Slater | Nick Goode

1.2

    "That was... fun," the man laughed, his left hand placed on the steering wheel, the right on top of the gear shift. His eyes were placed on the road ahead, but often diverted to the woman next to him.
    "Oh yeah, I'm thinking about doing something like that for my birthday," she joked along. She had found a small scratch in the dash board and had been observing it for the last couple of minutes.
    "You had a good speech written out, too bad you couldn't finish it," Nick had tried to be sympathetic towards her, he always had, but he wasn't good with words.
     When Ellie didn't say anything, he understood that it was time for him to stay quiet. No words were spoken from him for the rest of the ride, just the occasional glances towards the dark headed women. He always found her in the same position, staring at the scratch in the dashboard.
      She was curious as to where it came from. Not in a, "ew, your car must be dirty," or, "you must not take care of your car," type of way. More like a, "if I make eye contact with him one more time, I might throw up," type of way. It made her stomach turn.
     Once the pair reached the station, the silence broke.
     After they got out of the car, and reached the door, Nick spoke, "what are you doing for dinner tonight?"
     His heart pounded and his palms got sweaty.
     "Mary made me homemade soup a couple of night ago, I might just go home and eat that," she answered, taking off her coat and hanging it in the rack. She didn't get the hint that he was trying to ask her out.
      Nick had knew that the two stayed in touch all of these years, but it still surprised him every time he heard about their interactions.
     "Ah, the usual," he remarked.
     "Mhm. What about you?" She questioned, signing her name onto the sheet.
     "We'll... I, um, was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me? We could go somewheres. I can't really cook," he spoke carefully, his voice in a slightly higher pitch than usual. Ellie recognized the tone, he was nervous.
      She turned to him, amused and aware that it was her making him nervous, "like a date?"
      "That depends."
      "On?" Her eyebrows furrowed questioningly, but she already knew what he would say.
      "If you say yes," he leaned on his desk, trying to study her face. Her stomach was doing summersaults and the deja vu hit her so hard, she wanted to faint.
      "We'll-"
      "Sheriff, we've got a situation down at Fier St.. You and Officer Slater around?" Nicks walkie talkie went off.
      "Yep. Thank you, Officer Kapinski, we'll be right there," he spoke into the device, his eyes still trained of Ellie's face.
      She sighed deeply, grabbing her coat once again and walking back out of the door. She made her way to the drivers seat of another car.
      "What are you doing?" Nick questioned, eyeing her.
      "I'm driving, come on." She dipped her body down into the seat, starting the engine and waited for Nick to get in.
      "I've never ridden with you before," he recalled and looked at her with his famous Nick Goode smirk as he slid his seat belt on, "don't kill me."
      "If you keep looking at me like that, I might," she retorted, putting the car into reverse and pulling out of the spot.

-

    "We just don't get break, huh?" Ellie sighed and pulled to the side of the road, once reaching the scene.
     "You should go on home, I can handle this," Nick offered kindly.
      "Let's go," she declined, leading the way down a steep hill.
      Once they had gotten to the bottom, where all of the paramedics had led them to, it was obvious what happened.
      A red Mustang was crashed into an old tree. There were three people in the car. Two of which were wearing skull masks, just like the killer in the mall yesterday.
     Ellie tapped a young girl on the shoulder, and she turned around, wide eyed.
     "Officer Slater, hi!" Her pupils were enlarged and she was stuffing a blunt into her jacket pocket.
     Ellie wasn't here for that, "hello, can you tell me what happened here?"
     Her face went red and she was a stuttering mess.
      Ellie smiled and crossed her arms, "just point me in the direction of the someone that I should be talking to."
     The girl pointed to a dark headed girl, she was kneeling on the ground next to three other teenagers.
      "Thank you." Ellie turned on her heels and headed towards the four, she had known the names of some. The girl the stoner had pointed to was Deena Johnson, her father was constantly getting arrested. The other two were some kids who had gotten busted for selling drugs a while back. The boy in green face paint had a brother who almost overdosed.
      On her way to the group, she had caught sight of Nick, who clearly had gotten the same information as her.
      Before the pair had gotten to them, the blond who had been in the crash was wheeled off with the paramedics. Deena had stayed behind, now standing, she watched as Sheriff Goode and Officer Slater walked towards her.
      "Deena Johnson?" Nick asked as he wrote in a small notepad.
      "Yeah, two E's," she responded.
       "Wanna tell us what happened?" Ellie questioned as Nick continued to write down the incident.
        "The car crashed," Deena smiled and tilted her head up, innocently.
        "Was it pursuing you?" Nick continued after a second of silence.
        "Well, it was driving behind the bus. Does that count as pursuing?"
        "The driver said that right before the crash someone opened the emergency exit," Nick stated.
         "I don't remember that," Deena lied.
         "No? He also saw you with the cooler."
         "Did anyone else see that?" Deena pushed her luck, smiling as she saw Nick getting visibly irritated.
         "Maybe you were just, um... goofing around. Things got out of hand," he suggested and Deena shifted on her feet.
          "Why don't you just tell us what happened, Ms. Johnson," Ellie reasoned.
          "I don't know. I guess sometimes accidents just happened." Deena smiled sweetly at Ellie, then glared at Nick while walking away.
           "I'll go question the driver again, you can go ask around her friends," Nick rubbed his face tiredly, and Ellie patted his shoulder while walking in the other direction.
           "We lost control, sir," Peter told Nick.
           "Freak accident," another Sunnyvaler reported to him.
           "Suck it, pig!" The boy with green face paint, Simon, spat in their faces.
            "It was just an accident," Deena told Ellie once again.
           "Alright. If you do think of anything," Ellie wrote the number to her personal office phone down on the paper and handed it to her, "give me a call. We're on your side. I'm only here to help."
           "Yeah, totally. Maybe you are. That bastard sure isn't." Deena stated angrily at her and ripped the paper from her hand. She shoved it in her pocket and stormed away to the bus.