by Jenna Baker
*****
Reid was anxious to get back to the station, so I relieved him of his wedding date duties and let him go back to work. He wanted to track down Miguel and Diego tonight and promised to call me before they went in for the kill. I figured it was better that he left anyway. He was too much of a distraction, and if we slow danced again, we might end up right back in my room, missing out on the party and my sister’s big day. I could imagine my mother telling all her guests that her darling daughter Victoria didn’t end up in any of the pictures because she was too busy boffing the cop she was working with. As it was, I was never going to live this down.
I returned to the party and tried to act like nothing had happened. I attempted to dance a few songs, but too many people were stopping me to ask about the sexpot I was making out with and where I was hiding him. I figured it would be easier if I stayed put, so I sat at my table and received the various enquiries as they came in. The consensus seemed to be that Reid was super hot, and to my surprise, my status had actually gone up a few notches in the eyes of my family.
I was entertaining a small crowd with all the juicy details when my new brother-in-law walked up.
“Hey there, Vapor-Rub. I saw you bumping and grinding with that cop. Did you think you were at a night club or something?”
“I just wanted to show you and Ginny how’s it’s done, Bobble-head. From what I hear, you could use all the help you can get.”
“So that was like a live porn video to warm us up for tonight?” Bob asked me.
I flinched. “Ew! You are so nasty, Bob!”
The crowd around me agreed and ordered him away. Somehow, Bob had ended up the bad guy even though I was the slut humping her date on the dance floor. I beamed.
The wedding turned out to be a huge success and a great party. I actually spent a little bit of time speaking with Reid’s parents and the rest of the time dancing and partying with my cousins and sister’s friends. When the clock struck one, there was nothing I wanted to do more than go up to my hotel room and go to sleep, but I knew that wasn’t in the cards for me. Lenny was floating around the wedding, trying to pick up girls and asking me for updates all night. We both knew this story was important, and I assured him over and over that I would get the shot.
I pulled out my cell phone and saw that I had a missed call from Reid. I checked my messages and learned that they had located Miguel and Diego’s apartment and were planning to apprehend them tonight. I panicked, not knowing what time the message was left, but before he hung up, Reid said he would pick me up out front at one fifteen and we could ride together. It was a damn good thing I had nearly slept with him – otherwise, he would have never made that concession.
I ran up to my room to throw on the sundress I had worn that morning. It wasn’t at all appropriate, but it was better than a full-length evening gown. I strolled outside at ten past one and saw Reid already parked out front. Foxy was sitting next to him in the passenger’s seat, and Mac and Manny were parked in the chaser car. I gave the cops a wave and leaned in their car window. “I’ll ride with the crew. I don’t want to screw anything up for you guys.”
Foxy looked like he was about to say something crass, but I stopped him with a stern look. Reid nodded at me, and I headed back to ride with my boys. I opened the back door of the SUV and jumped inside. “Good evening, gentlemen. Nice to see you again.”
“It was nice to see you earlier baby – all of you,” Manny joked. “Ay, caramba!”
“Manny, you had sex with Rose in the bathroom while we all listened. Are you really judging me?”
Manny looked meek. “No, I guess not.”
“Good, because you’re not allowed, and you’re not either, Mac. I know you don’t think I should get involved with people at work, but guess what, work is all I do. Plus I like Reid, okay?”
Mac turned to me from the driver’s seat. “That’s fine, Sharpe. It’s none of my business anyway.”
He sounded like an injured doe, and I suddenly felt guilty. Had I bruised his male ego or something? I didn’t know, but I also didn’t have time to care. My story was about to peak and I needed to concentrate.
Mac pulled a hoodie out of his backpack and handed it to me. “Here, it’s cold.”
I took the sweatshirt and pulled it over my head. “Thanks.”
Mac put the car in gear, and we pulled out of the parking lot.
“So what’s the game plan?” I asked Mac.
“They tracked the perps back to the Indigo Cab Company. They’re off tonight, so we’re gonna hit them at home.”
“Do they live together?”
“Yeah, they’re staying at a motel in Sun Valley – close to their work.”
“Sounds good. I know you guys are tired, but you have to be on point with this shoot – okay? No running out of film or anything,” I said.
Mac turned around and shot me a dirty look. I didn’t care – anger would bring him energy, which we all needed.
“How did Rose respond to being booked?” I asked.
“That bitch was pissed,” Manny said. “But she looked sexy as hell in those handcuffs.”
“Well, if we grab her cousins, maybe she can work out a deal with the DA.”
“Ah, she’ll do just fine in the slammer. She’s tough, plus she likes that girl-on-girl shit. Ay, caramba!” Manny said.
It was late so the traffic was light, but it still took us nearly an hour to get to our destination. We pulled up to a dilapidated old building. It had Spanish tiles on the roof that were cracked and falling apart, and the building was the color of smog. It was a two-story motel with entrances to each unit on the outside of the building.
A while back, I worked with a woman who was on-site in Death Valley doing a shoot. The production didn’t have much money, so they put her up in a motel room that had a door that opened to the street. She woke up at three a.m. to a lunatic banging on her door and screaming “Dolores!” That wasn’t her name, but the guy was drunk and disoriented and scared the hell out of her. After that she vowed never to stay in a motel again. I agreed that motels were bad news, and the fact that I was about to pick up two murderers in one of them was living proof.
We parked the car half a block down the street from the motel, and Mac and Manny began loading up their gear. I walked over to Foxy and Reid’s car. They were checking the ammo in their guns and pulling on bullet proof vests.
“Uh, do I get one?” I said, pointing to their vests.
“You, sweetheart, are not going in. We can’t risk it,” Reid said.
“We talked about it on the way over and it’s just not worth it,” Foxy added.
I felt my stomach drop. “But you’re gonna let the guys in, right?” Reid shook his head no. “Then how the hell am I supposed to get my shot?” I asked, starting to panic.
Reid stepped out of the car and walked over to me. “Sharpe, these guys ran down one man and shot another in cold blood. They’re probably going to try to shoot us too – I can’t risk you getting hurt, not when things are just getting started with us, okay?”
Reid brushed his finger over my shoulder, and another tingle ran through me. My sexual desires helped ease some of my disappointment, but not all of it. The biggest moment of my career was about to disappear, plus the guy that I really liked was going up against a bunch of bad guys and was, in his own words, probably going to get shot. I looked back at Mac and Manny and suddenly had an idea. “Just give me a few minutes, okay? Let me talk to Mac.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Sharpe,” Reid said, but it was too late. I was already running towards Mac and Manny.
Mac and Manny were standing behind the SUV, testing their gear.
“They won’t let us film,” I said.
“What?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, they think these guys are gonna try to shoot at them and they don’t want us there.”
“Sounds good to me,” Manny said. “I ain’t getting shot at for no bullshit job.”
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p; I looked at Mac and smiled sweetly. “I was thinking maybe you’d have an idea about how we could get the shot.”
“Yeah, I know your game. You’re only nice to me when you want something.”
“I’m always nice.”
Mac rubbed his head. “Okay, let me think. These dudes are on the first floor so we can probably set a camera outside the window, but we’d have to be quiet. They work the night shift, so they might still be up. I have a couple long-range lenses, so we could rig far away.”
“We can wire Reid and Foxy for sound so at least we’ll get that shit recorded,” Manny added.
“I wish we had those cameras from the interrogation room at the station,” Mac said. “Wait, we can pull the one off Reid’s dash. We’ll wire it to Foxy, they’ll be less likely to notice the bulge on him.”
“They’re wearing vests so maybe you can rig it in there. We’ve got the PD-150 too. I think you should hang on to that one and shoot. You can stay outside while they apprehend them, but once they’re cuffed you’ve got to run in there,” I said.
“That will work,” Mac said. He grabbed a screw driver and headed to Reid’s car.
I ran back over to Reid and Foxy and explained the game plan.
“I don’t know, Sharpe, I need to be agile during this thing. I can’t have all these wires coming out of my ass,” Foxy said.
I gave Foxy a once-over. “Do you really think it will make a difference?”
“Go ahead and take your shots at me,” Foxy said. “It just leaves the playing field wide open for me.”
I raised my hands up in surrender. “I think I’ve taken enough shots from you already, for today at least. Just try on the equipment and if you can’t move around with it on, we’ll make adjustments, okay? Besides, this is the climax to your story line – we have to get it on tape.”
Foxy looked at Reid and smiled. “You’ve already had your storyline climax, right, partner?”
“No, actually I didn’t, pal, thanks to you.” Reid smirked.
“True,” Foxy admitted. “Sorry, pal. Sorry, Sharpe.”
I threw my hands up, not wanting to discuss it further.
Mac and Manny worked quickly, rigging a mini camera both on Foxy and in the bushes a few yards away from the motel room. Within thirty minutes we were ready to roll. Manny and I staged ourselves next to the camera in the bushes, and Mac planned to stay just outside the front door – ready to bust in when the time was right. Mac had also rigged the cops with earpieces so they could communicate with us better and let us know when the coast was clear. I had the fleeting thought that we might be going through all this trouble only to capture the wrong guys, but I let it pass. It didn’t really matter if they were guilty or not for my story. All that mattered was that we made an arrest.
Mac had rigged Foxy’s point-of-view Camera to a small receiving monitor that he placed next to the locked camera in the bushes. The image was small and grainy, but it gave Manny and me a great idea as to what was going on inside. I had a microphone in my ear so I could communicate with the cops via their earpieces. I was sure to put it in the opposite ear that I lost the Q-tip in – we didn’t need another incident tonight. “Testing, testing,” I said in a whisper.
“Check,” Foxy said back to me. “You ready, Sharpe?”
I nodded to Manny, and he began rolling. I also gave Mac, who was standing by the door, a thumbs-up. “Okay,” I said. “Rolling.”
“We’re going in,” Foxy said.
At his angle, Mac was able to get a great shot of Reid and Foxy approaching the motel door. They both looked super tough with their bullet proof vests under their shirts and their badges hanging around their necks like dog tags. I decided I would depict this segment in slow motion and add some tough-guy music when I got to the edit. Both Reid and Foxy had their guns drawn, and when they reached the door, they didn’t knock. Instead, Reid slammed against it with the side of his body and fell inside.
We could hear a lot of shuffling, but we couldn’t see much through the camera in the window. “Foxy, we can’t see, open the window curtain!” I ordered into my earpiece.
We could see in Foxy’s camera that the two suspects were lying in their beds, both wearing their boxer shorts and stained wife-beater undershirts. Foxy managed to pull the curtain back, and Manny instantly jumped behind the camera and started zooming and panning to capture the action. “This is freaking awesome, baby!” Manny announced.
I looked over at Mac and saw that he had run in behind the cops, filming. The man was my savior.
“Freeze! Put your hands in the air!” Reid commanded.
I couldn’t see much through Foxy’s POV cam, but I did see one man putting up his hands while the other seemed to be reaching for something.
“Gun!” I whispered in Foxy’s ear.
The next thing I heard was a huge thud as Foxy tackled one of the brothers and pinned him to the bed. “Get the cuffs!” Foxy called out.
I couldn’t see anything, but Manny was getting everything on his camera. “Oh shit! The perp just punched out Reid!”
“What?!” I shrieked.
“He’s down Sharpe, he’s down!”
“Foxy – Reid is down! He’s down!” I cried in panic.
“He’s running – the perp is running. Oh man!” Manny said.
“What?!” I was two seconds away from running in there when Manny spoke again.
“Mac just decked him! Foxy’s got the cuffs on the guy on the bed. Reid’s up – oh wow! He just punched the perp and he slammed into the wall. Mac’s back behind the camera and Reid’s pulling out the cuffs. They got them, Sharpe, they got them!” Manny narrated.
His commentary was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. “Foxy – are you guys okay in there?” I asked.
“We’re okay, we’re okay. They’re both cuffed!”
I turned to Manny. “Grab that camera – let’s get in there!”
Manny snapped the camera off the tripod and the two of us went running inside. Some of the other guests at the motel were coming out of their rooms now, but I paid them no mind as I rushed through the door. Inside, both men were lying on the bed, facedown, hands cuffed behind their backs. Reid had a cut above his eye, and Foxy was totally out of breath. Mac had his camera up and was panning back and forth between the Ortez brothers and the cops.
“Oh man, that was awesome!” I said and pointed at the Ortez brothers. “They’re in their underwear – oh, this is great!”
Mac took my excitement as his cue to stop taping and put his camera down.
“Dude, nice!” Reid said to Mac. “You saved my ass.” They exchanged a fist-bump and Reid placed a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “Seriously, man, thank you.”
“Happy to help,” Mac said.
“And here I was gonna kick your ass for charging in there after us,” Reid said.
“MacGyver!” Foxy called out and patted Mac on the back. “You really are a good guy to have around.”
“Okay, guys, haul them out of here,” I said.
Mac and Manny both rolled their cameras as Reid and Foxy led Miguel and Diego out of the motel. Outside, lots of motel guests had crowded around. One woman was blabbering in Spanish, and the manager was shouting that we were gonna have to pay for the broken door. In the light, I saw that Miguel and Diego were probably only in their late twenties. It was sad to know that they would likely spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Still, I was jealous that Reid and Mac had gotten their punches in. These sons of bitches deserved about a million more.
Reid and Foxy led the men to their car and placed them in the back seat. It was closing in on three in the morning, and I hoped by dawn, this case would be wrapped up.
Chapter 15.