Page 35 of Love's Hot

The shrill of a phone ringing makes us both jump.

“I swear to god if that’s your sister again I’m flushing your phone down the toilet. She is my biggest cock blocker.” Kane starts to sit up in the bed.

“Not mine, Wolf, all you this time.” I hand him his phone off the chair where he threw it last night.

“Shit, it’s the station. This can’t be good on a Sunday.” I watch him standing in front of the window, naked ass and his muscly back the perfect specimen, while he takes the call. I wonder what his work colleague would say if he knew what he looked like on the other end of the phone. I see his shoulders tense and understand that fun-loving Kane has already left the room. Grabbing my robe, I know it’s time to get dressed and ready to say goodbye… again.

14

Kane

DRIVING INTO THE UNDERGROUND parking garage at the station, I’m reminding myself, this is why I won’t do relationships. The phone calls on a Sunday that require me to drop what I’m doing to head to work. My work life instantly becomes more important than what I’m doing at the time. Even the look of disappointment on Lilly’s face this morning was enough to piss me off. We have no ties or commitments, yet she still looked at me like someone had kicked her dog. Not sure how this is going to work with Lilly but it’s early days yet.

“Look what the cat dragged in, Kane Boston, welcome to when the real work happens,” Johnno yells at me from his desk.

“Hey, boys, you miss me? Can’t manage a whole weekend on your own?” I slap Johnno on the back on the way past as I head to the meeting room for the debriefing.

“You wish. As per usual the weekend shift is cleaning up your messes,” he calls out as he picks up his files, following behind me. “I thought working these weekend shifts was supposed to be a picnic and I could catch up on the television series I’ve been watching. So, could you and the rest of day shift get your shit together, so everything is wrapped up on a Friday?” We all laugh because in this job you need to laugh and keep a healthy sense of humor, otherwise it will overtake your soul.

Chatting amongst ourselves, all comes to a quick silence when the boss walks into the room.

“Thank you all for coming in and making yourselves available. Especially you, Johnno. If you get the message Jenny has gone into labor, just leave. I don’t need to know. Not that I’m worried, if the baby’s like you it’ll be late. Never known you to turn up to anything on time. Actually, surprised you’re already here.” This brings a roar of laughter from the peanut gallery.

“Hahaha, you’re all hilarious,” Johnno grumbles.

“Right, let’s get on with it. We have had a few breakthroughs with the Sheree Woodley case.” He opens up the file he has placed down in front of him on the desk.

“We’ve secured some of the messages from the online account as well as the phone movement on her phone for the month prior. Here is the good news. The phone is still being used. Not often but it’s active at least once a day.” My chest is tight. The feeling that’s been nagging me since the start of this case is there and getting stronger.

“We’re mapping as we speak. The data is showing that the majority of the pings and activity are all coming from the area down near the river. Lucy will have the data up on the screen shortly for us. Unfortunately, there are a lot of warehouses, high-rise housing and development sites down in that area currently. To narrow it down is going to take time. But at least we have a starting point. Johnno, Georgio and Ramirez you’ll be assigned to go through all her phone and social media messages. Shaw and Russell, you’ll take over operating the ghost account. We’ve had a few initial bites over the weekend since it was set up so we need to ramp it up a little more and see if we can get a solid lead on any potential suspects. Dottor and Thomson, you’re going be out in the field talking to people and door-knocking the area. Bostonand Messells, you have the special assignment. We’ll chat in my office shortly.” My heart lurches. I’ve got an idea what’s coming and the boss wanting to talk to me on Friday makes more sense now. I’ll wait to see if I’m right, but everything is piecing together.

After the debriefing is wrapped up, everyone starts to head to their desks to get working on their parts, but at the last minute Sarge stops us with one last thing. “People, one more thing to pay attention to. We’ll know more in the next twelve hours but there’s a possibility that this is not an isolated case. I’ve had a call this morning from the Palmer Street station downtown to say they may have a missing person case that’s starting to sound very similar. They’re in the initial stages of the investigation but keep that in mind. He may have struck before and now struck again. Eyes and ears peeled, people, eyes and ears. Let’s get moving.” As he leaves the room, he calls over his shoulder to meet in his office in five minutes. Messells and I both roll our eyes to confirm we’re dreading what this is.

I worked with Messells when I first arrived at the station. She is one tough cop. Highly skilled and passionate about her job. She’s not long back from her honeymoon. Married one of the officers in Firehouse Seventeen which is in our precinct. We work in with them often on cases of bodies found in fires. Her husband is a good guy. Protective as shit of her but also man enough to be proud of the top-rate policewoman she is. Not sure if they’re planning on any kids but I imagine that’ll be a hard juggle with both of them being on the job. Time will tell, I’m sure.

Sarge walks in and closes the door behind him, making himself a coffee at the machine perched on the only small piece of clear counter space left in his office. File after file are stacked on top of each other with archive boxes ready to be shifted to the filing department. Problem is, as fast as the files are closed, there are others opening that just replenish that pile of paperwork.

“I know you both probably think you have an idea of what you’re in here for, but that’s not even the half of it. We actually have reason to believe that this case might be linked to something bigger than just the disappearance of our victim.” He leans back in his chair and takes a sip of his coffee. He looks troubled and like he’s still trying to sort out his thoughts.

“There’s been intelligence on an illegal nightclub that’s really a sex club that has women being forced against their will to perform in the club. At the moment we feel there may be some sort of crossing of the two cases. Not sure on the full details yet but the deputy commissioner has me working the leads we have.” I look to Messells who also looks a little intrigued about where this is headed.

“I know it’s not making much sense at the moment. Our biggest problem is that every time we get close to the club, they’re tipped off, so we have to pull back. There are a few other things that have happened that lead us to believe that someone in the operation may be on the force or has an insider on the job and feeding them information.” I can feel my body tensing very quickly. I hate a snitch or dirty cop. This job is hard enough but to have one of our own against us and putting us all at risk makes me want to hit something.

“What the hell!” Messells curses under her breath.

“My thoughts exactly. Pisses me off. Do they have any department suspects yet?” He has both of us sitting up taller in our seats and at full attention. I know my body language will be giving away my disgust at what he’s telling me.

“No. Which is why we’re not sharing this with the rest of the squad. You’re both very highly respected in this station and I hope officers we can trust. This information is not to leave this room and here’s the list of who you can discuss the case with.”

He slides a file across the desk for us both to look at. My mind is already trying to take what I know from the current missing woman case and see what facts start to fit any of the holes in the jigsaw puzzle of the sex club brothel case.

I need to see the messages from the dating app accounts to see if anything overlaps with the party scene. From what we know about Sheree, she doesn’t sound like the sex club scene would be her deal. In saying that, I don’t think you ever really know about anyone’s sexual tastes until you’re one-on-one in that intimate situation. Well, that’s when it’s consensual. It’s when it’s not that we have a problem.

Sarge is pacing his office waiting for us to finish. He has something else he needs to get off his chest and I’m just not sure we’re going to like it. I make notes in my notebook and I can see Messells doing the same thing. We’ll sit later and brainstorm our thoughts with this.

“Now that you’re familiar with what we know, there’s one more thing I need to discuss with you both. We need you both to go undercover into the sex clubs to see what you can hear and find out about these off-the-radar clubs. We have our sex crimes unit keeping an eye on a few clubs regularly but we know they’re clean as far as anything non-consensual or drug-related. They may not be legal, but they’re clean. We have a bit of an unwritten agreement, if they stay clean with the sex and drugs, we will leave them alone to an extent. These other ones are fair game, though.” He’s talking fairly fast trying to get everything out on the table.

“What the fuck, Sarge? You want me to go undercover in a sex club? With him?” Her eyes rolling and pissed-off face tells me what she thinks.

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