Page 35 of Not That Impossible

“I’m in the middle of an investigation here, and I can’t have you causing trouble.”

“No trouble. Just questions. One or two, that’s all. Um. Ray. Is he a suspect? Or?”

Liam stopped walking and stepped into my personal space. My breath caught. “Jasper,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Go home.”

“Yes. Questions first, though.”

Liam shook his head sharply. “No. That’s not how this works.”

“It definitely is.”

“I’m busy. You can’t crash a crime scene like it’s a party and start demanding answers and attention.”

“Liam, that is literally what journalists are supposed to do.”

“No, they’re supposed to go through the proper channels. Those channels do not include bothering officers who are trying to do their jobs, or thinking that knowing the SIO gives you any kind of privilege.”

“SIO?”

“Senior Investigating Officer.”

I made a mental note. “I don’t think I’ve got any privilege here.” He raised a brow. “You wanted me. I mean. You called me over.”

“To tell you to go home.”

“Can you take me seriously for, like, a second? Please?”

He looked at me. “No.”

And normally I’d ignore that, but the tone of disbelief in his voice on top of the shitshow of a day I’d had made me do something incredibly stupid.

I shoved him.

Placed my hands on his chest like I had that day in the pub, and shoved him.

Except I did it hard.

He rocked back, and his eyes widened.

They bugged.

His eyes bugged. Almost clean out of his head.

Because this wasn’t the pub. This was a crime scene, he was working, and I’d just assaulted him.

“Shit,” I said, and ran.

9

So. Quick recap of my craptastic day.

I wasn’t available like a ‘proper journo’ for the first news story I’d ever had a chance to write, and Ralph had to pull out the big guns in the shape of my arch-rival Mrs Strickland.

I let Mrs Strickland cut me out of an interview that I was in the middle of conducting and I didn’t even notice when she did it, because I was too busy fussing with the phone that I’d just broken while trespassing.

---