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“Jarrod,” I murmur, acknowledging my ex-partner in a neutral tone. He’s not exactly my favourite person anymore. Not since he threw me under the bus for a decision he made that got me put under investigation by Internal Affairs.
“I’m so sorry I missed Declan’s funeral last week, it’s just been crazy at work. We’re dealing with a string of missing women,” he rattles on, not even giving me a chance to answer him. It’s typical behaviour from Jarrod James. This call is undoubtedly about him, not me.
“It’s no problem,” I interject, stopping him from going on and on about whatever he was saying. I don’t care about his work day, as soon as this investigation is done I’m fucking out of there. The narcissistic pieces of shit I work with have made it abundantly clear that we are not a team, everyone is only out for themselves and I don’t fly like that.
“Listen, I have a favour to ask you.”Of course you do. “Do you know where all of your notes are from the battered female’s case about eight months ago? I didn’t take notes as thoroughly as you did and now we kind of need them.”
Rubbing a hand down my face, I hold back an agitated sigh by grinding my teeth together until my rage passes a bit. This is so fucking Jarrod it’s almost laughable. It’s always my notes he needed because he could never do any actual fucking work himself. Someone needed to go on the stand for a case? That would need to be me because I see so much more than he does. The prosecutor needed details about our investigation for their case? It had to be from me because I’m better at taking notes than he is. Same shit, different case.
It’s not like I could let him sink or swim on his own though. These were other people’s lives we were dealing with so I went along with all of it time and fucking time again. However, he gave me the ultimate gift when he set me up to take the fall for his mistake because it gave me the push to get the fuck out of there. As much as I want to save people from criminals and shitty officers like Jarrod, it’s time I put myself first and do a job that doesn’t make me regret the day I started.
“They should be both in my notebook that was left with the captain as well as digitized in the computer under the case number,” I answer, patting myself on the back for my neutral tone.
“Right, right. That makes sense. What was the case number again?” Jarrod asks with a stupid laugh. This guy couldn’t tell you what fucking colour the sky was unless he saw while he was looking at himself in the mirror.
“I don’t fucking know. Ask someone else for help,” I finally snap, my frustration hitting near exploding levels. “I don’t fucking work there right now so do your fucking job and figure it out,Detective.”
“Jesus Christ, what crawled up your ass? You can’t still be mad that they’re investigating you for screwing up that trafficking case, can you? It was your fault after all,” Jarrod responds, making my teeth set on edge. If there was an award for manipulation, it would go to this fucker.
“Don’t call me again,” I grind out, my hands shaking as I hang up the phone on him.
Lashing out, I whip my phone at the wall across from me. It hits only a few inches shy of the TV, loudly cracking against the drywall and creating a hole that I’ll have to fix. Adam comes bolting into the room followed closely by Alayna. Dropping onto the couch, my head hits my hands as the rage drains out of me, leaving me feeling numb.
“Dude.” Adam lets out a strangled laugh, his footsteps moving towards the wall to probably inspect the damage. “You’re gonna need a new phone.”
“I know,” I groan, shaking my head back and forth while rubbing my eyes with my palms.
The couch dips beside me just as a small hand gently rests on my arm. Looking to the side, I stare right into the beautiful, deep grey depths of Lay’s eyes. Her face is a mask of concern, her eyes pleading with me to tell her what’s going on.
“What happened?” Lay asks, her voice like a soothing balm on my frayed, numb nerves.
“Just my ex-partner. He knows how to push my buttons.”
“That guy’s a fucking dick!” Adam grunts, sitting on the love seat under the window. “I never fucking liked him even before he got you fired.”
“He got you fired? And partner? Like a business partner?” Lay looks between the two of us, the cutest crinkle between her brows that tells me she’s really upset about this.
“Law enforcement. I was a police officer before I got fucked over by my partner. It’s a long story.” I wave off the rest, not really in the mood to talk about it right now. I just lost all the anger from my conversation with Jarrod. “Did you guys get through more of Declan’s room?”
“Deflection, but I’ll allow it,” Lay jokes, raising one eyebrow and pointing her finger at me, chastising me for the abrupt change.
“I didn’t find anything other than more stinky ass socks and a couple Playboy’s.” Adam rubs his leg as he speaks, his face showing signs of pain.
“I found some odd notebooks filled with times and bullet point notes that I’m still trying to decipher,” Lay murmurs, laying back against the cushions. “Did he have any symptoms of paranoia before he passed away?”
“Not really. He was a pretty cautious guy, slow to trust anyone, but he came a long way in the last eight years,” I answer, running his behaviour through my head from the last few months to try to remember if that changed at all. Not that I recall seeing, but I also didn’t see him killing himself so what do I know.
“What kind of notes?” Adam asks, his face holding the same rapt attention I’m sure is on mine.
“It’s from a few months ago, but it’s stuff like six thirty-nine at night, blue Honda passes again, unsure of motive.”
“What the fuck?” Adam’s words echo my own thoughts exactly. What the actual fuck?
“It’s weird, right?” Lay looks concerned, chewing on her bottom lip nervously. “There’s two entire notebooks filled with this shit. At least that I’ve found. I wonder if he was slipping into some sort of paranoia or something? It could explain why no one saw his death coming.”
“It could be. Do you mind grabbing the notebooks for me? I wouldn’t mind going through them to see if there’s some clues or something.”
“Sure thing.” Lay smiles, getting up from the couch gracefully and giving me a nice view of her ass that I definitely shouldn’t be looking at right now. Fuck me, I’m a disaster.
