Quintic

Patricia returned to her filing clerk-receptionist position at Chief Officer Christopher James MacLaren’s precinct to fill in for his sick secretary. Answering phones, fetching coffees, and admiring her cop of a boyfriend should be safe enough. Days at the desk and evenings writing a follow-up story of her female serial epic, life is grand. It was about time her PI character got a story of her own. The college-aged waitress murder would help her fictional character (not my alter ego as I only do fiction, Big guy). And nothing (or no one, including the infuriating man), could stop her from researching–wasn’t that what writers did–her one allotted cold case.
Chris would prefer she spent her days at the library but figured nothing could go wrong as long as the damn woman stayed within precinct walls, right?
Called on a crime scene on his day off, Chris merely intended to help out a rookie. When he finds a connection between Patricia and the vic, though, he takes up the case, intent on solving it without her involvement. As if that ever worked. As her past catches up with her, she gets it in her head to train his rookie officer, solve the case, and protect him. Him! I’m trained and armed, Angel. The idea of handcuffing her to his bedposts is becoming more enticing by the minute.

“You guys in the mood for a beer?” Chris asked his men. “My treat.”
His team was always in the mood for a beer, even more so when they had open cases or unfinished business. Fucking right, unfinished business. “Reid? Le? How about giving Patricia a ride, I’ll meet up with you there?” He had a feeling LeRoy and Reid wouldn’t be the only ones around for drinks. “Charles, Ham, my office. Now.”
He didn’t wait to watch them scamper out of the conference room.
“Ham, I want you to run a background check on our victim Lemieux while I talk with Charles. See what turns up,” he ordered midway to his office.
“Charles, let me make a couple of calls before we review the case again. Any objection to working with us on this?” He didn’t wait for the rookie’s answer. If he wanted the case transferred (and Charles temporarily assigned to his team), Chris had to hunt for a replacement for the local chief.
He briefly thought of the quartet’s leftovers but decided against it. He had enough enemies already, hadn’t he? Enemies but friends also, it took him about a dozen phone calls, half an hour of favour calling, flattery and bribes to set up everything; he even called Central to check it with them. Not that it would have made a fucking difference for him. Just keeping my eyes on Lemieux for you, Darling of mine.
He briefed Charles about the way of the team. About his ways. “I know you want in. I see it in your eyes, same as in my guys, but Charles, it won’t be easy.” Fuck, the guy looked like a kiddie cop–a fucking rookie.
He briefly hesitated on what to tell the kid about Patricia. “About Patricia. She works here part-time. She. Is. Not. A. Cop.” He decided to spell out precisely what was allowed and what was not. “Anything she says, asks, demands, requests, orders, or begs for, you clear it with me. She doesn’t do anything or go anywhere without me breathing down her neck. Got it?” As he spoke, he speculated how long it would take for her to trick the rookie.
He repeated, keeping it simple, “Never do anything she asks; never let her go anywhere she wants to visit unless I, your boss, have authorized it specifically, out loud and face-to-face. And Charles? I will never consent to it. Ever.”