asphaltcowgrrl (
asphaltcowgrrl) wrote2020-03-25 02:15 pm
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Sin City Slaying Chapter 9 (Romani Detective/Preying Eyes Original Fiction)
Title: Sin City Slaying Chapter 9
Fandom: Romani Detective/Preying Eyes Original Fiction
Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 2,551
Summary: The story is starting to come out, piece by piece.
Author’s Note: Hopefully this isn’t a letdown. I am proud of this story – it’s a little more plot heavy than my usual and I think it’s an okay mystery. Michael Connelly, I’m not, but compared to the first I wrote (Cops & Rubies), I think I’ve come a long way.
Taryn sighed and tapped her fingers on the battered and scarred table. The poor thing had seen more anger and rage than any one table should ever witness. She looked up and frowned. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“The beginning,” Andrej said. “Wherever you think that may be.”
“Right,” Zayne added. “Even if you have to take us through stuff that doesn’t seem important to help us understand the things that are important. You’d be surprised at how many little, irrelevant things turn out to be very relevant in the end.”
“Okay,” she said. She brushed her long hair out of her face, thinking. “You know that Kyle Anderson was a pig, right?”
They nodded, unwilling to stop her so soon after she started.
Taryn sighed, then rubbed her eyes. “Well, he somehow figured out that Tyler and I were seeing each other in secret. I don’t know if one of us did or said something that tipped him off, but he knew. Tyler said he hadn’t uttered a word about it to anyone but…”
“But he’s a dick and a liar,” Zayne offered up, causing her to smile for half a second.
“Yeah, that, too,” she said. Taryn leaned back in her chair and stared at the two-way mirror behind the detectives. “Who’s watching us?”
Andrej glanced over his shoulder, wondering the same question. “Our fellow homicide detectives.”
“The two chicks you had with you earlier,” she asked.
“Yes,” Andrej confirmed. “And another detective, one from narcotics.”
“There are drugs involved?” Her eyes were wide at the revelation.
“No, no,” Andrej said, waving a hand between then. “He is a friend who offered to help me out while my partner was out of town.”
“Oh,” she said, deflating a bit. “Okay, thanks. I was just worried who might be listening in on all this.”
“No reporters, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Zayne assured her. “That would tank our case in a hot minute if we let one of those vultures listen in.”
The tenseness eased out of her shoulders as she absorbed his words. “It was what I was thinking, sorry. I don’t know why but it was bothering me.”
“Understandable,” Andrej said. He knew from his chats with Adrien how big of a nuisance the media was to people like them. “Please, continue.”
“Right, sorry,” she said again, giving an apologetic smile. “Anyway, somehow, Kyle found out we were seeing each other, and he started to blackmail Tyler.”
“What was he asking for,” Zayne asked. He gave Andrej a quick glance before turning back to Taryn.
“Money,” Taryn spat. And then, with a little less venom, “A feature on Tyler’s next album.”
“What does that mean,” Andrej asked. “What is a feature?”
“It’s when an artist invites another onto their song,” Zayne explained. “It’s been a thing for years now, but country music is only just starting to jump onto the bandwagon.”
“Like a duet?”
“No,” Taryn said, shaking her head slightly. “More like a special guest who sings a verse, maybe, or the chorus.”
“I think I understand,” he said. “Why would this be something Kyle Anderson wanted?”
Taryn shrugged. “Best guess is that he thought it would help kickstart his career again. Tyler, asshole liar or not, is pretty hot on the charts right now. Getting onto one of his singles, one that’s sure to go top ten if not number one, would be a boon to any artist.”
“What did Alderman say to Anderson’s threats,” Zayne asked. He leaned an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand.
She scrunched her face up in disgust. “He told Kyle to fuck off, if you excuse my language. What we were doing might have been wrong, but it wasn’t illegal, and he wasn’t going to profit off it either.”
“Even if it cost you your career?”
Taryn glared at Zayne. “And why would it cost me my career, detective?”
“My sister suggested the possibility to me when I was home.” Zayne smiled at her and shook his head fondly. “You see, my sister is very much plugged into the country music gossip machine down in Texas. She was pretty adamant that the majority of your fanbase was populated with right wing Christian women like what you pretend to be. And in case you forgot, cheating’s a sin.”
“As is sex before marriage,” Andrej added needlessly.
“Whatever,” she said, shooting a glare at Andrej. “My career would have been fine. People have short memories.”
“I bet your boyfriend would disagree with you,” Zayne muttered.
Andrej frowned. “I would assume that Mr. Anderson did not take that very well.”
“You’d be right,” Taryn said. “He kept texting Tyler asking for money and things. When Tyler ignored him, he started texting me.”
“What was in the texts,” Andrej asked. He’d read through the file, so he knew exactly what they’d contained already.
“What you’d expect, I guess,” she said. Her body slumped a bit, the adrenaline of the earlier excitement fading. “Threats to expose us, asking for money to pay things off. Photos.” Her lip curled a bit as she said the last word.
Bingo.
Zayne set a folder on the table and pushed it across to her. “These pictures?”
Lifting the top of the folder, Taryn made a disgusted face and closed it again. “Yes, those.” She shuddered. “Creep was stalking us. Anytime I left a room with Tyler, he followed. I can only assume that was how he got all those pictures. Gross.”
Andrej couldn’t disagree with that observation. He moved the file folder away from her when he saw Taryn eyeballing it with hatred. “What happened after that?”
“Tyler and Kyle got into a big argument about it all. Kyle said he was going to expose us and Tyler…” Taryn trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
“Tyler threatened to kill him,” Zayne finished. “We know because we saw it in a text he sent.”
She shook her head roughly, shaking the thoughts away.
“Ms. Fairchild? Can you continue?”
Sucking in a shaky breath of air, Taryn nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s all so… fresh. Their fight was nasty. They were in each other’s faces, screaming, pushing, threatening to destroy each other’s lives and careers.” She sighed again, looking weary. “I grabbed Tyler by the arm and dragged him out of the room. We were at the casino, rehearsing late.”
“When was this,” Andrej asked. “The text where Tyler threatened Mr. Anderson were from two weeks ago.”
“Tyler can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes,” she said. “He threatened a lot of people like that in the heat of the moment.” Taryn looked down at the table and rubbed her thumb along a large scratch on its top. “This happened the night before that damn Ricci kid found the body.”
“What did you do after that,” Zayne asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Went back to his room. What do you think?”
Zayne raised his hands. “Hey, we’ve gotta ask because I think one or the other of you went back and killed him.”
That stopped her for a second. “No, or at least, I didn’t. God, I’m pissed that he’s dragged me into all of this. I fell asleep after… well, you know.” She waited until she was sure they understood what she meant before continuing. “I woke up around midnight and Tyler was nowhere to be found. I figured he maybe went down into the casino to gamble a bit, wouldn’t surprise me, but whatever. So, I texted and got no answer. I was tired and didn’t really care what he was doing, so I went back to sleep.”
She reached for the glass of water that had been provided to her when she’d arrived. It was the first time she’d touched it from what they could tell. After taking a long sip, she leaned forward, resting her arms on the table.
“Not long before one o’clock – I checked the clock when I heard the door open – he came into the room and flipped on the light. I don’t think he realized I was still there. Maybe he’d hoped I’d gone back to my own room, who knows?” She shrugged like she didn’t care, but her face told them otherwise. “He turned towards me and swore. I couldn’t figure out why until my eyes adjusted to the light. His hands and face were covered in splatters of blood. It was on his shirt, too.”
Andrej made a note about the clothing. “What was he wearing that night? We will need to collect them for evidence.”
Picking up on Andrej’s next thought, Zayne shot off a text to Hilary asking her to get started on a warrant to search Alderman’s hotel room.
“It was an old, ratty Lynard Skynard t-shirt. Was white once but is now some sort of dull greyish-white mess. Dark blue jeans. His boots, the same as he always wears.”
Nodding Andrej wrote it all down. “Did you say anything when you noticed the blood?”
“Yeah, I asked him what the hell he’d done and that’s when he got in my face and told me I had to keep my mouth shut. Said if I told anyone, he’d tell them I was in on it, too. I lied earlier,” she said, going pale. “I knew that if word of our affair got out, it’d hurt my fanbase. But damn, I only asked Tyler to shut him up, make him back off. Not kill him!”
Andrej looked at Taryn. Her hands were shaking, and she’d gone pale. “Can I get you some coffee?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m – I’m okay, I think.”
He nodded and took a moment before asking his next question. Andrej needed her to be calm and thinking clearly when he asked. “Did he have the gun he used to kill Kyle Anderson on him when he returned.”
“Yes,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “It was stuffed in the back of his jeans.”
“Would you recognize it if you saw it,” Zayne asked.
The tears overflowed and cascaded down her cheeks. “Yes,” she said.
“Positive,” Zayne asked.
“Absolutely,” she said. “It was my gun he used to kill Kyle.”
A knock on the door interrupted the silence that had followed on the heels of Taryn’s admission. Zayne rose and went to the door, sticking his head out into the hallway. He shut the door a minute later.
“Is everything okay,” Andrej asked.
“Yeah, the judge already approved the search warrant,” he said. “I guess Maxwell called as she was typing the request and the judge is as eager to get this behind us as we are. They’re sending two uniforms over to execute it now. Someone from the MGM will be there to meet them.”
“Good,” Andrej said. “Is there anything more you need to tell us about that night?”
“We fought, obviously, and I left to go back to my room. I know I should have called the police, or, at least, my manager, but I was panicking.”
“One more question,” Andrej said. “When you and Ms. Abrams were arguing earlier today, someone overheard her say ‘Kyle was right’. What did Ms. Abrams mean by that?”
Taryn let out an exasperated breath. “Kyle had told me over and over that Tyler wasn’t worth the trouble. But I was in love, or so I thought.” She looked away for a moment, composing herself. “A couple weeks ago, I’d caught Tyler hitting on a fan. Kyle apparently saw it, too, because that was what Wheeler had approached me about. Wanted to know if I’d dumped Tyler. I denied being in a relationship with him, of course, but she persisted. Told me Kyle’d been right all along, that Tyler wasn’t worth the paper he was printed on. Guess he was right, in the end.”
“Some men are not worth the hassle,” Andrej said. Then, with a smile in the direction of Zayne, he added, “And others are a struggle, but worth it in the end. You only have to know when to stop trying.”
“Sit tight,” Zayne said. “We’ll be back as soon as we hear something from the team executing the warrant. And I might as well ask, is there anything in your hotel room that could be considered evidence?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Okay,” Zayne said, “we’ll be back.”
“Well, that was enlightening,” James said when Andrej and Zayne had entered the observation room.
“Tell me about it,” Hilary laughed. “I wonder how that dickhead will react when we dump this on him later?”
“Are you going to speak with him now,” Andrej asked. He pulled a chair over beside Adrien and sat down.
“We’re going to wait until the unis are done searching his room,” Trish said. “Minimize the number of things he can lie to us about.”
“Spoken like a woman who knows men,” James laughed.
“Hey, kid,” Zayne said, nudging Adrien with the toe of his boot, “you okay over here?”
Adrien looked up and shrugged. “I don’t even know, to be honest with you. It was bad enough finding Kyle dead in my dressing room, but this?” He shook his head slowly. “Tyler is a pain in the ass, but I’d have never thought he was capable of murder.”
“You never know what someone’s capable of until they’re pushed too far,” Zayne said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
“Would you like me to get someone to take you back to the hotel,” Andrej asked.
“Can I stay here, just for a bit?” He looked around the room, frowning. “I know I don’t know any of you, not even a little bit but, I honestly can’t stand the thought of being alone right now.”
“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Trish said. “Come with us, we’ll get you some coffee and sugar and you’ll feel better in no time.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” James said, standing and stretching. “Are you two taking orders?”
“Maybe,” Trish said, giving him the stink eye. “Why don’t you come along and help us.”
“I can do that,” he said. Turning to Andrej, he said, “We’ll be back. You two want anything?”
“No thank you,” Andrej said. He glanced at Adrien. “Will you be okay with them?”
“Yeah, I mean, three police detectives guarding me? I’ll be fine. I usually only have one.” He winked at Andrej and grinned.
“We promise to take care of him,” Hilary said. “And we’ll bring you two something anyway. You look like you could use a pick me up, Andy.”
“Go,” he said, shooing them out of the room.
Once they’d left, Zayne pulled Andrej into a tight hug. “She’s right,” he whispered. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
He leaned into Zayne’s embrace and allowed himself to be comforted for a moment. Zayne had only been gone a few days, but even that short time had been too long. “I am okay,” he said, kissing Zayne’s temple before pulling out of the embrace.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Zayne said. “Should we check on her before we go back to our desks?”
Andrej looked into the interrogation room and shook his head. “She is okay for now,” he said. “We will check back in a bit.”
Fandom: Romani Detective/Preying Eyes Original Fiction
Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 2,551
Summary: The story is starting to come out, piece by piece.
Author’s Note: Hopefully this isn’t a letdown. I am proud of this story – it’s a little more plot heavy than my usual and I think it’s an okay mystery. Michael Connelly, I’m not, but compared to the first I wrote (Cops & Rubies), I think I’ve come a long way.
Taryn sighed and tapped her fingers on the battered and scarred table. The poor thing had seen more anger and rage than any one table should ever witness. She looked up and frowned. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“The beginning,” Andrej said. “Wherever you think that may be.”
“Right,” Zayne added. “Even if you have to take us through stuff that doesn’t seem important to help us understand the things that are important. You’d be surprised at how many little, irrelevant things turn out to be very relevant in the end.”
“Okay,” she said. She brushed her long hair out of her face, thinking. “You know that Kyle Anderson was a pig, right?”
They nodded, unwilling to stop her so soon after she started.
Taryn sighed, then rubbed her eyes. “Well, he somehow figured out that Tyler and I were seeing each other in secret. I don’t know if one of us did or said something that tipped him off, but he knew. Tyler said he hadn’t uttered a word about it to anyone but…”
“But he’s a dick and a liar,” Zayne offered up, causing her to smile for half a second.
“Yeah, that, too,” she said. Taryn leaned back in her chair and stared at the two-way mirror behind the detectives. “Who’s watching us?”
Andrej glanced over his shoulder, wondering the same question. “Our fellow homicide detectives.”
“The two chicks you had with you earlier,” she asked.
“Yes,” Andrej confirmed. “And another detective, one from narcotics.”
“There are drugs involved?” Her eyes were wide at the revelation.
“No, no,” Andrej said, waving a hand between then. “He is a friend who offered to help me out while my partner was out of town.”
“Oh,” she said, deflating a bit. “Okay, thanks. I was just worried who might be listening in on all this.”
“No reporters, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Zayne assured her. “That would tank our case in a hot minute if we let one of those vultures listen in.”
The tenseness eased out of her shoulders as she absorbed his words. “It was what I was thinking, sorry. I don’t know why but it was bothering me.”
“Understandable,” Andrej said. He knew from his chats with Adrien how big of a nuisance the media was to people like them. “Please, continue.”
“Right, sorry,” she said again, giving an apologetic smile. “Anyway, somehow, Kyle found out we were seeing each other, and he started to blackmail Tyler.”
“What was he asking for,” Zayne asked. He gave Andrej a quick glance before turning back to Taryn.
“Money,” Taryn spat. And then, with a little less venom, “A feature on Tyler’s next album.”
“What does that mean,” Andrej asked. “What is a feature?”
“It’s when an artist invites another onto their song,” Zayne explained. “It’s been a thing for years now, but country music is only just starting to jump onto the bandwagon.”
“Like a duet?”
“No,” Taryn said, shaking her head slightly. “More like a special guest who sings a verse, maybe, or the chorus.”
“I think I understand,” he said. “Why would this be something Kyle Anderson wanted?”
Taryn shrugged. “Best guess is that he thought it would help kickstart his career again. Tyler, asshole liar or not, is pretty hot on the charts right now. Getting onto one of his singles, one that’s sure to go top ten if not number one, would be a boon to any artist.”
“What did Alderman say to Anderson’s threats,” Zayne asked. He leaned an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand.
She scrunched her face up in disgust. “He told Kyle to fuck off, if you excuse my language. What we were doing might have been wrong, but it wasn’t illegal, and he wasn’t going to profit off it either.”
“Even if it cost you your career?”
Taryn glared at Zayne. “And why would it cost me my career, detective?”
“My sister suggested the possibility to me when I was home.” Zayne smiled at her and shook his head fondly. “You see, my sister is very much plugged into the country music gossip machine down in Texas. She was pretty adamant that the majority of your fanbase was populated with right wing Christian women like what you pretend to be. And in case you forgot, cheating’s a sin.”
“As is sex before marriage,” Andrej added needlessly.
“Whatever,” she said, shooting a glare at Andrej. “My career would have been fine. People have short memories.”
“I bet your boyfriend would disagree with you,” Zayne muttered.
Andrej frowned. “I would assume that Mr. Anderson did not take that very well.”
“You’d be right,” Taryn said. “He kept texting Tyler asking for money and things. When Tyler ignored him, he started texting me.”
“What was in the texts,” Andrej asked. He’d read through the file, so he knew exactly what they’d contained already.
“What you’d expect, I guess,” she said. Her body slumped a bit, the adrenaline of the earlier excitement fading. “Threats to expose us, asking for money to pay things off. Photos.” Her lip curled a bit as she said the last word.
Bingo.
Zayne set a folder on the table and pushed it across to her. “These pictures?”
Lifting the top of the folder, Taryn made a disgusted face and closed it again. “Yes, those.” She shuddered. “Creep was stalking us. Anytime I left a room with Tyler, he followed. I can only assume that was how he got all those pictures. Gross.”
Andrej couldn’t disagree with that observation. He moved the file folder away from her when he saw Taryn eyeballing it with hatred. “What happened after that?”
“Tyler and Kyle got into a big argument about it all. Kyle said he was going to expose us and Tyler…” Taryn trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
“Tyler threatened to kill him,” Zayne finished. “We know because we saw it in a text he sent.”
She shook her head roughly, shaking the thoughts away.
“Ms. Fairchild? Can you continue?”
Sucking in a shaky breath of air, Taryn nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s all so… fresh. Their fight was nasty. They were in each other’s faces, screaming, pushing, threatening to destroy each other’s lives and careers.” She sighed again, looking weary. “I grabbed Tyler by the arm and dragged him out of the room. We were at the casino, rehearsing late.”
“When was this,” Andrej asked. “The text where Tyler threatened Mr. Anderson were from two weeks ago.”
“Tyler can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes,” she said. “He threatened a lot of people like that in the heat of the moment.” Taryn looked down at the table and rubbed her thumb along a large scratch on its top. “This happened the night before that damn Ricci kid found the body.”
“What did you do after that,” Zayne asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Went back to his room. What do you think?”
Zayne raised his hands. “Hey, we’ve gotta ask because I think one or the other of you went back and killed him.”
That stopped her for a second. “No, or at least, I didn’t. God, I’m pissed that he’s dragged me into all of this. I fell asleep after… well, you know.” She waited until she was sure they understood what she meant before continuing. “I woke up around midnight and Tyler was nowhere to be found. I figured he maybe went down into the casino to gamble a bit, wouldn’t surprise me, but whatever. So, I texted and got no answer. I was tired and didn’t really care what he was doing, so I went back to sleep.”
She reached for the glass of water that had been provided to her when she’d arrived. It was the first time she’d touched it from what they could tell. After taking a long sip, she leaned forward, resting her arms on the table.
“Not long before one o’clock – I checked the clock when I heard the door open – he came into the room and flipped on the light. I don’t think he realized I was still there. Maybe he’d hoped I’d gone back to my own room, who knows?” She shrugged like she didn’t care, but her face told them otherwise. “He turned towards me and swore. I couldn’t figure out why until my eyes adjusted to the light. His hands and face were covered in splatters of blood. It was on his shirt, too.”
Andrej made a note about the clothing. “What was he wearing that night? We will need to collect them for evidence.”
Picking up on Andrej’s next thought, Zayne shot off a text to Hilary asking her to get started on a warrant to search Alderman’s hotel room.
“It was an old, ratty Lynard Skynard t-shirt. Was white once but is now some sort of dull greyish-white mess. Dark blue jeans. His boots, the same as he always wears.”
Nodding Andrej wrote it all down. “Did you say anything when you noticed the blood?”
“Yeah, I asked him what the hell he’d done and that’s when he got in my face and told me I had to keep my mouth shut. Said if I told anyone, he’d tell them I was in on it, too. I lied earlier,” she said, going pale. “I knew that if word of our affair got out, it’d hurt my fanbase. But damn, I only asked Tyler to shut him up, make him back off. Not kill him!”
Andrej looked at Taryn. Her hands were shaking, and she’d gone pale. “Can I get you some coffee?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m – I’m okay, I think.”
He nodded and took a moment before asking his next question. Andrej needed her to be calm and thinking clearly when he asked. “Did he have the gun he used to kill Kyle Anderson on him when he returned.”
“Yes,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “It was stuffed in the back of his jeans.”
“Would you recognize it if you saw it,” Zayne asked.
The tears overflowed and cascaded down her cheeks. “Yes,” she said.
“Positive,” Zayne asked.
“Absolutely,” she said. “It was my gun he used to kill Kyle.”
A knock on the door interrupted the silence that had followed on the heels of Taryn’s admission. Zayne rose and went to the door, sticking his head out into the hallway. He shut the door a minute later.
“Is everything okay,” Andrej asked.
“Yeah, the judge already approved the search warrant,” he said. “I guess Maxwell called as she was typing the request and the judge is as eager to get this behind us as we are. They’re sending two uniforms over to execute it now. Someone from the MGM will be there to meet them.”
“Good,” Andrej said. “Is there anything more you need to tell us about that night?”
“We fought, obviously, and I left to go back to my room. I know I should have called the police, or, at least, my manager, but I was panicking.”
“One more question,” Andrej said. “When you and Ms. Abrams were arguing earlier today, someone overheard her say ‘Kyle was right’. What did Ms. Abrams mean by that?”
Taryn let out an exasperated breath. “Kyle had told me over and over that Tyler wasn’t worth the trouble. But I was in love, or so I thought.” She looked away for a moment, composing herself. “A couple weeks ago, I’d caught Tyler hitting on a fan. Kyle apparently saw it, too, because that was what Wheeler had approached me about. Wanted to know if I’d dumped Tyler. I denied being in a relationship with him, of course, but she persisted. Told me Kyle’d been right all along, that Tyler wasn’t worth the paper he was printed on. Guess he was right, in the end.”
“Some men are not worth the hassle,” Andrej said. Then, with a smile in the direction of Zayne, he added, “And others are a struggle, but worth it in the end. You only have to know when to stop trying.”
“Sit tight,” Zayne said. “We’ll be back as soon as we hear something from the team executing the warrant. And I might as well ask, is there anything in your hotel room that could be considered evidence?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Okay,” Zayne said, “we’ll be back.”
“Well, that was enlightening,” James said when Andrej and Zayne had entered the observation room.
“Tell me about it,” Hilary laughed. “I wonder how that dickhead will react when we dump this on him later?”
“Are you going to speak with him now,” Andrej asked. He pulled a chair over beside Adrien and sat down.
“We’re going to wait until the unis are done searching his room,” Trish said. “Minimize the number of things he can lie to us about.”
“Spoken like a woman who knows men,” James laughed.
“Hey, kid,” Zayne said, nudging Adrien with the toe of his boot, “you okay over here?”
Adrien looked up and shrugged. “I don’t even know, to be honest with you. It was bad enough finding Kyle dead in my dressing room, but this?” He shook his head slowly. “Tyler is a pain in the ass, but I’d have never thought he was capable of murder.”
“You never know what someone’s capable of until they’re pushed too far,” Zayne said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
“Would you like me to get someone to take you back to the hotel,” Andrej asked.
“Can I stay here, just for a bit?” He looked around the room, frowning. “I know I don’t know any of you, not even a little bit but, I honestly can’t stand the thought of being alone right now.”
“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Trish said. “Come with us, we’ll get you some coffee and sugar and you’ll feel better in no time.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” James said, standing and stretching. “Are you two taking orders?”
“Maybe,” Trish said, giving him the stink eye. “Why don’t you come along and help us.”
“I can do that,” he said. Turning to Andrej, he said, “We’ll be back. You two want anything?”
“No thank you,” Andrej said. He glanced at Adrien. “Will you be okay with them?”
“Yeah, I mean, three police detectives guarding me? I’ll be fine. I usually only have one.” He winked at Andrej and grinned.
“We promise to take care of him,” Hilary said. “And we’ll bring you two something anyway. You look like you could use a pick me up, Andy.”
“Go,” he said, shooing them out of the room.
Once they’d left, Zayne pulled Andrej into a tight hug. “She’s right,” he whispered. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
He leaned into Zayne’s embrace and allowed himself to be comforted for a moment. Zayne had only been gone a few days, but even that short time had been too long. “I am okay,” he said, kissing Zayne’s temple before pulling out of the embrace.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Zayne said. “Should we check on her before we go back to our desks?”
Andrej looked into the interrogation room and shook his head. “She is okay for now,” he said. “We will check back in a bit.”
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