Free Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) by Helena Newbury Page B

ensure the safety of the female involved. Officer Kowalski was immediately assaulted by the suspect and had no choice but to defend himself—”
    “Stop talking,” said Barnes. “Stop talking now. Kowalski, you’re already screwed. Are you going to let your partner go down as well?”
    “No sir,” I said. “That’s not what happened. I lost my temper and hit the suspect. Several times.”
    Barnes glanced at Hollister. “Get out.”
    Hollister left, throwing me one last, mournful glance. I gave him a nod of thanks, for trying.
    “The only reason you’re not in cuffs,” said Barnes, “is that the guy doesn’t want to press charges. Unsurprisingly, he’d rather forget the whole thing.”
    I said nothing.
    “I gotta let you go,” said Barnes. “I need your badge and your gun.”
    And that was it. I was fired. I expected to at least feel the guilt ease, because now I’d been punished. But it didn’t feel any better. It actually felt worse. Being a cop was the only thing I’d ever been good at. Without Hux, life had been unbearable; without my job, I didn’t have a life at all.
    I threw my badge and my piece on Barnes’s desk and opened the door.
    “Why’d you do it?” asked Barnes suddenly.
    I was halfway through the door. Some civilian in a shirt and jeans was walking by like he was the Prince of England, cops fawning over him and following him around.
    I thought about it for a second, the anger rising and twisting inside me. “You know why,” I said at last. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried. The other cops went quiet. “Because he was going to hit her again. As soon as we’d gone. He was going to keep hitting her and hitting her and he was never going to stop, not until they took her off in a body bag and then maybe, maybe he goes to jail or maybe his five hundred dollar an hour attorney gets him off!” It was boiling out of me, now, the hopeless anger like steam rising off a hot plate. Hux’s death kept it permanently red-hot, deep down inside me, and every time I got frustrated it was like dumping in fresh water.
    “You’re done,” said Barnes sadly.
    I wasn’t angry at him. I think I was angry at everyone but him. He was just stuck playing his role in the whole broken system, the same as me.
    I turned and stalked through the room, my shoulders tight from the feel of all the eyes on me. I could feel pity from them...but relief, as well. I’d been screwing up for weeks, and no one had wanted to be standing next to me when I self-destructed. Hollister was lucky that he’d walked away clean. Now that it was all over and I was just another ex-cop, the sympathy could return. They’d all be offering me contacts in the security industry and buying me goodbye drinks in the cop bar. Probably the last time I’d ever go there.
    I was no longer a cop, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. It was all I’d ever known.
    I put my hand out to open the door. Running footsteps behind me...awkward ones, accompanied by panting. Not a cop, then. Even Hux could run, when he had to. A civilian. “Wait!” the guy croaked.
    I turned. It was the visitor, the guy in shirt and jeans everyone had been kissing up to.
    “I love you,” the guy said. His eyes were shining as if someone had just handed him a plate of chocolate cream pie. “You’re perfect!”
    The anger evaporated, I think out of shock, more than anything else. I blinked. “Uh...I’m flattered. But I’m not—”
    “For my TV show! I’m A.K. Dixon. You’ve got it all going on: the rogue cop! The maverick.” He drew in his breath. “The loose cannon! You’re going to bring down the bad guys, and you don’t care if you have to cross the line!”
    “ What?”
    “And you have that dark, brooding thing going on. All moody. Haunted. Perfect. And you’re so big!” Dixon reached up and squeezed my bicep. I shook him off. “I need you. I have to have you. Barnes! Captain Barnes!”
    Barnes stuck his head cautiously out of his