Page 75 of Dirty Daria
How can this be happening?
My head spins as I try to think of a reason why.
Ohmigod. I’m going to be sick.
I stumble down the stairs, whispering rapidly through the comms as I go. “Don’t do anything. Repeat. Do not do anything. Fall back. Reconvene at the cars. NOW! GO!”
I run back to the starting point, making sure I don’t hear any errant gunshots as I go, getting there just as the girls do.
“What the hell, boss? We could have taken a lot of them. Probably saved those girls. I was pumped and ready.”
“I know,” I sigh. “Me too. But we couldn’t go in.”
“Want to tell us why?” Alyssa asks.
No! Fuck.
“Because my father was one of the buyers in there.”
33
Mack
“He’s gone,” the chief says in response to my question about where Reed is.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“Gone. No longer here. Went over my head, requested a transfer to UC, and is gone.”
“He requested undercover work?” I’m stunned. I sink back into one of the guest chairs in the chief’s office; my eyes wide, mouth agape.
“Are you just repeating everything I say, Murphy?”
“No, I’m just surprised is all. We’re right in the middle of a case—”
“Well, technically your case was just shot between the eyes.” He leans back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head.
“Yeah, but we know there are other people involved, we just need to find them.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’d planned to strategize with Reed.”
“Well, he’s gone.”
“Can he just do that, chief?” I ask. “Just ask for a transfer and be gone, just like that? Leaving us high and dry?”
“Apparently.” The chief laughs, but it’s not a friendly laugh. “I’ll be honest with you, Murph. I feel as blindsided as you do. I would have thought that professional courtesy dictates that his new department head would reach out to me. Wasn’t expecting him to suck my dick, but a ‘hey, thanks for giving us your guy,’ would have been nice. I got nothing. I also would have thought Roberts himself would talk to me, or at the very least leave a note or an email. A voicemail, even. Fuck, I don’t know. I worked with him for years. So, just know that whatever you’re feeling, I’m feeling too.”
“Sorry, chief. I gotta be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about the situation it put you in.”
“I just sent that asshole to Maldives with you too, the fucker.”
I laugh at that. But just as quickly want to yell and punch a wall. “Fuck, chief, what am I supposed to do here?”
“We’ll get you a new partner.” He says it like it’s a simple thing to do. Like getting a new pair of shoes.
“I don’t want a new partner.” New partners are tough. You never know if you’ll be compatible, you have to break each other in, get past the honeymoon phase, learn how to interpret the other’s thoughts, predict their actions. It took Reed and me years to hone that between us.
