by Amy Briggs
“Do you need to go to that?” She asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Nah, I don’t need to go unless someone calls me directly. Usually it doesn’t require me to drop what I’m doing unless it looks like some kind of major crime. Otherwise, I can go later or even tomorrow morning. We’re turning this date around, and we’re getting food dammit,” he reached over to squeeze her hand and chuckled.
“Oh okay, that’s cool. I am hungry and the sour taste of that epic fail at my house is finally leaving my mouth,” she laughed back, keeping his hand in hers. She loved touching him, especially holding his hand when they drove.
“Well, don’t wither away over there, if this traffic gets out of our way we should be eating in no time.”
“Oh, I don’t think skipping a meal would kill me really,” she replied, thinking that she could stand to lose a few pounds. She’d always been curvy, and would never be the skinny model type. “I could probably stand to skip one or two actually,” she said.
Squeezing her thigh and scrutinizing her face, Scott replied, “Dani, you are sexy as fuck. Exactly how you are. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I want my hands on you.” He couldn’t help but to be blunt with her. Not only did he hate it when women gave themselves a hard time about their weight, he preferred a curvy girl over a skinny chick any day of the week. Dani’s hourglass figure was exactly what Scott loved about a woman’s body.
Dani blushed at the compliment, loving how bold and forthcoming Scott was with his affection for her. “Thank you,” she grinned, unable to contain her smile.
“You’re welcome. Now that we have that settled and traffic has finally started to move, we should be --” Scott was interrupted by the shrill sound of the phone ringing. Hanging his head, he muttered, “Fuck me.” Looking over at her again, he said, “Sorry, I have to take it, it’s your brother.” Rolling his eyes, and sighing before hitting the call button, he answered, “Hey Clayton, what’s happening man?”
“Yo man. I just got off the phone with Jax, it looks like we’ve got another one.” Clayton ran his hands through over his high and tight haircut, frustrated that they hadn’t made more headway before another similar crime happened. When he’d seen the fire come across the wire, he called in to the Deputy Chief, knowing that the Chief wasn’t around.
“Fuck. Are you serious?” Scott replied, looking over at Dani shaking his head. Not only were they not going to get to eat, they were going to have to go to a fire. A fire that was potentially also another murder. Dani, knowing instinctively what was going on, scrunched her nose in disappointment, causing her full lips to pout as well.
“Yea, looks like the same M.O. I mean it’s still early, but I need you to get down here man.” Clayton knew that Scott was out with his sister and felt bad about interrupting them, but work was work, and she knew what it was all about. She’d been riding around with him for months, and plans changed on a dime. The nature of emergency response jobs was just that.
“All right. I’m across town, so I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Scott hung up the phone, dropping it dramatically back into the console. “Dani, I’m so sorry,” he reached over to take her hand back. “I’m gonna have to go to this fucking fire, ugh.” He groaned.
Completely understanding his frustration since she too felt it, she rubbed his hand with hers. “It’s no big deal Scott. This is your job, it’s important. Let’s go.”
“You don’t want me to take you home first?” Scott wasn’t sure she’d want to come along, but also knew she wasn’t usually by herself for a long period of time either. He had met her at the last fire after all.
“Nope. You’re stuck with me this evening. I’ll stay out of your hair though, don’t worry.”
Scott brought her tiny hands to his lips to kiss them. “Thank you for being so understanding,” he sighed. He was feeling grateful she walked into his life when she did, even if it was in an unconventional way. Her smile eased his frustration over the change in plans immediately, and he made a note to find a special way to thank her.
Once they neared the scene, Scott flipped on the low profile emergency lights hidden in his headlights and behind the grill of his car so that he could get past the roadblock. He grabbed his badge from his back pocket as well to show to anyone that attempted to stop them as they made their way to the center of the activity as he looked for the command vehicle where Clayton was likely to be with Jax.
Dani sat quietly, observing the scene around her, not wanting to create any disturbance or get in the way. As they pulled up behind the chief’s truck, she could see her brother standing next to a guy she didn’t know, but presumed was whoever was in charge.
Scott parked the car and leaned over to Dani, “I don’t know how long this is going to take, but I promise I’ll make it as quick as possible, okay? Then I promise to feed you, I’m fucking starving,” he huffed out.
She noted his frustrated look, seeing that his eyebrows had crinkled as he waited for her response. Softly, she said, “Don’t worry about me. Do your thing, I’m not going anywhere.”
Scott reached around her neck and pulled her in for a brief, but soft kiss. “Thank you,” he said before getting out of the car to walk over to Clayton and Jax who were both grinning like idiots at him, clearly having seen what just happened.
“Oooh, we caught you at a bad time, eh?” Jax nodded in the direction of Scott’s car as he walked up.
Glancing in Clayton’s direction before responding, Scott replied, “Well, I certainly was otherwise occupied. We were on our way to dinner.”
“Sorry man, I knew you were out with Dani, but we already got a body here,” Clayton said. “Wait, wasn’t she cooking for you?”
“Um, yea, she cooked…” Scott’s voice trailed off.
Laughing hysterically, Clayton replied, “Yea, I expected as much. She’s a fucking terrible cook. I should have warned you. You’re lucky these guys weren’t occupied with a house fire over there with her at the stove.”
“Oh, dude, is that her? She’s a hot one!” Jax exclaimed.
“Um, she’s also my sister, so let’s move on before it gets weird,” Clayton replied, smirking at both Jax and Scott. He knew that his sister was a grown woman and could do whatever she wanted, but he certainly didn’t want any details unless it was need to know. And Scott and Dani having a date tonight was all he needed to know; nothing more. They had another body, and another ripping house fire.
“Yea, agreed.” Scott turned his attention over to Clayton, waiting for him to brief him on what they knew thus far.
“Okay, so this is what we have so far. The fire department found the body close to the door, I already had a peek at it. Looks like a gunshot wound, very similar to the first, but of course we’ll need lab results to know for sure. The body was found in a pool of blood. The fire hadn’t spread very far at all when they got here, so it looks like it wasn’t burning as long as the last one, so maybe there’s some more evidence this time. That’s all I know so far, I haven’t been inside yet.” Once again, they knew very little about the victim other than that it was their house. It did appear to be another middle aged man, but those were the only similarities besides how the crime scene appeared to be playing out.
“All right, well let me grab some evidence bags from my trunk and we’ll go in.” Scott asked Jax, “We clear to enter the dwelling yet?”
“Sure are. The fire’s out. They’re just doing some overhaul. We caught this one early,” Jax replied. “Let me know if you need anything.” Turning his attention back to the scene, Jax gave a nod to Scott.
Quickly, Scott went back to his car to get some of his equipment, and tapped on the passenger side window, getting Dani’s attention. She rolled the window down to greet him with her perfect smile. “How goes it, investigator?” She asked.
“It looks like we have a serial killer or some shit on our hands, so I gotta collect some evidence. You okay here?” He leaned down to get at eye level with her.
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“I’m just fine right here. Do your thing,” she grinned. She loved watching him be official on scene. She knew she wouldn’t always be able to ride along, but she was going to enjoy it while she could.
“Thanks babe,” he winked at her before going to the trunk to grab what he needed. As he scanned the area, taking in the scene, he noticed a crowd had formed off to the left side of the house across the street; command vehicles and apparatus were blocking most of the right side of the street. He took in his surroundings, which was pretty standard behavior, when a silhouette caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Someone was watching the activity from the other side of the scene, an unusual spot to get a look at the action, it was more a spot to watch what was going on with command and the police. While initially it didn’t sit well with him, Scott carried on with what he was doing; he wanted to get this done so he could scrap together the rest of this date if at all possible.
Looking back one more time to the location he spotted the shadowy figure, he noticed the person that had been watching had disappeared. “Hmph,” he mumbled.
“You ready? Let’s do this,” Clayton yelled over.
“Yea, of course. Let’s go.”
14
As they’d both been trained to do, and had done before, they observed the exterior of the house, looking for evidence before entering the front door. Immediately, Scott noticed the same metallic smell that he’d encountered at the last fire, and began hopefully looking for the magnesium strips.
“You smell that?” He asked Clayton, who was hovering above a huge blood stain on the carpet across the room.
“Sure do. That’s the same smell as the last fire isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is. And over here,” Scott ran a gloved finger along the wallpaper of a wall that had no fire damage, bringing it to his nose, “we have paint thinner. It hadn’t even caught yet.”
“Your boys caught this one fast,” Clayton acknowledged the fire department’s expedient effort at putting the fire out, preserving most of the evidence.
“They did. We should find out how this one got called in. Maybe there’s a clue there,” Scott said.
“Good call man,” he nodded. “I’ve heard of cases where the guy committing the crime is the same guy that calls it in. That would be fucking convenient.”
Chuckling, Scott replied, “Yea, man, that would be great.” He continued to scrape some samples he needed, when he found what he was looking for. “Yes!” He exclaimed.
“What did you find?” Clayton rushed over to Scott’s side, feverishly looking around.
“Here they are; I found the magnesium strips. Now we can definitively link the two crime scenes together. There’s a bundle of them over here that aren’t even lit, so maybe there’s evidence of some kind on them,” Scott picked them up carefully with forceps, placing them into plastic bag.
“Fucking hallelujah,” Clayton raised his arms in victory. While it wasn’t technically a break in the case, it was a clear link between two cases, which was a step in the right direction.
“Alright, I’m just about done collecting samples here. Since the fire didn’t spread like the other one, I don’t have a whole lot else to do here, other than get this over to the lab for analysis. What’s going on with your side of things?” Scott motioned in the direction of the huge blood stain as he walked over there.
“There has to be something we’re missing here. The truth lies in the evidence,” he said, looking around the room slowly. “Everything here is the same except that the fire was caught sooner, and this particular victim seems to have bled out quite a bit more than the other.” Clayton stared down at the blood stain on the carpet. As his eyes scanned the shape of the stain, mulling it over, he realized Scott really didn’t need to be there and his sister was waiting in the car. “Hey man, why don’t you go ahead and take off if you’ve collected everything you need. I know Dani is out there waiting for you, and I am going to take a few more pictures and samples before I head out, and we can regroup tomorrow.”
“You sure man? I don’t want to leave you on your own, we’re partners on this one,” Scott was hesitant to bail on Clayton, but he also really wanted to get back to Dani.
“I’m totally fine. Get out of here. I’ll come by your office tomorrow morning and we’ll go through everything again with fresh eyes.”
“All right, I’m not gonna ask you twice. I’ll catch you tomorrow. Good luck,” Scott grabbed all of his sample bags and headed out to check in with Jax before leaving. He was going to have to drop the samples off at the lab, but he was absolutely going to get food for himself and Dani immediately after.
Clayton continued to stare at the area surrounding the blood stain, when he noticed a peculiar second stain, about three feet away from where the body was found, about two inches in diameter. It was clearly separated from the other, and almost perfectly round. Not only was it off on it’s own, it was a significantly darker shade of burgundy than the stain left from the victim’s blood. Deciding that he wasn’t going to fuck around any more, he pulled out his knife and cut the entire piece of carpet around the blood and put the whole thing in a sample bag to take to the lab. He already had a small piece of the larger stain bagged with his other evidence.
Scott walked out to check in with Jax, and noticed the scene was just about cleaned up and the fire department was packing up to leave. He was about to pull in a favor with the new Deputy Chief so he could carry on his evening.
Evidence bags in hand, he approached Jax who was sitting on the tailgate of his vehicle waiting for the rest of the scene to get cleaned up. “Yo man, I’m all done here. Moore is still inside finishing up collecting what he needs, but you don’t have to wait on him if you guys are ready to go.” Glancing over at his car, he connected eyes with Dani, and put up a finger indicating he’d be just another minute.
“Yea, I’m about to pack it in. Why don’t you give me that shit to drop off for you so you can go take your lady out?” Jax offered, holding out his hand to take the evidence bags.
“Dude, for real? That would be fucking great.” Scott replied, thankful and relieved he didn’t have to try to get to the lab in a hurry dragging poor Dani along with him.
“Yea man, no big deal. Lucky for you, I’m a fan of love these days, so go get you some,” he laughed.
“I owe you one Jax,” he quickly handed over the plastic bags, and beat it before Jax changed his mind.
“No worries, have fun kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do… which leaves your evening wide open,” he chuckled to himself as he put the bags away in the truck before closing it up to leave.
Scott hopped into the front seat of the car dramatically, “Let’s eat!” He exclaimed loudly to Dani, whose eyes grew wide in surprise before she started to giggle.
“Yes please!” She clapped her hands like an excited child and off they went to finally get some food.
15
Scott practically pulled Dani behind him as they walked toward the pizza shop. It was one of his favorite places to eat, and they’d waited so long at that point, that he felt like his stomach was eating itself. Dani would have done just about anything for a drink and a slice as well, and gladly picked up the pace to keep up.
“Oh my God, finally,” Scott said as they sat down. “You’re hungry right? Because I could eat a whole pie myself right now.”
Dani chuckled, “I’m starving. I’m also thirsty as hell, so how about a cocktail?” She surveyed Scott’s demeanor as he ordered for them both, admiring how confident he was without being cocky at all. It was such an attractive quality in a man. He had an ability to be soft and sweet, while still turning her completely on with his manliness.
“You’re speaking my language, woman,” he replied. He mentally noted how easy going their relationship had become in a matter of a few days. A relationship, I guess it was becoming a relationship, he thought to himself and smiled. He was liking the sound of that.
After devouri
ng an entire pizza between them, satiated, they went back to Dani’s house. “Would you like to come in and hang out, maybe watch a movie and just relax for awhile?” After all of the running around, even though she was tired, she wanted to spend more time with him, even if they were just quietly watching a movie. She’d hoped they could cozy up on the couch or something; she wanted to get her hands on him.
Thrilled she asked, since he didn’t want to be pushy or presumptuous, he tried to seem cool about it even though he was excited, “I’d love to, that sounds great.”
They settled onto the couch, and instinctively Scott put his arm around her while she snuggled into him, causing her heart rate to pick up as she placed her hand on his rock hard abs. She released a deep sigh as she flipped through the channels, settling on an old eighties movie she was sure they’d both seen before. Resting her head against his chest, she was relaxed and she could feel him relaxing around her as well.
“So, I’ve told you a lot about me, why don’t you tell me more about you? Why did you decide to leave the fire department and become an investigator?” She asked him softly.
Taking a deep sigh, he thought to himself what his reasons were. “Well, I loved being a firefighter, I really did, and I think if I could feasibly do both, I would. I wanted to secure a job for myself that I’d be able to do longer than firefighting, but was still related. It takes a real toll on your body, and after a few years, you start to age more quickly, and I wanted to make sure I had a long term future secured. I want to retire and enjoy retirement, play with my kids and stuff. Being a firefighter is pretty much every little boy’s dream, but long term, it wasn’t how I wanted to spend my golden years. Plus, I still get to be a part of the whole thing, which is fun for me.” Scott thought about how long the hours were when he was full time fire fighting, and how much he enjoyed being able to go home at the end of the day most of the time.