Page 52 of Rookie Days

“Have to admit,” Janet grumbled as she unlocked her door, “you’re making me a bit nervous.”

“Nervous isn’t helpful but being alert is,” Ellie, very much in cop mode now, replied. Then she flashed another disarming smile; sexy, sheepish, and intent all rolled into one. “Also, maybe I just wanted to kiss you at the door.”

chapter 17

There was no time to linger. Dispatch had just informed her that a woman had been found dead at a popular recreation spot on the edge of the city. It might be another rape victim. Ellie needed to go. But she would rather have lost an arm than leave Janet at the bar under the circumstances… And now she recognized that her knotted stomach had more to do with personal pressure than the prospect of rushing to another murder scene. You said you’d be straight. So be straight, dammit!

“I’m scared,” she blurted out, and instantly wanted to take it back.

What the hell!?Although somewhat true, this was absolutely not what she had meant to say. Before Janet could reply, because there was no time and she could not figure out how to explain it with words, Ellie just took her face in her hands and she poured everything she felt into a kiss. Janet resisted slightly at first, probably because her mind was still on the startling admission Ellie had just made. But then she melted into her, and kissed her back with equal passion. It was loaded from the start, laced with desire and unspoken, raw emotions. Equally, and on both sides. The more experienced of the two,Janet was the first to pull back. Ellie struggled to follow suit and even to open her eyes, deeply lost as she’d been in the intensity and power of the exchange. She stumbled, caught herself on the doorframe.

“You’re gorgeous.” Janet steadied her with one hand firmly placed in the center of her chest. “Now go.”

“Yeah.” Ellie could not resist resting her fingers over hers and staying close for a second longer. Her heart was pounding hard enough that she was sure Janet must feel it too. “I’m going. Um… Jan. What I meant to say—”

“Shhh...” Janet silenced her with another kiss, mercifully brief this time, as if she recognized that anything else would leave Ellie unfit for duty. She flashed her a brilliant smile and added a shove to it. “I heard you loud and clear. It’s okay. Get out of here, rookie. I’ll see you soon.”

???

Time hit differently when she was with Janet, though Ellie was pleased to confirm that the extra stop did not add more than five minutes to her journey. She was still ahead of the ME when her driver dropped her off at the entrance to Lincoln Park. She handed him a twenty, told him to keep the change, and jogged her way to a lone police cruiser parked in front of a wooded area in the distance. By the time she ducked under a line of yellow crime scene tape and joined the uniform on site, her mind was clear and her focus, absolute.

“Hi. Detective James. What have we got?”

She didn’t know the officer attending, but he looked young and was revved-up. A real rookie, she figured, who omitted to introduce himself but filled her in quickly and accurately.

“Got a call that a guy walking his dog found a body in the bushes. I got here and met with him. Confirmed that the womanwas dead and I secured the scene. Didn’t touch her or anything, and neither did the man who discovered her.”

“Where is he now?”

“That’s him over there.”

The cop, whose name tag read J. Alders, pointed his torch toward a bench under one of the rare park lights. At a glance, Ellie asserted that the individual who sat with an arm around his Golden Retriever must be in his late sixties.

“Did you get his statement?”

“Yes. He’s local, walks his dog here every night.”

“Bit late and cold to be out walking a dog, isn’t it?”

“He’s got insomnia.” Alders nodded, then for some reason only known to himself, felt the urge to clarify. “I mean, the man does.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Right. I work nights and this is my patch. I see him out all the time, so I know he’s not lying. Old guy lost his left leg in Vietnam. Walks with a cane but he’s pretty switched on. He told me he didn’t see or hear anyone out of the ordinary tonight until his dog started to bark at something in the bushes. He spotted the body and called us immediately.”

“How did he know that the woman was dead?”

Alders turned a little green at the question.

“Ah. It’s pretty obvious, Detective.”

“Okay. Show me.”

The first thing Ellie noticed was a familiar pair of running shoes on the victim’s feet. Hoka’s Clifton 9. She liked to run in the same model. Coincidently, they were also of the same color. Ellie did not let that steal her focus. The woman was on her back. Her head was tilted to the side at an unnatural angle, and her green eyes, dull in death and specked with blood, stared at nothing from under half-open lids. Her running tights had been torn off her legs and, once again, the pattern of bruises on herthighs and pelvic area hinted at sexual assault. Ellie shone the beam of her mini-Maglite over her head as she squatted down, careful not to touch the victim or disturb anything around her.

“She’s got blood in her hair. Bruises around her throat.”

“You think she was raped, uh? Then strangled?”

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