Dark Blue (South Island PD Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the disparity. When you lived with a tyrant who wasn’t afraid to get physical, you tried to keep your head down – tried to keep them from blowing up. Letting them see your pain only fueled them.
    It was what they wanted – to make you hurt. To punish you for existing, for problems that had nothing to do with you. You were there, and you were their punching bag.
    Sanders gaped. “Jesus, Calder. You serious? I can’t believe you’re that fucking stupid and I haven’t heard about it yet. How many years you been with the department?”
    “I’m taking you in. You know how this goes, and you know I have to do it. Don’t make it any harder than it has to be.”
    He couldn’t ignore Kate’s cry for help. It’d probably taken her years to get to this point, to reach out for help. If he turned his back on her, he’d crush whatever faith she had in other people and whatever will she had to escape the cycle of abuse.
    For a second, Sanders looked as if he might do anything. Throw a punch, even go for Jackson’s weapon. But as the baby’s crying died down, he looked Jackson straight in the eye, his whiskey breath coming in hard bursts.
    “You’re gonna fucking regret this, Calder.”

CHAPTER 4
     
     
    Jackson drew the cuffs from his duty belt and reached for Sanders’ wrists. He almost had the first one secured when Sanders moved.
    He jerked with surprising speed, escaping the cuff and turning on Jackson. In a split second, he threw a punch.
    Jackson barely dodged it, stepping to the right, his shoulder colliding with Sanders’.
    Sanders grunted, releasing a cloud of stale liquor breath. The smell triggered a hundred shitty memories, but Jackson pushed them out of his mind so all that remained was a feeling of disgust.
    For a few seconds, he and Sanders wrestled. They had the same training, and there was no doubt that Sanders knew exactly what Jackson was trying to do and purposely made it difficult. But Sanders was clumsy with anger and intoxication.
    Jackson forced him against a wall and cuffed his hands behind his back.
    “Stupid fuck,” Sanders huffed, his cheek against the wood paneling.
    Kate appeared in the hallway, a bundle of blue blankets cradled against her chest. Jackson caught her big, dark eyes as he pulled her husband away from the wall and turned him toward the front door.
    She didn’t seem surprised by the struggle.
    Sanders cursed her and spent the walk out to the cruiser alternating between continuing to verbally abuse her and telling Jackson how stupid he was.
    “You son of a bitch,” he said as Jackson pushed his head down into the car, “you know domestics are bullshit. You’re gonna regret this.”
    Jackson shut the cruiser door.
    How had he served on the same force with such a piece of shit and not realized it until today?
     
* * * * *
 
    Jackson cracked open a beer, and the memory of Sanders’ whiskey breath hit him like a ton of bricks.
    He compartmentalized, filing the memory away as he sank down onto a kitchen chair and took a long drink from the bottle.
    He could’ve downed something much stronger, but it was all he had. After peeling off his sweaty uniform and vest, though, nothing tasted better than a cold beer anyway. Wearing Kevlar in South Carolina during August was like walking around with your own personal sauna on your back.
    “Shit.” Elijah strode into the kitchen, past the table and straight to the fridge. “I smell more like one of the transients down at the bus station than a cop. So do you, by the way.”
    His roommate opened the fridge and pulled a beer from the case shoved into one corner of the top shelf.
    “This time of year, there’s not much of a difference between transients and cops, at least as far as body odor goes.”
    In uniform pants and a visibly damp t-shirt, Elijah took the seat opposite Jackson. There were only two chairs at their small kitchen table, but it was all they needed. On the rare occasions anyone else came over, there were a