The Sensation

by Amanda Bridgeman

  “I would’ve known what the kid was up to,” Beggs said. “You even bother to ask him? Huh? Or were you too busy interrogating Salv there?”

  “Hey!” Salvi said, as Mitch glared at Beggs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What’s that mean? They told me you turned up with Grenville, Brentt. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes. Doesn’t take a genius to work that out. You think we don’t know why we had to swap partners?” He looked back at Mitch. “’Cause you couldn’t keep it in your pants.” Then he looked at her, “and you couldn’t keep your legs together! And now Caine is dead!”

  Before Salvi realized what was happening, her fist had connected with Beggs’ face.

  “Whoa!” Hernandez and Bronte pulled Beggs away and Mitch stepped in to keep Salvi back. She glared at Mitch, as he took her arm, turned her around and moved her toward the Raider. She yanked her arm from his grip.

  “Don’t grab me like that!” she spat.

  “Just get in,” he said, then walked around to the driver’s side.

  She did so, slamming the door. Mitch started the Raider and took off with speed, as they both watched Beggs, Hernandez and Bronte in the rearview mirror, staring after them.

  Salvi arrived at the hub a few hours later. She’d returned to her apartment alone as both her and Mitch needed some time to process what had happened. In the shock of learning that Caine was dead, they hadn’t stopped to think about taking separate vehicles. Or that Salvi was still in last night’s clothes. All they’d thought about was getting to the crime scene, not quite believing it was true.

  As soon as Salvi had returned to her apartment, she’d felt bad she’d left Mitch alone. He was Caine’s partner and the emotion he must have been going through would be a lot to handle. But the truth was, Mitch didn’t seem to want to talk about it. After they’d pulled up out front of his molecular apartment, he’d headed straight for his building entry and Salvi had walked right over to her white Zenith. As she got into the car, she’d glanced back at Mitch, but he hadn’t glanced back at her.

  At her apartment, she hadn’t slept. The image of Caine’s body had been burned onto her retinas, her hand hurt, and Beggs’ words circled endlessly in her mind. He’d been close to Caine, she knew it. They’d worked together for a few years and their partnership was dubbed ‘the Mobster and the Movie Star’ for a reason. She understood that Beggs was hurting, but she wouldn’t stand for him directing his pain at her. Or Mitch.

  When she walked into the homicide bullpen, she saw Hernandez there. He was sitting as his desk, just staring off at nothing.

  “Looks like you couldn’t sleep either,” she said, announcing her arrival.

  He looked at her and shook his head softly. “Nah. The kids were just waking up. I couldn’t look at them with this shit on my mind.” He gave a weak smile. “I didn’t want to ruin their day.”

  Salvi nodded and took her seat.

  “How’s the hand?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said, averting her eyes as she logged into her portal. After a moment’s silence she looked back up at him. He stared at her blankly. She could tell the news of her and Mitch wasn’t a surprise to him either. Hernandez had given Mitch a hard time during the Bountiful case, but when it was all over, Hernandez had admitted that he’d been wrong about him. He seemed to have accepted Mitch and didn’t worry about what she was doing with him. All Hernandez appeared to care about now, what consumed him, was Caine’s death. It was written all over his face.

  “We’ll find them,” Salvi said.

  Hernandez’s eyes focused on hers. “We better.”

  Ford entered then, looking like she’d just come back from the scene. She studied the two of them. “You go home like I asked?”

  “For a bit,” Salvi said.

  Ford continued on to her office and closed the door behind her.

  “Good morning, detective,” Riverton said, its voice calibrated to an appropriate tone for an occasion like this. “I am very sorry for your loss. Detective Caine will be sorely missed.”

  “Thank…” she cleared her throat. “Thank you, Riverton. Request update on any of our cases.”

  “I have an update on the Kelto’s Diner case, detective. A point of interest is that Joseph Delroy’s cleaning business has contracts with several high-profile clubs in the Sensation. Given the Sensation has been a hot zone lately, I thought this should be flagged for your attention.”

  “Which clubs?”

  “Little Minx, Dynamo, Bounce, Club Den, and Floor to Ceiling.”

  Salvi paused.

  “Wait. What? Did you say Floor to Ceiling?” she said, recalling the image of the women in Barker’s studio. “There was an image in–”

  “Yes, detective,” Riverton cut her off. “I downloaded the footage from your holo-badge and my analysis reasons the phrase on that particular image you looked at may be linked to this case. The phrase ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ does appear to refer to this club, Floor to Ceiling.”

  Salvi submerged in thought. Was this a coincidence? Or could there be some kind of link between the Barker case and the Kelto’s Diner case?

  She reemerged from her thoughts as Beggs walked in. He paused upon seeing her, his nose looking a little swollen. Hernandez straightened, watching, wondering whether he was going to have to jump in the fray again.

  “Thank you, Riverton,” Salvi said. “End request.”

  Beggs stared at her. His face looked old, his eyes tormented. “Something come up?”

  She nodded, eyeing him. Apparently they were going to pretend he hadn’t said those things to her, and that she hadn’t slugged him one.

  “We may have a link between our cases. Barker photographed one of the clubs Delroy’s cleaning company tended to,” she answered, then looked at Hernandez as her mind turned over. “In fact, the more I think about it, I think if we look hard enough we might just find links between more of our cases.”

  “How so?” Hernandez asked.

  “They’re all centered in or close to the Sensation. In many of the cases, security footage has been hacked and wiped. Nothing stolen. Some appear to be targeted hits, others seem to be random acts of violence possibly linked to this new drug Narcotics warned us about, but…” Her mind turned over. She couldn’t join the dots yet, but her gut was telling her there was something here. Thanks to her old partner, Stan, she knew she had to trust her instincts. “I don’t know what it is, but I think there might something linking all of this.”

  “And Caine’s murder?” Beggs asked.

  “I… I don’t know,” Salvi said quietly.

  Ford came out of her office and scanned the bullpen. “Get Grenville and Bronte here now. The Chief of Police is on his way.”

  “The chief?” Hernandez asked.

  Ford nodded. “We’re setting up a joint taskforce with the Narcotics and Cyber Crime divisions. Shit just blew open wide.”

  Salvi gathered in the briefing room with her colleagues from the Homicide division, waiting for the other two divisions to show. Ford had given them no more information as to why Chief Garrett was paying them a visit, nor what the joint taskforce with Narcotics and Cyber was about. Mitch had been the last to arrive and everyone felt the tension in the room as he and Beggs stared at each other. Though Salvi noted Beggs was the first to look away. She wondered if she saw regret on his face for his earlier outburst?

  Still, Salvi wasn’t concerned about Beggs right now, she was worried about Mitch. When he’d first entered the bullpen, they’d locked eyes, but then he’d looked away again. They were both grossly aware that everyone would notice every single move they made now. They couldn’t afford to glance at each other too long. At least, no longer than they looked at their colleagues. Salvi winced inside as she realized that by punching Beggs she’d all but confirmed his accusations. Why hadn’t she kept her cool like Mitch?

  Soon enough the door opened and Kara Shadid walked in with the Narcotics team. Salvi saw Hinde and an anoth
er pair she’d interacted with before, detectives Farrugia and Burke, with a handful of others she didn’t know as well. Kara met eyes with Salvi and gave her a solemn nod, then stood on the other side of the room, folding her arms. Salvi studied her. Kara looked even more tired and edgy than the last time she saw her, and if Salvi wasn’t mistaken, she saw guilt on Kara’s face.

  Why had Kara been so keen to talk to Caine yesterday?

  The Cyber Crime division entered next, including Belle, who was ashen-faced and red-eyed. Salvi felt her chest tighten a little with pain. Every face in the room displayed grief at Caine’s murder, but none more so than Belle’s. Salvi wondered whether Belle had still been seeing Caine at the time of his death, or if he had moved on to Kara and broken her heart.

  Still, right now none of that mattered. One of their own had been killed, and everybody in this room was going to do what they could to take his killer down.

  The heads of each division arrived. Ford led the way, followed by Eli Sorensen from Narcotics, then Josef Noble from Cyber. They took their places at the front and spoke among themselves quietly. Salvi studied them, trying to lip read. Sorensen looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, but he always looked like that. He often took part in undercover stings, so the three-day growth, longish hair and pierced ear were just part of his uniform. Noble was more clean-cut, but he rarely wore a suit like Ford. His attire sat somewhere between the other two, and he was rarely seen without his comms gear on, haptic gloves or data pane close by. Except that, of course, being from Cyber he always had the latest tech at hand, unlike the other departments. Whatever Noble and his team used, Salvi could bet it would take at least two years before the tech flushed down to the rest of them.

  Within moments the Chief Garrett entered. Tall, dark-skinned and built like a Mack truck, he gave everyone a nod as he made his way to the front. The room fell silent, as they eagerly awaited his brief.

  Whispers were exchanged between the heads, before Ford turned to address the room.

  “Everyone accounted for?” Ford asked, glancing about. The heads nodded. “Alright,” she said, “let’s get on with this. Detective Lewis Caine of the Homicide Division was brutally slain sometime this morning between 2am and 3am. He was stripped naked and tortured, and bled to death,” Ford said looking each in the eye. “He was strung up and left to die.” Salvi darted a glance to Belle who lowered her face and pressed her lips together. Burke squeezed her shoulder in comfort.

  Ford continued looking at the faces before her. “So, I don’t care what you’re working on, because as of this moment, we are all working this case. We have a cop killer out there, and we are going to bring that son of a bitch in.” She let the silence sit for a moment, then motioned to the Chief. “You know who this man is.”

  She stepped back and the Chief, grave-faced yet stoic, stepped forward. He too eyed everyone, but Salvi saw his mind turning over; knew he was buying time to formulate his words. Eventually he found the ones he wanted to say.

  “There is a deadly new enemy on our streets,” he said frankly. “One that is going to stack each and every division’s casefiles up to the roof if we don’t stop it now. I’m talking a potential epidemic of violence so brutal that our city will no longer be safe.” He took a deep breath, letting the silence hang for a moment. “You see, Detective Caine had been working undercover for me for a couple of months now.” Both Mitch and Beggs straightened a little in surprise. This was news to both of them. “I asked him to keep it quiet. The only people who knew what he was doing, outside of myself, were Detective Shadid from Narcotics, and all three division heads.” The homicide team turned their eyes to Ford. She stared back at them, face unapologetic.

  “What I am about to tell you will not leave this room. Are we understood?” he said. No one had any trouble nodding in agreement with the fierce look he gave each of them. “Good… Because, you see, this case involves my own daughter.” If the room had been silent before, it now felt like it had fallen into a complete vacuum. The Chief swallowed. “Clare, my daughter, fell in with the wrong crowd. She wanted to be a model and, at first, I supported her ambitions. She started hanging with those industry folks, trying to network her way to win exclusive contracts… But then she started disappearing for long periods of time. When she did show, I noticed she’d lost weight, wasn’t acting herself… It got to the point where she could no longer look me in the eye… Then there came a time where she did not come home at all…” He took a moment before continuing. “I’ve been a cop long enough to know it was drugs. When she went missing, I feared she was dead. So I asked Detective Shadid to ask around her contacts on the streets for anyone who might’ve seen my daughter. She got word that Clare had been hanging around the Sensation scene, and one club in particular. The club was incredibly exclusive and their clientele was of a certain type; young, attractive and rich. I’m not rich, but my daughter was attractive, so she overcame that barrier. I asked Detective Shadid to see what she could find out, but it was taking some time infiltrating these elite circles, so I chose to increase the manpower on the job.

  “Detective Caine fit the club’s profile, so I sent him in to give me more eyes on the ground. Caine made great progress and we believe we were on the verge of breaking open the case when… this morning happened. I can only assume that last night, he stumbled on something big… and it got him killed.” The silence sat another moment. “He died, doing his duty, trying to find out what happened to my daughter… and I can never repay him for that.” Salvi lowered her eyes a moment. Knowing Caine had died on a personal, private undercover job for the Chief, sat uncomfortably with her. Had Ford volunteered Caine for this? Pulled him from his other cases? Or was Ford given no choice?

  “Nor can I repay you for stepping into his place,” the Chief said, making Salvi look up again. “But this has gone far beyond my daughter now. This terror has hit the streets, and if we don’t stop it, it will escalate until there’s nothing left.”

  “What terror, sir?” Beggs asked. “What’s gone far beyond your daughter?”

  The Chief looked to Kara. “Detective Shadid will take it from here,” he said as he motioned her forward.

  Kara moved to the front, her long silver earrings glinting in the light as she did. “As you know, the narcotics team regularly works the ‘Sation club scene trying to stop the flow of known drugs. Well, a few months back we heard whispers of a new drug, one that was apparently way off the charts compared to anything we’d seen before. But it was expensive, pure as anything, and you needed to be part of a special, secret club to get your hands on it. We’ve been working hard to get close to it, and gaining ground, but very slowly. Around the time the Chief’s daughter went missing, we got word a new drug was starting to hit the streets. We assumed it was the drug we were investigating, however we now believe it’s different, but related. Somewhere along the way our drug had morphed from one kind into two. Except these drugs weren’t referred to as drugs, they were referred to as ‘experiences’. I’ll tell you why.

  “The first experience is called Flyte. That’s F-L-Y-T-E. It’s like ecstasy times a thousand. You want to fuck all night, this is the drug you use. We believe this is the experience that was doing the rounds at this secret club. The second experience is called Fyte. That’s F-Y-T-E. And, it’s as it sounds. It’s an adrenaline overload, makes the user think they are as strong as Superman. They become aggressive, violent assholes who are itching for a fight. It’s meth on steroids. Right now it’s speculation, of course, but we believe this drug may be the reason for the spike in homicides being reported.” She looked around at them all. “We were hoping to stomp out these drugs on the quiet before they became widespread, but we are on the verge of failing. Word is getting ‘round, and people are wanting a piece of the action. It’s moved from these secret elite clubs, and has now hit the streets in an altered form. We believe someone has taken the expensive Flyte drug, reverse engineered it, tweaked it, and created Fyte. If we don’t stop it now,
it will soon be made accessible to all. Which means we’re about to have a serious problem on our hands.

  “From what I’ve heard, the effects of each drug lasts several hours, depending on how high a dose they take. We believe those in this secret club, were taking Flyte via an injection, in its purest form. How the Fyte is being taken, we don’t yet know, but we’ll be looking through your homicide cases carefully to see if we can identify track marks on any perpetrators you may have found, in or out of the morgue. Either way, we have some souped-up freaks out there fighting or fucking their way to the extremes. We need to find who’s dealing it and follow the trail all the way to the head of the organization, so we can cut that head off. We also need to find out if the Chief’s daughter was caught up in this, and if so, what happened to her. And, of course, we now need to find who killed Caine…” She swallowed hard and looked around. “Any questions so far?”

  “Why was this kept quiet until now?” Beggs asked.

  “Caine was undercov–”

  “I get Caine being undercover,” Beggs cut her off. “Why’d you keep quiet on these drugs?”

  Kara took a moment, glanced at the Chief who gave her a subtle nod to continue. She looked back at Beggs.

  “Because we believe that some fairly influential people may be involved. When we say elite circles and secret clubs, we mean the very elite. The very rich, and possibly, the very powerful. We weren’t sure who we could and couldn’t trust, so we kept things quiet.”

  Salvi wondered whether that was the truth, or whether it was kept quiet because the Chief’s daughter was involved – to protect both their reputations.

  “Who?” Beggs demanded. “Name names.”

  “Beggs,” Ford said firmly with a stare to match. “Maybe if you shut up and let her finish you’ll find out.”

  Beggs scowled and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets.

  “Alright,” Kara said. “So before Caine came onto the case I had narrowed down one club as the potential source of the original Flyte drug. The club is ‘Floor to Ceiling’.”