“Hey, Rojas,” she said.
He handed her a file. “Boss, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” She grabbed her cup and took a long, scalding draw.
“Did you hire me because you feel sorry for me?”
She choked, not sure if it was due to the scalding liquid burning the back of her throat or Rojas’s question. Most likely a combination of the two.
“I’m not a charity case,” he continued. “I want to earn this position on my own merit.”
She tossed in a few last-minute coughs, then asked, “Seriously?”
“No.” He grinned, an enchanting lopsided thing. Never mind that underneath the uniform lay enough ink to print The New York Times for a month. He was a good officer. “It just makes me sound like a better person when I say shit like that.”
She tapped her temple and looked at Quince. “Always thinking, this one.”
“I think,” he said, defensively.
“Mm-hm.” She glanced over the report Rojas had brought in. “I want you to pay attention to this, Quince. Rojas knows how to write up a report.”
“I write reports.”
“Listen,” she said before reading aloud. “‘Single-handedly and with zero safety incidents, updated the communication and output device that utilizes and produces vital information while simultaneously sharing critical data with coworkers and creating a more efficient and productive work environment.’”
After taking a moment to let the sentence sink in, Quince frowned at Rojas and asked, “What does that even mean?”
The glib smirk the new deputy offered her BFF was too much. “I changed the ink cartridge in the printer.”
Sun nodded. “I like the way you think, Rojas.”
“Thanks, boss.” He bent to check out the caged menace snoring away. “How’d it go?”
“I had a raccoon’s crotch in my face for what seemed like hours.”
He arched a brow. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”
She picked up her cup and took another sip. “I have many sides, Rojas.”
After a quick glance over his shoulder at Quince, he straightened and started to leave, but Sun could tell there was something more lingering just below the surface. He had questions. And doubts. She knew he would.
“Quince, can you give us a sec?”
“Sure thing.” He gave Rojas a challenging stare, one that warmed Sun’s heart. She’d known they would get along when she hired Rojas, and Quincy’s ribbing was proof that she’d been right.
She sat at her desk and motioned for him to sit across from her.
The situation with Poetry Rojas was one that she would never have believed if it hadn’t happened on her watch. Four months ago, U.S. Marshals had descended upon the town of Del Sol searching for an escaped convict named Ramses Rojas, Poetry’s twin brother. What she figured out during the manhunt was that Ramses was actually Poetry. He’d gone to prison in his brother’s stead.
How he had pulled it off, she would never quite understand, but it was important to Poetry. He’d implied once that he’d owed his brother, so when the cops mistakenly arrested him, he didn’t correct them. In Sun’s opinion, unless Ramses had given up a kidney for him, Poetry got the short end of the stick. Three years inside for a crime he didn’t commit was asking a lot.
While there, however, Poetry had earned a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and was actively working to get his case—his brother’s case—overturned. Getting caught in the middle of a jailbreak hadn’t been his plan. Sun had seen the footage from the van the prisoners had escaped from. He’d had no choice but to go along. Luckily for her, because she would never have found him otherwise.
“How are you doing, Rojas?”
He leaned back in the chair, still a tad untrusting of the situation, and possibly of her, and said evasively, “I’m good.”
“Your scores were excellent at the academy.” Like she knew they would be.
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. It makes me look good.”
He nodded and she realized getting past the barriers he’d built in prison for a crime he didn’t commit would take some time. That was okay. She just happened to have some extra time.
“Do you have any questions? Complaints? Concerns?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I do have one concern, if you’re asking.”
She took another sip. “I’m asking.”
He took a moment to consider his words, then said, “I think you got the wrong guy.”
“I doubt it. I haven’t arrested anyone in days,” she teased. The statement didn’t surprise her. Rojas had been questioning her decision to blackmail him into joining the team since she’d first done it four months earlier.
He sat up straighter in agitation. “What happens if I can’t solve a case or if someone gets away on my watch or if I make a mistake and someone dies because of it?” He dropped his gaze to study his hands. “What if I fail?”
His misgivings only strengthened Sun’s conviction that she’d made the right decision. She would’ve been worried were he not questioning his ability to do the job. “You will fail.”
He fixed her with a guarded stare.
“You will make mistakes.” She leaned forward and spoke softly. “You will regret decisions you made because hindsight is twenty-twenty. But you’ll learn from them and do better next time.”
“You don’t make mistakes.”
“Trust me, I do. On a daily basis.”
He shook his head. “I’ve read your clearance rate from when you were a detective in Santa Fe. Ninety-seven percent. That’s almost unheard of. If you do make mistakes, you don’t make many.”
“Maybe I’m just really good at fixing them before they become an issue,” she offered, but she had the feeling he was referring to something a little more specific. Maybe something he’d done in the past that made him question his position. When he asked his next question, she was sure of it.
“Do any of them haunt you?”
“Yes.”
Too much of a gentleman to ask her which ones, he nodded but kept silent, so she explained. He needed to know she was far from perfect. Everyone was. “My very first case as a detective.”
He leaned onto his elbows, his interest piqued.
“Missing boy. The father on trial for securities fraud. The mother a puddle of nerves.”
“What happened?”
The tightening in her chest proved she was still not over it. Over him. A five-year-old boy with huge brown eyes and a nuclear smile. He’d haunted her dreams for seven years. “He … we never found him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Just know, Rojas, we can’t win them all. We do the best with what we have and try to make it home to our loved ones every night.” When he only nodded, unconvinced, she added, “And I chose you for a reason. Never doubt that. But if you need to talk about anything, you know where I live.”
“Thanks, boss.”
Zee walked into the station, dart gun in hand, and Rojas almost broke his neck to get a clear view.
He nodded a hello as she walked past the office door, then said, “That girl can shoot.”