Chapter 2: Samantha

In the Sacramento Valley, it was not called Indian summer when days of stifling 100-degree weather lasted well into late September. It was just a matter of routine. In most years autumn-like weather didn’t start until well after Halloween, sometimes not until Thanksgiving. It was all just a part of living in the interior of the Golden State.

Scott wiped a slight sheen of sweat from his brow as he drove through the Gardenville streets at 2:20 PM on a Wednesday afternoon. The outside temperature was 98 degrees and the air conditioner of his tired Toyota Camry struggled to make the inside of the car habitable. He thought fleetingly how nice it would be to get the system recharged with fresh coolant but knew it was a pipe dream. He had his portion of the $4400 house payment due in a few days, not to mention his half of the utility bills. The air conditioning would just have to wait until next year. Hopefully the car would last that long.

Traffic was heavy on Valley Oak Drive – one of the main arteries through this portion of the suburb. Valley Oak High School had just let out five minutes before and the students were all pushing out onto the street and clogging it up. Most of them drove late model cars. Jetta’s and other Volkswagen products were the most popular among the girls while the boys favored restored older cars. Scott had to slam on his brakes as a boy in a cherry-red 1965 Mustang pulled out in front of him, his tires squealing, the rear end fishtailing just a bit.

He shook his head in frustration. Business as usual in front of the high school. The Gardenville PD made a point to keep their units well clear of the area during dismissal. God forbid they should actually write a ticket to the son or daughter of one of their rich prick citizens and incur the wrath of some hired mouthpiece in court or possibly an angry editorial in the Gardenville Register. Customer service was the name of the game at Gardenville PD and the citizens were the customers.

After clearing the high school zone, Scott turned off on a two-lane residential street and fought his way through another brief spate of congested traffic. The vehicles making up this particular jam were mostly mini-vans, luxury sedans, and absurdly large SUVs that had never put so much as a tire off of paved surface. These were the mothers of the neighborhood who – like him – had come to pick up their children from Thomas J. Brookfield Elementary School.

The school, which was named after the real estate developer who had funded its construction as part of the southern Gardenville master plan, was of conservative architecture and ultra-modern construction. The buildings were box shaped with fake brick walls. The grounds were immaculately landscaped. The playground equipment was made of plastic and designed not to allow any litigation causing injuries. The pick-up lane was choked with cars, the line stretching well out into the street and around the corner onto a side street. Some of the mothers, Scott knew, showed up more than thirty minutes early to get at the front of this line.

Scott knew better than to do this though. After two weeks of picking the kids up three times a week, he had a system down. He bypassed the end of the line and parked across the street instead. He got out of his car and walked up, weaving through the parking lot until he came to the front of the school, where the children would be funneling out in less than five minutes.

There was a large pagoda here and about two dozen mothers were already in attendance, gathered in their little clique groups, chattering to one another. Some pushed baby carriages, some chatted on cellular phones, some sipped iced coffee drinks from the nearby Starbucks, others had well-trained dogs on leashes despite the sign on the wall forbidding animals on school grounds.

Judith Linden was one of the mothers. Like always, she had a group of about six other women around her and was talking softly and seriously to them in the manner of a professional gossip. Her entourage was huddled close, nodding seriously from time to time, occasionally asking a question for clarity. Scott wondered if they were talking about him. He knew that he and Maggie and their two “illegitimate kids” were a favorite subject of hers. He walked by them on his way to the out-of-the-way corner of the pagoda he favored and as soon as he was in earshot, they clammed up.

“Yep,” he whispered to himself sourly. “They’re talking about us.”

God only knew what distorted tales she was spreading this time. Since that first day nearly a month ago when Judith’s call to 9-1-1 had resulted in an armed confrontation on his front lawn, she had been going out of her way to make herself as much of an annoyance as possible. The first thing had been a certified letter sent to the house. The letter had been printed on stationary of the Southern Gardenville Homeowner’s Association and had informed him that – as a new homeowner in the neighborhood – he was scheduled to attend an interview by the Board of Directors on the following Monday. It had not asked, it had told. He had immediately called the number listed on the bottom and his call had been forwarded to Judith herself.

“Just calling to tell you we won’t be at your interview,” he said politely. “But thanks for inviting us.”

“Is there a problem with the date?” she asked. “If so, we can reschedule.”

“No, there’s no problem with the date. We just won’t be there.”

This flustered her. “Mr. Dover,” she said firmly. “The interview with the Board is customary for all new homeowners. It’s a chance to get to know you and to explain the rules set down in the convents, conditions, and restrictions about what you may and may not do on and with your property.”

“You know all you need to know about me already,” he said. “And as for the CC&R, we have a copy of it. It was one of those ten thousand pieces of paper we signed to buy the house. So, again, I thank you for the invitation and respectfully decline.”

“You can’t decline,” she insisted. “The interview is mandatory before admission to the association.”

“Then don’t admit us,” he said flippantly.

“You have to be a member in order to live in the neighborhood,” she said.

“Well, then I guess we have ourselves a dilemma, don’t we? But since we’ve already closed on the house and since we’ve already paid our first dues for your little association, it would seem we already are members, aren’t we?”

“But this is to make it official,” she insisted.

“I really don’t care whether its official or not,” he said. “I’m just calling to tell you we won’t be there, so don’t wait up for us, okay?”

“Mr. Dover,” she said firmly. “You don’t seem to understand. If you don’t attend the interview...”

“Goodbye, Ms. Linden,” he interrupted. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

With that, he’d hung up. Since then, two more notices to appear had come via certified mail. He had ignored both. The ball was now in Judith’s court and he was waiting for it to come volleying back to him.

Scott adjusted his mirrored sunglasses as he leaned against the chain-link fence near the edge of the school grounds, his eyes casually scanning the pagoda where Judith held court. He didn’t acknowledge her or her little cabal, but he knew they were watching. They always were.

He sipped from his lukewarm iced coffee, just passing time. And then—like clockwork—she appeared.

Samantha Belkin, in her high-end yoga pants and white tank top, blonde hair pulled back like she was about to go on a magazine shoot. She didn’t come over every time, but often enough that he’d started to expect it. Or hope for it. He wasn’t sure which yet.

She walked with that practiced suburban elegance—shoulders back, smile already engaged before she reached him.

“Hi, Scott,” she said, just a little breathy, just a little conspiratorial. “Hot again today.”

He gave her a nod. “It’s the Valley. Always is.”

Samantha chuckled, brushing an imaginary strand of hair from her face. “I swear, I spend half my life in a car with the AC running and the other half pretending I enjoy walking outside.”

Scott smiled faintly but said nothing.

She let the silence sit for a beat, eyes flicking sideways toward the pagoda. Judith and her harpies were definitely watching—probably trying to lip-read. Samantha turned her body slightly, enough to block the view of her expression.

“You picking up today?” she asked.

“Yup. Maggie’s working.”

She nodded. “You two have a good system worked out. It’s ... modern.”

That word. Modern. Neutral on the surface. Loaded underneath.

The system worked because it had to. Maggie worked nights Monday through Thursday; Scott worked nights Thursday through Sunday. That gave them a thin 24-hour overlap on Thursdays—both worked that night—so Scott’s mother came over to help. She still drove the same VW microbus from her hippie days, usually pulled into the driveway by 7:00 PM and stayed until Maggie and/or Scott arrived home around 6:30 AM or so.

Maggie handled mornings on Mondays. Scott did Tuesday through Thursday. Friday was Grandma’s day. Weekends were a coin toss. Their shifts were brutal, the sleep inconsistent, and the stress level high—but it beat single parenting on their own in a one-bedroom apartment on the edge of a beat-down patrol zone.

“Modern” was one way to describe it. Survivalist might’ve been more accurate.

Scott gave Samantha a noncommittal shrug. “It works for us.”

Another silence. Then Samantha glanced back toward the group again. “God, they’re worse than TSA agents. If I sneeze they’ll want to see my boarding pass.”

Scott chuckled at that. “They watching you or me?”

“Oh, me. Definitely.” Her eyes flicked back to him, and she dropped her voice a notch. “They’re always watching the woman who’s not supposed to be talking to the hot neighbor.”

That word again—hot. Was it a throwaway compliment? Banter? Or a signal?

Scott felt his pulse tick up a notch, but he pushed it down. She was older, married, polished. Smoking hot. Not the type that usually went for someone like him—not the cop groupies in low-cut tank tops and flip-flops he’d been banging since getting his badge. Samantha was ... higher tier. Out of his league, to put it mildly. And married on top of that.

Still. That last line stuck in his head like a burr.

“You ever get tired of it?” he asked, casually.

“The moms?” she replied, then tilted her head. “Or the part where my husband’s never home and I end up standing here flirting with you in broad daylight?”

Flirting.

She’d said it. Named it.

Scott didn’t answer right away. Samantha’s gaze was soft but sharp, like she was testing the waters without ever dipping her foot in. She knew the other women were watching, but she didn’t care. Or maybe she cared a lot, and that was the entire point.

Samantha shifted her weight, letting her arm brush just slightly against his as she leaned in to watch the kids start filing out.

Then she smiled—polite, demure, with just a hint of something else underneath—and walked off toward the pickup lane, hips swaying like a metronome tuned to private tension.

Scott stood there for a moment longer, watching her go, and muttered to himself: “Jesus Christ. What the fuck was that about?”

Chris and Katie were in fourth and sixth grade, respectively. So far, they were fitting into their new school—for the most part, anyway. Both were keenly aware that they were out of their element, though they couldn’t quite explain why.

They’d only ever gone to inner-city schools—places filled with kids of the unemployed, the working poor, and single moms just trying to keep it together. This place wasn’t like that.

This place was clean, oversized, and expensive. No corners cut in construction. No signs of budget limitations or bureaucratic neglect. Was that fair or unfair? Scott didn’t know. He was just happy that his daughter and Maggie’s son were on the good side of the equation.

And the students? Privileged—every single one of them.

They were all white. They wore name-brand clothes. They carried Herschel Supply Co. backpacks that cost $120 at Buy Buy Baby and other stores that didn’t even exist in their old neighborhoods.

Katie’s backpack had come from Target. Chris’s was a hand-me-down from Maggie’s previous life in retail. Neither of them seemed to care much, but Scott noticed. The divide. The quiet rules of status that kids understood even if they couldn’t articulate them.

He spotted them coming out together, Chris walking slightly ahead, Katie behind, both looking flushed from the heat and ready to be anywhere else but school.

“Hey, hooligans,” Scott called, raising a hand.

Katie brightened immediately. “Daddy!”

She ran to him, throwing her arms around his waist. Scott dropped a hand to her back and gave her a gentle squeeze.

“Learn anything today?” he asked.

Katie looked up at him, serious. “Did you know that squirrels can’t burp?”

Scott blinked. “That ... wasn’t on my list of expected answers.”

“But it’s true,” she said, nodding as if defending a peer-reviewed study.

“I’ll sleep better tonight with that knowledge,” he told her.

Chris caught up, slinging his beat-up backpack onto one shoulder. “Can we get McDonalds?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” Scott said. “I have a meatloaf all put together and ready for baking for our nightly feast.”

“Meatloaf?” Scott asked. “Are you serious?”

“I am dead serious,” he said. He had known Chris a long time—since he was a toddler, pretty much—but this was their first time cohabitating together. Their roles in each other’s lives were still solidifying under this new reality.

“Daddy’s meatloaf is the bomb!” Katie declared. “Are we having macaroni and cheese with it?”

“Of course we are,” Scott said. “Do I look like a freakin’ barbarian?”

“Yay!” she said.

“What about Jamba Juice?” Chris asked. “Can we stop there?”

“No,” Scott said simply. “Jamba juice is expensive and neither me nor your mother have money falling out of our butts. You two can have crackers and cheese with lemonade when we get home.” He waved toward the car. “Now ... load it up.”

They piled in. Scott drove in silence for a few blocks, letting them cool off in the AC and fight over music in the back seat. Chris won, barely, with some sanitized version of punk rock that made Scott question the future of America.

“Hey, Scott?” Chris asked eventually, voice quieter now. “You ever shoot anybody?”

The question caught him off guard. Not because he hadn’t heard it before—civilians asked it all the time. But Chris wasn’t just a kid. He was Maggie’s kid. And he was watching Scott like he was waiting for an answer that meant something more.

Scott kept his eyes on the road. “Nope.”

“Oh,” Chris said, trying to sound neutral. “But you’ve arrested people, right?”

“Sure,” Scott said. “Locked up plenty of bad guys.”

“Like ... gang members? Or murderers?”

Scott sighed quietly. “I don’t really talk about work, Chris. Not with people who aren’t cops.”

“Why not?”

“Because people who aren’t cops don’t get it,” Scott said. “And I don’t want to bring that stuff home. It doesn’t belong here.”

Chris was quiet after that. But in the rearview, Scott saw him nod. Not upset—just processing. And if he was honest, Scott didn’t hate the look the kid gave him a few seconds later. It wasn’t awe. But it was close.

“Is Mom sleeping?” Chris asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s got the morning watch again, just like every Wednesday. My mom will be over tomorrow night when both of us work.”

“Nana’s the bomb,” Katie said. “She always brings Jolly Ranchers with her. I like the apple ones.”

“She always gets us McDonalds too,” Chris mumbled.

Scott sighed. “I don’t think I was supposed to hear that.” At least she wasn’t handing out THC gummies yet—though she and pops were pretty fond of those themselves.

Scott smiled faintly. Home. Their version of it, anyway.

He made the turn onto Morning Cove Way. Their house stood out just enough to irritate Judith every time she looked at it. That thought alone made the mortgage easier to swallow.

They pulled into the driveway and parked. Scott killed the engine and turned around in his seat.

“Grab your backpacks. No brawling in the kitchen. And if you touch the thermostat, I will keelhaul both of you.”

“What’s keel hauling?” Chris asked.

“Tying you by the feet and dragging you under a ship so the barnacles shred your skin and fill the wounds with saltwater.”

“That’s cool,” Chris said.

“That’s child abuse,” Katie informed him.

“Who’s gonna arrest a cop for that?” Scott asked, giving them a faux-shrewd look.

And with that, the chaos of the school day faded into the quiet rhythm of after-school life—backpacks dumped, cereal boxes opened, and one very tired cop wondering just how little energy he could expend before the kids went to bed.

The kids scattered once they got inside, Katie heading straight to the kitchen for lemonade and crackers, Chris making a show of opening his Chromebook like he was about to solve nuclear fusion, then promptly disappearing with a mouse in hand.

Scott tossed his keys into the dish by the door, slipped off his boots, and headed to his bedroom. He unclipped the holster from his belt—his off-duty weapon still secured inside. Like any cop, he carried everywhere. Going out without a gun on made him feel naked, exposed, vulnerable. But he was home now. Time to let down the defenses.

He stepped into the room, set the holstered gun on the nightstand, and then turned right back around, locking the door behind him. Routine. Not worth thinking about. Just what you did when you had to carry a gun and you had kids in the house.

The Giants game was already on—bottom of the third, no score yet. He dropped into his usual spot on the couch with a quiet groan and grabbed the remote, adjusting the volume.

The Giants were playing with their fans’ emotions again this year—surging into incredible winning streaks that made them look like playoff contenders, followed immediately by losing streaks so ugly you’d think it was a different team entirely. But it wasn’t. It was just the Giants. As always. Painful, chaotic, and somehow still lovable.

At 4:15, he got up and put the meatloaf in the oven—his own recipe, heavy on the garlic and Worcestershire, the onions chopped so fine they were unnoticeable. Katie loved it. Chris had never tried it before—Maggie was a good cook but did not know how to make a simple meatloaf—but Scott was confident in his creation.

At 5:45, he boiled water and stirred in the butter and a the bright orange macaroni powder that passed for cheese. It was a perfect pairing: one part comfort food, one part chemical warfare. The kids would be thrilled. At 5:55, he nuked the bag of steamed mixed vegetables. He knew full well only he and Maggie would eat any of them. The kids would pretend to try, then push them around the plate like they were doing art class with green beans, eventually hiding most of it under their napkins before rinsing their plates and getting dessert.

Chris had finished his homework and was now glued to the PS5, deep into a session of Lego Star Wars or maybe Minecraft, tongue sticking out slightly as he mashed buttons with intense seven-year-old focus. Katie was curled on the recliner, watching a Roblox YouTuber scream unintelligible things at top volume.

And then Maggie emerged.

She shuffled down the hallway like a hungover rock star, wearing an oversized t-shirt that hung past her thighs, no bra, and bare legs. Her hair looked like it had lost a fight with a leaf blower. She scratched her neck and yawned like a lioness just waking from a nap.

Scott looked over from the kitchen and raised an eyebrow. “Well, look what the cat dragged out.”

Maggie blinked, looked down at herself, and shrugged. “I’m wearing clothes. What more do you want?”

Scott grinned. “You’re lucky the HOA doesn’t have interior dress code enforcement.”

“Give Judith time,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes as she made her way to the coffee pot.

“Dinner’s in ten,” Scott said. “Meatloaf, mac, and the obligatory bag of vegetables no one will eat.”

“Ah, the essentials,” Maggie said, pouring herself a mug of coffee. “Did I sleep through anything exciting?”

Scott Dover had not always planned to become a cop.

He’d grown up in a two-bedroom bungalow in the rural part of south Heritage county, raised by loving but profoundly impractical hippie parents. They weren’t abusive or neglectful—in fact, they were the kind of people who always had a pot of herbal tea ready and kept a dream journal beside the bed. But they were still living in the 1970s, spiritually if not chronologically. His father—a geologist by trade—also made wind chimes from recycled bicycle parts and played mandolin in a band that never practiced. His mother—a bookkeeper for a chain of independently owned head shops (they called them ‘smoke shops’ these days)—also sold hand-dyed fabrics and once claimed a hummingbird had whispered investment advice to her during a meditation.

They were kind. Supportive. Occasionally infuriating. Very strange.

He loved them deeply. But by the time he was old enough to realize most people didn’t grow up attending full-moon drum circles or calling their dad by his first name, he also realized he wanted something different. Something structured. Predictable. Clean lines. Rules.

Structure, however, was not what he found when he got married.

He met Katie’s mother, Taryn, when he was twenty-two and working nights as a delivery driver while attending community college on a vague path toward an associate’s degree in biology. She was smart, attractive, and dangerous in the specific way that damaged people can be—charismatic, emotional, and always in crisis. For a while, that chaos made him feel like he was doing something important—like he was saving her from something. Or maybe saving himself.

They got married a year after they met. Katie was born ten months after that. And the entire relationship unraveled almost immediately.

Taryn was never violent. Never cruel. And when it came to Katie, she was actually a good mother—attentive, gentle, completely wrapped around her daughter’s tiny finger. She handled the diapers and doctor’s visits, she never forgot a school event, and she could calm Katie’s cries with nothing more than a song and a sway.

But as a partner? She was a disaster.

Unreliable, impulsive, emotionally erratic.

She picked fights over nothing, self-sabotaged when things were calm, and swung between romantic idealism and bitter resentment like a pendulum on fast-forward. She loved Scott in theory, but she didn’t know how to be in a relationship without burning it down from the inside. Every day was either a honeymoon or a cold war, and there was never a middle ground.

Scott tried to hold things together—for Katie’s sake, and maybe out of some misplaced hope that things would settle. But they didn’t.

They made it three years before he filed for divorce.

It wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t contested. It was just over.

He moved out, paid his child support on time, and kept his distance.

Katie stayed with her mother most of the time. Scott was the weekend father. He hated it but the court had spoken.

And so he settled into divorced life.

Taryn died two years later.

It was a sudden brain hemorrhage. She’d been sitting in a spa lobby, waiting for a mani-pedi appointment—almost certainly paid for with his child support money—and just slumped over without a word. By the time the ambulance got there, she was gone.

There was no custody fight. No drawn-out legal mess. Just a funeral he paid for and a little girl who suddenly needed him full-time.

Katie had been five then.

She didn’t cry when she moved into his apartment. She just asked if she could bring her stuffed dog and whether he knew how to make toast.

He did.

And after that, things got better. Slowly. Grudgingly. But better.

Now there was just the small matter of how to support and care for his daughter without the benefit of a wife or even an ex-wife.

Scott hadn’t been looking for a career in law enforcement. But sometimes life hands you something that looks like a door, and you walk through it mostly just to see where the hell it goes.

It started with a conversation at a gas station, of all places. A guy he barely knew from high school—a few years younger—a sophomore when Scott had been a senior. Not someone Scott had ever taken seriously. Scott didn’t even remember his name now, but he’d spotted him filling up and struck up a conversation. The guy was applying for the sheriff’s department.

“They’re hiring,” he’d said. “Starting pay’s solid, and the schedule’s good once you’re off probation. You get to carry a gun and tell people what to do.”

That was the sales pitch.

Scott didn’t think much of it at first. But it stuck with him.

He needed a good-paying job. Something with benefits, structure, and preferably the kind of odd-hour flexibility that would allow him to juggle parenting without ending up working the register at 7-Eleven for the next decade. A few days later, he looked into it.

He applied.

As far as he knew, that guy from the gas station never got hired—probably washed out during the background check or just got filtered out in the psychological phase for being too young, too eager, or too loud. But Scott? Scott made it through.

The written test came first. It was less of a challenge and more of a filter—obviously designed to weed out the illiterates and the mouth-breathers, not to evaluate anything meaningful. He passed easily.

Then came the physical agility test: the infamous obstacle course, followed by a hundred-yard sprint to the finish line—all in under three minutes and thirty seconds. Scott passed that too. Barely. But it still counted. They didn’t care if you crossed the line gasping like a fish and had to sit for nearly twenty minute to recover before you could pick yourself up and drive home. As long as you crossed it before the timer hit, they could wheel you out in a coroner’s van and it would still be logged as a pass.

Next were the interviews.

The first was a panel of three deputies, all of whom looked like they’d seen things no human should see and didn’t particularly care to be there. He did well—kept his answers short, direct, and free of anything too clever. That seemed to go over well.

Then came the chief’s interview. More buttoned-up. More political. Still fine.

And finally, the interview with the Sheriff himself—a tradition the sitting sheriff insisted on. No one was hired without shaking his hand and looking him in the eye. It was part interview, part performance, part loyalty test. Scott passed that too.

He was hired.

The Heritage County Sheriff’s Department’s Basic Recruit Academy was located on the north bank of the Heritage River, in the unincorporated suburb of Belhaven, a few miles east of the Heritage city limits. It occupied what used to be a municipal water treatment facility—long decommissioned, questionably remediated, and never quite free of its past.

The buildings were refurbished, the classrooms updated, and the drill yard paved over, but the old holding ponds and rusting tanks still ringed the property, fenced off and overgrown with weeds. Depending on the direction of the wind or the thickness of the morning fog, the air carried a faint but undeniable scent of sewage.

No one talked about it, but everyone noticed it. You just learned to breathe shallow and keep moving.

The symbolism wasn’t lost on Scott, even if no one ever said it out loud—you entered the department through a place that still smelled like shit, because that was the job. You were here to wade into it. To shovel it. To survive it. If you couldn’t stomach the smell, you weren’t going to make it in the field.

The Heritage County Sheriff’s Academy ran twenty-two weeks, and every one of them was designed to strip you down, build you up, and then strip you down again—just to make sure you were paying attention.

It wasn’t as militaristic as Paris Island, but it wasn’t summer camp either. The days started early, the runs were long, and the instructors liked yelling just enough to remind you they could ruin your day if they felt like it.

Scott kept his head down, ran just fast enough to avoid embarrassment, and answered every question like there was a right one—even when there wasn’t.

That’s when he met Maggie Winslow.

She was cute, sure—dark hair, compact build, sharp jaw—but she didn’t flirt like some of the other women. She didn’t play dumb. And she sure as hell didn’t bat her lashes at instructors. She was cool to the guys in a way that wasn’t rude, just ... uninterested. Businesslike. Like she had a checklist and “male attention” wasn’t on it.