Delta Heavy - Ghost
"I see your ghost at night, every time I close my eyes"
•••
"Davidson I don't like this. You've mentioned before that this case is getting a bit too big for two detectives like us. We should contact the FBI on this. Please, at least consider it."
Me and Holder were in the car again, each of us having a cigarette in our hands. That's our occupation. Driving around, smoking cigarettes, trying to find murders, occasionally.
"I'm not gonna let these assholes take our case. Voodoo or not, we'll find Brianna's killer."
"What if he's already among us. What if it's that guy that just crossed the street? Who knows, honestly. I hate to say that, but I'm losing hope."
Usually? I'm a stone cold cop. Trusting no one. Never showing any emotions. Someone could get their head cut off right next to me, and I wouldn't even make a move. But this case had me getting all emotional and fed up which I couldn't stand.
Showing emotions means weakness. Being emotional means you're weak, not tough enough.
I wasn't gonna cry. I couldn't let this happen. Not whilst Holder was in this car with me. He would think I'm weak, too. Like everyone else. And he wouldn't have that.
I looked up, hoping for my bitter tears to disappear, but they wouldn't. One escaped my eye and ran down my pale skinned face.
Despite the fact Holder was a careless asshole most of the time, he suddenly brushed that single tear off my cheek.
"...I'm...I'm sorry. I'm just not strong." I admitted, allowing more tears to run down my face. Holder was the first person to see my true, broken self in a long time. But he didn't seem to make fun of me. He seemed understanding of me not being able to get through this all by myself.
"You're not alone, Davidson. I'm here. And I won't leave. Promised. You are strong." He put a cigarette to my mouth and lit it up "you're not always gonna feel like that, trust me. You're getting used to the pressure this job puts on you everyday."
I breathed out, graced by the satisfying feeling of cigarette smoke entering my lungs "you know a lot about being a cop, don't you Stephen?"
He looked up "did you just call me by first name? You never did that before, Jane."
I smiled "looks like I'm getting comfortable with your ass, Holder."
Then, suddenly, Holder's phone rang
"Detective Holder?" He answered, his voice rather calm then before "ok, we'll be there."
"What is it?" I asked starting the car
"There was a body found in basement a few blocks from here."
I sighted "that shouldn't be our concern right now, we must concentrate on finding Brianna's murder."
"Yeah, but her hand's broken just like Brianna's. We should check on it, Davidson."
I groaned "fine."
_______
After minutes of effective complaining with the unable-to-do-his-job-cop in front of me, it seemed that there was yet another match with Brianna's murder. Her body laid there on the cold floor, just like Brianna's when me and Holder found her.
Judging by the smell of her rotting corpse, she laid there for at least 2 weeks, her body facing the ground
"And there was no ID or phone found?" I asked the young cop next to me, who, just like his partner, looked as if he had never seen a dead body before
He gulped "no, miss. It's gonna be hard to identify her, there are many young woman getting lost around here. Mostly prostitutes and runaways, kids no one cares about."
I nodded "please contact me if you identified her." I walked over to Holder who stood next to the body
"I can't stand crime scenes." He admitted as I stood aside him "me neither. Wanna know some something? This case reminds me of a case I've worked on a few years ago. But we got the killer, locked him away. End of the story."
"Maybe our man is trying to copy him? Shit like that happens all the time, you know."
I shook my head kneeling down to the body "don't think so. He wasn't a big thing on the streets. Just a small criminal asshole, there are hundreds of them in this goddamn city." I moved the girl's hair away and spotted a tattoo behind her right ear "yo, there's something. Take a picture of this."
"I've seen this before, Holder. On Brianna. She had the exactly same tattoo on her right feet."
"You think there's a connection? Broken hand, same tattoo? Don't think that's coincidence."
Holder pushed his phone back into his pocket "same. It all gets clearer, don't you see it? All we need to do is finding the asshole who made this mess."
_______
"You're going home, I'm going home. Sleeping. Eating. Things we usually don't do. Deal?" I asked Holder who compared the crime photos of Brianna and the unknown girl "okay, sure. Let's pretend we have a normal life for once."
"Normal's a setting on the dryer. People like us don't get normal." I replied looking over to him
"That's the realest thing coming from your mouth in a while, Davidson."
Holder and I had a habit of not taking what we said too serious. Unless it's about the job of course. But lately, it feels like we grew up. We took things more serious, working harder towards the goal. And the goal, in that and almost every other case, is to find whoever hurt the victim and to lock them away so that they can't continue their gruesome games. We've worked on not too many cases together, but with each we solve, we grow a little. And as of lately, also closer.
As partners, we just can't have that kind of relationship. I often think about Holder. As, more than my partner. It feels good, but in reality, it couldn't work. That's not what we are, not what we're supposed to be.
I held my head in my hands, I felt another headache attacking me. I needed sleep, I needed to eat. But Brianna was more important. The victims always are more important.
Holder had probably already taken my car to drive home, and here I am again. Supposed to sleep, yet I knew I would probably stay up all night again trying to find that one piece in the puzzle that was still missing.
______
