A Blade of Glass

Chapter 3

Detective Amy Yoo Song watched the numbers count upward as she rode the shiny elevator up the Alexanders tower. Dragging her eyes away from the glowing digits, she caught her reflection in the polished wood and metal of the door and unconsciously ran a hand over her buzzed off hair, wondering, not for the first time that week, whether she should grow it out, even though she knew that she wouldn't.

Her hair was cut too short for her features, making everyone that saw her think that she could've been attractive, if she'd grow it out. Even she knew that, but after it had been grabbed by a perp and used against her, she'd chopped it all off, leading to some unsavory rumors in her last precinct. They hadn't been true, which she protested loudly, but that had just made the others all the more convinced that she was hiding something, which had been why she should have been relieved when she'd gotten the invite to join Julian Drake's team. Instead, she'd wondered why she was getting it at all.

She'd spent most of her early career understanding that she was just there to check off one box or another on the team's yearly quotas, so she'd gone into the meeting with the detectives fully prepared to turn the job down, but before she did, she'd been determined to find out which box they were expecting her to check off.

So, she'd bluntly asked the first chance she got why exactly they were offering her of all people the spot on the team, after all, it wasn't like there weren't more qualified people in the running and even she'd heard about the success rate that Detective Drake had achieved since taking over the squad.

She'd been expecting any number of responses, from the smooth bullshit answers of the more politically savvy bosses she'd had, to the more honest ones explaining that the team needed to fill this position or that, but what she hadn't expected was the blunt honesty she encountered. She'd been having a hard time reading Julian's face, but even she could tell that he was being serious when he'd told her "Because you're observant. Your work on the Deitzman crime scene was a big help to those investigating it, even if you didn't get the credit you deserve."

She'd been flattered, but she wasn't about to let go so easily, so she'd point blank asked if she was being hired for some other reason, like to meet a quota. Julian's genuine confusion had made her relax and start trusting him, something that had only grown since.

But she'd needed to clear the air about one last thing before she'd said yes, so she told them under no uncertain terms that the perp hadn't done anything to her, that he'd only grabbed a handful of her hair and tried to drag her off, to which Julian had replied "I know, otherwise it would've shown up in your file. Not necessarily in the standard one, but in your physical or psych at least."

"Wait, you ran a background check on me?" She'd been surprised by the thoroughness of it.

"I run one on everyone that joins us." Had been his blunt reply, so she'd joined his team as the youngest member. She still was the newest team member, having joined five months after Nickie, but she didn't feel that she was looked down on, if anything, everyone treated each other with respect and trust.

Her partner was a prime example of that. For a reason that she'd quickly figured out, she'd been partnered with the oldest member of the team, and the only one that'd predated Julian taking over. It wasn't just because it had been his partner that had left, and it wasn't because Julian had thought she'd needed looking after, but it was because Collin was the only squad member that was married.

Her gaze slid across the reflection in the door till it landed on him. Collin Rance was busy looking over the regulation issued pad, trying to examine the crime scene photos. His short hair had started going grey after he'd hit forty and gave him a dignified air, but his age hadn't seemed to hit him anywhere else, his muscles pushed at his shirt, showing no sign of anything less than his prime.