Disclaimer for the entire story: Sadly, I do not own Strange Magic, although I do have the DVD that I play once a week. All events, names, and places are coincidental. Enjoy the story!
Chapter 1
Bog Mcgallrigh stands in front of the mirror putting concealer on the left side of his face. Muttering about nagging mothers, crying princess, and crazy tough girls, he reflects about how he got the bruise in the first place.
His mother had set him up on a blind date, again. This time in the city park with its fresh springtime flowers, just that morning on his only day off this week. When he got to the designated meeting place a petite blonde girl, that looked a little too young, was waiting for him.
"Hi! I'm Dawn, you must be Bog. Your mother told me so much about you," she greets enthusiastically while wrapping around his middle in a hug.
"Um, Hi Dawn. Uh, how old are ye," Bog hesitantly asks?
"I'm eighteen. Oh, today is going to be so exciting. Your mother gave me a list of all the things you like, so I have the whole day planned for us to get to know one another," Dawn replies, not noticing the shock on her companion's face.
"Hold it. I'm sorry but I can not continue this date," Bog states firmly, finally able to remove her arms and holding her at a distance.
Baby-blue eyes stare at him before welling up with tears. Loud sobbing rips through the park, startling Bog enough to back away a few steps. Flustered and not sure what to do, he gets quite the surprise when he hears screaming and turns around just in time to get a rather small but powerful right hook to his left jaw, sending him sprawling on the ground. Still a bit dazed, he overhears Dawn trying to calm the one who hit him, another girl, this one a brunette.
"-nne! Why did you hit him," Dawn asks in shock?
"He was bothering you, so of course I hit him," the brunette explains rather calmly for the glare she is sending his way.
"It wasn't like that. He just doesn't want to even give me a chance, so I might have overreacted," Dawn answers wringing her hands.
"Ye might have overreacted? Lass, I don't know what my mam told ye to get ye to agree to this date but I'm thirty-two. I'm not going to date a child," he answers gruffly while getting up from the ground, rubbing his jaw.
"I'm not a child," Dawn answers indignantly.
"No, he's right about that. I can't believe you cried that hysterically just because he said he didn't want to date you. Wait, I actually can," the brunette responds, now sending her glare to the younger girl. "Listen, I'm sorry for punching you, apparently unjustly, and thank you for being an honorable guy but I'm getting this troublemaker back home where she belongs."
He watches as the brunette grabs the now protesting blonde by the arm and drags her out the park, listening, as her lectures to the younger girl get farther away by the minute.
Shaking his head out of the memory, Bog places the finishing touches to the concealer, praying that none of his co-workers will be able to see the fast-growing bruise underneath. His mother was bad enough when he came home early from his date with it beginning to show. So, of course, she called the girl to find out what happened when he refused to give her a straight answer, of course, the darling little princess answered quite eagerly to the questioning, and of course, the tough girl with the meanest right hook he ever felt was her older sister, her recently single older sister. If he had an at least tolerable person list, the blonde would be off in a heartbeat for supplying that kind of information to his very eager mother. He had never been so happy to be called into work on his day off before.
Deciding his face was as good as it got, he brushes his thick dark brown hair into place and dresses in the rest of his uniform, his gun belt last after making sure his weapon is working properly. Stepping back and taking his full profile in the mirror, he thinks, not for the first time, that he wishes he could be the kind of son his mother deserves and give her all the grandchildren her heart desired. But no woman would really give his six-foot-nine lanky form, sharp features, and multiple scars a good thought. His only redeeming quality was the bright blue eyes his father gave him but standing out in the midst of his dark figure and the dark blue and black of his police uniform, it's really no wonder why no good grown woman would give him a chance. Shaking his morose thoughts, he bids his mother goodnight as he passes her downstairs, and enters the passenger seat of his partner's green Wrangler.
On the list of tolerable people, his partner, one Thomas Kipps, was in the middle except on days like today. Without his usual jolly, sometimes annoyingly chipper greeting, Thomas gets straight to the point and asks in shocked fascination who managed to clock him.
"Drive or I'll clock ye," Bog growls out.
Sometimes Bog wonders how someone as easily intimated like Thomas even made it on the police force with how quick the shorter man forgets his question and drives toward the station without another word. An odd duo they made for sure but a surprisingly effective partnership, as long as Thomas remembered that everyone, especially his partner, doesn't share his perpetual happiness. The drive wasn't as tension-filled as one might expect but Thomas had gotten used to his partner's sour moods, knew when he wasn't really mad at him and he liked to keep it that way. At the station, they got assigned to a patrol job and just barely manages to get in and out without any remarks about the bruise that the concealer didn't quite cover.
The afternoon goes quietly without much disruption until near evening when they spot a black with purple decal Cruze speeding down the highway. With a flick of the lights, Bog drives after them and is satisfied they won't put up any trouble when the driver immediately pulls over. Getting out of the car, he smiles at the baby in the backward facing car seat and heads to the driver's window.
"License, registration, and...Oh no. Not ye again," Bog exclaims as he spots a familiar brunette staring at him in shock from the driver's seat!
"Oh! It's you Mr...I mean Officer Mcgallrigh. What...What seems to be the problem," the flustered woman questions?
Just as he is about to think that the world is against him, Bog catches details about the woman's body language that makes him realize something is wrong. This isn't the same woman he met hours ago when she fiercely defended her sister against someone a foot taller than her, no, this woman with a baby in the backseat is terrified of something and was barely holding herself together.
"The reason I pulled ye over was that ye were speeding but I think only ye can tell me what the problem is," Bog explains calmly, hoping to ease her fears.
It seems crying women are his curse today, as watery golden eyes silently spill over. She reaches over to the passenger seat, picks up a large thick manilla envelope, and hands it over to him.
"We were only in the store about five minutes, ten minutes at most. The car doors were locked. I put BB in his car seat and got in the car before I noticed that thing on the passenger seat. I got out of there quick, just in case, you know. The doors were locked, I know they were locked," the woman insists as she wrings her fingers, even as the tears keep falling silently.
Bog opens the envelope slightly and notices dozens of photographs. The woman alone, with her sister, with the baby, and with an older gentleman. Some all together and a few of the baby alone or obviously at a daycare. The more disturbing were the love notes he could make out. Sweetie. Darling. Buttercup. Princess. Babycakes. Decision made, he gently tosses the envelope back onto the passenger seat.
"Do I have permission to drive yer car," he asks patiently?
"What...What do you mean," she replies?
"Ye're obviously not fit to drive at the moment and possibly in shock. The baby is asleep and these need to be reported at the police station. With yer permission, I will drive you to the station, have your car checked for tampering, and those papers dusted for prints. Now if I have yer permission, why don't ye sit back here beside yer baby and be assured that ye are safe now," Bog gently explains.
With gratitude beaming in her glassy eyes, she unbuckles her seatbelt and does as he instructed. Listening to her quiet assurances to the sleeping baby, he makes his way back to the squad car. At Thomas' agreement on the course of action, Bog takes the woman's car and heads off toward the station with his partner right behind. He radios into dispatch with the situation and requests forensic to meet them to check for tampering and prints. A quick check in the mirror reveals a calmer woman, though still not quite the spirit he saw earlier. Pulling into the station, he sees the spot the forensic team is at and parks. After helping get the car seat out with the still sleeping baby, he guides her to his office while the team gets to work.
"Now I need to know anyone ye can think of who would have motive and opportunity to do this. Have you received anything of this nature before, even on a smaller scale of just getting an unknown letter in the mail," Bog questions while setting the car seat beside the desk?
"Oh I know who did this but there isn't any way I can really prove it. He's really good at getting himself out of messes. My ex-husband, Roland Grange. He bothered me before we got together and after I left him. He wants my family's fortune and BB was the quickest way to get it until I refused to let the hospital staff put him down as the father and filed the divorce papers hours later. Those are all his pet names for me, he is the only one who ever called me those. He is the only one who would do something like this. He took pictures of BB while I was at work, at his daycare where he's supposed to be safe, and he got into my locked car," she answers a little too quickly.
"Whoa! Easy there, tough girl! Everything will be alright," Bog exclaims, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at him!
Her eyes, a little wild and showing more fear then he thinks she realizes, locks onto his and she takes several slow deep breaths. Noticing she is beginning to look a little sick, he tells her the way to the women's restroom but she stares instead at the now awake baby, her fear screaming loudly in her eyes. Bog picks up the baby and guides them both to the restroom, keeping a steadying hand on her while also trying to keep his uniform buttons from being pulled off.
'It's just one of those days,' Bog thinks as he walks into the women's restroom, startling several of his co-workers, as the woman runs to an open stall in time to empty the contents of her stomach. Ignoring the curious eyes and the hot flush he can feel creeping from his collar to his ears, Bog stares at the back of the restroom door and lets the babbling baby play with his hand.