Page 90 of Jagged

"Taco junkie. Seriously."

"I had soft shell and now I want crunchy—"

"Christ, Jags." He laughed at me. "Is that why you're grumpy?"

"Not really." I glanced at him. "But I still want tacos."

"On the way home."

"'Kay."

"Why aren't you pumped about this?" he asked.

"When have you ever known me to be pumped?"

"You used to be pumped. Pumped enough to blast your opinions all over the walls of Seattle's best buildings."

"That's different," I said, shrugging. "I cared about that."

"You don't care about this case?" He lifted a brow at me as concern flooded his features.

"I mean…I do. But I don't think cold cases are for me. It's so…cold. I miss the beat," I admitted. "I really do."

Silence found us for a moment, gripping the hems of my shirt like a nagging child. It irritated me when I couldn't read his mind. Had I offended him? Did it matter if I did?

"You really miss the beat?"

"Yeah. I guess. I don't like this. These long pauses. Waiting for things to happen. I'm supposed to read the pages of these old case files and have some sort of epiphany that seasoned detectives before me never had? It doesn't make any sense to me," I blurted out all my frustrations in one big vom-dot-com of nonsense.

"I get it," he said after a moment. "Watching James and Miller, Donovan and her crew. They know what they're doing."

"Yeah."

"But I liked it. I feel like I can learn from them. I spent the day with Donovan's crew today, just kind of watching them. They're brilliant. I felt like a fool."

"I feel like a fool every day. James and Miller—or technically Miller and Miller—are some sort of crime-solving savants. Like who thinks like that?"

"They do… And I think I'd like to some day."

"Not me, I guess. I liked helping alive people more. I liked helping alive people not get dead."

"Are you gonna talk to Walsh?"

"Maybe." I glanced at him, then stared out the window at the foggy road as it past by. "Maybe."

Blinding lights greeted us as we pulled up the dirt road toward the demolition site. In the darkness, the lights made it appear like something out of a space-age movie where people excavated alien space crafts in the middle of the night. Instead, machines moved stuff all over the lot, while others pushed dirt into giant piles.

"Creepy. Kind of like a quarry or something," said Zay.

"Never seen a quarry."

"Good place to hide a body, I suppose."

"It is. I mean, if I needed to hide a body, it would be in a quarry or a dump." Zay parked and we exited the car behind the black SUVs belonging to the FBI.

The group of us walked in a slow flow around the area while waiting for the owner to show up. Donovan leaned against the barrel of a construction vehicle while staring down at a stack of papers in her hands. Beside her, a similarly stoic woman looked around with her hands on her hips. I'd heard her referred to as Agent Olsen a few times, but hadn't spoken to her much.

"Did you see this?" Donovan said, glancing at me.

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