to respond and Tia put up a hand.
    â€œI’m done talking to you,” she said, heading for the door. “That is, unless you’re going to order me to stay.”
    Ben shook his head and said in a tightly controlled, low voice, “No, Tia, you can leave if that’s what you want.”
    At the door, Tia turned back to her boss and friend.
    â€œWhat I want?” Her voice cracked. “What I want is the next time you call me in for a friendly chat you stick to the weather and family stuff. I am not interested in being judged by a guy who committed half a dozen felonies when he decided the whole law-and-order route wasn’t working. But if that guy comes back, that Ben Sawyer, hell, I’ll talk to him anytime. And about anything.”
    The air grew thick with tension and disappointment. After a long silence, Ben took a step forward.
    â€œTia—”
    She didn’t want to hear any more. “Stop, Ben,” she said sharply. “I get it. Things are different now. I respect that.”
    Ben shook his head in surrender.
    â€œTalk to Dr. Gage, Tia. Let me know when you’ve worked through all this baggage so we can move on.”
    â€œ We? There is no we, Ben.” Tia headed for the door, leaving him alone in the office. “It’s pretty obvious you moved on a long time ago.”

 
    EIGHT
    The hell with this chief crap, Ben thought. There was a time he could just lean back and say exactly what was on his mind. Now every word had to be guarded, even when talking to someone like Tia. He thought back over the conversation he’d just had. How had it gone so wrong?
    Ben didn’t care about the lawyer getting all up in his grill about his insolent detective and her unauthorized jail visit. Tia was right about Graham: she came off as some kind of high-strung control freak. Still, Ben had done the chiefly thing and offered his apologies on behalf of Newberg PD.
    Tia going off the reservation and doing her own thing was nothing new. The jail visit was just Tia being Tia. Hell, that’s what he loved about her. But something else was going on; he was certain of it. Something was wrong with her. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that she’s been to hell and back. And whose fault is that?
    Almost a year earlier, Tia had come to the Sawyer home and basically told Ben to pull his head out of his ass. Ben’s wife, Alex, had been locked up on a bogus murder charge, staring down the barrel of a conviction. Ben had been wallowing in despair and frustration. If not for Tia Suarez spurring him to take action, what would have happened? On top of that, it was Tia’s trip to Danville, Illinois, that broke the case … and nearly got her killed.
    There was no denying that Tia’s trials and tribulations had begun when she’d reached out to save Alex.
    Ben conceded that Tia was right about one thing. He had broken just about every department regulation, not to mention more than a few laws, to prove his wife’s innocence. But without Tia’s help, Alex might be dead or serving a life sentence for a murder she didn’t commit. Ben owed Tia a debt he could never repay.
    Not that he hadn’t tried, but at the beginning there wasn’t time. While Tia was convalescing in Mexico, Ben had had to put his family—and Newberg PD—back together. When she’d returned to Wisconsin, the entire community had rolled out the red carpet for their local hero; on her first day back on the job, there’d been a ceremony, attended by all the local big shots. Tia had been promoted to detective. It should have been a great moment for Tia, but Ben had known even then that something wasn’t right.
    At first, he’d written it off as a case of nerves—until the episode at the Waukesha County