Free Grand Theft Retro (Style & Error Mystery Series Book 5) by Diane Vallere Page A

time I’d been in his office. It wasn’t even the second. But since the last time, he’d replaced the bowl of sugar free candy that had sat on the corner of his desk with a tray of partially-solved Rubik’s cubes.
    “My desk sergeant tells me you want to sign up for the citizen’s police academy,” he said. “You want to tell me what that’s about?”
    “It was your idea,” I said. His forehead broke out in a series of deep horizontal lines as he frowned. “Remember? It was back when you were investing those arsons around Ribbon?”
    “That was a joke, Ms. Kidd.”
    “See, here I thought you were telling me that you respected my interest in the law. All this time, I took it as a compliment. Like I was the daughter you never had.”
    “I have a daughter. You know that.”
    “Yes, but she doesn’t share your interest in police work like I do.”
    “Small miracle.”
    “Detective, I’m serious about signing up. I think it’s about time I learned what really goes into law enforcement and stop getting in your way.”
    He had a pencil in his hand and he put it eraser-side down on top of my application. He moved the pencil back and forth, which moved the paper back and forth with it. He had a habit of doing these little, mindless, annoying things. Clicking pens, spinning cups, and now shifting my paper.
    I leaned forward and put my hand on the sheet. “Stop that.”
    “What?”
    “That. Whenever I’m in here, you do stuff like that. Like clicking your pens or tapping your wedding ring on the chair.” I looked at his hand. “Where’s your wedding ring?” I asked.
    “My wife asked me to move out. She said she can’t handle this kind of life anymore.”
    I was shocked at the timing. “But your daughter just had a baby,” I said. I looked at Loncar a little more closely. The circles under his eyes were two shades darker than the rest of his face. “I thought that was the kind of thing that pulled family together.”
    “You’d think so, right?” He shook his head from side to side. “My daughter is living in my house with my wife and I’m living at the Motel 6.”
    “Interesting choice.”
    “The department gets a discounted rate.”
    I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Loncar set the pencil down and leaned back. “Why did you really fill this paperwork out?”
    I wanted to tell him about the crazy man who had threatened me and my loved ones, that I was scared, and that I had a newfound respect for the people who had taken an oath to protect and serve. But two things stopped me:
A)    Claiming my coworker had broken into my office at a fashion magazine to threaten me to possibly help him steal an attic filled with forty year old clothes sounded crazy and
B)    Loncar and I had a spotty history.
    Detective Loncar had arrested me, interrogated me, used me as a decoy, ignored me, and, most recently, saved my life. Did that mean he was at risk too? How deep did Pritchard Smith’s dirt on me run?
    “It’s something I felt like I had to do.”
    He nodded slowly, like he knew there was much more to my words. Or maybe it was because he slept under an open window and woke up with a stiff neck. He pulled a pen out of the mug on his desk and signed the bottom of the form. “You’re in,” he said. “First class is on Monday.”
    “What should I wear?” I asked.
    “Sweats.”
    “I don’t wear sweats in public,” I said.
    “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He pushed the paper toward me. “Give this to Callahan.” I took the paper and started to leave. “Ms. Kidd,” he called behind me. I turned around in the doorway. “You have anything else to tell me about what happened yesterday?”
    “Not yet,” I answered, truthfully. Until I felt like I could take care of myself, I wasn’t going to tell anybody anything.
    I called Mohammed and asked if he was driving his cab. He was. When I told him I was at the police station, he went silent. “I didn’t do anything wrong,”