Needing Your Love (Signed Paperback)

“Rich Riley’s kid just called in.”
Babs’s voice broke over the radio, and I took my foot off the gas pedal, slowing my cruiser. It’d already been a long shift from hell, and my guts clenched up in anticipation of her next words.
“He said his dad is dead on the living room floor.”
“Goddammit,” I muttered, yanking the wheel to pull into the closest driveway, the late afternoon sun blinding me briefly through my windshield. “Is little Jimmy still on the line with you?” I asked, shifting into reverse.
“Yes.” Babs’s tone usually suggested strength and resilience, but this call had her choked up. She’d been the station’s dispatcher long before I’d become chief of police in February and had seen enough shit to last a lifetime.
“Tell him I’m on my way, and I’ll let you know if I need an ambulance or the coroner.” Figuring the young boy was probably upset enough, I didn’t turn on my lights or siren. I gunned the engine, lips in a thin line, forehead furrowed into a deep dent.
Pippen Creek was no more than two main throughways and half a dozen side roads, but our community was strong and tight-knit. I’d been appointed by our mayor after five years as an officer to keep watch over our town and took great satisfaction in seeing to our residents’ needs.
Rich Riley was one of our two town drunks and had spent plenty of nights sleeping off the vodka in our holding cell. Jimmy’s mom had died in childbirth, and he only had a single grandparent left who raised him until he was six. He’d been sent back to Rich when they had become too old and sickly to care for him.
And now, the poor kid might not have anyone.
Muscles tightening, I approached the southwestern edge of town. The tires of my cruiser crunched on worn-down gravel as I slowed and pulled in front of the Riley house. I shut off the engine, and heavy silence caused my ears to ring.
Jimmy sat on the stoop, bare legged, a torn T-shirt hanging off his thin frame. Tear streaks lined his filthy face, and he hugged his knobby, skinned knees, arms appearing scratched to hell.
Chest aching over how his lower lip trembled, I climbed from my car and quietly shut the door behind me. “Just arrived,” I quietly let Babs know through the two-way.
Wet, blue eyes tracked me as I moved closer, softening my features in the hopes he wouldn’t feel threatened by the big guy in uniform with a gun on his hip.
Jimmy sniffed and dropped his gaze, causing more tears to stream over his cheeks.
Phantom pain lanced through my heart as I closed the distance between us, and I tore my focus off his face to glance behind him at the house that had seen better days. A few clapboards hung crooked, ready to fall into the un-mowed grass surrounding the ranch-style home. One shutter clung stubbornly at an angle, and the other three from the windows were long gone. The front door stood open, darkness beyond even though the sun’s rays shone on the young boy’s pale blond hair.
He peeked up at me as I stopped before him.
“Hey, Jimmy,” I stated quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Flinching, he whimpered, and I quickly released my light hold.
First time I’d touched my wife Darla’s arm back when we were teens, she’d reacted the same way…
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Did Jimmy have a bruise under that shirt like she had, or was it my bulk looming over him that made him afraid? Sixteen years separated me and the boy, the difference in size substantial. I crouched in an attempt to make myself appear less intimidating, hoping he had a better childhood than Darla.
I doubted it.
Dried crust rimmed Jimmy’s nose. He sniffed again, scrubbing at the unrelenting tears. Up close, his arms appeared inflamed from red marks as though he often scratched himself. His legs showed no such signs of scuffed skin or gouges.
Was the scratching an anxious tic?
I ached to hold the kid against my chest and promise him everything would be okay. Wrap him in my arms and ease the emotional pain he was too innocent to be dealing with, same as I often did with my own son, who was a couple of years younger than Jimmy.
“You stay here while I go inside and check on your dad,” I murmured, unable to help myself from pushing wavy locks of hair off Jimmy’s forehead and smoothing back the matted strands.
He leaned into my touch, and a shuddered sigh made his entire body tremble.
Goddamn, this boy tugged on my need to nurture and protect, same as Darla had all those years ago.
Hugging himself tighter, Jimmy dipped his head in a nod, and I tore my soft touch from his head.
Fucking Riley…if the man was no more than passed out, dead-drunk, I was going to be tempted to smother the life from his worthless lungs. At least Darla’s dad had a heart attack a few years after she and I had married so we no longer had to deal with his ass.
My footfalls on the three stairs sounded loud, a dog barking in the distance the only other noise meeting my ears.
The scent of cigarettes clung to the stale air as I paused on the threshold, my nose curling at the offensive, acidic stench. Passing into the interior, I blinked, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness. A quick scan of the living room on my left assured me the place hadn’t been cleaned in months if not longer. Litter lay in every corner, crushed beer cans, Pedro’s Pizza boxes, and Dig-In takeout containers making up most of the mess. Dirty clothes piled on a chair and draped over the back of the couch.
A lump of a man sprawled in between said couch and scarred coffee table, an empty bottle of cheap vodka clutched in his meaty fist.
“Rich,” I hissed, not wanting Jimmy to hear in case his dad didn’t answer—which it didn’t appear like he would.
The man didn’t move.
I kicked his bare foot, and he didn’t so much as twitch.
Sighing, I bent closer to check his pulse. Maybe the man really was dead—
A snort escaped from his parted lips, and adrenaline shot through my veins. I straightened, watching his chest rise and fall a few times.
“Asshole,” I muttered at his face-down form. “I ought to leave you like this. Maybe you’ll get sick and drown in your own vomit. Deadbeat motherfucker.” I strode through the hallway toward the bedrooms. “Babs,” I said into my two-way, “Riley is passed out, not dead.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
I couldn’t agree with Babs after seeing Jimmy. Neglect was spelled out in black and white from his filthy appearance to the state of the house. I expected the cupboards and fridge would be empty of anything edible or semi-healthy for a growing child. And I couldn’t begin to imagine what discoloring might lay under the T-shirt the child wore.
Lips in a thin line, I grabbed a pillow off the unmade bed in the master and returned to find Rich unmoved. While we were roughly the same six feet and not quite an inch over, the guy had a good thirty to forty pounds on my two hundred.
I moved the coffee table out of the way, rolled him onto his side, and propped his dead weight against the front of the couch. I lifted his head by a nice tight grip on his greasy hair and shoved the pillow beneath before taking the vodka bottle and setting it aside with the other cans and empties on the floor.
Once sure Rich wasn’t going to slump forward and possibly end up like his son had suspected, I went back out onto the stoop and settled onto the top step beside the boy—who mindlessly scratched at his left forearm.
“He’s just sleeping, kiddo.”
My statement caused his filthy fingernails to stop digging into his skin.
I kept my hands to myself when I wanted to ruffle Jimmy’s hair. Maybe sling an arm around his stooped shoulders and give him comfort, which was what the kid appeared to need.
A shuddered exhale made the poor boy tremble beside me, and my body responded in kind, hairs raising on my arms, as though the trauma of the afternoon had somehow connected us.
Although it was late September, warmth still shone down with the sun, but a foreboding lay in the breeze, the scent and promise of a long, cold winter. Harder times with nothing but the spring to look forward to.
I wondered what joys or dreams filled Jimmy’s thoughts when he crawled into bed at night.
“Your dad drank too much, but he’ll be fine,” I reassured him, and his audible swallow had the muscle in my jaw ticking again. “You did the right thing in calling the station, Jimmy. Your dad is lucky to have you. It takes a real man to look after his family.”
I’d meant that last bit as a dig at Rich, but Jimmy straightened a bit, swiping his forearm over his wet cheeks.
“You’re a good kid.”
“I’m a worm,” he said, thin shoulders once more rolling inward, and my eyes stung at the confidence in his voice. He glanced over at my cruiser. “You’re the hero.”
How often did he get called names? Having learned all about Darla’s childhood, I knew words hurt more than fists in the long run.
Fingers itching to pull my gun and go back inside to take care of Jimmy’s problem, I eyed the bones of his clavicles poking through the thin shirt. While committing murder to make his life better wasn’t exactly an option, I would do what I could to ease some of his suffering. “You hungry?”
He shrugged. “A little.”
“Don’t move.” I hopped up and retrieved a Snickers bar from my car. Babs had tossed the chocolate to me earlier in the day when I’d been grumpy about one thing or another. She’d informed me I needed a pick-me-up. Thankfully, I’d forgotten about the empty calories until now.
I sat beside Jimmy again and offered the candy to him when I’d rather have taken him home and fed him a proper meal. My son Jamie wouldn’t mind having a younger kid to hang with.
Jimmy’s hands shook as he accepted the gift, struggling to rip the thin wrapper. With dirt under his fingernails, he tore the candy bar in two and handed half to me.
Rather than argue, I took the chocolate, and we ate in silence, once more seeming to share more than food or space. I couldn’t watch as he licked every bit of sweetness from his fingertips.
When was the last time he’d showered?
I expected Rich didn’t care for the kid any better than he did the house.
Running a hand over my face, I told myself I would have to call the Department of Health and Human services in the morning and get someone out here to check on Jimmy.
The world-weary look in his eyes suggested he’d lived a lifetime of pain and suffering in his ten years. I knew all too well the path being paved for his future, and it sickened me.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked, keeping my tone calm and kind when I rather would have raved.
He shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he answered with words that sounded like a repeated lie if ever I’d heard one.
“I’ve got a question for you, Jimmy, and I need you to tell me the truth, okay?”
“Mmm,” he hummed.
“Your dad—does he ever hurt you when he gets drunk or angry?”
Jimmy swallowed hard and gazed down the dirt road.
“Jimmy,” I prompted when he didn’t answer.
“No.” He whispered what I would have bet money on was another outright lie.
My stomach curdled. “Do you feel safe here?”
He shrugged.
I inhaled deeply, torn over the entire fucked up situation. “I want you to go inside and lock up as soon as I leave.”
Jimmy picked at the scrape on his knee. “Is Dad gonna want coffee and pills in the morning?”
“Probably,” I agreed. But I expected he’d be after more vodka rather than caffeine.
Jimmy nodded, squaring his thin shoulders, and I wondered how much rested on them. “I’ll take care of him,” he stated, chin lifting in either stubbornness or resilience. I expected both.
I pulled a small notebook I kept in my front pocket out and wrote my number. “This is my cell phone number,” I said, handing it over. “If you ever need a grown-up for anything, I want you to call me. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.” He crumpled the paper in his hand, clutching it tight.
Fathomless blue eyes peered up at me, and the overwhelming urge to wrap him in my arms and promise him that everything would be okay rushed through me again. My fingernails dug into my palms as I stopped myself from reaching for him.
“Head on inside now,” I ordered quietly, standing to my feet. “Dad’s probably going to sleep in tomorrow morning, so you can make that coffee and set out some pills and water if you want, but you get to school on time. Even if he’s still lying there, you take care of yourself first, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispered again, pushing upright.
I glanced down, noting how badly the boy needed to bathe. “And make sure you shower tonight. Or sit in the tub and soak for as long as you want—no one is going to tell you to stop wasting water.”
Wetness welled in his eyes again, causing his irises to shine like sapphires in the setting sun. He nodded, making me feel a little bit like the hero he’d said I was.
Never had I been more proud of the uniform I wore.
“Go on,” I murmured with a smile, nodding toward the house.
Jimmy scurried inside, shut the door behind him, and I didn’t turn away until I heard the lock click into place.
Once back in my car, I radioed Babs to update her fully, then sat silent, staring at the Riley house.
Jimmy needed help, and maybe DHHS could give him that since legally my hands were tied.
But I feared, from experience, that this was only the beginning.

Content Warning: Childhood abuse is mentioned and relived through memories, violence.

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