Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 6)

I wondered how long he’d been there, but he’d probably been there the entire time, watching and listening to our conversation.

Saint, the quiet one that I never quite knew what to expect from, rarely joined in on our conversations.

It was honestly a surprise that he joined in on this one.

I signed off on my last report and started to gather up the papers.

“I think that they did,” I admitted. “Or, if they didn’t, they are damn well close to doing that. With the way he was evading the questions I lobbed his way this morning, he definitely did something.”

“Yo, Pena.”

I looked up to find a uniformed officer, a rookie that I didn’t know the name of, staring at me.

“Yeah?” I asked coolly.

I didn’t like that he was talking to me like that.

I’d seen him all of two times, and each time that I saw him, he made sure to act like he was better than me.

The first time that I’d had the pleasure of his presence had been when I’d gone to have lunch with my dad. My dad was the rookie teacher. We called him the toddler wrangler.

When I’d arrived at lunch with my dad, since he was helping the rookie through his first few weeks of training, he’d had to come to lunch, too.

Needless to say, I hadn’t enjoyed lunch. The kid’s ability to treat everyone like shit, from the waitress all the way to the old woman outside that had asked for his assistance in stepping up onto the curb, disappointed me.

I hadn’t been able to get away fast enough.

Sadly, a winning personality wasn’t something that was a requirement to work at the Kilgore Police Department.

“You have a visitor,” he sneered. “Out front.”

With that, he left, leaving me to roll my eyes.

“I really don’t like that kid. And what the hell did you do to him to warrant him acting like that?”

I looked over in surprise at Saint.

“You don’t?” I asked. “When would you have talked to him?”

“He came into the bathroom the other day when I was taking a piss. Took the urinal right next to mine.” He paused. “Who the fuck does that?”

“The rookie is an asshole,” I admitted. “And he didn’t like it that I gave him a dressing down in front of my father because he refused to offer an old lady assistance in getting up onto the curb. He literally looked at her and walked away. It was embarrassing the way he conducted himself. Who wouldn’t have helped her?”

“Sounds like a piece of shit.”

Chuckling and agreeing with Saint’s observation, I gathered up all of my paperwork and dropped it off into the Sergeant’s bin before heading up front.

I was two steps into the bullpen when I spotted my ‘visitor.’

Grinding my teeth, I made my way up to David, Dillan’s dad.

“How can I help you?” I asked stiffly.

“You can help me by asking Dillan to drop the charges on Kerrie,” he said. “Then, you can help even more by getting the hell out of my daughter’s life. It wasn’t good enough that you ruined one daughter? Now you have to ruin two?”

I stiffened and glared.

“She’s not pressing charges. And I didn’t ruin either of your daughters,” I found myself saying. “And I would hardly call sleeping with both of them as ruining them.” I hesitated. “But, if you’d like to know, I only willingly slept with Dillan. I was drugged by Kerrie, the man that tried to kill your daughter yesterday, when I unknowingly slept with Delanie.” I paused. “Do you want to see pictures of your daughter’s neck? I took some this morning when she was sleeping in my bed.”

David straightened his spine and crossed his arms over his chest.

“You have to be confused,” he said. “Kerrie wouldn’t have done all those things.”

“We have video proof,” I said. “In case your daughter’s word wasn’t good enough.”

David bared his teeth.

“Talk to her about dropping the charges,” he urged.

With that, he left, leaving me standing in the middle of the busy bullpen watching him go.

“Your future father-in-law is a piece of shit,” one of the female officers observed.

It took me a second to realize that it was someone I knew.

“Hey, Ashe.” I gave her a half-hearted grin. “How’s the baby doing today?”

Ashe patted her small baby belly.

“I have indigestion.” She paused. “But at this point, I think it’s because he caused it.”

She gestured at David’s retreating back.

“He caused what?”

I looked over to see Ford, Ashe’s husband and a fellow member of the SWAT team, staring at the two of us with concern.

I grinned. “My future father-in-law decided to tell me that I ruined two of his daughters in the middle of the station.” I gestured to his wife. “And your wife got to listen to it.”

Ford rolled his eyes. “My wife is a nosey little thing, isn’t she?”