by J. A. Huss
“Goddammit, Masters. You’re still sleeping? What, two days isn’t long enough for you? You think you’re special, need three-day weekends? What fucking day do you think it is, sweetheart?”
I pull my phone away from my ear and look at it with blurred vision. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” He’s screaming now. I can almost picture a blood vessel popping out from his fleshy neck. “You goddamned better know who is this, Masters. And if you’re not at work in thirty minutes, you’ll be unemployed.”
Beep, beep, beep.
Oh, shit. My mind clears up in an instant and I jump out of bed. I totally fail at that and fall face-first on the pink chenille rug where my pink stilettos are parked, ready for… what the fuck happened?
It looks like…
I got really drunk. Because there’s empty wine and whiskey bottles everywhere. And…
There must’ve been a whole lot of people here, because I don’t drink. One or two, every now and then. But this? This looks like…
I had a rager and there might even have been drugs involved from the look of the…
Ashtray?
Jesus fuck.
It’s a good thing pot is legal in Cathedral City, or I’d be out of a job.
I get to my knees and realize I am going to hurl. So I throw every instinct I have out the window, get to my feet, peel out, making the pink chenille rug slide on the polished wood floors, and dive for the bathroom. I land face first on the white field floor a few feet through the doorway and crawl the rest of the way to the porcelain god, where I hike myself up, flip the lid open, and spew.
Oh, God.
I’m disgusting.
I sit like that for a few minutes, just hugging the toilet like we’re best friends. And then I remember my boss’ threat and crawl to the shower. It takes me another minute to stand up and turn the water on. And that’s when I notice…
7. I’m wearing lingerie. And not just any lingerie, but…
8. Sexy shit I don’t even own. It’s light pink with cream-colored lace. And the bra has a wire in it to lift my girls up towards my chin.
I look around at my ass and nope. My cheeks are not covered. It’s just a strip of fancy pink lace riding up my butt crack.
What the fuck? And who the fuck wears this shit to bed? No one, that’s who. Unless you’re getting…
9. Oh. My God.
I bolt out of the bathroom and cringe as I scan my bed covers. They are all rumpled up into a pile on one side and I hold my breath as I jerk them off the bed in one swoop.
No one. Empty, as usual.
I sigh and start laughing. “Right, Molls. Like you’d be getting laid.” Good one, I think, walking back to the shower holding my head.
But where the hell did this lingerie come from?
I check the clock and realize I’ve used up twenty minutes and start to panic. I can’t go in without a shower, so I’m totally late. My ass is getting chewed out good when I finally make it in. But I don’t have time to wonder about my dubious choices right now.
So I whip the pink lace cami over my head and shimmy out of the panties I would never—ever, ever, ever—wear. And get in the shower.
More than an hour later—I had to stop for coffee—I walk into the Cathedral City Police Department headquarters wearing my best work suit and my brown and white saddle shoes, wishing I was back in bed and trying my best to avoid Chief O’Neil. It’s not hard at the moment, because the place is jumping like the circus. There’s four sets of couples, each with a woman crying her eyes out, in the front lobby. The men with them, probably their husbands, look like they are all about to punch someone.
“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Roger, the intern at the front desk, says as he buzzes me through to the back offices. “Chief says you need to see him as soon as you get in.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, nodding my head to the couples.
“Kids ran away over the weekend. A whole group of them. And the parents are making a big scene about it.”
“Oh, that sucks.” I study the faces of the crying women again, this time with a new appreciation for the grief. It’s got to be the worst thing that can happen to a parent. But I need to get to work. I walk through the security door and start weaving my way through the maze of desks. I really need to sit down and nurse this hangover.
“Masters!”
Shit. “Coming, Chief!” I yell over the commotion. There are suspects everywhere. Some are handcuffed to benches, some to desks. When I pass the intake door, a whole line of them are chained together waiting to be processed. I’ve only been here two weeks but I’ve never seen it like this.
Something definitely happened over the weekend.
“Shut the door behind you, Masters,” Chief says when I enter his office. He’s got one of those stereotypical fishbowls with windows on three sides, but only one of them looks out onto the city. The other two face the main work stations so he can keep an eye on things. And so everyone can watch when someone gets their ass chewed out, because he never lowers the shades when he does that.
Today I am the one about to get an ass-chewing.
I sigh and close the door, then walk over in front of his desk and wait for him as he shuffles papers around.
“Do you have any idea how short-handed I am right now, Masters?”
“No, sir.”
He looks up from his paper-shuffling and stares lightning bolts into me. “Why not? Isn’t it your job to notice things, Masters? Isn’t that why I hired you? Military cred. Spying undercover. It’s all impressive on paper, but in the field, you’re a major disappointment. Worked with some of the biggest hush-hush cases in the country for the past three years, your resume said. And now you’re telling me you don’t even have the intuition to figure out I’m severely short-handed?”
“Sorry, sir. Yes, I can see we’re busy—”
“We’re not busy, Masters. This is the Monday after Cathedral Festival Weekend. And you have the nerve to be late?”
“I forgot, sir. I’m sorry, it won’t happen—”
“And I heard all about that party you threw at your house, Masters. Do you think I don’t know that the police were called seven times?”
“No!” That’s not even possible.
“Oh, yeah, honey. And I’m going to ream your ass good for that. But you’re lucky I need you today and don’t have the time.”
“I saw the parents out in the lobby. I’ll get right on finding those missing juveniles, sir.”
“Kids? What do we look like, babysitters? No, Masters, you’re not working on the runaways. I had a very angry Atticus Montgomery in my office this morning.”
Shit. Montgomery is the town billionaire. His family owns… well, I could make a very long list of what he owns, but it would take far more internal monologue time than I have right now.
“One of his employees killed himself in his office over the weekend.”
Double shit.
“And it’s the second one in a month. So you’re gonna get your pretty ass over there”—he does not miss a beat even though calling my ass pretty is against policy—“and figure out what the fuck is going on. You got me?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, adding a salute. “I’m on it.” I turn on my heel and make for the door before he can say anything else.
“And Masters?”
Triple shit.
“Don’t salute me. You’re not in the military anymore.”
“Right,” I say, pulling the door open quickly and making my escape.
That—I sigh—is crystal clear.
I don’t talk to anyone as I pass through the desks, the other cops, the suspects chained to anything that’s bolted down, and make my way back out to the lobby. Alone.
I had a partner. Sort of. He retired last week, which is why I’m now a detective for Cathedral City Police Department instead of just a cop. He was on short-timers the whole two weeks he trained me. But at least he was a friendly face in the midst of animos
ity.
There were quite a few men in the department who wanted to be promoted to detective. But the chief hired me. Begged me to come out of retirement, actually. Filled my head with promises and all that crap about public service.
And I believed him.
Because, well. I believe in public service. I get most of my satisfaction in life out of helping people these days.
I take one more look at the group of overwhelmed and sad parents before I make my escape, feeling like I’m letting them down. So it sucks that I’m on the chief’s leash and I’ve been ordered to sort out a suicide. There’s been a rash of them, I hear. People desperate over the bad economy. Crime is up a hundred and twenty percent from five years ago. People are ready for a change. And those juveniles are among them, I guess. But they’re just kids. They should be protected and if they go missing, someone should notice. It pisses me off that the CCPD can just ignore them like that.
But you need this job, Molls, I remind myself. You need it because:
You haven’t had a job since Will died.
You got depressed and… yeah.
You can’t hide from the world forever.
People need to pay their dues and this is how you will pay yours.
Maybe there’s another detective in our department who’s familiar with these kids? I wouldn’t know. I’m too new. So maybe the chief is doing the best job he can with the people he’s got. And I just happen to be new, with no cases, since my last partner closed them all out. Maybe the chief wants me to contain the backlash the city’s biggest corporation might encounter if the public finds out they are a hotbed for suicides?
I’m gonna go with that. Chief O’Neil knows what he’s doing and I need to focus on the task I was given.
Chapter Seven - Molly
Blue Corp is in a very modern thirtysomething-story building on the far west side of Cathedral City, right up next to the foothills. It’s not called a headquarters, it’s called a campus, that’s how many acres this place needs to house all the employees working here.
There are a few entrance gates since it’s so sprawling, but the main one, the one where visitors enter, is on the south side of the campus and it’s heavily manned with armed guards.
I stop at the guard house and roll my window down to talk to a very hard-looking man dressed in a black uniform with the Blue Corp logo on it.
“State your business,” he demands.
I flash him my badge. “Detective Molly Masters. I have an appointment to talk with Mr. Montgomery.”
The guard looks me up and down, then studies my badge for a moment. “Hold it steady,” he says as he waves a piece of tech blazing a blue light over it. “Let me scan the image in and I’ll be right back after your identity is authenticated.”
I sigh as he walks away, then roll my window up to keep the light drizzle from blowing in.
Thoughts of the weekend run through my head. I threw a party. Which is very unlike me. Especially since the only people I know are from the department. Not to mention I got drunk enough to pass out and there might’ve been a man involved since I woke up in lingerie.
Lingerie you don’t own, Molly, my inner voice reminds me.
Well, I own it now. Did I meet someone fabulous who likes to spend money on stupid things like pretty underwear that’s supposed to be ripped off—or ripped apart, I snicker—during sex? I wonder what he looks like. I wonder if I had sex with him. I wonder if I liked it.
I consider my love life for a moment and what bad luck that I might’ve had sex for the first time in over a year and I drank too much to remember the best parts. I sure hope we used protection.
Jesus.
The full consequences of what I did over the weekend come crashing down on me. I’m gonna need to go to the doctor if I don’t start remembering who my date was.
The guard appears again, so I roll the window down and let the drizzle accost me as it blows in my face.
“You’re set, Miss Masters. Mr. Montgomery’s assistant will meet you in the lobby and take you to his office.”
He walks off before I can finish saying, “Thanks!”
Whatever. I buzz the control for the window and pull away as the gate lifts up to allow me entrance to the campus. The road is long, deserted, and flanked on either side with towering Ponderosa pines. After a mile or so, I finally come to the main building parking lot. There’s a number at the head of each space, so I find one near the entrance marked, Visitors, and park my unmarked police car.
I look in the mirror, wish I had put on more concealer under my eyes this morning, then thank my lucky stars that I wore my best professional suit. I got it for Will’s funeral.
God, I’m so sad. I have a moment where I feel nothing but defeat and surrender. The depression I suffered after Will died was so debilitating, I had to leave the military with a medical discharge. It was honorable, so there’s that. But I loved the military. I loved the order and the way things needed to be done just so. I don’t think I have OCD, like as a diagnosis. But orderly things make me feel good. They make me feel in control.
Stop, Molly. Stop going backwards.
The whole point of taking this job was to move forward. Every day I tell myself that I won’t think about it, but I always find a way.
So I steel myself for another day, grab my raincoat, get out, tug it on, and then make a dash for the lobby doors. Inside there is soothing classical music being piped through the hidden sound system and a row of half a dozen immaculate blonde women quietly talking on phones behind the main reception desk.
There is no one else here but me and them. But at least a dozen security cameras pan as I walk across the black marble floors. I can spot them anywhere. No matter how well hidden, I can tell. It’s like I have some sixth sense when it comes to surveillance.
The building, while new and shiny, mimics the old-world architecture that Cathedral City is famous for. On the outside the building looks like a collection of massive blue crystals, something you might find growing up from the floor of a cave.
I pause for a moment as the word cave rolls around in my brain like it’s been there recently, but then shake myself out of my subconscious and concentrate on what I’m doing.
The lobby feels like a church, if a church was made of polished black stone and glass. It even has a pitched ceiling, like the interior of a spire, and mimicking the outside architecture. The walls are made of bluish glass. Probably bulletproof.
“Miss Masters,” a soothing voice says from behind me.
I turn to find a woman about my age and my height, dressed in a cream-colored skirt suit with a tan piping outline down the front. Her legs are long and end at a pair of matching stilettos. I wonder how she walks in those things all day long.
My hand extends automatically. “Yes, I’m Detective Masters. And you are?”
“Miss Veti,” she says in a low, calm voice. It borders on seductive. “Valentine Veti. But everyone calls me Val.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Veti. I’m here to talk to Mr. Montgomery about the issue he had over the weekend.”
“Yes,” Val Veti says, leaning into my ear. “Thank you for coming. He’s very unhappy about this, Detective. And I’m afraid you will bear the brunt of his anger today. So please don’t judge him too harshly.”
“Great,” I say sarcastically as she turns and beckons me to follow her with a flick of her finger. This is going to be fun.
The elevator ride is long and silent, with only Miss Veti’s fake smile to keep me company. I massage my temples and if I had one wish, it would be to go home and go back to bed. The doors finally open when we get to the thirty-third floor, and Miss Veti leads me out into a posh receiving area with the same polished black marble floors and glass everywhere I look. It’s clear glass up here and I suppose no one needs bulletproof glass this high up in the sky.
“This is Mr. Montgomery’s office. Please wait here while I see if he’s available.”
“He better be available,�
� I mutter under my breath. But she either doesn’t hear me or chooses to ignore my remark, because she walks off down a long hallway off to my right.
Mr. Montgomery’s office is one entire floor of a multi-million-dollar building. Pretentious much? Well, what did I expect? His first name is Atticus. I do believe he’s the first Atticus I’ve ever encountered outside of fiction.
There are no chairs and no desk. Just a wide-open room with floor-to-ceiling windows and an expansive view of Cathedral City draped with an eerie mist.
I walk over and gaze out. The day is gray and cloudy, as per usual in this part of the country in the late winter. And the drizzle has turned into rain in the past few minutes since I left my car. I can count all thirteen cathedrals that the city is named for from this view. I wonder if this building counts as one? Probably not, I decide. The cathedrals down there are old. A hundred years at least. Most of them are ruins. Only the largest one, used for public events and religious holidays, and the second largest, both of which flank the town square, are in good repair. And the second tallest was just refurbished by some out-of-town corporate billionaire, I hear. I guess he plans on giving Blue Corp a run for their money.
“Detective Masters?” A deep voice from behind makes me turn.
“Yes,” I say, putting on my public servant smile. “The chief wanted me to come and look into the… issue you had over the weekend.” I look around, unsure if anyone else is listening and trying to be discreet since Miss Veti was low-talking when she mentioned it downstairs.
“Please,” Mr. Montgomery says with a wave of his hand and a furrow of his brow. “Speak freely here. My offices are completely private. Come, let’s talk in my inner chambers.”
I smile again after realizing I’m squinting at him, and move ahead as he waits for me to go first. I try not to gawk as I walk down the long hallway. Pictures of him on the walls capture my attention. In one he is skydiving, another he’s climbing a mountain that requires an oxygen mask. A few more flash by as I proceed and I am unable to get a good look at them, but the last one makes me stop.