Page 69 of Rookie Days

“Feeling better now?”

“Just about a million times. Thank you.”

“No problem. Now get back to work, Detective.”

Ellie rose, smiling again and feeling like a ton of weight had just slid off of her shoulders. She was at the door when her brain made the connection, and she froze.

“What?” Quinn fixed her expectantly from back behind her desk.

Ellie turned around, adrenaline flooding back in.

“I was thinking about the case just before you called me in: who’d want to hurt women who save lives on a daily basis? And for what reason?”

“Good questions. Do you have a good answer?”

“Yes!” Ellie nodded sharply. “Yes, it just hit me! I’ve spent hours trying to figure out what the two victims had in common besides their job, but maybe that’s the key. Doctors and nurses are life savers, right?”

“Sure.”

“But sometimes they lose patients.”

“Yes, sadly that’s part of it too.” Quinn nodded attentively.

“So, what if the one other thing O’Connell and Jackson have in common is a patient they could not save? And what if now, a furious friend or relative is looking to punish the medical team involved?”

Ellie only had to catch the darkening of Quinn’s blue eyes to know that she must have stumbled onto something good. Even without that reaction, she knew it deep inside.This felt like a breakthrough.

“Follow that track,” Quinn approved.

“I’ll go back to the hospital to dig into their files and look at previous cases.”

“Okay, great.”

“I’ll speak to Jan. Be good to get her feedback.”

“Good idea.” Quinn only seemed mildly surprised that she would mention her, and call her‘Jan’. “I’ll give you her private number. You can—”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Ellie interrupted.

“Oh?”

chapter 23

Lia listened and watched in amusement as her wife shared the news that ‘her’ officer, as she put it, had ‘got herself involved’ with her best friend.

“Is that an official thing between Ellie and Janet, then?”

“I don’t know what it is. She ran out the door before I could get the details.”

“Really?” Lia chuckled as she tried to imagine the fit, dark, and handsome Detective James, fleeing the scene of an imminent personal conversation about to happen. “Did she scramble?”

“Well. She was kind of on her way out already. And on the job, so I didn’t call her back.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway.” Quinn sighed aggressively. “She got this crazy goofy smile on her face.”

“You mean, happy?”

---