A Blade of Glass

Chapter 5

The girls' room turned out to be unhelpful at best, but Julian chalked it up to eliminating a possibility. The housekeeper was likewise a dead end, but she was at least able to help fill them in a bit on the girl's life, including who her friends were and which classes she liked, but other than that, she didn't seem to know much.

As they were leaving, they'd received a message from the captain, telling them he wanted them back as soon as possible, that they weren't even supposed to stop on the way back, so it was serious.

Julian spent the ride back on his phone, digging for information while Nickie wove them through traffic. He was still on it when she pulled them  into their parking stall at the preicinct.

He'd hung up by the time they got to the bullpen, where they found a stranger waiting by one of the walls, examining the documents that were affixed there. She was good looking, with brown hair down to her shoulder-blades and a sharp blue suit over her athletic frame, speaking of the hours she must have spent working out. But despite all of that, she gave off the aura of someone that was used to being unliked, someone who knew they were the enemy and was okay with it.

Before they could approach her, the captain caught their eye and motioned for them to get into his office with a look that spoke volumes about his displeasure.

Captain Thomas Merra was a beast of a man with a beard bordering on shaggy and a natural glower who wouldn't have looked out of place with a sword in his hand and a scantily clad damsel at his feet on some movie poster or book cover. In fact, most people that saw him thought he was some kind of time-traveling barbarian that had found his way into a suit store, but they were wrong. Despite his muscular physique, Merra had graduated at the top of his class and had made his way to the captain's chair by working his way up.

As soon as Julian stepped into the office, Merra growled at him "Close the door."

The instant the door clicked shut, the captain was leaning on the desk hard enough that it let out a groan and continued growling in a soft voice that sounded like it was echoing up from years past. "Drake, what was the one thing I told you when I handed over the Lorenso case?"

"That it was top priority."

"The question was rhetorical. And what I said was, don't step on anyone's toes, and what's the first thing you do?"

"Is this question rhetorical as well?"

"You step on someone's toes. No, that's not right, you tap dance on them, you jump up and down on them. What the hell were you doing?"

"I was doing my job."

"Is that what you call it? Threatening a fellow officer? Cause let me tell you, I just got off the phone with a rather unhappy captain who thinks that's what he saw, so tell me he's wrong."

"He's not entirely correct."

"Which means he's partially correct? And don't answer that, because it doesn't matter. What matters is that you nearly created an inter-precinct fiasco, but thanks to Captain Estes, you just need to return whatever it was that you took and issue an apology."

"As soon as the phone's back from the tech department."

"What?"

"It's already at the tech department, they're going to have a report to me by the end of the day."

"Why would you hand another detective's phone to the tech department?"

"To find out who's phone it really is."

"Drake." The captain drug out the name, like he was cursing. "Captain Estes isn't one to bullshit anyone, especially another captain, so when he says that the phone belongs to his man, I tend to believe him, but it's you, so I'm guessing that you didn't choose this hill for no reason."