Chapter Four
Undercover Work, Unfinished Business, and Unexpected Jealousy
Nick
I check my phone again when I hit the next red light. Still un-vibrated. I asked Elliot to send me visual proof that Mickey is with him. That’s eight hours of no reply. I hate that I’m worried. It’s Elliot, of course, he’s not going to indulge my sneaky ways of collecting his cute pictures.
But I’ve not seen him in three days, and if we’re stuck here tonight, it’ll be four. This is the longest I haven’t been with him in weeks. I can easily call him, I know. I could also have driven to his place late at night for the last three days. I really should have.
It’s just that I know the next time we talk, I’ll blurt out everything about the copycat killer. And it’s one of those face-to-face long conversations that require non-sleepy and non-angry people. Elliot after one am is unfortunately not one.
“You know it’d be easier to talk to him if we didn't die on the way,” Sloan comments from the passenger seat just as the car behind me blares its horn.
“Fuck.” I hit the gas and manage not to give Sloan and her giant bag of beef jerky side-eye. I’m sure she got my hostility on the topic from my silence.
“What did you do now?” Clearly not.
Wait. “Why do you think I did something? When did you become Team Elliot? Didn’t you guys have some weird beef?”
She waves me off, taking a bite of her jerky.
“We’re buddies now, Nick. Keep up.” The first time Elliot met my friends after we made things official, things weren’t looking all that good between Elliot and Sloan.
But now that I think of it, them being them, they had to be best buds or mortal enemies.
I guess I should be happy it’s not the latter.
“Why do you need that much food for an hour drive anyway?”
She takes another bite of her jerky and chews it viciously. “If I’m driving to a different city, I’m having my jerky.”
I roll my eyes and take the exit to Long Beach.
Sloan turns in her seat to face me. “Don’t think you distracted me from the tiny cat in the room.
You’ve been very hard to talk to lately, and I’d have understood if it was because of the honeymoon phase thing, but you’ve been weirdly cagey around us too.
That’s very unlike you,” she says, between chewing.
If she knew how accurate her assessment is, she’d never shut up.
That’s after she’d make me confess all my secrets.
So, yeah, she’s never knowing. Good thing I have just the magic bullet in my arsenal to stop this inquisition.
“Oh, why, Sloan, I’d love to tell you all about that.
” Her smiling face turns into a frown. “But first, why don’t you tell me about this fun impromptu salon trip you and Serena took? She your buddy now, too?”
She looks everywhere but my face. Interesting. “Uh… We just… You know… You don’t… You went to the salon with her.”
Whoa, that was a journey. “I guess that's all for the relationship talks for today, don’t you think?”
She flops back on the back seat and folds her hands across her chest. “Whatever.”
I take the last turn and finally locate the house we’re looking for. Talk about perfect timing. I park right in front of a rundown one-floor house with a broken picket fence and a rusted gate.
We get out of the car and put our aviators on before slamming the door behind us.
“You were so right. That was cool,” Sloan says as she joins me and we walk over to the gate.
“Right? If you’re going to do secret agent shit, it’d be a crime to not look cool doing it.”
She nods and opens the door, then wipes her hands on her dark trousers. “Are you sure this is the correct place?” She gives me an uncertain look.
I take a long breath, sniffing the air around me. Three werewolves inside. “Yup, this is it,” I say before approaching the door myself.
I ring the doorbell. Checking my phone one last time, still no new messages, I shove it inside my pocket and get ready for my least favorite part of this job.
Confronting a criminal at his home never goes as planned. You rarely find people willing to surrender. It’s especially annoying when you get the runners because a chase attracts attention, and attention is antithetical to the Bureau.
When I hear footsteps getting closer, I stand up straighter. Male, mid-forties, drunk. Most likely our suspect. The footsteps get slower as they reach the other side of the door. Hesitance?
I turn to Sloan and give her a small nod. She nods back and hides behind a very suspicious-looking bush. She's wearing enough perfume to make any werewolf second-guess what they're smelling.
The door opens, and I’m confronted by a hulking man in a black tank and grey sweatpants. His hair is disheveled, and his eyes are bloodshot. Oh, great, he’s high too. It shouldn’t be difficult to make him disappear.
“What do you want?” he says, sounding extremely annoyed.
Ugh, there’s a kid in the house. This is why I’m never leaving this job. If it weren’t for us, no one would ever look out for this child or the two women this man murdered.
I smile, suddenly not feeling as annoyed by being saddled with this work as I was when I got the call last night. “Jacob Marcovich? I had a few questions for you. Can you come with me?” I don’t expect him to agree. They never do.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he slurs and starts closing the door.
I plant my palm at the door, pushing it open. “That wasn’t the right answer, Jacob. So impolite too,” I say.
His eyes go wide. “Who are you?”
I tamp down the instinct to be cliché. Don’t say it, Nick. Sloan will never let you live it down. “Karma,” I blurt. Ugh.
Did I just imagine the snort coming from the bushes? I hope they are poison ivy.
“I think it’d be wise for you to walk out with me so no one gets harmed,” I warn him. As expected, he doesn’t agree. He leaves the door open, choosing to bolt inside.
Stepping inside, I trip him, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes. I press my knee on his back so he doesn’t try to run again. Since he was drunk off his ass, his attempted escape was more pathetic than loud. I unlatch the cuffs from my belt to tie his hands.
Then a click echoes through the room, and the blood drains from my face. I look up and stare at the end of a revolver held by a tired-looking thirty-something woman.
“You don’t want to do that, Ma’am. The weather is too humid for that today,” I say calmly.
She frowns in confusion.
“Shoot him, honey,” the psychopath under me says.
I put more of my weight on him until he lets out a grunt. “I’m not going to hurt him. There’s no need to escalate the situation.” I raise both my hands to show I’m not a threat to her. I raise my voice, “The weather—”
With a blur, Sloan is there. A swift kick, and the gun is on the floor. She picks it up and trains it on the lady. “I heard you the first time, Jeez,” Sloan says to me, then turns towards the woman, now crumpled on the floor, shaking. “Now, you stay there until we’ve secured this dirtbag.”
I take that as a cue to haul the psychopath’s ass to my car and secure him in the backseat until I’m sure there’s no way for him to escape. I come back to find Sloan and the lady sitting on an old, stained couch.
“So, he won’t be coming back? Do you promise?” the lady asks her.
“He’s not getting out,” Sloan says confidently.
The woman’s eyes shine with unshed tears. “Thank you.” She turns to me. “I’m so sorry. I panicked.” She wipes her eyes.
“Hey, no harm done,” I assure her.
She smiles through the tears.
Getting up, Sloan smiles back.
“We’ll keep you updated on the case,” I tell her before we walk out.
She nods and follows us to the door, watching us leave. She looks like the entire world’s burden has been lifted from her shoulders.
We walk out of the gate, Sloan shooting a glare at the bush on the way.
“You could have come in sooner,” I complain as I open the driver’s seat door.
“Eh, she was harmless,” she says.
I start the engine and pull onto the road. “Yes, because spooked people with guns are the most harmless.”
“Maybe it was karma.”
***
I drive straight to Elliot’s after delivering the criminal to the lockup at Bureau headquarters. Now he’s the criminal justice team’s problem. They’ve already made a strong case against him, but he’ll be given a fair chance to contest the allegations, albeit without a lawyer or a court date.
He’ll stay in a holding cell until his case is finished.
Then he’d either be transferred to the Bureau prison in Fresno or be released, which has never happened before as far as I know.
We don’t take our arrests lightly. We have a saying, “Once you see the back wall of a Bureau holding cell, you won’t see anything else for a long while. ”
Sloan made me drop her at a random spot on the way, far enough away from her home that I know she’s not going back any time soon. When I enquired about her plans, she threw a ‘Why hasn’t Elliot called or messaged all day?’ at me. I wasn’t very curious after that.
When I park in Elliot’s driveway, the lights are on.
I switch off the engine and let the sounds and smells from inside wash over me.
Soft music is playing, and Elliot is saying something, probably to Mickey because I can’t smell anyone else inside.
Just a soothing, spicy-sweet musk that never fails to make my heart pick up, and Mickey’s familiar, comfortable, cozy scent that calms me down.
Home, that’s what it smells like.
I tune in to Elliot’s words. “...should have been here, but you know what, we don’t need him. Or anyone. We can make delicious dinners by ourselves.”
Mickey whines.
“Yeah, okay, we can order a delicious dinner ourselves and eat it. We don’t need to watch sitcoms while eating. We’re completely self-sufficient people… and a dog.”
Mickey barks excitedly.
“Exactly, we don’t miss him.”
I smile and close my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Letting everything I’d been holding for days slip away. Because that’s Elliot for he misses me.