Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

boyfriend had been as modest. He wore something like a thong and nothing else. From the looks of his middle, he was a man who enjoyed his Guinness. They seemed neither amused nor alarmed by the goings on and were minimally curious.

A young girl with a thatch of hair growing out of the top of her otherwise shaved head, was filming on her phone. She would get nothing more than the red glare of the light from atop the police car since she was shooting into it.  No payday for catching a cop-doing-wrong on video.

Another woman - gorgeous and tall, dressed in a flowing kimono-like robe - leaned against a post smoking. It was only when Finn passed that he realized it was a young man with glorious hair and not a woman at all. He eyed Finn, did the same to Cori, and dismissed them both as not worthy of his notice.

"We've got a guy recording at four o'clock, too."

Finn swung his eyes up at the person Cori had tagged.

"We'll be on the nightly news if we cross our eyes," he said.

"How do I look?" Cori said.

"Prime time worthy,"  Finn said.

"You are a class act, O'Brien."

"I try," Finn said.

He picked up the pace. Cori matched it. When they got where they were going they positioned themselves on either side of the uniformed cop who only had eyes for his partner's back.  That man faced off with a woman in the doorway of the large unit. She stood alone, frozen in the glare of the car's headlights.

"Detective O'Brien." The officer glanced Finn's way when he introduced himself. He looked the other way when Finn said, "Detective Anderson."

"Hunter," the cop answered.

"And him?" Finn said, indicating the officer in no-man's land.

"Douglas," Hunter said. "Senior officer."

"What have you got?" Finn asked.

"Dispatch sent us out on an assault call."

"From?" Finn asked.

Hunter pointed to an old man with very long hair.

"His name is George. He says he has insomnia, so he walks this place at night. Likes to think of himself as security. He stopped for a smoke, was checking out the stars, and he sees some stuff he didn't like. There had been a woman in the window." Officer Hunter pointed to the third floor of the unit in question. "When she disappeared he figured she had gone to bed.  Then he saw someone else in the room. He thought it looked like that person had a weapon. A club or something. He worried about an assault on the woman. That's all we got."

"No description of the one with the club?"

Hunter shook his head.

"He's old. He couldn't even tell if the second person was a man or a woman. We didn't think much of the whole story until we got here. It's not the first time the old guy has cried wolf. As soon as we try to check it out, that one freaked." He indicated the woman in the doorway. "That's when we called for detectives."

"It would seem Officer Douglas is taking the lazy river, now isn't he?"

Cori's Texas drawl drew out the words like a smear of butter across a biscuit.  Officer Hunter wasn't the swiftest. Before Cori could make her contempt clear, Finn stepped in.

"Officer Hunter, why haven't you gone in and established the nature of the crime? Or even if one was committed?"

"Douglas said the situation was hinky. He said we needed to wait." Finn muttered something under his breath, and Officer Hunter took exception.

"Hey, I'm seven months on the job." Officer Hunter sounded like a five year old whining that none of this was his fault. "If he says wait, I wait."

Cori snorted and started for Officer Douglas. Finn stopped her.

"I go, Cori."

If there was trouble to be had, he wanted to field it first. Cori had no problem with that. They each had their strengths. One of Finn's was testing the waters, and Cori's was to be ever watchful. She knew that a lot of people didn't particularly warm to her partner given his history on the force. After he had taken out one of his brothers in blue, shot him dead, Finn became an outcast. It didn't matter that he fired his weapon in self-defense, it mattered that he had fired it at all.

The man Finn approached was tall and in good shape. He was equally impressive from the front though he was older than Finn had imagined. Given that Officer Douglas had mileage on him, Finn gave the man the benefit of the doubt. His instincts would be honed, and his call would be informed. Finn stood beside the officer so that he, too, could keep an eye on the woman in the doorway. She had not moved and she looked no more dangerous up close than she had from afar. She was middle aged, distressed, but not hurt.

"Officer Douglas," he said. "Detective O'Brien. With me is Detective Anderson. Your partner says you've been standing down."

"The woman says everything is fine, and she wants us to leave," Douglas said.

Finn admired the baritone. The voice fit the man, but there was something in the words that didn't fit the situation.

"And your thinking is?" Finn said.

"My thinking is that I don't want my ass or my rookie partner's in a sling 'till I know what we're walking into. Look at that thing." He gestured toward the building with one hand, the other stayed on his hip.  "Three stories, outdoor staircases, rooftop access, the interior isn't linear. We could be walking into an ambush."

Finn did a double take: a glance at the man, at the building, and back again.  Even though the assessment was correct, the inaction seemed cowardly.

"Am I to understand that you're waiting even though there might be a person in need of medical attention in there?" Finn said. "You signed on to serve and protect, did you not, Officer Douglas?"

The man turned his head and ran his eyes over Finn. His small smile was not one of camaraderie.

"In case you haven't noticed, cops have targets