In Too Deep

Chapter One (Scene 2)

Nearly twenty-four hours after returning to the city where she lived and worked, Piper remained trapped at Wellington’s Central Police Station. She collated a report for the coroner’s inquiry and then endured a dour-faced psychologist picking through her brain—because Tom’s suspicions had been aroused thanks to her near freak out. And worst? She couldn’t blame him. Her reaction could’ve jeopardized the whole team.

Piper slammed her locker door, glaring at it while buttoning her jeans. She adjusted her tee shirt and tugged on her battered leather jacket, feeling half clothed without her pressed uniform blues and heavy stab-resistant vest.

Her pocket vibrated, and she yanked out her phone. The text from her sister said, “Call me when you get home. IMPORTANT.”

Hell, what else could go wrong today?

She shoved the phone back in her pocket, snatched up her backpack, and left the locker room.

 “Hey, Piper?” Tom strolled along the corridor toward her. “You ready to tell me what really happened at Tikitapu?”

She froze.

“You gave me the rose-colored version at yesterday’s debrief by the lake. Now I want the non-prettied up version.”

“Nothing happened. I’m fine.” She swung the backpack onto her shoulder and folded her arms across her diaphragm.

“Fisher the shrink doesn’t think so.” He leaned against the wall opposite, a six-foot-three chunk of solid muscle with a soft side few knew about—except perhaps his wife and twin baby girls. “How long have we worked together, kid? I know when you’re dodging bullets.”

“I’m not a kid—ah, crap.” She raked shaky fingers through her hair, pulling the short strands until her scalp stung. “Fisher stood me down from the squad today—effective for two weeks. Two weeks back to the normal daily grind of paperwork and patrol.”

Tom shoved his hands into the pockets of his regulation pants. “Well you knew we were a part time squad when you applied. You did normal duties before you became a dive cop and you continue to do it daily unless we get a call out—be thankful we’re not pulling someone’s seventeen-year-old kid out of a lake every day.”

“Sound like a whiny cow, don’t I?” Piper grimaced.

He sighed. “Look, Fisher gave me a heads-up a few minutes ago that you’d failed the assessment and I hate to say he’s right—” his voice gentled “—but it’s not the first trouble you’ve had on a body recovery, is it?”

When she glared at him, he shrugged. “Look Piper, you work like a woman possessed, so why not treat this as a holiday. Even better, go south and see your relatives. It’s what, eight years since you’ve been home?”

Home. Stewart Island. Bush-covered hills, cold azure ocean, and abundant birdlife.

A lump of hardened grief and loss amassed in her belly.

“Nine.” She planted her feet wide apart on the pitted linoleum floor. “But it’s not like I don’t keep in touch. I talk to Shaye and Mum all the time.” If she counted text messages and stilted phone conversations with her younger sister and mother as keeping in touch.

“Kid, you don’t talk, really talk, to anyone.” Her chin lifted higher and Tom tugged on his earlobe with a sigh. “It’s unnatural for a woman not to yatter on about her feelings.”

“Try saying that in front of your wife, boss.”

“Well, my ear’s here if you wanna use it. You got a little squirrelly, but we all do at one time or another. Still, you did good. We gave the boy back to his family.”

“I know.” She couldn’t meet his gaze as the old familiar ache rose in her chest.

She did what she’d been trained to do, achieving the goals she set as an eighteen-year-old cadet entering Police College. She recovered the dead this time, but nine years ago she’d been unable to return her own father to the family.

She fastened a fat, false smile on her lips. “Maybe I will take that holiday. Seats to the Gold Coast are on sale this week. See ya round, boss.”

Tom shook his head as she sauntered past. “Not if I see you first.”