SAFE: New in Town

 
“That’s her,” Trixie hissed, her blue gaze shifting from her brother to the woman who strode toward them.
Brian Belden followed that gaze and studied the approaching figure. Taller than his pint-sized sister,he estimated around five-feet-seven. Leaner, too, as the figure hugging jeans showed as her long legs brought her closer to them. Her long
hair moved around her slim shoulders, the rising sun catching the gold glints in it.  He shook his usually sensible head. He must be sleep deprived. Normally at crime scenes he was one hundred percent focused—not wandering around in his own head like a bad romance novel.
“Chief Maddie Hart.”  The woman, who he guessed was around his sister’s age of twenty-nine, extended a long-fingered hand and he blinked at it a couple of times before taking it.
“Brian Belden, M.E.,” he managed after a light kick in the shin from his sister.
“Detective Trixie Belden,” his shin-kicker spoke up. “Sister, not wife, just in case you were wondering.”
“I’m not,” Maddie responded with an air of professionalism, lifting well-shaped brows. “For one, this is a crime scene, and I’m more interested in your victim than your association with one another, romantic or otherwise.” Maddie stood back, her gaze scanning the relatively remote cliff top location where the body had been found. She turned her attention back to the shorter woman. “And two, I do my homework. I know who you are. You have quite a reputation.”
“You, too,” Trixie retorted.
Brian was relieved that she left it at that. He knew his sister well enough to know how close she’d come to adding—“as a ball-busting, throat grabbing bitch.” Right about now he wasn’t all that sure he wouldn’t mind the woman who stood before them doing a little busting and grabbing. But maybe the late evening, or was it early morning, callout and the pervading chill from the swirling river far below them, was messing with his brain.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t on hand to welcome you personally when you arrived in Quentin Falls,” Maddie’s hazel eyes— wide, beautiful hazel eyes— held a hint of amusement as if she’d heard the unspoken assessment of her character.  “I was on vacation with my family, but I believe you’re settling in.”
“Trying to,” Trixie returned. “Though you might want to stop throwing bodies at us. I thought this was a nice community.”
“My understanding was that you were good with bodies. It’s why we hired you. And this is a nice community—in its own way.”
She was nice, too Brian thought. Very, very nice. The way those jeans clung to her slim hips, the fitted button through shirt that hugged her small but delectable breasts. He was doing it again. Brian considered kicking his own shin. He looked up to find her hazel gaze fixed on him and he shifted his own gaze to the forty-five holstered under her open dark grey jacket.
“I have a son,” he stammered irrelevantly. “I was hoping for safe.”
Maddie smiled. A slow, knowing smile. “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course it isn’t safe, but it’s good.”
  
​                                                                                              *************
 
Trixie jabbed her normally calm, poised brother in the ribs. “What’s up, Doc?”
The two had finished up at the crime scene and were now sitting at the counter of an all-night diner. “You seem…out of sorts.” She smirked as she spoke.
“Well,” Brian drawled slowly. “A certain someone I know just elbowed me in the ribs. That’s bound to throw a guy off.”
Trixie snorted. It would have been inelegant, but she was a regular snorter, so it was pretty much par for the course.
“I hope I didn’t detect signs of interest in our new boss?”
“Why?” Brian demanded.  “You live to detect. I was just providing sustenance.”
“So, you admit it!” she chortled smugly.
“Oh, god, I really am tired.” Brian dropped his head onto the counter, an act that should have earned him a glare from the waitress working behind it. Instead she smiled sympathetically and topped off his coffee.
“Tough night?” she asked.
            Brian raised his head. “You could say that. It’s seven am on a Saturday morning, and I’m sitting at a diner with my kid sister. It doesn’t say much for my Friday night.”
            “Eggs?” the waitress offered him a dimpled smile. “Pancakes? Bacon? Waffles?”
            “Yes, please,” Trixie said. “I’m starved.”
            Brian grinned at the look on the waitress’s face. “Scrambled eggs and bacon would be great,” he said. “On sour dough.”
            “I’ll have the lot,” Trixie added, just in case the waitress was slow on the uptake. “Though skip the toast, I’m watching my carbs.”
            The young woman’s brows lifted in disbelief.
            “She considers pancakes and waffles a separate food group,” Brian explained.
            “Doesn’t everyone?” Trixie beamed at the waitress, who after a moment smiled back.
            “I’ll get your breakfasts,” she said and disappeared through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
            “Now, what shall we talk about while we wait?” Trixie wrinkled her brow. “How about the fact that you were so fixated on Chief Maddie Hart that you barely even noticed the vic?”
            “That is such baloney,” Brian denied hotly. “She’s in charge of our new workplace; naturally I was interested to meet her.”
            “Interested? Especially in those big eyes, oh, and her cleavage—not that she has any.”
            “Size isn’t everything.” Brian retorted.
            “Whatever you say. So,” Trixie lowered her voice and leaned closer to her brother, “you wanna bang the boss.  Doesn’t sound too safe to me. But hey, what do I know? Do you think you can get me a raise?”
           

                                                                                          *******
            The Quentin Falls police station was located in an old two-storey red-brick building whose interior had been modernised and altered considerably. Maddie liked that most of the staff areas were bright and open, but for her own office she had opted for simple, classic furnishings and privacy. Unfortunately, the latter wish wasn’t always fulfilled, something brought home to her as she opened the door and stepped inside.
            “Hey, Honey. How are you, my vision of hot loveliness?”
            “Don’t call me Honey. Don’t call me a vision of anything while we’re at it.” Maddie Hart glared at the man sitting in her chair, behind her desk.
            Dan Mangan leaned back in the chair, lifted his boot-clad feet and placed them on the desk.  His long dark hair needed a wash, his boots needed a clean and the t-shirt that clung to him like a second skin had seen better days, and he was still one of the best-looking men around.
            “Sometimes I think you forget I was your first,” he said mournfully.
            “But not my last, thank God,” Maddie said, dropping into one of the chairs located opposite her friend.
            “As if anyone could compare,” Dan observed with an utter lack of modesty.
            “To what do I owe this dubious honor?” Maddie couldn’t help smiling.
            “I am merely proving how wise you were to use Mangan PI and Associates.”
            “Mythical associates,” Maddie said.
            “It’s all in the image, babe.”
            “Have you forgotten I’m armed?” she demanded, hazel eyes flashing. “Do not call me babe.”
            “Don’t call me babe, don’t call me Honey. Wow, Wheeler, you are sure getting cranky in your old age.”
            “And don’t call me Wheeler either!” Maddie had adopted her mother’s maiden name when she’d applied to the force. Wheeler was too well known.
            “How about Chief?” Dan queried with a grin.
            “Oh, fine,” Maddie reached behind her and closed the door to her office. “Call me whatever you like. Just don’t do it front of other people—deal?”
            “Deal, Chief Honey-bun.”
            Maddie laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You’re impossible.”
            “I’m also one of your favourite people in the whole wide world.” Dan lifted a brown paper bag as he spoke and Maddie reached a hand out to snatch it from him.
            “Hash browns,” she cried as she opened the bag and withdrew one of the golden potato treats. “I forgive you for everything.”
            “Everything?” Dan’s grin widened. “Can I get that in writing?”
            Maddie wrinkled her nose, tore open the tiny packet of salt and sprinkled it on the hash brown before taking a bite.  “I needed this. Why the hell can’t murders be discovered at a civilized hour?”
            “Speaking of murders, do you like the look of the newbies?”
            “They don’t look like brother and sister. He’s tall, dark, and kind of good looking and she...” Maddie trailed off. “What?”
            “I wasn’t talking literally. The Doc caught your eye, huh?”
            “No.” Maddie kept her tone cool and casual.
            “I recognize that pout. You look as if you’d like to throw that hash brown at me.
            “What a waste. I might throw a rock, if I had one.”
            “And this is supposed to be a police station. Can’t a guy feel safe anywhere?” Dan assumed an injured air and blinked his long, dark lashes several times.
            “Not if he has your big mouth.”
“And what kind of mouth does our ME have?’
“Still armed.”
“I love you, too, Wheeler.”
 
                                                                                             ***********
 
            Trixie Belden was pouring her second coffee in ten minutes, and Maddie studied her new team member through the window that separated the break-room from the corridor, with interest. The other woman’s file suggested she was a first-class investigator—arrests, convictions, even the odd exoneration. She was good at what she did.
            Right at this moment, Maddie couldn’t see it.  With her tousled sandy curls, crumpled jeans and aging Converse shoes, Trixie Belden looked more like a fashion- challenged teenager than a hard-hitting detective. Still, Maddie knew from experience that judging from appearances was the habit of fools.
            Her gaze shifted as Trixie’s brother joined her. Brian Belden was anything but shabby and disheveled, but as she’d just reminded herself, appearances were deceptive.  Maddie opened the door and joined her team.
            “I hope you got some rest,” she said.
            “Sure,” Trixie returned. “Those three whole hours were blissful.”
            “Sorry,” Maddie said, not sure why she was apologizing. Long hours went with the job.
            Brian poured coffee, but didn’t comment. After a moment, he lifted the mug. “Milk? Sugar?”
            “Oh, just a little milk, thanks,” Maddie replied, realizing he was talking to her.
            Brian added some, handed it to her and proceeded to pour his own coffee. Straight-up black, which seemed appropriate. “It’s good coffee,” he said, a hint of surprise.
            “I’ve had two already,” Trixie said. “And I’m having more. Station coffee is never this good.”
            “Cops need good coffee,” Maddie found herself saying. “I hate that cliché of bad coffee and scruffy cops.” She caught Trixie’s eye-roll, realizing she’d been tactless.  “Let’s take a seat,” she said, and they gathered at the table under one of the room’s large windows. “We’ll go over what we have, and you can get back to your Sunday. I imagine your wife will be glad when we have a regular roster organized,” she added, addressing Brian.
            “I don’t have a wife.”
            “He’s a single parent,” Trixie explained. “A single, lonely man, struggling to raise—ow.” She broke off and Maddie smothered a smile. She hadn’t seen the well-aimed kick, but knew it had been delivered.
            “Who’s with your son?” The question coming out of her own mouth surprised Maddie. Normally she was strictly professional with newcomers to her team.
            “He’s with our folks,” Brian said. “I figured it would give me a week or so to get the house settled. He’s due here day in three days, which is good, ‘cause I am not handling the separation well at all.”
            The look Trixie shot her brother was a cross between surprise and amusement, and Maddie couldn’t help but wonder if Brian Belden usually kept things strictly professional too.
            “Getting back to the case at hand,” Maddie continued, returning to safe, familiar territory.  “I want you to meet—”
            “Dan Mangan,” Dan supplied, appearing from nowhere. “Honey’s told me—” he broke off and met Maddie’s glare. “Oops.  Wheeler, you know you can’t shoot me in front of witnesses.”
            “Don’t count on it.”
                                                            ******
            “Wheeler!” Trixie hissed, grabbing Brian’s arm once the meeting was done and the two had relocated to autopsy. “Billionaire, super-rich, mega wealthy Wheeler!”
            Brian shook the hand off and turned his attention back to the man stretched out on his table in the morgue. “You do realize that you just said the same thing three different ways?”
            “Bite me!” Trixie retorted. “And I hope you realize you sound just like Mart.”
            “Something that bothers me a lot less than it would bother you.”
            “Whatever. Still, at least that explains it.”
            “Explains what?” Brian asked, mainly because he knew his sister well enough to know he was going to hear what she was thinking eventually. He might as well get it over with.
            “The whole Chief thing,” Trixie said. “I knew there had to be a reason someone that young, who looks like that, was in charge.”
            “There’s nothing wrong with the way she looks, and she’s the same age as you. Or is that the problem?”
            “What’s that mean?”
            Brian kept his attention on the table and when he replied his tone was even. “You graduated toward the top of your class at the academy. You have several commendations and you’re one hell of a shot, but you work for her.”
            “Your point being?” Trixie folded her arms and did her best to keep her own tone even, though she knew a little edge of pique had crept into her voice.
            “You’re not exactly doing the dance of joy. I’m guessing that you’d almost prefer it if you could write her off.”
            “That’s, that’s ridiculous. I’m a professional. “
            “Who’s had her fair share of run-ins with authority.”
            “Not everyone is a yes-man like you, you know.”
“You have noticed I have a scalpel in my hand, right?”
“You would never.”
“Sure about that?”
“Absolutely. It would violate some cross-contamination rule or something.”
Brian studied the instrument in his hand for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. “You got me.” His sister had a point. One of the things he really appreciated about his new workplace was the pristine condition of his space. Although located on a lower level, there were heavy frosted glass windows to allow natural light, and every surface and piece of equipment gleamed. His technicians were obviously good at their jobs.
“Anyway,” Trixie continued, undaunted. “I, for one, have a much clearer picture now. Daddy bought our chief her safe, cushy little job—lock, stock and barrel.”
“Trix, you have no evidence of that. In all likelihood that’s total crap.”
Trixie made a face. “Well, if things were different I’d tell her—”
            “You’d tell me what, Detective Belden?”
            Both Beldens spun around, and Maddie Hart took several steps toward her team.
            “Nice working with you,” Trixie said to her brother as she prepared herself for unemployment.
 
            Maddie Hart raised her brows, turned on her heel, exited through the sliding glass doors and left the two Beldens alone. Trixie’s shoulders slumped.
            “Why does this always happen to me?” she moaned.
            “Because you have ‘speak before you think’ down to a fine art?” Brian returned.
            “Thanks a lot. What am I going to do now? I need this job.”
            “We need this job,” Brian corrected. “I can’t make this work without having you here. Financially or with Josh.”
            “Great.  Now I’m a lousy aunt, too.”
            “Not all of the time.” Brian turned his attention back to the body on the table, but the faint lines between his dark brows spoke volumes to his sister. Brian wouldn’t belabor the point, but they’d planned this move together, and they were counting on one another.
            “I’ll fix it,” she announced.  “I’ll go up there and make nice and grovel.”
“Sorry?” Brian’s attention was back with his sister. “Who are you and where is Trixie Belden?”
            Trixie made a face. “I can apologize.”
            Brian laughed. “I imagine the ability is in there somewhere, but you’ve got to admit it doesn’t get much practice.”
            “Fine. I like a challenge.” She stalked towards the glass doors, turning back to face him. “If I talk her down, the pizzas are on you.”
            “You can even have beer,” Brian said. “Good luck.”
 
            Maddie Hart was working at her desk.  Trixie knocked once, walked in and closed the door behind her.
            “I was out of line. I get it. It was inappropriate. It was unprofessional. But in my defense, I hate change and all this is new, and I am sleep deprived and, it’s not an entirely unreasonable reaction, considering…” she trailed off aware that she was headed down a rocky road.
            “Is that your idea of an apology?” Maddie’s tone was cool.
            “Yes,” Trixie admitted. “But as my brother just pointed out, I don’t do it all that often.”
            “That probably explains it.”
            “And?” Trixie prodded.
            “And what?”
            “Am I fired?” There, she’d said it.
            To her surprise the other woman laughed. “If I fired every person who made a remark like that, I’d work alone.”
            “Oh. Right. I suppose you have heard it before.”
            “Not this week, but in general, yes. I imagine people have made assumptions about you, too.”
            Trixie pondered this for a moment. Her boss was right. She was short, freckled, could still pass for a teenager if she wanted to, and at times her intuitive leaps had caused more mirth than admiration. “You could say that,” she agreed grudgingly. “Anyway, I am sorry. I need this job. I want this job. I’m a good detective, and I’m a good aunt, too.”
            “Right,” Maddie looked slightly puzzled. “Glad we cleared that up.”
            Trixie nodded. “Me, too. Cause pizza and beer, my favourite.”
 
           
                                    ********
            Maddie Hart-Wheeler poured herself a glass of white wine and arranged crackers and cheese on the small platter she’d pulled from the glass-fronted overhead cupboard. The first twenty-four hours or so with her new team had been interesting, to say the least. Trixie Belden was living up to her reputation of being impulsive, anti-authority and opinionated. She was also supposed to be a first-class investigator with a great closing rate. And at least she wasn’t afraid to apologise—sort of.
            Brian Belden was a little harder to read. That handsome serious face, and those dark, dark eyes that gave very little away. “Great,” she muttered, adding a handful of grapes to the platter. She was thinking about his eyes, instead of his excellent professional credentials. It had obviously been way too long between men.
Placing the platter and glass on a tray, she carried them out to her front porch, where she sank down into the wicker rocker, placing the tray on the table beside her. She loved her small frame cottage. Its lilac-blue paint and white trim soothed her somehow, even as it puzzled her elegant mother and amused her father.  She’d taken the job of Chief of police in Quentin Falls against their advice, but her insistence on purchasing the cottage, instead of a larger ‘more suitable’ home in the town’s new estate neighbourhood, had caused a temporary rift.
            Eventually, they got used to the idea. Maddie had discovered a long time ago that the easiest way to deal with her parents was do what she wanted and wait for them to come around. As a child, she’d been sickly and timid and so very compliant. But boarding schools and endless camps, bullying and ridicule, had somehow contrived to make her stand up and be counted. Little Honey Wheeler was long gone, and no-one messed with Maddie Hart.
 
            Brian scraped the scraps from the pizza box before placing it and the empty beer bottles in the recycling bin. His son was big on recycling and was bound to check up on his father when he arrived. In the downstairs bathroom, he could hear his sister singing—off key—while she showered. He moved through the house that was destined to be his home for the foreseeable future. In some ways, it reminded him of the farm—a white frame building with colonial style windows, wood floors, fireplaces and at least a little character.
It hadn’t been loved like his childhood home, though. The walls needed painting, the rugs on the floors had seen better days, and he was pretty sure no one had washed the windows in a long time. But it had four bedrooms and a tiny room he could use as a study, so that meant he, Trixie and Josh each had their own space, and there was a guest room for his folks when they visited. He’d pick up a sofa bed for the study so that Mart could come and stay at the same time as his folks, too. It would work.
He knew moms wasn’t sure about the move, but the job was an opportunity he couldn’t refuse—didn’t want to refuse. Independence still mattered to him, and he needed to make a home for his son.  Of course, the fact that his sister’s former classmate, Ruthie Kettner, lived in the town, on the same street, had clinched the deal.  Ruthie had trained as an elementary school teacher, but was currently on maternity leave. A chance meeting with her in Sleepyside had made the decision to move that much easier. She was more than happy to take care of Josh when neither he nor Trixie were available. And Josh liked her, and her eighteen-month-old son, too. Brian gave his head a shake. Josh was too much like him. Too serious and responsible for his eight-years. With any luck, some of Josh’s mother’s impulsiveness would eventually rear its head.
In the meantime, two bodies in twenty-four hours notwithstanding, Quentin Falls felt safe, and it was nice to be looking forward, instead of looking back. There were too many memories in Sleepyside at present for him and for Trixie. A fresh start was going to be good for both of them, provided his sister didn’t end their new careers before they got started. A memory—recent, vivid—struck him like a blow. Getting fired was bad enough, getting killed was a whole lot worse.
 
THE WHEELERS' LAKE
​
Author's Notes: Jixaversary number 4. I've been so absent lately, I sometimes don't even feel like a Jix author at all any more. Fortunately for me, this community keeps records. Trixie and co, especially Honey and Brian, are still an important part of my life, and Jix is still the place that allowed me to share that love. I thank it and all Jixsters for that. My heartfelt love and appreciation to Dana and Vivian—friends and editors—each of them made it possible for this to make any sense at all. Where it doesn't, is entirely down to the additional and changes I needed to make. An extra shout out to Bonnie. This came from a snippet she suggested quite a long time ago.  Trixie Belden et all belong to Random House, not to me. No profit is being made from these scribblings.