Erica laughed as she started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “That’s the spirit!”
Once they met up with Jack and Sam, they all tossed a coin to see who would do what. Erica and Veronica wound up manning the radar gun, while Jack and Sam were set up a little ways down the road ready to pull over the people that were caught speeding.
The first half of their shift went surprisingly fast. Neither Erica nor Veronica had been all that happy about their assignment, but quickly got over their annoyance.
They had become friends shortly after Veronica had started at the precinct and had always found that they had a lot to talk about. Once, when they had first met, they had gone to a movie with a bunch of other people from the station. Veronica had given her a ride home that night and they started talking in the car. They next thing they knew, they were parked outside Erica’s apartment at 5:00 in the morning still sitting there and talking.
This day was no different. They spent the first four hours of their shift discussing their families, high school, college, movies, books and music. Veronica had forgotten how much fun she could have talking to Erica. At one point, when there were no cars in sight, they had the radio in their cruiser turned up and they were dancing around the hood of the car. They were extremely grateful that Jack and Sam were far enough down the road that they could not see the dancing.
In spite of the fact that it was October and starting to cool off in Phoenix, they were overheating in the mid-day sun because of their black, polyester uniforms.
They were both relieved when Jack called and told them that it was about time for a lunch break.
Veronica considered asking Erica to drop her off at the station for a moment, but decided against it. She had been spending so much time with Ben since she came back that she had been neglecting reconnecting with some of her other friends. Going back to work had never been about being around Ben. It was about taking control of her life again and getting things back to normal. So, rather than go visit Ben, she suggested they all go to a pizza place that she used to frequent with Nick and the others before.
They balked at first considering they had all eaten pizza recently, but eventually broke down when she guilted them saying she wanted to spend some time with them. When they walked into the restaurant, the waitress grinned at their uniforms and sat them straight away. About ten minutes after they ordered their pie, the waitress brought it over with a complementary order of onion rings.
Once she left Jack started laughing. “You gotta love the uniform! It’s like a free pass into any decent restaurant, and half the time you get free food with it!”
Erica playfully eyed his gut. “Maybe you should use your free pass a little less often.”
Sam and Veronica both choked on their bites of pizza and tried to reign in their laughter.
Jack paled and guffawed dramatically. “I can’t believe you said that!”
His voice was slightly more high pitched than normal.
“For that, we’re switching places when we get back out there. You can pull over the speeding morons and I hope someone spits on you.”
Erica smiled serenely at him and snagged an onion ring out of the basket in front of her.
Jack seemed flustered that his punishment appeared not to be affecting her. When she pulled her cell phone out and calmly began texting, he harrumphed one more time and picked up his pizza. Only to set it back down a moment later when his, Sam, and Veronica’s cell phones all chirped in unison.
Veronica turned a questioning eye on Erica, but she simply shrugged innocently.
When they unlocked their phones, they all found a text from Erica reading “Worth it.”
At which point, Sam and Veronica finally lost control and fell apart laughing.
Jack shoved his phone back into his pocket and hostilely bit into his pizza.
Erica smiled sweetly at him and continued eating.
After a few minutes of continued grumpiness from Jack, Sam began to get worried that she was going to have to spend the rest of the day with him in a bad mood.
Eventually, Veronica took pity on her and scolded Jack. “Jack, stop sulking. You’re freaking out the rookie.”
She turned to Sam.
“Stick around here long enough and you will be pranked or made the butt of a joke or two. Its how we bond.”
She turned back to Jack.
“Remember the time that you signed Erica up for a booty call website and she kept getting emails from random guys on it?”
Jack tried to keep a straight face, but could not do it. He broke into a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat proud. “Point taken.”
After that, he flicked a pepperoni at Veronica.
She retaliated by sending a sausage sailing across the table and into his drink.
“That was uncalled for! I’ll warn you Sam. If you value your health, never prank Ronnie. Her retaliation is always way worse than what you did.”
Veronica sent at evil smile across the table at him, “Very few people prank me twice, and people always come to me for advice. I see no problem with that.”
The rest of their lunch break was spent telling Sam stories about some of the shenanigans that had take place over the years.
Erica and Veronica spent the rest of their day pulling people over whenever Sam or Jack radioed them. Fortunately, they did not get spat upon. But they were lied to and flirted with left, right, and center. One guy had the gall to tell them that he was speeding because his wife was in labor. They asked him which hospital she was at, but he could not answer them. He could not even think of the name of one hospital in the city. He sputtered for a few moments and then got offended that they would even ask him. In the end, he wound up angrily snatching the ticket away from Erica and then pulling away quickly. Their day could also not have been complete without pulling over at least one lawyer who promptly demanded their badge numbers. They had to explain to him that he could not sue them for harassment because he had been going twenty miles over the speed limit, so they had cause to pull him over.
When their shift was coming to an end, they all piled into their squad cars and drove back to the station. After returning their equipment belts, Erica, Sam, and Veronica went to the women’s locker room to change into their street clothes.
Cheyenne was already in the room when they got there. “Heyo! How was your first day being out on patrol again?”
Veronica shrugged in response. She knew Cheyenne was only being nice, but it felt like she was being treated like a rookie.
Trying not to let it get to her, she mustered more enthusiasm and answered Cheyenne. “It was fine. We got to piss off a lawyer. That always makes for a good day. You?”
Cheyenne smiled, “It was okay, I guess. Ryan and I got stuck helping the drug squad serve warrants all day. You know how that can be.”
As Veronica changed out of her uniform pants, she noticed Sam looking at the jagged scar on her leg. Realizing that she had been caught, Sam found some fascinating lint on her own pant leg and began picking at it. Veronica realized that Sam had probably heard about what happened a year ago and must be curious. She finished changing in silence and left the locker room.
She was greeted by the sight of Ben leaning against the wall in the hallway. “I heard you got stuck at a speed trap all day. Let’s head over to the bar. I’ll buy.”
Veronica slumped against the wall next to him. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected. But I will certainly take the beer.”
Ben and Veronica made a silent agreement not to talk about what he and Mark had been doing all day. She did not want to hear anything about the case until he had a name to give her. So, on the way to the bar, she told him what had happened during her lunch break and they both had a good laugh about it. Ben had been on the receiving end of more than a few pranks and jokes since he had started at the precinct. At one point, Nick had superglued his hand to his desk phone. He had to wait for one of the women to produce a bottle of nail polish re
mover before he could detach himself. The prank war that had ensued was legendary.
When they walked through the door, they saw Tyler and Ryan sitting at the bar. Both were already half way through their first pints of beer. Tyler tried to play it cool as he looked up at the door, but his disappointment at seeing them was obvious.
Ryan saw him glance at the door for the fifth time in as many minutes and smacked him on the back of the head to get his attention. “You know, if you talked to her, you would know if Erica was coming tonight.”
Veronica snickered while Tyler muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Assholes” into his drink.
Tyler was saved from further embarrassment by the bartender arriving to see if Ben and Veronica wanted a round. They both ordered PBR and were mocked for about the hundredth time for not having more refined taste. They had both learned to enjoy the beer when they were college students who could not afford to drink expensively. The upside was that they got to mock all of their friends when they got their bills at the end of the night.
When Erica and Cheyenne arrived, Tyler gave a girlish giggle and stood to greet them. He then suggested that they all find a table to sit at because there were so many of them now. With all the newcomers, they would have taken up half of the bar.
They found an empty table that could fit them all, and he once again made sure to be sitting next to Erica.
As per usual, she remained completely oblivious.
Veronica felt bad for Tyler. Erica was amazing, but she was the type of person to never even consider the possibility that someone might take an interest in her. If Tyler wanted anything to happen between them, he would have to sack up and ask her out on a date. Given Erica’s intimidating presence, she doubted that would happen anytime soon. For now, he was content with sitting next to her all the time, and watching her when he thought that nobody could see him. He was mistaken. The only person who had not figured out that Tyler had a thing for Erica was Erica. Veronica had been away for a year and she could still see it.
Once they were all seated around the table Ryan raised his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast. To Veronica. For her first day back on the streets doing real police work. We’re glad to have you back.”
Being the only detective in the room, Ben felt the need to flick a peanut at Ryan. But he still drank with everyone else.
Veronica felt her cheeks start to heat up with embarrassment, but she thanked Ryan and took a deep gulp of her drink. She had never been comfortable with people talking about her while she was sitting right there. Even when they were saying positive things. If fact, she found it worse when people were saying nice things about her. At least, when they were being jerks, she had every excuse to be offended and leave the room. But, when they were saying good things, she had to sit there and smile while everyone was nodding and watching her.
They spent a few hours drinking, laughing, and generally having fun. It was nice getting to wind down with friends after work.
Eventually, they all began to regret not getting food before they met at the bar. Fortunately, a few people had volunteered to be designated drivers, so they all piled into their cars and went their separate ways.
Veronica had had more to drink than Ben, so she decided to let him drive this time.
When they were in the car, Ben asked her what kind of food she wanted.
“We have eaten so much pizza and burgers lately. I feel like we should try to find something else that is not so unhealthy.”
Ben sat silently for a moment and then he started the car. “I know exactly what we should do.”
She tried to guess what he was planning the entire drive back to his house, but he would not tell her anything.
Once they got there, Ben sat her down on the couch and informed her that she was not to go anywhere near the kitchen. Twenty minutes later, he walked back into the living room with a platter piled high with steaming waffles. “Its breakfast for dinner night.”
Veronica smiled and followed him into the kitchen to help him retrieve the toppings.
When she got to the kitchen she saw a gigantic jar of Nutella sitting on the counter with all of the other fixings.
She stared at him with a questioning look, but he simply shrugged and said, “Trust me.”
He grabbed the Nutella and a few other items and walked back out of the room.
She chose a couple jars of jam and a can of whipped cream. After placing them on the coffee table, she fell back onto the couch next to Ben. He pulled a waffle off of the pile and slathered it with Nutella, dropped a dollop of strawberry jam on it and sprayed it with some whipped cream.
She had thought that it was for him, but he put it on a plate and handed it over to her. Veronica hesitantly cut off a chunk of the waffle and placed it in her mouth. She almost swooned at the explosion of melt-in-your-mouth, chocolatey, beautiful flavor that she encountered.
“Oh, my God!”
Ben laughed while he made up a waffle of his own and said, “Told you so.”
Veronica nodded and kept eating. They spent the rest of the night experimenting with the fixings on their waffles and watching episodes of Rookie Blue. When Veronica started nodding off on Ben’s shoulder, he sent her up to bed. She changed into her pajamas and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
DAY 12
When she woke up in the morning, Veronica instantly felt that there was something wrong. It did not take her long to realize that the problem was that she was alone in the bed. Judging by the state of Ben’s pillows, she had been all night. Her heart jumped into her throat. She could not help but think that it would not be the first time her least favorite subject came at her through one of the men in her life.
Jumping up, she ran to Ben’s closet where he kept his gun safe. After retrieving her gun she checked out the exercise room down the hall and then turned to search the rest of the house. She slowly crept down the stairs with her heart hammering away in her chest, terrified of what she might find. She had horrifying images running through her head as she came to the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Upon entering the living room, she almost dropped her gun in surprise and relief.
She found Ben.
Better than that. Ben was completely okay. He was fast asleep on the couch with his head thrown back and an open file on his lap.
She took the file and set it and her gun down on the coffee table. Then she plopped herself down on his lap.
He tensed and his head snapped up. Before he had a chance to comprehend what was happening, she grabbed his face and pulled him in for a kiss. He responded vigorously as he pulled her closer.
After a few minutes, Veronica pulled back for air.
“Well, that was a nice wakeup call.” Ben glanced behind her and continued. “Why is there a gun on the table?”
Veronica blushed and stammered, “Um...no reason.”
She extricated herself from his lap, grabbed the gun, and ran back up the stairs. When she came back down, Ben had a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
He glanced up and his face cleared. “Just thinking about life.”
Veronica smiled and went to the kitchen to throw some poptarts in the toaster. They were running a bit late so they did not have the time for a real breakfast. Besides, they had stuffed themselves full of waffles the night before.
It did not take long for them both to be showered, dressed, and ready to leave for work. They grabbed their keys, strapped their guns to their belts, and started heading towards the door. They were both standing in front of the door when they froze and stared at it.
Ben was the first to speak. “You don’t think...not again...right?”
Veronica reached for the handle, “Only one way to find out.”
She held her breath and pulled the door open. There was nothing there.
She and Ben both breathed a sigh of relief. Then they had to quickly jump into action as Ace tried to run out the
open door. Ben lunged and caught hold of his collar. He dragged the dog back into the house while Veronica reached to pull the door closed again. Once they had him corralled in the living room, they quickly moved back to the front door and left the house.
They both slowed to a stop again when they reached the driveway.
“This is ridiculous!”
Veronica stomped forward and checked both of their vehicles for “gifts.” Once again, there was nothing to find. She unlocked her car. “Let’s get out of here already.”
Ben nodded silently and joined her at the car.
They were both feeling foolish for being paranoid, so there was not much conversation on their way to work.
Veronica desperately wanted to ask Ben what he had been working on last night. But she also did not want to know the answer to that question. She did not want to know how close they were getting to finding Nick’s killer, because she was terrified to learn that they were not any closer than they had been at the beginning of the investigation. She did not want this dragging on any longer than it already had. Spending a year in limbo was more than enough.
Ben knew this, so neither one of them tried to start that conversation. The awkward silence continued until they got to the station and had to separate. Veronica needed to change into her uniform and find Erica. Ben went straight to his office to continue working.
When he got there, Ben found Mark already at his own desk doing the same thing that Ben had been doing the night before and would continue to do today.
They were checking the names of known offenders in the area that Ben’s mother lived and worked. They had received the file on his mother’s stolen purse, but there was not much in it. It had not given them any clear suspects, but at least they had work to do. They were checking to see if any of the people they looked at were on any of the lists that Ben and Veronica had already compiled. They were also looking at their files to see if it was even remotely possible that they could be a suspect. It was a long and slow process that would most likely not give them anything, but they were willing to do it anyway. They were hoping to catch a break, because the purse snatching was the only lead that they had.
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