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ONE
devan
Some people stick with you.They burrow so deep inside that you have no choice but to integrate them. Make them a part of you.
That was Layla Sinclair. My old partner’s life complemented mine and made me a better cop. Her death left me carved out and hollow.
I lean back in the passenger seat of the cruiser, listening to some bullshit Britney Spears because music is always the driver's choice. That doesn’t change, at least. Only the song. Sometimes life just flips on you, though. The coin twists faster than you can imagine, and nothing is the same.
“Cheer up!” the driver tells me in bubblegum pink tones. “Was it the coffee, Dev? Did I not get the order right again? You’ve got to tell me!” Detective Naomi Ellison slaps herself on the forehead hard enough that her head hits the back of the seat, and the car takes a sharp jerk to the left. “I’m sorry.”
“Watch the road,” I tell her with a grimace. “And it’s not the coffee, Detective Ellison.”
She glances sideways at me, and I hear her humming along to the chorus.Hit me baby one more time. “What is it, then? You’ve been so quiet. Did I do something wrong? I’m really trying hard to find my stride with the department, with you, but it’s been a little hard. I admit it.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Stop talking. Focus on the details of the case.”
Another case, another crime, another bloody murder for me to solve.
As far as partners go, Naomi is not the worst I’ve ever had. But she’s also not the best. And right now, on our way to a crime scene, I’d rather not talk to her. Especially not when Naomi has a serious issue buttoning her fucking lips. I’ve never had to struggle against pistol-whipping someone until now, right this minute, especially since Britney has been playing nonstop for the entirety of the fifteen-minute ride. With traffic.
“And take a right here.” I point at the angled street sign, tilting toward the grubby sidewalk littered with autumn leaves because someone must have hit it. “Ellison, a right!”
She’s so focused on whatever problem she’s made up in her head that she nearly misses the turn and ends up cutting off someone trying to turn from the opposite direction. The angry old woman behind the other wheel flips Naomi the bird.
My stomach dips down to my damn toes, and the fingers bite into the oh-shit bar above the door. “Christ, you’re going to kill us before we get there,” I mutter. “Focus, please.”
Naomi stares straight ahead with a worried expression, and her large front teeth firmly embedded along her bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
I say nothing else.
Britney and the constant hum of tires slicking over decayed leaves on wet asphalt are white noise as I line up the details of the case. Twenty-one-year-old Hispanic male, bludgeoned, left in front of a vape shop, missing his shoes. Preliminary evidence suggests this case is connected with the deaths of two other young men.
Another five minutes of thick silence pass before the crime scene tape in the distance marks the edge of our crime scene. I dig my finger into the button on the door, the window rolling down slowly, and the noise of the city somehow deafening the closer we get.
There’s death here, but also more life than any other place I go.
The only time I feel alive is within the boundaries of the yellow-and-black police tape. Naomi, with boundless energy that hasn’t been eradicated by bitter jadedness yet, pulls the car to a stop in an empty space at the end of a line of cars.
“Wow, who called the media?” she mutters under her breath. “Our last one wasn’t this busy.”
“Seems like it’s always this way anymore. Whenever there’s murder, the crows come.”
She groans, shakes her head, turns the key and kills Britney, bitch. Naomi needs to get used to it because it’s another fact of life in Empire Bay, New Jersey. The city never sleeps, but they do like to stare death in the face.
Her vanilla and cinnamon body lotion makes me feel like the inside of the car is a Bath and Body Works, my nose hairs singed, and the stink embedding itself in the fabric of my clothes.
With the car engine clicking and cooling, my new partner and I push open the doors, ready to join the chaos, the fresh air burning my lungs clean. The three men guarding the perimeter look ready to drop, and I don’t blame them. The sun has barely risen above the horizon on a blustery autumn day too gray to be charming, and the call for the body came in quickly enough that it only left two options: no caffeine or station coffee.
Neither one of those is favorable.
“Eyes ahead,” I warn my new partner. “Focus on the scene instead of getting bogged down in the details. Okay?”
“Sure, sure. You positive it wasn’t the coffee, Dev?”
I give in to the urge to roll my eyes.
Naomi keeps one hand on the gun in her holster and her focus ahead when I fail to answer, sobering up the closer we get to the tape and our overworked officers. I stride ahead and flash my badge, cutting my way through the gathered wall of bodies, desperate for a glimpse of murder to feel alive.
