Jane shut the door to the car after parking across the street from the club. A handful of police cruisers already lined the roadside, the officers waiting for the two of them to arrive with the paperwork to get inside. They left their lights off, but she could see their presence was already peaking the curiosity of several pedestrians.
The usual anxiety snaked its way through her guts. It always cropped up in the moments before executing a warrant. More than once, a simple search ended up in a chase or a fight, though she supposed it was one way to get an arrest. Somehow she had a feeling Dick was a little too smart to be a runner.
"You okay waiting out here?" Jordan leaned down to speak through the open passenger side door.
Trix remained in the car, likely not wanting to upset her living friends with her ghostly internment. "Yeah. It's probably for the best. I don't wanna upset anyone."
"I get that. Just sit tight. This shouldn't take too long." He assured, and Trix gave him a half hearted smile before he closed the door. "You think she's okay?" he asked while they waited for a pause in traffic before crossing the street.
"I doubt it. Brent says emotions are different as a ghost, but I can't imagine it will be easy to see their faces when they realize what she is now."
Jordan watched the crosswalk, his concern painted red where the stop light carved out the wrinkles in his skin. "I guess. It was strange with Brent. I remember being relieved, then wondering if that made me an asshole." He glanced over as the signal turned white.
It was a day Jane remembered vividly: Brent's body being carted out, the crinkling of the black bag as it passed, going to his funeral. She'd gotten drunk that night and cried in the bathtub until the water turned cold. The next day, she woke to a hangover and the news that Brent was back at work, waiting to go over the autopsy of the creature that murdered him.
"Can I help you guys?" Tony appeared at the door, almost as much a brick wall in personality as he was in size.
"Yeah, you can get Dick. I got the paperwork he asked for." Jordan held up the folded warrant.
She could hear the enamel scrape together as Tony gnashed his next words between his teeth. "I'm afraid you just missed him."
"That a fact? Well, he doesn't technically need to be here, but I will suggest you shut it down for the night. I doubt you want your clients to see a dozen guys in uniform rifling through your club.".
For a moment, when Tony inhaled, Jane's ears picked up the faintest clicking within his chest. "Fine. Wait here."
"I don't think so." Jane spoke up before he could leave. "We'll give you the dignity of clearing the club before our guys come in, but we'll need to head to Dick's office. I wouldn't want anything to get misplaced." Her smile thinned to a warning line, and thankfully Tony complied with a small step to the side.
"Thank you. You have ten minutes," she added.
The two of them slipped past, and behind them, the warm neon sign in the window shut off. As the color temperature of the club shifted, so did the mood, and from the look of the staff's faces, they were familiar with the drill.
The glow of a radiant heater painted Dick's office an eerie shade of amber. In the corner, a small humidifier hummed away, its mist catching the orange light before drifting outwards and melting into the painted cinder block.
"It seems Tony wasn't lying." Jane flicked the switch, and the fluorescent buzzed as it woke. The sterile light fell on a clean desk, each stack of paper organized into two matching piles that sat both horizontal and perpendicular to every other object.
YOU ARE READING
Night Beats: Ghost in the Vending Machine
Paranormal(Book 1) Night is a city of many names. It's a home to some, refuge for others and a glittering cesspool where monsters and humans live side by side. Join the semi-functional NCPD Cryptid Unit as they fumble their way through supernatural crimes by...
