Alphas Divided - Part 1 of 3 by Jamie Klaire, J. M. Klaire

 
    Alphas Divided
     
    Chapter 1
    Emma knew the clichéd stereotype about being a cop's daughter, and she fit it to a tee. The fact that her best friend Kate was a preacher's kid, and neither of their parents were around very much, didn't help matters at all. The pair had learned early that the world was their playground, and no one had the nerve to turn them in. Until today.
    Emma and Kate had decided to spend Emma's 18th birthday the way they spent most weekends- shopping. Shopping, for them, meant shoplifting. Emma and Kate were quite proud of the fact that they hadn't actually spent any money in a store for a couple of months now, preferring to challenge each other to see who could steal the choicest stuff on each 'shopping' trip.
    Kate usually won, being much more daring, but today Emma had been damned determined to win. It was her birthday, after all.
    Their biggest mistake, as Emma saw it, was leaving the county in which they lived, and in which her dad was the Sherriff, and trying their skills in the neighboring county's big city mall.
    Because here, her daddy's name meant nothing.
    "Please, sir..." Kate tried pleading with the store's manager, to no avail.
    "I know, I know. It's your first time to do something like this, it was a dare, you've never done anything like this before, your parents will kill you if I call them, can't I just let you go this one time, you've learned your lesson and won't ever do this again."
    His sarcasm shut Kate up, her big brown eyes confused. She was used to getting her way, based purely on her looks, with Emma's daddy as her back-up plan.
    Emma wasn't sure if it was Kate's not understanding that her boobs weren't getting them out of trouble this time, or if it was the manager's been-there-heard-that eye-rolling that amused her, but she couldn't help the snort that escaped her lips.
    Kate shot her a do something look, but Emma just shook her head at her friend, trying to tell her with body language that nothing she could say would help here. Now if they had stayed closer to home, instead of trying their skills here...well, that would have been different.
    But Kate wasn't quite ready to give up just yet. "Do you know who we are? Who she is?" Kate carried on, desperate.
    "Not a clue. And honestly, I don't really care." Was the manager's response, as he waited for the police officer he had already called to show up.
    " Emma Hayle. " She said it like it would mean something here.
    He just looked at her, eyebrows raised, his look clearly saying, "Who?"
    Kate kept on, trying to dig them out of this hole they found themselves in. A hole they were not used to being in. Damn, why had they left Catt county?
    "Sheriff Hayle's daughter?" Kate insisted.
    "No idea who that is, sorry. But she does look kind of like, umm, what's her name? The one always getting into trouble out in Hollywood? That redhead, the one who used to be cute? Only, taller."
    Emma knew which actress he was referring to, there were only so many redheads, and she got compared to all of them over the years, but she didn't help him out with any names. She was determined not to open her mouth in here and give anyone any ammunition to use against her. Although, taller was not the word she was used to hearing when someone compared her to someone else.
    "Sheriff Hayle's kid?" A new voice spoke up, pulling the girls' attention to the office door that had opened silently.
    An older, grizzled-looking police officer filled the doorway, his tired eyes looked over the girls, and settled on Emma.
    "No, she doesn't look like who you mean. She looks like that other one, the one who plays that author's daughter on that TV show. Only...bigger."
    And there it was, Emma thought. That's the word she was used to- bigger.
    Emma did stand inches above most girls her age, but it was that word, bigger, that most people settled on when they talked about her, trying to be nice. She knew that petite would never be a word she'd hear aimed in her direction, but