"Why would someone stab a girl like that?" Fox thought out loud after they had arrived back at the station as he spun around in his desk chair restlessly.
"Why would someone stab anyone?" Cash asked.
"Oh. Yeah. That is a better question. I don't know. I, for one, have never stabbed anyone," Fox answered.
"Well, that's good to hear, sweet-Hart," Cash told him, rolling his eyes. Then, he suggested, lazily, as he studied an arbitrary file, "Maybe it's a first date gone wrong."
"Well, that was morbid," Fox noticed. "You okay, man?"
Cash looked up, tilting his head, pretending he didn't know why he was being asked this question. "Fine," was all he said.
"Really? Because if you need more time, I can hold down the fort, so to speak."
"I'm fine, Fox. What happened before, that was nothing, okay? Occupational hazard. It happens," Cash claimed.
Fox exclaimed back, emphatically, "Being skewered like a kabob isn't nothing! And it doesn't happen to everyone, Gray! Just you! And you know why that is? Because you don't wait for backup! No, you just go in, hoping that—!"
"—Fox!" Cash warned as he simultaneously silenced the other man. He stood up to quiet Fox, who now stood directly in front of his desk. "Would you settle down?! And shut up!" Cash told him fiercely, through clenched teeth, glancing around. He didn't want anyone overhearing his very verbose partner who was seemingly very upset. "Besides," he began after he himself had calmed down, "it doesn't concern you." After he finished, he sat back down and began looking through the arbitrary file lying on his desk again.
"How—?"
"—I'm done talking about this—especially with you. You don't need to worry yourself. If I tell you I'm fine, I'm fine," Cash told him.
Not one to give up, Fox said softly, "Gray—"
And then the phone rang. Cash's phone. Fox sighed, dismally, before promptly plopping onto his chair.
"Yeah, you got Grayson," he answered, lackadaisically, grateful to get out of this tired conversation with Fox. That feeling didn't last long.
As soon as the other person spoke, Cash sat up straight, consternation on his suddenly pale face and motioned for Fox to trace the call.
"What is it?" Fox whispered so as to prohibit the being on the other line from overhearing as he set up the trace.
In response, Cash instantaneously slid the arbitrary file he was earlier studying towards Fox.
Fox, confused but disconcerted as hell, quickly opened the file before him and almost immediately, his eyes widened in shock. He made eye contact with his partner. Him? Fox mouthed, pointing at the phone.
Cash nodded back. "Long time, no see. How've you been, Shane?"
Cash seemed to be taking in what was being said on the other line. Fox didn't know if he'd be that calm if their positions were reversed. He wasn't even calm now. His hands were shaking as he began tracing the call, and he was damn near close to hyperventilating as he tried to regain his composure.
"Shane, what do you mean?" Cash attempted a negotiation tactic on the phone. "Explain it to me."
Someone was speaking on the other line, Fox guessed, as his partner silenced.
"There's another—?" he paused briefly as the other person spoke.
"Why? It's been eight months. Why have you waited—?" he paused again and listened.
"Shane, no, don't—!" Cash sighed a wretched sigh as he placed the phone back in its place. "He hung up," he told Fox. Then, asked about the success of the trace, "Well?"
Fox shook his head. "No. He didn't stay on the line long enough. And now he's turned the phone off."
Cash sighed, "Yeah, I figured."
"What'd he say?" Fox asked, perhaps a bit too quickly, but his curiosity, and perchance, his ire, got the better of him.
"That it was my fault Violet had to die. Because I wouldn't give up my pride and die like he intended me to."
"And?"
"And nothing, Hart. He told me I knew what I needed to do—which I don't—and he hung up. End of story," Cash said, sounding a bit exasperated, as he logged into his computer.
"Uh, aren't you going to do something about this? Because, I mean, he's a fugitive, Gray! Not to mention, he tried to carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey!"
Cash shook his head and chortled slightly in an amused fashion as he told Fox, a small smile playing on his lips, "It was just my hip, first of all. And, second of all, what do you think I'm doing? I'm seeing if I can trace the number to the last location before he turned it off."
"It may have been 'just your hip', but he'd've killed you if—"
"—I know. Thank you," Cash told him, sincerely. "You probably saved my life, Fox. Okay? But, as of right now, I'm not the concern. He is."
Fox nodded in agreement. "Yeah, okay. You're right. I'll, uh, put out a fresh BOLO for Pierce."
Cash called out, "Well, there is something else."
"What?" Fox wondered.
"We have another crime scene."
"He killed two people last night?"
"Yeah," Cash explained. "One in plain sight, our victim from this morning, and one hidden from the public. I guess to prove he's the one who did it, he made it so he's the only one who knows where the body is."
"And he told you?"
"Yeah. Told me he killed her behind a bakery on East Erie Street."
"Eerie's right," Fox mentioned as he finished updating the BOLO.
"I'll go notify the Captain."
As Cash grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and headed for Captain West's office, he gulped inwardly. He hadn't told Fox, a man he trusted more than anyone, the last thing Pierce had said before he abruptly hung up.
"You think two deaths are bad? Well, I'll tell you this plain and simple: I will kill again tomorrow if you don't meet me tonight at Garfield Park at midnight. And, next time? It won't be just two worthless girls. I won't stop until I see you face to face, until you're dead."
YOU ARE READING
The Calm Before
Short StoryAfter finding a young girl murdered, Detective Cash Grayson and his partner, Fox Hartley, try to catch the killer.