I’d dive through her lingerie drawer if I wasn’t soaking wet and trying to remain strong.
Racing back into the bathroom, she slams the door shut, and I can hear her lock the door.
My phone starts vibrating in my pocket right as I the shower turns on in the bathroom. Pulling it from my pocket, I press connect.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“While I think this has been a waste of resources, Uriel was able to pick up the trail of Morrison’s son. He’s been making a circuit around the house and street. It’s wide but he’s keeping tabs on you. Another cop car, an officer Dickers, has been patrolling as well,” Simon says.
“Give me a second,” I say.
Standing up from the chair, I bend over and tilt my head down toward the floor. I can see Sophia’s shadow under the seal of the door.
She’s listening.
Leaving the bedroom, I walk until I reach the stairs leading to the first floor before I ask, “What’s the situation with the Morrisons? And anything on Dickers?”
I’m somewhat aware of the Morrisons. I know the elder Morrison and Chief Cronin were friends. Dickers is an unknown to me. I used to know a bunch of the officers on the force, but I’ve been lax lately.
That’s probably because of my obsession with her. She’s taken over so much of my mind, I can’t remember where she ends and outside life begins.
“Dickers is a lifer who hasn’t seen a promotion since he became a training officer. From the internal memos, I can see he’s formed a small cadre of likeminded individuals within his precinct,” Simon says with an almost monotone voice.
He’s putting together files of information quickly in his mind.
“Let me guess, those he’s trained are either handpicked from the academy or were assigned to him from Morrison,” I say as the wheels in my mind begin to chug along with his.
“Yes, very astute observation. As of now, he’s a wild card. I don’t know why he’s patrolling around this neighborhood. He wasn’t assigned the area during roll call this morning,” Simon says.
“I bet if you look even closer, Spider, personal cellular calls will be radiating in a triangle around this neighborhood,” I say to him. “They’re going to be staying off official radio dispatches for whatever it is they’re doing.”
“You’re correct,” Simon says over his rapid typing on his keyboard. “I’ll start pulling records and see who comes up.”
“It’ll be officers he’s trained, not anyone above him,” I say. “And how loose are the patrols? That’ll tell us how long we have until we need to evac out.”
“I’ll get the information over to you as soon as I have it,” Simon says.
“Do they know my current location or home? That’s going to be a deciding factor. Also, I need…” I trail off, trying to think of who I can get to do a very delicate job. “Johnathan to go to my house and get Mitzy for me. I need her and a bag of clothing.”
“Is she still in the biting stage?” Simon asks with a dark chuckle.
“Only dudes she really doesn’t like. Or who smell like french fries,” I say with a smile.
“Excellent. Anything else?” Simon asks, sounding almost chipper.
Oh shit, Johnathan is so fucked. Good, fucker deserves it.
“Yeah, what are the chances of me getting a secure phone? I’m good on guns for the time being. I figure we’ll try to be out of here by tomorrow, tops. We’ll need a window to get out, even if I have to ditch my car to do it,” I say, trying to build an image in my mind of what the landscape around this neighborhood looks like.
“I’ll have the phone easily, the window as well,” Simon says, and I hear him still typing in the background, but now it sounds like a machine gun on full auto spray.
He’s onto something.
“Can I also get a laptop that’s top of the line with a direct line to you? I’d like to see if I can put together any strings I get from Sophia. Also, any info you get, you can dump directly down the line to me,” I say.
“That should be easy enough. Although I’ll have to run a couple of filters to ensure it’s all put into some sort of order. I plan on doing a complete hack of all the department files,” he says.
“Any chance you can send it both ways? Not sorted and sorted?” I ask.
“Of course, but why?” he asks, the typing stopping.
“Because sorting could compromise the true nature of how things got passed around. Also, it might show us a pattern that wasn’t meant to have one,” I say.
“Chaos theory,” Simon says.
“Exactly. Who’s to say that random reports of excessive use of force filed in different years don’t have a basis to be something else?” I say.
“Why, James, do I have to worry about you taking over my job? That’s quite a brilliant thought,” Simon says, intrigued.
Chuckling, I say, “Fuck no, Spider. I’d kill myself if I sat and stared at computers all day.”
“Good, it will save me from having to poison you.” Simon laughs to himself. “I’ll have your requested items soon.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if any more strings get connected,” I say,
“I will, and James?” Simons says with what sounds like a smile.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Thank you,” he says before he disconnects the call.
Heading back to the bedroom to wait for Sophia, I can’t help but laugh. “Johnathan is so fucked.”
5
James
Sitting at Sophia’s desk, I try to see in my mind the way things are connecting so I can put together a picture of how the fuck we got in this exact position.
In the middle right now is Chief Cronin, and I need to figure out who he was connected to besides us. Somewhere there are strings I’m missing being added, and somehow, I feel like Morrison is in the picture more than we thought.
Morrison, his son Trent, and Dickers.
Those three are in the diagram, and so are any who are connected to them.
I bet Trent was trained by Dickers.
I’d love to get my hands on the reports about them all. See what has been said, and if they’ve had complaints of any sort. Simon is more than likely going to download every single file in the department and surrounding precincts. That, I think, will give us a better picture of the current landscape.
But it doesn’t, as of right now, answer why the Chief was needlessly killed.
It could have truly been an accident, but I don’t think it was.
While my brain turns over the facts of what we do and don’t know, I hear a quiet sob through the wall, above the sound of running of water.
Sophia.
I know she’s been holding on as strong as she can, but she’s finally at that point. The one that says things will never be right again. The one that hurts the least and the most at the same time.
Because her thoughts are right, nothing will ever be like it was again.
The water doesn’t stop though, it keeps running and running. I know this house has a huge water heater from the files I could pull up, but that doesn’t mean it’s endless.