by Amy Briggs
“Okay, so we don’t have much to discuss right now, other than that we need to wait,” Scott chuckled.
Clayton’s phone rang just as Scott summarized how little they had to go on. “Ah shit, I’ve gotta take this. It’s my Captain. Excuse me for a moment,” he got up and walked away to take his call privately.
Dani had sat motionless looking back and forth from Scott to Clayton as if watching a tennis match and saying nothing until Clayton walked away. She glanced gingerly up at Scott, noticing his piercing eyes, hazel, with a hint of green staring at her. “So, uh, how long have you been investigating fire?” She asked, trying to be polite while studying his eyes.
Clearing his throat, Scott replied, “A little over a year. We’ve been in between investigators in town for a while, and I’ve been studying for this job for a long time. I used to be a firefighter with District 23 for years while I was in school for investigating. What do you do Dani?” He asked softly, sensing her nervousness.
“I’m a blogger,” she replied quietly.
“Really? A blogger. I don’t think I know any of those. What kind of blogger?”
“Um, I’m a book blogger. I read a lot, and then I post about the books for publishers. It keeps me pretty busy, and the pay from a publisher is amazing and I get to work from home... or wherever,” she motioned her hands around gently, implying that even that bar could be her office.
“That sounds super interesting. So what kind of books?” Scott was genuinely interested in getting to know more about this girl, and the fact that she was into reading was a huge turn on.
“Romance. A new romance comes out just about every day, so there’s plenty of books to read and to write about.”
“Romance, eh? Like 50 Shades?” Scott asked with a smirk.
Rolling her eyes, Dani replied, “Everyone thinks all romance books take place in a red room or some shit. Some of the stuff I read puts 50 Shades to shame on the erotica level and some of the stuff I read is just really great, plot driven romantic stories filled with suspense and intrigue. And, for the record, most books have really well thought out plots with interesting characters before you raise an eyebrow at me.” Dani hated telling new people what she did for a living sometimes because there’s so many people that have a misunderstanding about what romance is.
Scott raised his eyebrows in surprise then tried to stop himself after her comment, “I don’t really know anything about romance books to be honest. I haven’t done a lot of reading for pleasure in quite a while with all the shit I had to read for school, but now I’m intrigued,” Scott felt a little twitch in his dick thinking about what she was reading that put a well known novel about sex to shame.
“You should give it a try. I know everyone thinks romance novels are for chicks, but there are a ton of them out there with lots of mystery, suspense and intrigue which seems up your alley. And ya know, sex, of course, which is up everyone’s alley,” the corners of her mouth turned up into a sly smile, knowing she was probably making Scott a bit uncomfortable. “I could recommend some for you to start with, not too kinky until you’re ready for that sort of thing.” She flipped her long red hair over one shoulder, exposing her deliciously long neck. Scott could see just a peek of a tattoo that must have been on her shoulder, making him curious to see what it was.
Feeling flushed, and a bit speechless, he was relieved to see Clayton coming back over. He took a gulp of his beer nearly finishing it and thinking it couldn’t possibly be enough to cool him down from that conversation.
“So what are you kids talking about?” Clayton took his seat back next to Dani. Scott could feel the heat of embarrassment on his face radiating.
“Oh, I was just telling Scott here about the smut I read and write about all day,” Dani replied bluntly. She leaned forward to take a sip of her drink from the straw, never lifting it to her mouth. Knowing that she was silently flirting with Scott, she couldn’t help but to catch his glance in her direction several times, after all he was ridiculously good looking and regardless of what had happened to her, she was still attracted to him.
“Jesus Dani, you just met the guy, you couldn’t break him in gently before talking about whips and chains and shit?” He rolled his eyes at her and kept talking. “So, anyway, the Captain lit a fire under the lab boys asses to move our case to the top of the pile, so we should have some answers tomorrow, hopefully in the early afternoon.”
“Sounds good, not sure the fire side will move that quick, but I’ll be able to give you an update in the morning on that after I go into the office.”
“That’ll work. Look, normally we don’t really share investigations, but I think in this case, because the circumstances are fucking odd, and I go way back with Cavanaugh, we should work this one side by side in the interest of good relations, and solving the fucking crime obviously.”
“That works for me. My office will be thrilled that we’re playing nice for a change,” Scott laughed. While he was trying to engage and pay attention to the conversation with Clayton, he couldn’t help but to continue reverting his eyes back to Dani.
She had gone back to being speechless again, and simply sipped on her Jack and Coke quietly watching, catching Scott’s nervous eye every now and again as the men continued to chat about department relations.
After they’d made arrangements to touch base the next day, Clayton picked up the check for all three of them, and stood up. “All right Scott, it was a pleasure to meet you, we’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
“Great, thanks. Dani, also nice to meet you,” he turned his attention in her direction.
“Yea, same here. Let me know if you want a list of those books,” she let out a slight giggle as she drifted off to the door, departing with her brother.
As Scott left the bar, he couldn’t help but think about that little glimpse of her neck hiding behind her shiny auburn hair and how enticing she was. He hoped she’d be with Clayton tomorrow, wanting to find a way to get to know more about her.
4
After meeting with the lab techs at the police station, Clayton decided to drop downtown and see Scott in person to go over their findings thus far. With Dani by his side, they took a ride across town to the municipal building where Scott’s office was.
“Are you coming in with me, or waiting here?” He asked her.
“I’ll come with you,” she replied with a shy smile.
“You like him don’t you?” He teased her gently, testing the waters.
“Go fuck yourself,” she replied haughtily, giving him a nasty look with squinted eyes.
“Ahh, so that’s a yes. Maybe you should try going out with him, he seems like a decent guy. Personally, I like the kid. But, are you feeling like you might be up for dating yet, or maybe something like dinner?” Clayton wanted Dani to start doing normal things, getting her life back in order, and nudged her playfully.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. She hadn’t given much thought to whether or not she was ready to date, she had been simply doing her own thing for a while, and was fine with that.
“Well, it might be a good idea to start socializing again, that’s all I’m trying to say, and I’m no dummy. I saw him checking you out.”
“You did?” She grinned.
“Oh good Lord. Yea. I’m not passing notes back and forth for you two, I’m just saying if you were ready to go out, he’d be a decent prospect is all,” Clayton wanted the conversation to end, feeling like it was going to get awkward at any moment.
“Maybe,” was all she said.
“Ok, well I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to, and I care about you. I know it’s just us, but at some point I think you’re going to need to start doing your own thing once in awhile,” he continued.
“Am I cramping your style or something?” Dani asked, looking away from her phone at him. She didn’t want to be in his way; he was the one that offered to bring her along everywhere in the first place.
“No, that’s not w
hat I said. But we both have lives to live, and I love you Dani, but I need to have a little ‘me time’ too. I’m suggesting that you start having some ‘you time’ is all,” he explained, hoping she understood what he meant.
“All right, I’ll think about it. But don’t say anything to him, Jesus Christ. I’m not a teenager. I’ll figure it out myself,” she said sternly.
“Yea, ok I get it. I promise you that nothing like that is ever going to happen to you again. I sense that this Scott guy has it in his blood, he’d look after you too; it’s in his nature. I can tell.” Clayton had an affinity for seeing what a person was all about, and he could tell that Scott was a good guy, even if they didn’t know each other that well.
“Okay, okay already. Moving on?” Dani was definitely into Scott, something about his sparkling hazel eyes, that glimmer of green she focused on the night before. She was apprehensive about getting involved with someone, but also couldn’t deny that she’d been looking forward to seeing him again all morning.
As they pulled up to the municipal building, Clayton parked right out front in a tow away zone, not caring about parking rules. Scott’s office was on the second floor, so he made his way in, Dani in tow.
The receptionist wasn’t at her desk, so Clayton just walked past the desk, poking into offices looking for Scott. “There you are!” He exclaimed loudly when he’d found it.
Taken by surprise, Scott flinched at the loud entrance while Clayton came in, dramatically taking a seat on the couch across from Scott’s desk, motioning to Dani to sit as well.
“Detective! Nice to see you, I was just going to call you. I got my initial lab results back a few minutes ago and was looking over them quickly,” he turned his attention to Dani. “Hi Dani, it’s really nice to see you again too. Have a seat, please?” He motioned to the couch, taking in her long red hair that was tied back into a slick ponytail. She had on jeans, brown leather boots that went up to her knees, and a tight green sweater, hugging all of her exquisite curves and accentuating her creamy pale skin.
“Thanks Scott,” she replied softly as she sat down far more gently than her brother had. She noticed how handsome Scott appeared in his crisp uniform shirt, tucked into his navy pants. She could tell that he worked out by the way his biceps clung to his shirt sleeves.
“So, what have you got Scott? Let’s have a little show and tell,” Clayton interrupted Dani’s thoughts.
Shaking himself away from thoughts of Dani’s ass in those jeans, Scott cleared his throat and picked up the file he had been looking at. “Well, everything we thought yesterday about how the fire started was confirmed officially. The fire was set using the magnesium strips tucked into the bracket of the electrical socket, and then it spread to the other areas of the house using the paint thinner. So, no real news there, other than confirmation of what we suspected in the first place.”
“Did you find anything new?” Clayton asked, seemingly bored with this news. His end of the investigation hadn’t turned up any shocking news either, so he had his hopes placed on the arson report.
“Not really, no. None of our findings lead to motive in this case so far. A forensics guy is looking into the magnesium strips to see if we can tell what brand or if there is anything special about them, but I’m not hopeful to be honest. It’s such a common and easy to find thing that I doubt it will lead us anywhere except to the hardware stores of which there’s like ten in the vicinity. I checked.” Scott knew that wasn’t much help, but rarely did an arson investigation point out motive; it was mostly scientific. The how it started. The why, was really up to the cops to determine most of the time.
“Ugh, that’s not helpful at all,” Clayton sighed.
“Yea, that’s the thing about fire investigations man. The majority of the time, most of your evidence is burned to a crisp. There aren’t going to be a lot of clues about who did it, without comparing it to some of your evidence, so that being said, what have you got?” Scott inquired, trying to avoid eye contact with Dani. He couldn’t help that his attention kept moving in her direction, she was stunning and he felt like he caught her looking his way a few times.
“So, I don’t have anything conclusive, but I’ve got a lot of random shit. The autopsy results came in, and listen to this shit. There was no bullet found, and it wasn’t a through and through shot. He was definitely shot, but there was no gunpowder residue, no casings found as you already know, and no fucking bullet. The lab geeks have definitely confirmed it was a high caliber shot at close range, somewhere around ten feet, but we have no weapon, and based on the tissue damage it was definitely a gunshot with a caliber higher than a .40. So, we have nothing to go on here either,” he briefed Scott.
“Wait, so you’re saying you confirmed he was shot, but there’s no actual evidence that ties a gun or a bullet to the scene? Where the hell did the bullet go? Did we miss it?” Scott raised his eyebrows in surprise, not understanding what he was missing.
“We didn’t miss shit. The wound on the body indicates that the bullet didn’t go all the way through the victim, but they didn’t find it in the victim either. Its like fucking bullet disappeared. We have a Goddamn conundrum on our hands. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“Well what the fuck do we do now?” Scott asked bluntly.
“I’m going to run some of this evidence past my buddy Seth Lane. He works on all kinds of oddball cases, and maybe he’ll have a random idea. He’s like the ‘House’ of the police department; always finding weird shit.”
“I’ve heard of him, he’s got a hell of a reputation. Is that the same guy that solved the case of the boxer with the twin brother who was his manager? Do you want me to come?” Scott asked.
“Yea, thats same Detective Lane; but nah, I was kind of hoping you’d entertain Dani here for a bit while I go take off. How about you two kids go to lunch or something?” He suggested tactlessly, causing Dani’s face to flush red in embarrassment.
“Oh, my God Clayton,” she smacked him on the arm violently. “Scott, is there a restroom near here?” She asked.
“Yea, of course. It’s around the corner to the right,” Scott pointed out the door.
Dani excused herself after glaring at Clayton again, leaving the guys alone in Scott’s office.
Clayton got right to the point, “So, listen. Here’s the deal,” he hesitated for a moment, finding his words. “Dude, she’s with me all of the time because she was attacked fairly recently, and is having some trouble being alone, so I look after her. I don’t want her to hear me, so let me cut to the chase. You seem like a stand up guy, you’re not wearing a ring, and there’s no pictures in here of what could be a girlfriend, so how about you take my sister out. It’s pretty obvious you’re into her, and she’s a sweet girl. She is never gonna ask you on her own, and you seem too professional to do it. I don’t give a fuck about any of those pleasantries.” Clayton blurted out.
Continuing to be shocked by Clayton at every turn, Scott let out a nervous chuckle. “Uh, I’d love to take your sister out. You said she’d been attacked recently, is she ok?” Genuine concern crossed his face crossed with enthusiasm over the prospect of getting to know her better.
“Yea, she will be. She’s healed and all, but emotionally, she has some hang ups, I won’t lie. I think spending some time with a guy like yourself would do her some good, and you look like you work too much, so how about it?” Clayton gave a questioning nod to Scott, feeling like he’d sold the deal pretty well, without giving away any details Dani may not have wanted him to.
“What happened to her Clayton?” Scott folded his arms over the desk, needing to know what exactly he was getting himself into.
“I’ll let her tell you what details she wants you to know, but Seth Lane had to solve her case, and you know what division he works in,” Clayton hung his head a bit, thinking back to what bad shape Dani had been in after the attack.
“Holy shit man, that’s terrible. Are you sure she wants to spend time with som
eone without you around?” Scott was hesitant to get involved with someone who might be afraid of him, and he didn’t want her to do anything she didn’t want to either.
“I’m sure she does, and I’m sure I need her to. I can’t have her come absolutely everywhere with me frankly, and it’s been long enough that it’s time for her to start moving forward. Look, she told me she liked you,” Clayton offered, starting to feel like he was selling his sister off. “And, at the risk of getting shanked by her later, she’s into you.”
“Well, I’d love to take her out if she’s into it. She’s beautiful, and very intriguing,” Scott replied.
“Yea, I don’t want to know any more, just do your thing. If you bang my sister --” Clayton stopped and quickly changed the subject as Dani rounded the corner back into the room, “uh, yea, so that fire. Big one. Started in the living room. Hmph.”
The awkward moment hung in the air like smoke, and Scott broke the deafening silence. “So, Dani, how about we grab lunch? It seems your brother has shit to do for this case that he doesn’t need us for.” He attempted to smile, pretending that they didn’t all know that Clayton had just referenced him banging his sister.
“Sure, why not? We’ve all got to eat.” She replied to Scott. Then, turning to Clayton with her back to Scott, she flipped her brother the middle finger and gave him a classic ‘go fuck yourself’ look with her eyes.
Smiling and pleased with himself, Clayton stood up. “Well, you two kids have fun. I’ll track you down after I catch up with Lane, and we can regroup later.”
