by Jenna Baker
*****
Overnight, I had that horrible recurring dream from high school that I forgot to get dressed and came to school naked. I awoke panicked and shivering. The dream seemed so real, so vivid. I looked down at my legs to see they were bare and submerged in water. I gasped when I realized I had fallen asleep in my bath tub and was now a human, frozen prune! I was freezing and disoriented. I quickly drained the water and threw my robe on to get some warmth. I turned the shower to scorching hot and jumped inside as soon as the cold water had drained. I blasted my skin with the heat. My lips were blue and my teeth were chattering.
“Really good, Vicky!” I chided myself between shivers. I had no idea how long I had been sleeping, all I knew was that I needed to get warm fast.
Twenty minutes later, my limbs were back to their normal transparent coloring, and I was finally feeling warm. I stepped out of the bathroom in my robe and walked over to my alarm clock. It was 5:32 AM. I felt the anger boil up inside me as I thought about the hours of sleep I could have gotten had I fallen asleep properly in my bed. Now I was wide awake and it was three hours before my call time.
The tapes were still nagging at me so I decided to throw some clothes on and head down to the station. Manny had set up a playback deck in the observation room between the two interrogation rooms. I knew that at this hour, I would be able to watch my Beta tapes undisturbed.
I pulled into the station around 6:15. The night crew was still on – they would switch shifts at 7:00 AM. I breezed past the cop at the front desk and headed inside.
As I entered I saw that the place was empty with two exceptions – a night-shift detective sitting at his desk watching a movie and Detective Reid, who lay face first on a stack of files – passed out. I walked towards him quietly until I was standing right next to him. I looked down at his face. He looked so peaceful without his usual scowl. I watched him as he breathed in and out, his body rising and falling. I’d always thought there was something special, something intimate about watching another person sleep, and I enjoyed looking down at him.
Suddenly Reid’s hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. I jumped. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded with eyes opened wide.
I pulled away from his grip. “Don’t do that to me! I thought you were asleep.” I was shaking. “I’ve had enough scares already today!”
Reid sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Pregnancy?”
“No, you idiot, I fell asleep in the bathtub. I woke up half-frozen in fifty degree water.”
Reid’s lips began to curl at the edges.
“Don’t you dare start laughing. Just go back to sleep – I’ll wake you at eight. Or, better yet, go take a shower.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re here. Planning to snoop through my files?”
“That’s funny, Reid. No, I want to watch last night’s tapes.”
“Oh, I see, you want to see what you did wrong, right? Why he ended up with another girl instead of you.”
My eyes narrowed. “Watch it, Detective. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
I walked into the observation room and Reid went back to whatever he was working on. I popped the Beta tape into the cassette deck and pressed play. I turned the lights off so I could see the screen better and rest my eyes in the process. I couldn’t handle fluorescent lighting this early.
I watched as I approached Kitt on the track and spoke to him. The audio came through. I heard Kitt ask me, “So what are you doing here, dollface?”
“I wanted to see you race.”
“You just missed it, honey. I’m done for the night.”
The images looked pretty good – it looked like Mac was much closer than he actually was. Next I watched as Kitt and I sped in the Spyder around the track. We really were going fast. I could hear the pounding of my heart coming through the microphone, and I instantly got another rush from the speed.
Next, I watched and listened to the silence as Kitt prepared to make his move on me – I saw Rose approaching the side door of the car.
As Rose opened Kitt’s car door, the door knob to the control room turned as well – I jumped. I couldn’t find the stop button in the darkness, so I stood up and blocked the screen with my body as Reid walked in.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“I’d like to look at the tape.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Behind me I could hear my audio coming through as I spoke to Rose. “Just know that not talking to them means you have something to hide. They don’t have a lot of suspects in this thing…”
Reid raised an eyebrow. I turned and managed to stop the tape. “I don’t remember hearing you knock,” I told him.
“I thought we agreed to share what we knew – wasn’t that what we said?” Reid asked.
“You just want to embarrass me.”
Reid moved close to me in the darkness. “I’d like to watch the tape, Sharpe.”
“Fine,” I said. “But don’t you dare give commentary.”
We watched the tape together from the beginning. When we got to the part where the car spun around and my heart was beating out of my chest, I turned my back to the screen. “I can’t watch this again.” I could feel my face turning red as I remembered how stupid I had been to flirt with a bad guy.
“You like?” I heard Kitt say on the monitor.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Okay, this is what I wanted to see,” Reid said.
I turned around in a fury. “What kind of pervert…?”
“Shut up, Sharpe.” Reid said. I looked at the screen to see that Mac had zoomed out to a wide shot of the track. Reid pointed to a car pulling up in the distance on the screen. “He got it.” Reid looked at me. “From the angle we were at, Foxy and I couldn’t see the car Rose pulled up in.”
We watched Rose walk out of the vehicle and storm towards Kitt and me. She was not the driver. We couldn’t see the driver’s face, but we could make out that it was a man.
My eyes suddenly widened. “Reid!”
He was already nodding. It was dark, but even in the darkness, we could see that the car Rose pulled up in was two-toned – yellow and black.
“Bingo!” Reid said. “Can you zoom in on this – try to get the plate?”
“Not here – but we can upload it digitally at the office and then zoom in. I’ll have Mac run it over as soon as he gets in.”
Reid looked at me and smirked. “See? You’re not totally useless.”
“Useless? I practically cracked this case!”
“I wouldn’t start popping champagne, but it’s a good start.”
I was so excited I could barely contain myself. I wanted to jump up and hug Reid, but I knew we still had lots of work to do and there were no guarantees that this was our man. Still, it was a lead and I was the one who got it – with Mac’s help of course.
“You busy later?” Reid asked me.
I felt my heart skip a beat. “Huh?” I realized I was sitting kind of close to him. Maybe like Kitt, he thought I was putting out strong signals. I’d have to be careful – I had no idea I was so alluring!
“I’m not asking you on a date, Sharpe, I’m asking you to go interview this guy with me – assuming we can pull those plates.”
“Duh! I knew that’s what you meant!” I said, a little too grandly. “I’m free later, of course.”
“Good,” Reid said, standing. He turned the door knob and turned to me. “I’m going home to take a shower. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”
As tired as I was, I felt totally refreshed and ready to take on the bad guys. It took a little time, but Reid was finally starting to realize that I was a useful ally.