55. Chapter 55

Two months laterNicole sat at her desk, scanning through a couple of case files that she needed to sign off on. Being preoccupied with the facts of the files, she jumped as there was a knock on her office door.

“Sheriff Earp Haught, I was wondering if I could discuss something with you?” Black Badge Agent Dolls said as he stood in the doorway, with his hands resting on his service belt, his right rested next to his badge, the left rested by his revolver. Just below his second open button of his shirt, Nicole could make out the top of Dolls Army tags as they hung from around his neck.

“Sure, come in and take a seat.” Nicole dropped the file in her hand onto her desk, as Dolls entered the office, closing the door behind him. Once Dolls was seated, he fingered the chain around his neck, “As Wynonna has returned to work, I have noticed that Black Badge needs another detective. Over the past year I have noticed how efficient Deputy Sheriff Faye is when it comes to her work. And I was wondering if you might consider allowing her to work for both yourself and Black Badge?”

Nicole had noticed how precise Emily’s work was and her high standard of professionalism when she dealt with the public. It was only natural that she would be suited to join Dolls and the rest of the Black Badge team, as well as Purgatory Sheriff’s Department. “I don’t see any reason as to why not.” Nicole stood up and stuck her head out of her door, “Deputy Faye, can you come in please.”

Emily had just finished answering a phone call when Nicole requested her to enter the Sheriff’s office. The black-haired Deputy walked into the office and stood at attention; Emily always believed that it was unprofessional to sit without being asked to. “Please sit down, you are not on the parade ground here, Emily.” Following the Sheriff’s instructions, Emily Faye took her seat next to Agent Dolls, unclear as to why she had been summoned.

“Deputy Sheriff Faye, how would you like to cut your teeth on a couple of Detective cases with Black Badge?” Dolls turned and asked Emily, whose facial expression was one of shock and surprise.

“Um, I’d love to, but ...” Emily fails to find the right words.

“You will still work for the Sheriff department, but when Agent Dolls needs an extra set of hands and eyes, you’ll be asked to assist. Would you like to give it a go?” Nicole asks sitting back in her chair.

“Yes, most certainly yes. Thank you Sheriff Earp-Haught and Agent Dolls for allowing me this chance to further my skills as a Deputy. When would you like me to start?” Emily asks excitedly.

“How about tomorrow, we can go over a couple of things before we begin looking at a couple of cases.” Agent Dolls replies before exiting Nicole’s office and heading back to Black Badge’s office.

“What you say to a couple of congratulatory drinks after your shift? Shorty’s at 5pm, that way I can pick up the boys from school and take them home. I’ll ring Waverly and let her know.” Nicole reaches out to pick up her phone, but before she presses the speed dial for Waverly, Emily interrupts her.

“I think that I’ll have to give it a miss, Sheriff. There’s something I need to attend to tonight. Maybe another time if that is alright.” Emily says looking down at her watch anxiously.

“Ok another time.” Nicole smiles as there was a knock at the door before it was opened by another officer.

“Sheriff, we’ve had a call about somebody flying a drone over Gardner’s girls dance studio and spying in through the windows to their changing rooms.” Deputy Smith replies.

“It looks like there still is work to be done, let’s go and sort this out.” Nicole walks behind Emily out of her office, which she locks and retrieves the file from Smith.

After finishing her shift, Emily walked along the streets of Purgatory till she reached her and Louise’s home. She recognised her house from all the others, as her daughters were playing out on the front lawn, and when the two 3-year old’s saw their Mama, they ran and wrapped themselves around both her legs. Emily looked down at her daughters with a beaming smile, knowing that these little ones brighten up her day.

Over dinner Louise informs Emily that she received a parcel and it was on her desk in the study. Louise and Emily spent the rest of the night with their daughters and then after the twins were tucked in bed, the lovers snuggled up on the couch and talked about their day. Before heading to bed, Emily ventured into her study to investigate this parcel, an item she had not purchased, so whatever was inside was going to be a surprise.

The parcel was the size of a small box, although it was not heavy, but it was cumbersome in handling. It had a Toronto post mark stamped on the address label and was sealed with sticky tape all around the box. Emily was curious as to what the contents were as she took out her pocketknife and sliced through the tape. Inside she found a photo album, a notebook, and an envelope with her name.

Emily sat in the chair and gingerly reached out to pick up the photo album, she ran a hand over the hard cover, pausing before lifting the cover. On the first page were photos of a couple that looked in their late twenties, one of the photos showed them standing in front of a house with a child being held by the man. Emily noticed that in every photo, the woman does not seem happy, except for one in which she was the only one in the shot. Emily sat back in her chair with a sense of dreed welling up inside of her, she had a feeling that she should know these people.

Pulling Emily out of her thoughts, “So what’s in the parcel? Who’s it from?” Louise asks leaning against the doorframe with two cups of steaming hot coffee in her hands.

“I’m not sure yet, there’s a letter I haven’t read yet. But this is full of photos of a couple and a child. I have a feeling that I should know them, but I don’t.” Emily reaches out for one of the cups from her wife, she then places it on the desk. Louise gently sits on Emily’s lap, draping her legs over her wife’s legs. Emily hands her wife the photo album before picking up the notebook and flicks through its pages. From what she sees, the notebook was a diary, but she wanted to spend some time reading it on her own.

Sensing her wife’s apprehension to read in depth the contents of the notebook and letter, Louise placed the photo album back onto the desk, then placed a kiss to her wife’s cheek, “I’ll leave you to read through these. Don’t stay up too late. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Emily replies as she fiddles with the envelope. Louise heads off towards their bedroom for the night.

With trepidation, Emily takes a deep breath before opening the envelope and pulling out what looked like a letter. Taking another deep breath, she begins to read the contents of the letter, which by the time she has read the second paragraph has Emily fighting back tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Everything that she has ever know about her parents was now in pieces, everything she believed to be the truth about how she come into the world was all a lie and the worst thing was it was now in writing.

Emily must have read the letter about ten times before she attempted to read the notebook, she now realised that the little family in the photos were her parents and older sister. Filled with mixed emotions of anger, sadness, and anger, Emily threw the photo album, notebook, and letter back into the box and stuffs it on a shelf. Not only is she unable to look at its contents, Emily doesn’t know what she should do with this information. Walking into the kitchen, she pulled out a bottle of Whiskey and took several swigs before heading off to bed. She knew that sleep was not going to be on the cards, but she had to try before she was to head off to work within four hours.

Louise the next morning tried to ask Emily about the letter and notebook, but her wife brushed it off, stating that she was running late for work. The blonde knew better than to push her lover on matters such as this, the more she pushed the more the black-haired woman would clam up. It was better to let Emily time to come to her and then they would talk.

Over the next week, Emily was distant when she was at home with her family. It was like she was on auto pilot and going through the motions. At work Emily was extremely focused on catching the person responsible for flying a drone over Gardener’s dance studio. This required Emily to interview the owner Mercedes Gardner. The first time she met Mercedes was with Nicole on the day of the incident, where they jot down her statement along with retrieving evidence.

Later that week, Emily returns to the dance studio, to inform Mercedes as to how the investigations was going. “When I was last here, I noticed that in the change room there were a couple of holes in weird spots on the walls. Do you mind if I take a further look?” Emily glances at her Police notepad.

“Sure, there should be no one in there. Those holes should not be there.” Mercedes replies while they walk towards the change rooms. Emily gives the holes in the walls a genuine look over and discovers behind the walls, mounted into the wall space, video cameras.

“I’m going to call this into Black Badge. Do you have any classes programmed for the rest of the day?” Emily reaches for her phone and gets ready to make the call to Dolls, while she waited for Mercedes’ answer.

“Yes, but I can cancel them. Do you think it’s going to take long, like do I need to cancel all of tomorrow’s classes?” Mercedes says looking at the walls.

“I think it might be best to cancel all of your classes for the rest of the week. We are going to have to break the walls, then they’ll need to be repaired. I’m sorry but we need to know what we are looking at here.” Emily reaches out and places a hand on Mercedes shoulder and gives it a squeeze. At that moment Mercedes looks directly into Emily’s eyes and a connection is made, Mercedes steps in closer towards Emily, leaving little room between their bodies. Reaching out and running her hand up along Emily’s muscular arm, Mercedes notices the black-haired woman’s eyes had changed colour to a burning red.

Normally Emily would have pushed away Mercedes and told her that she was not interested, but that was before she received the letter, telling her that everything she knew was all a lie. In the orphanage, she had been told that both her parents had died, leaving her without a family, but this was not the truth. Emily’s parents had been alive and brought up a family without her, until when they died a couple of years earlier.

As a small girl, Emily use to dream about how her Mum and Dad would shower her in love and kisses, when she was sad and alone in the orphanage, on the days when other children were adopted. The reality was that her parents knew where she was, and they let her grow up without any love and support. Just as Mercedes lips connected with hers, these realisations about her life being fake, caused something in her mind to snap. Emily returned the heated kiss, pushing the red head against the wall, Emily thrusted her hip so forcefully into the other woman’s groin.

It was only when Emily’s phone buzzed, that the pair pulled back from each other, “Hello, Dolls. …. Yes, we will need something to break the walls, …. It looks like there are a couple of cameras. …...I’ll get the area sealed off and wait for you.” Emily speaks into her phone while Mercedes adjusts her clothes.

“Look I have to ….” Emily points to the walls, indicating she needed to seal off the area.

“Yeah, I’ll go and cancel those classes. Come up and see me if you need anything.” Mercedes leans in and kisses Emily, then walks out of the change room, looking over her shoulder and gives her a wink.

Emily leans against one of the walls and grabs hold of one of the doors to a cubicle, to hold herself up. Until then Emily had never contemplated that she would find another person sexually attractive, other than her wife. Reigning in with her thoughts, Emily begins to set out the Police tape, sealing off the area and waited for Dolls to arrive.

Just as she thought, her and Dolls found three video cameras, which showed content of young girls undressing. Dolls noticed that these cameras had been placed into the wall space after the construction of the building, indicating it was the work of someone that had unlimited access to the area. Mercedes revealed that her brother, Tucker was responsible for the maintenance of the building, especially the change rooms.

Dolls asked Tucker to come into Black Badge to answer some questions regarding the cameras. At first Tucker was happy to answer Agent Dolls questions and go over all of the maintenance records of the dance studio. From all of his records and viewing his diary, Emily and Dolls were unable to link him with the cameras and the drone being flown over the studio, resulting in them having to let him go free. The case was now placed in the pending files drawer on Emily’s Black Badge desk.

Dolls followed up on the security company who set up the camera’s around the dance studio and found that Tucker had ordered 18 cameras but asked for only 15 to be set up at the studio. The company stated that Tucker took the 3 spare cameras to set up around the Gardner homestead, because he was concerned for his recluse sister Beth’s safety as she was at home alone. When Dolls asked to visit the homestead, Tucker was only too happy to take Dolls out and point out the locations of the cameras.

For the next month, Emily would drop into the dance studio as Mercedes would call and state that the drone was flying and hovering by the windows of the change rooms. After taking Mercedes’ statement, Emily and she would make out in the red headed woman’s office. At first it was just kissing, but lately it had gotten to be more heated, as Mercedes’ hands would roam down to cup and massage Emily’s cock through her Police uniform.

The dance studio was due to put on production and Mercedes had commissioned Louise Faye to design the girl’s outfits and bring in the final design later this particular morning. Emily was so turned on this morning, with her cock already hard and aching to be sucked.

“Emily, I’m in the mood to suck on something long and hard.” Mercedes raises her eyebrows before lowering to kneel on the floor in front of Emily. Taking the zipper in between her fingers, the redhead pulled it down and reached in and pulled out of the Police uniform trousers, a hard 9-inch cock. Licking her lips, Mercedes looks up at Emily and seeks permission from the cop, who nods her head.

Lowering her open mouth around the hard member, Mercedes begins to take inch by inch into her mouth, before sucking Emily’s precum juices. Emily leans against the desk and throws her head back in pleasure, feeling the warmth of Mercedes’ mouth wrapped around her cock. Mercedes moves her mouth up and down the cock, bringing the Alpha closer to falling over the edge.

Just before Emily could shot her load, the door opened and the sound of metal hitting the floor could be heard, “How could you!” Emily jumps up and stares at her wife standing in the doorway, with clothes laying at her feet. Mercedes stands up and turns to face the blonde, while Emily does up her zipper.

“I …” Before Emily could say anything, Louise storms across the room and slaps her wife’s cheek, then turns to Mercedes and spits at her. Louise flies out of the room, slamming the door in her wake.

Emily stands staring into space as Mercedes says, “Now we don’t have to hide anymore.”

Shaking her head, Emily says, “I love my wife. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.” Her cheek for the second time that morning stings, as Mercedes hand connects with her skin.

“Get out. I don’t want to see or talk to you, only when it’s to do with Police work.” Mercedes turns away from Emily. Emily deflated walks out of the office and heads back to the station. Knowing that she has just fucked up her marriage and what she calls her family, all she wants is for her shift to end, so that she can drown herself in several bottles of alcohol.

Over the next week, Emily calls in sick and spends the time locked up in a hotel room either passed out or drinking herself to death. Louise had gone home that day and packed Emily a bag, which was delivered to the station, with the message, “Emily was not to come home.” With every drink she took, Emily looked at the photo of her family that she kept in her wallet, disgusted with how she had let the knowledge that she wasn’t an orphan and that she was just something they threw away, destroy her life.

Eventually returning to work in the Police department, Emily was shocked to discover that over the last couple of days, several young girls that were linked with the dance studio have gone missing. As she looked over the case file, she realised that all of the girls had something in common, they were all blondes. At first Emily just thought that it was coincidental and put it away in her mind, instead she focused on trying to locate these girls and return them back to their families.

Walking from the staff tearoom through the bullpen, Nicole almost tripped over the end of a duffle bag, which was sticking out from under Emily’s desk. “What’s this doing here? Are you planning on going away after being sick for a week?” Nicole asks her Deputy.

“Argh, (Emily scratches the back of her head), I um … screwed up. Louise kicked me out. I’ve been sleeping or should I say passed out in a hotel room for the last week. I was going to see if I could rent a room above Shorty’s after my shift. I’m sorry I’ll move it Sheriff.” Emily moves from the front desk to remove the bag, but Nicole stops her.

“No, you’ll be staying with us, until you can secure proper accommodation, which means sleeping over Shorty’s is out of the picture.” Nicole said in a tender tone, as she gave a knowing nod of her head.

“I suppose Louise told Waverly all about what happened.” Emily somehow found her shoes more interesting at that moment, rather than looking directly at her boss.

“With that being settled, Dolls has told me about the missing girls, do you have any leads as yet?” Nicole knew that her Deputy needed to focus on her work, to get through the rest of her shift.

“Not yet, but from reading the files, I’ve noticed that the days when the girls went missing, it coincides with the same day when the drone appears at the studio. They might be connected, but there’s no solid evidence.” Emily fiddles with her name plate on her desk.

“You had better get back to it then.” Nicole slaps Emily on the back, as a way of saying ‘you’re doing a good job. Keep it up.’

After eating dinner with Waverly, Nicole, and the rest of their little pack of pups, Emily offers to wash the dishes, which Waverly happily accepts and offers to dry, while Nicole puts away. Once the dishes are done, Emily bids her hosts goodnight and retreats to the guest bedroom. Knowing that it was unlikely she was going to fall asleep; Emily pulls out of her duffle bag the missing girls case file and throws herself into trying to find the connecting thread that links all of the girls.

From studying all the information, Emily was able to make the following connections; firstly-each of the girls are blondes and slender, secondly-they all were at the dance studio when they were discovered to be missing, thirdly-Tucker Gardner was the last person to be seen speaking to them and fourthly-the Drone was spotted hovering over the dance studio each time. Armed with this information, Emily gingerly makes her way to the front door, trying to not wake the occupants of the house, she heads towards her car and takes off for the station.

The next morning Dolls stands outside the Black Badge door apprehensively, as he discovers the locked door was now open. With his gun drawn and ready to shoot, Dolls enters the office and yells, “Hands up and turn around slowly.”

Emily raises her hands in the air and slowly turns around to face Agent Dolls. “Hi, I’m sorry but I couldn’t sleep until I made the connections between the missing girls.” Dolls lowers his gun and re-holsters it, before saying, “Next time send me a text, that you’re in the office. So, what have you got?” Sitting down Emily and Dolls go through the different aspects of the case files and decided that they need to call in Tucker Gardner for questioning.

This time Tucker came in with his lawyer and refused to answer any questions that Emily asked, but he willingly answered all of Dolls. Emily knew then that without solid physical evidence linking Tucker with the missing girls, they had nothing to pin on him. After an hour of questioning, Tucker and his lawyer left the station, he was free to go, but Dolls reminded him that if they needed to talk to him again, it would be in his best interests to oblige.

MEANWHILEAt the Earp-Haught homestead, Waverly, Wynonna, and Louise sat on the back porch drinking coffee as they watched their children playing on Waverly’s back lawn. Wynonna noticed how spaced out Louise was and so she tried to lighten up the mood, “Last night at Shorty’s, Stephanie was so wasted that she stripped off her top and started handing out lap dances, even to the women.” Wynonna says with a chuckle.

“Wyn, and you didn’t think to stop her?” Waverly scolds her sister.

“Baby girl, it was the least that I could do, after all the times she threw herself at Chump. She looked as if she was enjoying herself.” Wynonna replies looking at Louise, hoping that the blonde would at least give a smile, but she just looked out over the lake.

Alison came walking up the porch stairs with a flower in her little hands, as she approached her mum, the little girl extended her arm out and said, “For you Mummy. Make you happy.” It was only when her daughter spoke that Louise’s expression changed from a dead pan to a half smile. Louise reached down and lifted her daughter onto her lap and said, “Thank you Snuggle bug. I am happy now. Go and have fun and play with your friends and your sister.”

Once Alison had left her mother’s side and returned to playing with the others on the lawn, Louise looked over at Waverly and Wynonna with a half-hearted smile. “How are you holding up?” Waverly reaches out and places her hand on top of Louise’.

“I just can’t believe that Emily would do that. When I go to bed at night, all I see is her standing in that office and that tramp’s mouth wrapped around Emily’s cock. I am filled with so much anger and hurt.” Louise says as tears well up in her eyes.

Wynonna takes a slip from her mug before saying, “Before joining Black Badge, I worked as a Private Investigator, and most of my work was trailing cheating partners. I noticed that a small group of people I have to trail, were like Emily, deeply devoted to their partners, but something had happened in their lives, which caused them to flip out.” Wynonna made quote marks when she came to ‘flip out’.

“Wynonna, that’s cruel.” Waverly wacks her sister’s arm with the back of her hand.

“Ouch. All I’m saying is Emily would not cheat if she was going through something, she’s having trouble coping with. Can you think of anything she might be struggling with?” Wynonna sympathetically looks at the blonde woman, who is now crying on Waverly’s shoulder.

After some time of being allowed to release her feelings amongst her friends in a secure setting. Louise and the girls leave and head back to their home in town, as Emily was coming that afternoon to spend some time with the girls. Along the drive back into town, Louise thinks about the past several weeks since Emily received that parcel. It then that she realises that her wife’s behaviour had changed and maybe it had something to do with that photo album, notebook, and letter.

Emily finished her shift with Black Badge, she quickly changes out of her work clothes and into a pair of blue jeans (the ones that Louise loved to check out her but in), a green button up shirt and joggers. The black haired woman knew that if she was going to ever try to win her wife back, it meant that she was going to have to face her demons, which at that moment were living inside a box on a shelf in her home, the home she was heading to.

Alison, Vicki, and Emily spent their afternoon drinking milkshakes and eating doughnuts before heading to the local park. While she gently gave her daughters a push on the swings, Emily’s phone rang, looking at the caller ID, she saw that it was Dolls. Instead of taking the call, she allowed it to go through to voice mail, because she wanted to give her daughters all her attention. Their time was soon over and the group of three headed back to the home, where Louise was waiting with the girl’s dinner.

Kissing the cheeks of her daughters before embracing them in the tightest hug, Emily told the crying pups that she loved them, and she was going to see them in a couple days. Emily stood up and was surprised by the look of tenderness mixed with hurt within her wife’s eyes. They gave each other a nod before Emily descended the stairs and walked back to the station, where her car was parked.

Along the way Emily remembered that Dolls had called, so she listened to the voice message, which said, “Emily, I’m at the hospital, just after you left the station, we got a call that the missing dance studio girls had been found. Only one of them survived. When you get this call me. Dolls.”