"...I miss you, too. I miss that sweet ass of yours."
Andie entered the conference room, rolling her eyes behind Shane's back as he turned, giving her a guilty look when he hugged the phone closer to his ear. "I'll call you back."
She set her bag down, pulling out the chair on the opposite side of the table as Shane took the seat next to her, storing his phone in his pocket.
"Sorry," he muttered, and she gave him a sidelong glance.
"For what? Having the same tired lines that you used to use on me? Or for thinking that it would bother me all these years later?"
"God, you've gotten hard," he complained, slumping back in his chair.
"Shane, I'm happy for you," Andie flipped on her laptop, checking her email as she shifted in her seat. "I told you that already. We're ancient history."
"If you say so."
She wasn't going to get sucked into a pointless fight with him, not after the weekend she'd had. Negan never returned from Atlanta, not that she'd spent all day Sunday listening for his Camaro or anything. He'd never even texted her to make sure that she made it home all right, not that it mattered. Nope, it was just a release of the sexual tension that had built between them, nothing more and nothing less.
So what if she had a dream about him on Saturday night when she got home? It was normal and expected after the great sex, even though there was no fornication in the dream, just Negan tenderly stroking her face in the mundane confines of her townhouse as she rested her head on his lap. They were on the couch, watching a movie, and she was sublimely happy just to be with him.
The feeling lasted throughout the day as she puttered around her house, cleaning and doing her chores that she usually had little time for when she was working. Until he didn't show up, and neither did Daryl.
"Blue."
She'd been staring off into space, and Shane snapped his fingers to get her attention. Rick was carrying a manila envelope, and he set it on the table in front of her since it was addressed to her.
"This just arrived by courier," Rick said, sitting on the edge of the table, the two men effectively surrounding her. "And Abe is taking a leave of absence, given what's going on."
Andie nodded her head since she'd already spoken to her partner the day before. He was still struggling with Rosita's death, and it tainted his involvement with the case. Abe had asked if she was disappointed in him, and she hurriedly assured him that she wasn't, that he needed to take some time to mourn. With Daryl and Negan to help out,and even Shane, they had it covered.
Using her nail to open the envelope, she turned it upside down, a flicker of excitement when a DVD came sliding out into her palm along with a typed note from Neilson Security that the tapes of November the second were enclosed, as per Phillipe LeClair's wishes.
She quickly updated Rick and Shane about their jewelry store trip as she inserted the DVD into her computer drive, the two of them crowding around as the footage began to play. So engrossed in the images, she didn't feel Shane's hand on her shoulder, nor did she hear Negan and Daryl enter until the sound of someone clearing their throat made all of their heads lift at the same time.
Negan was glaring between Andie and Shane, his eyes flitting to Shane's arm, and Andie realized what he was doing, and she knocked it off of her body, pausing the tape. Daryl slunk over to the table, avoiding her gaze as Negan planted himself in the doorway.
"Where have you been?" she snapped, glancing at the clock. "It's after ten."
"I don't report to you, detective. We had another case that we were working on," he said coldly, slamming his shit on the table. "It didn't look like you needed us, anyway."
"What case?"
"Can I see ya outside?" Daryl motioned for the door, and Andie shut her laptop, locking it so that Shane and Rick couldn't watch the tape without her, stepping around Negan, who refused to give any ground. Her arm brushed against his, sending a wave of heat down the appendage, and she turned to the right, leaning against the wall, trying to fight the urge to slap him. Or kiss him. She wasn't sure which way she was leaning towards at the moment.
Daryl backed himself next to her, looking down at the floor.
"I ain't trying to pry," he said awkwardly, rushing his words. "But whatever happened with the two of you put him in a real foul mood. That ain't why I called you out here, though."
"Okay."
"We got called to a scene early Sunday morning."
"Another Heartbreaker?" she asked, on alert, but he shook his head.
"Nah, it was a strangulation case, but it was a male prostitute," he said, giving her a quick shrug. "The only reason they called us out was because the pro looked exactly like Negan, only about ten years younger. Was wearin' a leather jacket and everything."
"That's disturbing."
"Whoever killed em' did it while they were screwing," he said, his cheeks turning pink. "The other guys think it was sex play gone wrong, but Negan ain't convinced. He feels like it was a message to him or somethin'."
"A message?"
Daryl looked as weirded out as she felt, and he double checked to make sure that no one was listening to them, but everyone else was in the conference room.
"He thinks whoever did it knows him. Maybe someone that he arrested."
"Saunders, let's go."
Rick sounded impatient in the other room, and Andie patted Daryl's shoulder, heading back inside to a chilly reception from everyone. Negan was sitting as far away from the others as he could, and he refused to acknowledge her, so she sat back in her seat, opening her laptop again and punching in her password as Daryl stood behind her.
"So, we got the footage from Cache," she said, bringing him up to speed. "We've only watched about the first hour or so, and it's been boring, to say the least."
It garnered Negan's attention, and he grudgingly got up, coming around to stand behind Shane as she pressed play. The only people who'd come into the store so far were women, and she settled back, watching a young woman, not Amber, take a few rings out of one of the cases to show a prospective buyer, an elderly woman.
It was just after noon when they finally got a look at a male buyer, and Andie's heart started to race as a tall man wearing a baseball cap and a brown leather bomber jacket came walking into the store, heading straight for one of the cases. The saleswoman joined him a few seconds later, opening the case as he pointed to one of the pieces.
"Come on, motherfucker," she muttered, leaning closer to the screen as the camera angle switched to behind the sales counter, but all they could see was the bottom of his face, the lip of his cap covering his eyes and nose. The scene continued as the man tried on the watch, angling his wrist several ways before nodding slightly, handing it back to the girl.
Slowly, she walked over to the register, typing in numbers as he pulled out his wallet, producing a piece of paper and handing it to her. All the while, he kept his head down, and she disappeared into Phillipe's office, returning with the ledger, signing the back.
"You've got to be kidding me," Shane said as the transaction was completed, and the salesgirl put the watch into a case, handing it to the man who threw a few bills down on the glass top, turning and exiting the store, still with no great view of his face.
Andie reversed the tape, going back to when he entered, studying everything from his stance to his hands, feeling an odd sense of deja vu, though she couldn't quite pin down why. He was definitely on the younger side of forty, but other than the shape of his jaw, they had nothing, at least on the surface.
"Get this over to the lab," Rick said, standing and stretching. "Maybe Glenn can break this down and find us something usable."
"I'll go," Negan and Shane said at the same time as she pulled the tape back out, tucking it in the envelope, and she kept her head down as she heard Rick sigh loudly.
"Saunders, take who you want."
She looked up to see Rick staring at her, and she had the feeling that he knew exactly what was going on. It was mortifying for her to have her boss fully aware of her personal life, and she jerked her thumb at Daryl, stalking from the room with several pairs of eyes burning holes in her back.
Daryl smirked as he got into the passenger's seat, hanging on for dear life as she barreled out of the parking lot, tossing the envelope into his lap.
"Ain't no way to trace that cashier's check," he said conversationally as she gripped the wheel. "The bank won't be able to tell us anything."
"I know," she replied, her voice heavy. "It fucking feels like every step forward takes us three back."
"We're gonna catch a break. We have to."
"You know as well as I do that this may never get solved," she told him, thinking absently about how many unsolved cases that were floating around. "This guy is so fucking smart."
"He'll screw up," Daryl felt completely confident, tapping the envelope against his thigh. "He's feeling confident, rachetin' up his kills, and he'll make a mistake. I can feel it."
"I hope you're right, I really do."
The lab was deserted when they arrived, and Andie sat down, staring at the wall as Daryl stalked around, waiting for Glenn who was just getting back from lunch. He came in with a cup, sucking from the straw loudly, smiling at Andie as she looked at him without seeing him. So many thoughts were clogging up her brain that she had to do something to calm the storm inside her.
Glenn was excited as she was when she told him about the tape, and he popped it in, virtually ignoring them as he started clicking around on his high-tech computer.
"I'll call you," he said vaguely, his attention solely on the images in front of him, and she and Daryl slipped out, leaning against the side of her car as he smoked a cigarette. She made a quick call to Abe, updating him on where they were, and he dully spoke for a few minutes.
Daryl ground out the stub with his boot, going around to the other side of the car. Andie wasn't in a hurry to get back to the office, and she drove slowly, eventually veering off as her riding buddy raised his eyebrows, shrugging good-naturedly when he saw where they were.
Ten minutes later, the two of them were standing on the firing range, each aiming at a target, Andie picturing the faceless man from the jewelry store, hitting the chest and the head several times. Daryl's shots were as good as hers, and the two of them engaged in a shooting contest, with him edging her out just barely.
It calmed her down, helped her to refocus, and they sat at one of the picnic tables outside the building, sipping water and chatting quietly when her phone started to ring. Seeing that it was Rick, she answered it, her face dropping as he told her that the local paper was running a story about the murders the following day.
Someone had leaked out some of the details, and they were determined to alert the public unless they were given an exclusive, despite Rick's protests that it would endanger the case.
When she told Daryl, his eyes narrowed, clearly thinking that Shane was the culprit, but she shook her head.
"He'd never talk to the press," she insisted, following behind him as he stalked towards the car. "Whatever his faults, he'd never do something to fuck up this case. His career means more to him than that."
"Well, someone's talkin'," he snapped, slamming the door as he got inside. Andie let him stew as they drove back to the precinct, walking alone back inside as Daryl had taken off ahead of her.
By the time she reached the office, Daryl was speaking heatedly with Shane and Negan, and she went to her desk, peering into Rick's office, but the blinds were half drawn, and she couldn't make out which reporter he was conferring with. She didn't have to wait long, because the door opened a few seconds later, and she felt her blood boiling as Harley Smith came strutting out with a cocky smile on her face.
She and Harley did not get along, and there was bad blood there, all the way back to her rookie days when she'd screwed up the arrest of a local politician, resulting in him walking away from hit-and-run charges. It had very nearly ended her career before it began when Harley wrote a story on it, and ever since then, Andie had made it her mission to make sure that Harley never got a scoop from the Fairfax Police Department.
Blonde, with big boobs and teeth that Julia Roberts would envy, Harley stopped at her desk, looking Andie up and down as she stared back, refusing to speak.
Harley's eyes drifted beyond her shoulders, and her smile got even wider.
"Good to see you, detective," she winked provocatively as Andie turned around to see Negan behind her, staring back at Harley in surprise. Oh, no this motherfucker did not fuck her sworn enemy.
As soon as Harley was out of sight, Andie grabbed her purse, fleeing the precinct with Negan hot on her heels. He jerked her to a stop just as she reached her car, and she faced him, unable to hide the anger.
"You screwed Harley Smith?" she hissed, backing away from him as he started towards her.
"I didn't fucking know she was a reporter," he shot back, clenching his hands into fists. "I never fucking told her anything about the case."
This was why it would never work. Sleeping with Negan was a huge mistake, and she reached back, opening the door to her car. She had no right to be angry about him fucking Harley, but it felt like a betrayal, one he didn't even know he committed, and Andie shut the door in his face, driving out of the lot without looking back.
She was done with cops, cases, and her fucked up love life for the day.
The Grove was deserted when she sat down at the bar, eyeing Judge as he did the same back. Silently, he broke out the hard stuff, pouring her a glass of cognac, and she sipped it carefully, resting her head on her hand, slumping over the bar.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" Judge leaned over, placing a chaste kiss on the top of her head, but she pursed her lips, shaking her head.
What the fuck was she going to do with her life? She couldn't keep on the way she was, closing people off and living only for her work. And she shouldn't jump into bed with the wrong guys just so she could feel good because it never lasted. But she didn't know how to open her heart again, to let herself commit to being vulnerable with another human being.
Andie's head was spinning as the even crowd grew around her, everyone giving her space, even Simon. Music played, she sipped her drink, and the sounds of everyone else having a good time washed over her until her eyes blurred from self-pity, the tears slipping down her cheeks. Brushing them away surreptitiously, she drained the last of the cognac from her glass, spinning around in the stool to face Negan, aware that he'd been behind her for several minutes.
He took her hand as she stepped down, leaning around her to grab her purse, her head buzzing over the dull roar of the Grove, not resisting when he led her out of the bar and down the street to his car, driving her home. All she wanted was for Negan to lift her up, to hold her tightly in his arms, and that was exactly what he did. So different from the night in his apartment, but so much the same, taking her inside and carrying her up to her room, setting her on her bed as she stared up at him.
"Harley Smith was a shitty lay," he told her, pushing lightly at her shoulder to get her to lay down, and he pulled off her boots, setting them on the ground by her bed. "Those teeth fucking hurt when they graze your dick."
"Why are you telling me this? I don't want to know."
Negan eased himself down next to her, his eyebrows rising as he bounced up and down lightly. "This fucking mattress is amazing."
Andie's mouth opened and closed, flopping onto her back as the room began to spin, and he placed his fingers on her arm, walking them up to her neck to sweep the hair away.
"It hurt my fucking feelings when I woke up and found my bed empty," he murmured, feeling her tense up underneath him. "Used and discarded."
"I'm sorry," she sighed, leaning minutely into his touch. "I don't...do well at the after part, obviously."
"Neither do I," he snorted, making her turn to look at him suspiciously. His face was screwed up, making him look goofy, and she couldn't help smiling as she rolled to her side to face him. "It wasn't just about getting laid, Detective. I like you."
The words frightened her. They weren't a declaration of love, but it was enough to remind her that she was drawn to this man for reasons beyond his looks. He wasn't here just to fuck her, or to fuck her over. He liked her, for now.
Reaching out unsteadily, she placed her hand behind his head, pulling him down to her lips. In light of everything that was happening, she decided to go with it, for now. He couldn't promise to not hurt her, and she couldn't promise not to push him away, but the bed fit him nicely, and she felt safe enough to curl up into his chest, falling asleep to the same dream of him tracing her lips.