When Perfect Meets Crazy

25 - Blessing in disguise or plain old curse

I perched on the edge on of Parker's desk, stretching my legs out in front of me as I did a quick sweep of our surroundings.

No one seemed to be listening in or paying any attention to me. Not even Parker himself who had his attention buried in the case file in front of him.

"Hey." I tapped his shoulder for good measure.

Parker had laser-like focus that rivalled mine. He once read through a fight that broke out between a criminal and another cop right in front of his desk and didn't know at all even though it got so heated shots were almost fired. He was that good at tuning out background noise.

He raised his head slowly, eyeing me up, then down.

"What are you doing here?"

Although his tone was less than friendly, I wasn't insulted. I knew where he was coming from. I also hated being pulled out of studying. Or worse, reading a novel.

"Stopped by to drop off the Sheriff's jacket," I lied.

After Masked Idiot ran off without confirming my theory, I decided I couldn't wait and engineered this trip to drop off a jacket that was in fact sitting in the basement back home, waiting to be washed. If anyone but my dad asked though, that was my cover story. As for my dad, I lied I was looking for a paper for an assignment that might've gotten mixed up with his documents.

He wasn't pleased and curtly showed me out of his office after declaring that he hadn't seen any such papers.

And now I was finally at Parker's desk. The reason I engineered this trip to begin with.

He nodded distractedly, gathering up the papers in front of him into the file. "So what do you need?" He went straight to the point.

It was one of the main things I liked about him. I wasn't one for small talk unless my mom was physically present and expected it of me. It was probably why I didn't have many close friends. The come-over-and-hang-at-my-place type. Such hangouts were usually full of small talk and I just didn't see a need for it.

Well, that and I never knew when my dad would start acting up nor could I trust them not to do something my mom would find ill mannered like not hang their coats properly, leaving their shoes in the wrong place or any of her other pet peeves.

Compartmentalizing was safer. Keep my school life separate from my home life was just better.

"This guy," I showed him the picture of Masked Idiot on my phone, "could you help me look him up?"

He stopped, dropped everything and gave me his full attention.

I stiffened, watching raptly as suspicion blossomed on his face.

"Why are you looking into a Fed?"

My eyes widened. "You know him?"

Fed? My guess was actually correct?

"I ran into him a couple of times at the... hold on a sec, how do you even know him? And why the hell are you looking into a Fed?"

"We... just met. He seemed a bit sketchy, that's all." I shrugged innocently.

His eyes narrowed, nose wrinkling with disapproval.

Parker, unfortunately, happened to be one of the few people on earth that I couldn't successfully bullshit. Not without effort, at least. My mom was also on that very short list and that was all.

"Try again," he said flatly.

"Fine," I huffed. Bending the truth would have to suffice. "I thought he was criminal. You know, he's really big and brawny and he keeps popping up and disappearing. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't keeping the wrong kind of company."