Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Hey!” the new rookie chirped, looking so goddamn chipper and gung-ho that I wanted to rip the smile off his face.
Didn’t he know today was going to fucking suck?
“It’s so weirdly quiet today,” the rookie said. “Is that normal?”
The lieutenant at the desk we were passing next to groaned, slamming his pen down onto the desk and glaring at the rookie.
“What?” the rookie asked, sounding blissfully ignorant.
“What?” the lieutenant crowed. “You just said the Q word. You never say that word out loud.”
That was true.
You didn’t.
It just wasn’t done.
Cops were a superstitious lot.
Especially when it came to someone saying ‘quiet.’
It was never ‘quiet’ at a police station.
In fact, it was always everything but ‘quiet.’
There were some days that were calmer than others—like today had been—but it was never just quiet.
“What are you…” the rookie asked, but the mic at my shoulder sounded, signaling not one, not two, but six calls all coming in at once.
I groaned and walked toward my assigned cruiser.
Not all cops had their own cruisers.
In a department the size of DPD, it was nearly impossible for us to have as many cruisers as would be necessary to equip all of them, but like my brothers, we were special. All of us had our own personal cruisers.
Hell, I practically lived at the damn police station—hence the need for two days off in a row.
“Let’s go,” I grumbled to the rookie.
The rookie fell into step beside me and took the passenger seat with nary a word.
We were driving out of the lot seconds later.
“I would’ve gone…” the rookie said, trying to explain why his way would’ve been faster.
I ignored him and the construction that caused me to go this way in the first place, and kept driving the way I knew was necessary.
“Oh, look at that. They have that road closed down.” The rookie snorted. “This would’ve been the faster way.”
I took a left onto the feeder road and prayed for patience.
A horn honked when I picked up speed and merged over before there was a clear opening. The woman I cut off changed lanes, then passed me with her middle finger up high in the air.
I ignored it.
I deserved it, too.
“Can you pull people over for flipping you off?” the new recruit in the seat next to me asked.
I glanced over at him, momentarily forgetting about the gorgeous brunette with the delicate middle finger, and said, “I don’t know. Can you?”
“Sure?” he guessed.
I shook my head. “No. You can’t just pull them over because they’re flipping you off.”
“Unit one-nine-three,” the dispatcher came on the mic. “Eighty-six the previous call. Child was found.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
That was one thing I wouldn’t have to worry about today. I hated missing children cases.
“Well, I mean…” the rookie started, but I was already shaking my head.
“She’s allowed to flip me off. I did cut her off.”
I’d needed to cut her off, or I would’ve hit the person in front of me when they slammed on their brakes for a fucking paper bag flying in the air.
The woman was definitely driving defensively, too.
In her little ’99 brown Toyota Corolla with ski racks, she had more dings and dents in it than a discarded soda can.
It also looked vaguely familiar.
She switched lanes, and that’s when I saw the large scrape down the side, indicating an accident that had happened only today.
The car from the hospital.
After issuing the Corolla a citation, and a few hours of desperately needed sleep, I’d picked up the new recruit, Hans Tador—what a name that was—and had started driving him around the city to get him integrated into the life of a beat cop. Now we were getting the one-finger salute from the same car.
I wasn’t normally a beat cop, or a person who dealt with new recruits, but my brother, Quaid, was. He was the person in charge of the entire street division, and the man was stressed to the gills.
Therefore, I was doing him a favor.
The favor was going to kill me, though, because Hans Tador—Jesus, that name sucked—was driving me up the freakin’ wall with his endless questions and what if scenarios.
The brown Corolla turned off at the exit for the stadium, and I wondered if the two women in the car were heading to the comedy show that was taking place there.
It took me all of three seconds to forget about her, though, because the dispatcher came back onto the mic with another call. Jesus, I hated running the beat. That was why I was a detective. Detectives didn’t have to make all these bullshit calls, dealing with the public at large.
“Unit one-nine-three,” the dispatcher called over the mic. “We have a possible three-five-alpha at the Citgo on Second and Young.”
“Fuck,” I grumbled.
“Oh, that’s a robbery, isn’t it?” Hans asked excitedly.
Jesus, new kids.
They just had no clue.