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“Excuse me,” I said, gently placing my hand next to his on the table.
His eyes finally met mine, and his already crazed gaze turned horrified. The man absolutely lost it. Something equivalent to a scream escaped his lips, and it stunned me as I caught a glance inside his mouth.
His tongue was missing.
He started frantically pulling at the chains, bashing his already broken hands on the table to loosen them from the cuffs.
With my eyes wide, I slowly raised my hands in surrender. Quinn lunged toward the man, trying to restrain him from harming himself or me. His barbaric screeching and lunging at me made it clear that was indeed this man’s intent.
“Mmmmmrrrr fraaaa oooo!” the man screamed at us. His words were incoherent, which made sense with his missing tongue.
“This is pointless,” Quinn barked, smacking the wall and motioning to the two-sided glass at Emily. “This man needs a psych ward and a prison cell.”
I awkwardly stood near the corner of the room, trying to distance myself from the flailing man. After an hour in a cell, some doctors and a psychologist hauled him away.
“Are you okay?” Quinn held my arms and rubbed my shoulders, his face showing all kinds of concern. “Your hand, your arm were so close to his.” He grabbed my wrist to assess if I was injured, flipping it around until I lightly pulled away.
“He didn’t hurt me. I just startled him, I guess.” I forced a tight smile.
“Don’t blame yourself, Ella. That man was unhinged from the get-go,” Quinn assured me. “He acted like a tweaker, and whatever he was on made him a complete nut. You didn’t deserve that.”
It was not the first time I had people freak out when we went to interrogate them. A lot of these drug dealers were just off. Plus, Quinn was right. ‘Taking it personally’ was not part of the job description. I knew that, but I always felt sad that I couldn’t offer them some type of comfort. Drug dealers were horrible, but no one should endure what that man had.
“Scare another one off already?” Emily said. Her prim, frosty smile was as fake as her boobs.
Quinn frowned at her, but I ignored it. His phone rang, and he gave me an apologetic look before moving aside to answer it.
Emily took no time to start in on me. “Is your superpower making everyone you talk to turn into a mental patient?” I would never understand why she loved to poke at me so much.
“Maybe because you’re certifiable.” My jab did not phase her even a bit, but I continued. “The suspect’s hands are incapable of writing, and his tongue was cut out. There was nothing we could have gotten from him.”
She scoffed, fussed with her bangs, and flipped her red hair into my face with a flick of her wrist. Emily was beautiful. She looked more like a model than a detective. Everyone, male or female, fawned all over her, except for maybe Quinn.
She had fake boobs and mostly a fake face. All her clothes were brand names from Gucci to Armani. Whereas, I always wore Goodwill slacks and a camisole with a different color blazer each day. I didn’t like flashy clothes, and even the stuff I did wear always felt itchy.
What was it with some of these detectives looking like they made a ton of money?
Even Quinn dressed to the nines. His white button-downs always looked so silky that they probably felt like a cloud on his skin. His black suspender and jacket suits were very Ken doll-esque. I always wondered if he would eventually succumb to Emily’s evil-fake charm and marry her. After all, they looked like they belonged together.
“That was the chief.” Quinn walked back to us, and his formal, robot-cop voice was in full swing. “He said a witness saw our missing person at the homeless community under the King’s Bridge.”
“That’s great, Mickey,” Emily purred, her plastic tits pushed up against his chest. “Don’t bring Ella there if you want anyone to talk.”
It drove me crazy that she mangled Quinn’s first name. It was Micah, not Mickey. I openly glared at her as she giggled. Quinn awkwardly laughed and stepped back from her perfectly manicured claws.
“Ella is our profiler, and this missing person case is linked to our unsub,” he stated. His tone was flat as he pulled my arm gently away from the sneering bitch. Emily’s gasp made me giggle as I let Quinn drag me to the elevator.
“She’s rotten to the core,” I mumbled.
Quinn chuckled, blowing out an exasperated sigh. “No one has called me Mickey since I was in diapers, and the last person to do so has an empty grave.”
I gave Quinn’s shoulder a squeeze. His sister, Penelope…her death was hard on him. From what I was told, he had gone off-grid for months, and they never did find her killer. I couldn’t imagine how that felt. My sister was an annoying pain in the ass, but I’d be truly lost without her.
The elevator dinged, and I waved to Maggie as we passed her desk. I noticed Quinn looked a bit sheepish and hid behind my short frame, which was ridiculous considering he was six feet, two inches tall. It was equivalent to a fox hiding behind a giraffe.
“Uh, why are you hiding from the only sweetheart we work with?” I said as we walked to the squad car.
“Uhm, well….” he said, fussing with his neatly trimmed beard.
