Undiscovered protégé

Chapter 4

We walked up to a homicide scene. The dead body resembles me so much despite the completely different facial features. her hair is covered in dried blood on her face and bruises and blisters on her wrists. Her legs are covered in blood from her badge forced into her thigh. The bruises aren't limited to her wrists from whatever this monster did to her. I almost let a tear fall as I read the tattoo on her stomach.
DOD60920
Be professional. Keep yourself together. All of the little energy I have is being put towards that. I rub my palms on my eyes because of the exhaustion. "Chen, Angela's on her way right now but it'll be another 20 because we are out of our district" Tim tells me as he flashes a text on his phone. "Techs want you to canvas" he says as he starts to walk off.
20 minutes later I hear a voice. "22327 is Morgan Payne, a rookie with West Hollywood," Angela.
Fucking psycho. "Go find Tim tell him I told you both to go home it'll already be 7 by the time you get to the station and I know you didn't sleep well." Angela tells me. If she wasn't a superior I would argue, but I go find Tim. "Lopez says to go clock out."
"Go to the shop I'll be there in 5" Tim answers.
Before I go to the shop I go back to where Angela is with the body. I look at the poor soul one more time. The badge in her thigh. Is that what's going to happen to me? I walk at quite a pace back to the shop. I get in the passenger seat and wait. I look each way I can through the windows. I watch the minutes pass on my cell. 6:49 and Tim gets in the car. He seems a little irritated but calms himself quickly. The car ride is quiet for the first 10 minutes as we are probably both processing what we've just saw. The dead body that had been marked with a date 4 days before a month ago. Realization. I or somone else will die in 4 days.
"Lucy?" Tim says and I look up
"Are you alright your breathing-"
"I'm fine" I say as I fix my breathing back to normal.
I add, "Why didn't anyone try to find them?"
I actually wanted to shout how fucking absurd this is. Almost 1 month and almost 2 months.
"I'm sure they did they just failed."Tim says
"If the BHPD did their job Morgan would still be alive!"
A moment of silence.
"If Mid-Wilshire hadn't just assumed that Caleb was all of it Stephanie wouldn't be dead."
Another moment of silence.
"Without a body BHPD had nothing to go on. This isn't their fault." He adds.
"It isn't our fault either their's no way we could have gotten Rosalind to tell us about another protege and Caleb died before we could get a chance to even think of asking that. And without the killer having killed anyone yet we couldn't have gotten them on anything. I just needed to prove my point" he adds again.
"We have 4 days before someone else dies."
"So we'll have as many people as we can working the case, we'll interview anyone who could know even the smallest thing. Nolan will talk to Rosalind. Angela and the other detectives at our station will interview the West Hollywood department. We'll find the killer before anyone else dies."
That was the farthest thing from what I'd expect from Tim but I accept it.
"And if we don't find the killer what then."
"If we don't find the killer and they go after somone else then it will be sad. It won't be ideal but it will be more to work off of and that will definitely be the last victim."
The rest of the ride is silent again. It's 7:11 as we get out of the shop Tim says, "we still have to do paperwork." I nod and go around back to unload the shop. We return the gear and I start on the paperwork. I'm really slow because I keep zoning out. Angela gets back right before we finish. "What are you still doing here?" Angela asks as she walks up to me.
"Paperwork" I say after a second.
"You should finish it in the morning you've been here for who knows how long."
"A little under 17 hours I think"
"What!? Go home Lucy. Now. Paperwork can wait. For one, you need to sleep"
"sleep. That's hilarious."
"I'm serious Lucy I know you've got to be exhausted."
"Sleep while some psycho wants to kill me."
"Lucy you need to go home and sleep because you're not focused on your job. And someone could seriously get hurt because of that" She sounds a bit irritated. I wonder if Tim brought up earlier to her.
"Mhm okay I'll do the paperwork tomorrow and I'll try to sleep" I say, as I get up and put the papers in a folder. I go to the locker room and grab my bag and place the folder in the locker. I changed into a white tee and grey sweatpants. I walk out of the station and Angela waves at me and smiles as I walk by her on a computer. I go straight home after I leave the station. I sit in my car for a minute, and pull out my laptop. I can't help but look over the transcripts from the interviews today.
First I open the one with Nathan Lim. I concur with Angela's conclusion. I next open the one from Karin Taylor. I get an odd feeling but I conclude that I'm too tired to figure out what it is about it. I put down the laptop on the passenger seat and drive home.
Once I get there I head out of my car. I take note of the 2 patrol units that had followed me home. I lay down and try to think about what I had read in the car in Karin's interview but fall asleep before drawing any conclusions.