Page 1 of Caught in His Sights
1
The organized chaos of the local precinct flows past me, as familiar now as my own apartment.
The cracked plastic seat creaks as I sip a cup of burnt coffee that Lenore at the front desk pressed on me when she informed me I’d be waiting for a while. The grayish, cold liquid leaves a sour film on my tongue, made more unpleasant by the hour I’ve waited for a moment of Detective Wells’s time.
The Omega in me is hyper-aware of all the Alphas who populate the police force. It’s a common career path for the more aggressive second gender. Too bad for me that the precinct’s ventilation can’t work fast enough to dispel all the pheromones they produce.
“Hey, Oliver!” Officer Martinez waves as she bustles by, a friendly smile on her face. “How’s the news?”
“Same scandal, different day.” I shrug with indifference. “You know how it is.”
“Well, keep it up.” She heads for the door. “Your column helps me stay awake on stakeouts.”
Bitterness tastes more bitter than the coffee I hold, but I hide the emotion and lift my paper cup in salute as she vanishes out into the night. It’s not her fault I hate my job.
Over the past ten months, I’ve become a familiar face here, visiting every week to check on my brother’s case. I know all about Martinez’s recent engagement and Jenkins’s new grandbaby.
Their lives are moving forward, while I remain stuck in the past, anchored by tragedy.
“Oliver.” Detective Wells’s gruff voice brings my head around to find him beckoning me over. “Come on back.”
I stand and drain the dredges from my cup, tossing it into the trash on the way to join him.
With a tired grunt, he settles behind a desk overflowing with files. His salt-and-pepper hair sticks up in the back, and dark shadows of exhaustion give his face a sallow appearance. A pillow on the couch in the corner of the matchbook-sized office shows that he slept here at least once this week.
Not wanting to stay in the pheromone-clogged space for long, I ignore the chair and fight the urge to rub my nose. The detective may be a bonded Alpha, but being trapped in the cramped room still makes me twitchy. “Have you heard any updates on Dylan?”
Rubbing his temple, he lets out a deep sigh. “Wish I had something to tell you, but no recent developments have cropped up in the last seven days. If anything changes, you’ll be the first one I call.”
It’s the same platitude he gives me every week, the words tired and lacking impact from overuse. In the air between us hangs the plea that I stop disrupting his work, but if I’m not here reminding Wells of my existence, then my baby brother will become one more lost file.
At my silence, his shoulders slump. “Look, Oliver, I understand you want answers, but it’s been ten months. The likelihood of finding him is slim at this point.”
It’s a bitter truth I refuse to accept. “He’s the only family I have. I can’t give up on him.”
Detective Wells rubs his temples, the lines on his face deepening. “We’ve done everything we can, and I have other cases, with real leads. My time can’t be wasted searching for someone who might not even be alive anymore.”
His words sting like a slap in the face, though he’s being realistic. In this neighborhood, people disappear all the time, and those left behind often grieve without hope of an answer.
“I understand, Detective,” I manage past the lump in my throat. “See you next week.”
Annoyance flashes in his eyes. “Take care, Oliver.”
A cold, biting wind whips at my face as I step out of the police station, disappointment weighing me down. I pull my scarf tighter around my neck and hustle toward my beat-up old car, my breath turning into small puffs of fog in the air.
On the way home, I pass the lot where Sunrise Apartments once stood. Now, it’s nothing but a pile of dirt, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a banner announcing Rockford Construction flapping in the breeze.
The empty space is a reminder of how everything can change in an instant, just like Dylan’s disappearance.
Outside my own apartment building, I park and leave the doors unlocked, hoping to avoid another broken window when there’s nothing inside to steal. Raised in this neighborhood, I’ve grown accustomed to my safety being compromised.
Flickering exterior lights illuminate the twelve-story complex, casting erratic shadows over the crumbling, graffiti-covered brick facade. Bars offer security on the lower windows that aren’t covered by boards. Drive-bys and burglaries are as common as breathing around here.
It’s an upgrade from the dump my brother lived in, though. When he turned eighteen, I tried to stop him from moving out, but he landed his first job and was desperate to prove himself as an adult. The guilt of letting him go eats me up at night.
The security gate in front of the door creaks when I open it to step inside, and the stench of piss and vomit fill the foyer. I bypass the elevator, where a paper sign on the door proclaims that it’s closed for cleaning. It happens every weekend, a casualty of someone’s drunken escapades.
I take the stairs, so used to the hike that my thighs barely burn as I climb the seven flights to my floor.