“You won’t be just any security guard. you’re gonna be the chubby inept security guard. Give you a little padding, a hunch back, fake teeth, a lift in your shoes, and glasses. The less you appear to be you, the better,” Charlie helpfully supplied.
“But then I’m supposed to see her after work as myself?”
“Not as yourself, but as the guy you were last night,” the captain said. “Mask and all. You can make that happen, right?”
Charlie nodded, “Absolutely, on a short-term basis. We won’t be able to use the mask every time. We have plenty of alternatives.”
Sean scoffed, “Which won’t get weird at all.”
“I doubt you laid down the foundation last night for a permanent relationship. As far as she knows, you were there for one thing, and if she was into the kinky then, she’ll probably still be into it later,” Charlie said. “It doesn’t have to be that often. Just enough to get more access to her building and set up a security feed.”
“I don’t like this,” Sean said. Lillian had seemed like a nice girl and pumping her for information—no matter how much they both enjoyed the pumping—didn’t sit well.
“This is the dream job. If I were a young, fit, single officer and my assignment was to get close to an attractive woman, which might unofficially involve sex, I wouldn’t be complaining,” the captain said.
“I don’t know. This isn’t what I trained for.”
The captain held up the mugshot of El Socio, “These are not nice people. They are killing our city with their drugs and their violence. We have a big dog here that we can catch, and this is our only scent. You’ve just joined the unit, but you already know it can be a lot dirtier than this. We’re asking for a few weeks of pretending and maybe we catch the bad guy. Most likely he’s smart enough never to come back. You don’t end up an old drug dealer by not being careful.”
“If it’s his family… I don’t know.” Sean’s brother Royce had almost gotten evicted last year, and Sean would have donated his left ball if necessary to keep his brother off the street. “Never underestimate blood.”
“Very true. Layton, why don’t you take him and do whatever eval you and the operations team need? You are officially his case officer, and he’ll report to you,” the captain said. “Chin up, Murphy, at least you get to go home at night and be yourself. The other undercover guys wish they were so lucky.”
In his head, Sean admitted it was nice he didn’t have to do the full immersion where his own family wasn’t allowed to know where he was, but being himself was part of the problem. He’d been very close to being himself when he was around her. Sexually speaking, letting her order him around and hitting him had fired all his cylinders. If he’d picked her up for real at a club, he’d have still been in bed with her… or chained to the bed.
“You make it sound that easy.”
“It is that easy. It’s a job. If you ever get invited back to her apartment, you’ll be set up by our team, and you’ll get time and a half. If you sleep with her, I might approve double time.”
“Very funny, sir.” Sean grabbed his orders off the table. “Duping an otherwise innocent woman.”
“You think she’s that innocent? You don’t think she’s mixed up with this?”
“I think she’s a doctor and has higher ethical standards than us,” Sean shot back.
Charlie intervened. “That’s my department. I’ll keep you on the straight and narrow and from crossing any lines. I have your back.”
Sean hoped so because he had no idea how he was going to navigate this with his soul intact.
Chapter7
The perfect place for resident and attendings gossip sessions was the main pediatric physician’s workroom on the third floor of MetroGen hospital. The perfect time was the 8:30 window between when the residents finished their lecture and before the medical students arrived. The resident and students would be together for lunchtime lecture, and it was best the students not be privy to what their superiors were up to.
Like now, since it was an excellent time to chat up your friends to find out what happened during the Halloween party. Resident-doctor Clarissa Morgan was on general peds this month and seemed to have detached her jaw from whoever she met at the Halloween party.
They had to be a little careful about their friendship, as it was frowned on to fraternize too much between attendings and residents. Then again, if Lillian had been selected for chief resident, she’d have still been one of them as a fourth year.
“What happened to you? We expected a text message. Did you get sick?” Clarissa asked.
“Oh, I was fine. I did go home a little early,” Lillian admitted. She’d woken up alone in bed, except for a pounding headache, which was consistent with how much she drank.
“Why a little early?” the Israeli resident Avigayle Molla wondered. She was married with four children, which explained her next sentence. “Not that I would known since I haven’t gone out dancing in almost a decade.”
“It was my Spanish Free Clinic Saturday,” Lily reminded them. Yet another activity that didn’t earn her the chief resident spot. She volunteered four hours a couple of Saturdays a month doing check ups and giving vaccines to mostly Puerto Rican children. The moms were always so grateful since they often worked two jobs and couldn’t come in on weekdays. A few even later stopped by her apartment building on occasion if they missed the clinic.
She got it. Her parents had both worked weekends too, with three kids, to make ends meet. She’d grown up in Oregon when her dad had taken a job with a software company. Her parents were happily retired and snow-birding in Florida from Labor Day to Memorial Day.
“So you weren’t sick?” Clarissa said. “But you never texted.”
