Confession: I try soooo hard to stay cannon when I impose my own imagination on someone else's work. Obviously their stuff made it into print/tv/silverscreen because they're good, right?
But here I changed a character's name. Julio Sanchez is Michael Sanchez in my story. It'll become clear why much, much later.
I beg forgiveness of those who care enough to be offended…
Chapter 1:
Bullshit Meter
Brenda's guys rolled their eyes.
"This..." the woman continued, "is Detective Tanner Moyer. I'm sure ya'll are all gonna make her feel real welcome."
There were mumbles. Tanner had a BS meter that usually proved pretty accurate. She wasn't picking up 'we hate you because you're a girl' vibes from this group. Maybe it was an age thing - - several of the squad were qualified silver foxes. Maybe it was an experience thing. They may or may not have an appreciation of what/who she was coming from. Her guess was that they just didn't like new people.
The low mutterings ceased. The silence grew, then stretched thin.
Brenda's eyebrows rose. Several of her intended victims simply faced her down in return.
That, if nothing else, merited half a smile.
"Charmed," Tanner purred, meeting Brenda's stare.
"Just let 'em get to know you," the assistant chief claimed.
The oriental guy in the back snorted. The attractive black woman in the middle of the room pursed her lips and looked unconvinced.
Yup. Warm and fuzzy.
"Where are you coming from?" Wolf asked.
Tanner shrugged. "Vice. Orange Beach." Mixed responses to that, she thought.
"See-that explains the Prada," Brenda told them. Tanner laughed.
Later, over the questionable nutrition of Twinkies and M&Ms, Brenda stopped Tanner's perusal of a series of photographs. Something bothered the younger woman about them, but she hadn't been able to put her finger on it. So she kept at it, first looking long and slow, then flipping quickly, finally laying them out over the surface of her desk. She was driving several others - - all of whom had seen the photos - - insane. Brenda thought it prudent to intervene before one of the boys took them away.
"You grew up here?" she asked.
Tanner looked up. "Here?" She sounded surprised.
"She don't mean in this office," Provenza clarified with disgust.
Tanner rolled her eyes. She spoke to Brenda. "I have some family here. I moved around a lot when I was a kid. My gramma's getting older, though. Needs somebody to help her - - take her to the store, to church, you know."
"You moved in with your grandmother?" Flynn asked.
"I relocated. My apartment's downtown. Grand'Mere lives up here. What else was I supposed to do? Put her in a home?"
"Why not move her in with you? Then you could have stayed at Vice. No need to come down here at all."
Tanner whirled toward him. "My gramma's lived in the same neighborhood, same house, since my grampa came home from the war. Why would I try to move her? And why the hell would I want to expose her to what I did at Vice?"
Mike Tao shrugged. "I just thought you might feel more comfortable on familiar ground. Rather than start all over in investigation."
Tanner snorted.
Brenda hustled over to intervene again.
"Tell me what's wrong with these pictures," Tanner challenged. A couple people stood to look.
"What?"
"You take crime scene photos as you come to them. Look at the shots, then look at the shadow, then look at the time stamp. Somebody's fucking with something."
"In our lab?"
"That or in your procedures. Unless special investigations doesn't number markers sequentially."