A Blade of Glass

Chapter 12

The squad reassembled in the bullpen as the afternoon sun started to sink behind the buildings, not that there were many windows there to see it. They sat around the whiteboards again, checking through their notes about the cases, waiting for Julian to arrive and get things started.

"So, you solve this one yet?" Matt asked, leaning in to talk to Amy.

She didn't even bother shooting him a disapproving look as she answered, "Which one?"

"Either of them."

Amy chose to ignore him, she knew that this was just his way of being friendly, but it always rubbed her the wrong way. She didn't blame him for it, but she thought that it had to do with the way she'd been treated at the other precinct, back when she'd gotten promoted to detective. After her bad run in with the criminal and she'd cut her hair, it seemed that they'd all believed that something bad had happened to her, no matter what she'd told them, they'd either treated her with scorn or, and often even worse, sympathy. The entire experience had made her a bit distrustful towards her fellows, something that being part of Julian's squad had helped.

Still, she just couldn't find herself getting along with Matt for some reason.

"Rare of you to be here this early," she retorted. It was true, most meetings were delayed waiting for Matt to show up, though to be fair, he usually brought a lot to them. As much as Amy didn't care for him as a person, she did have to respect the work he did.

"Yeah, it's rare I get away from doing all the heavy lifting," he said, rolling his shoulders like they were sore from carrying the team. "I mean, how times have I solved a case for you guys?"

"About half as many times as we've been forced to hold up the entire investigation to wait on you. Actually, it's probably more like a tenth as often."

"You wound me with your slander, do you have any idea of how hard it is to go through all that stuff by myself? I keep telling you, if you want it done faster, get me some help."

"Take that up with the boss."

"I have, repeatedly. Always get the same answer."

"Which is?"

"He asks if I want to split my paycheck along with my workload." He paused for a beat before cracking a smile. "Nah, I'm kidding, he'd never say something like that, be great if he did, but he won't."

"No, cause then he wouldn't be him."

"True."

Just then Nickie came in, followed by Mary and Julian. The two women took their seats, with Mary pulling up the chair from her spare desk, while Julian headed to the front of the room to call the meeting to order.

"Everyone quiet down," he told the silent room. It was rare that he actually had to get their attention away from something else to get the meeting started and usually in those cases, what was drawing their attention was some world altering event, the last one being the supposed death of Paragon, one of the most powerful G.E.P. in active service, it had turned out to be a false call, but it had still caused a massive uptick in crime. "Now, I know that you've all got other things you want to be doing, and that some of you have places you need to be, so I'll try and keep this moving, but we've got a fair amount of ground to cover, and a lot's changed since this morning, so let's get into it.

"Now, as you're all no doubt aware, the missing Miss Lorenso has been recovered from her kidnappers."

"So, you now admit she was kidnapped?" Mary grumbled from off to the side.

Whether she'd meant for him to hear or not, Amy didn't know, but nevertheless, Julian had and responded.

"Yes, it was fairly obvious that she'd been taken, even this morning, but the clumsy way that she was returned definitely tells us that she'd been taken by someone, though the reasons still remain a mystery that we're going to have to work out."