Don't Close Your Eyes (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 1) Read Free

shank of Wendell’s boot was teetering on her outstretched arm.

Chapter Two
    My name’s Chalice, Stephanie Chalice, which is pronounced Cha-lee-see , but most people don’t speak the Italian dialect, so they say Chal-lis . For some reason, they seem to enjoy the association with the spiritual and familiar but there’s really nothing spiritual about me. As soon as the word chalice is mentioned, heads fill with thoughts of the Eucharist, of sacramental wine, the blood of Christ, etc., which is quite a goddamn weight for a young woman to carry around on her shoulders. One thought leads to the next. Words run together within muddled minds: chalice, cup, vessel, and vestal virgin. Do you believe that last one? I get wisecracks like that from the guys all the time. Why can’t they just accept me for what I am, a rookie detective in the employ of the New York City Police Department.
    I’m twenty-eight years old and single. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, but I’ve definitely got my eye on someone.
    During the winter months I wear slacks and a blazer and try to cover up as much as possible. The less skin the better, right? Well, no, not exactly. It seems that no manner of dress is sufficient to keep my cohorts at bay. You see NYPD boys are bad boys. They can be the worst. It doesn’t seem to matter how I cover up. They all come out of the police academy remembering one thing and one thing only: single, young female equals search and detain, not detain and search, but search and detain. I suppose that’s what happens when you give men guns. Dear Lord!
    Well, it’s spring now, and not just any spring, but the most delightful one I can remember. The days are dreamy and the nights even dreamier and the winter weight camouflage just isn’t working for me anymore. Besides which, I am a woman and every once in a while I enjoy dressing like one. It was 5:00 a.m. when I got the call from my CO to hustle down to the tram station. It was Friday night out with the girls and I was dressed appropriately for bar crawling and flirting so I wasn’t dressed for work when my partner swung around to pick me up. My ensemble was geared more toward undercover work . . . I could’ve easily passed for a hooker.
    Men say that women are hard to understand and perhaps that’s true, but no one’s motives were ever more obvious than mine. You see, my father was a cop and I loved him dearly. God rest his soul, he put in twenty-nine years on the force and loved every minute of it until diabetes up and ran away with his life. It was the one crime he was powerless to stop. Dad’s been gone a while now. I remember him in his prime; strong, healthy, and dedicated to the job. He was a guy with honest-to-God moral values; old-fashioned values acquired from a strict Catholic upbringing. He was the kind of guy who would never let a little guy take a beating. As you can see, he made quite an impression on me. So there it is. Police work is in my blood or under my skin. In either case, my dad put it there.
    I think he’d be proud of me these days. His little girl was recently called a hero. My picture was in the newspaper and on TV. The brass certainly stood up and took notice. It earned this young detective some badly needed respect. I won the department’s flavor-of-the-month contest. I’m not so much vanilla, but more of a mocha-almond crunch. I collared a Libyan freedom fighter by the name of Gamal Haddad with a backpack full of explosives on New Year’s Eve. It seems that Mr. Haddad, an emissary of goodwill from the land of goat’s milk and camel dung, had decided to steal some attention from Ryan Seacrest by going up in a blaze of glory in Times Square. In the process, Mr. Haddad would have assured himself a place in paradise, praise be to Allah and all the rest of that overzealous dribble. All’s fair in love, war, and religion. Right? Bullshit! Well anyway, Ms. Photogenic’s picture was in all the New York newspapers. Everyone got a good