To Aden, it looked like whatever was going on between Georgie and Brax was quite heated. "Charlie, don't do," his warning fell on deaf ears as Charlie bolted from the car the moment it came to a stop. "Anything rash." He sighs. "This could get messy," he mutters and tries to catch up to Charlie.
"Charlie, what are you doing here?" Georgie asks, surprised to see her cousin storming toward them.
Charlie ignores her, focussing solely on Brax. "Darryl Braxton, I'm arresting you for the assault of Harvey Ryan."
"You've got the wrong man, Charlie," Brax says with his usual cockiness.
"That's not what our witness says."
Brax frowns. He knew Ryan wouldn't blab so she must be bluffing. "Can we get this over with as quickly as possible, I'm already running late for an appointment."
"I think you'll be missing it." She finally turns to her cousin. "Get back to the station right now Constable!" Leaving her confused cousin standing there, Charlie marches Brax to the car.
"Aden, what's going on?" Georgie asks, still shocked by the harshness that had been in Charlie's voice.
"I think you should just get back to the station," Aden says gently. He liked Georgie so he hoped she had a good reason to be meeting privately with their suspect.
Charlie had ignored Brax's grumblings about it all being a mistake and a waste of time the entire trip to the station and had all but shoved him into the interview room. "Easy now Charlie or I'll have you for police brutality," he says with a cheeky smirk.
"You won't be smiling for much longer, Brax."
"Charlie, can we have a word?" Aden requests, his tone strongly suggesting she agree.
"Fine. Hogan, keep an eye on our guest."
Aden closes the office door behind them and sits on the edge of his desk, studying Charlie for a moment. He hadn't seen her like this before, pacing like a caged animal and muttering angrily.
"You need to calm down, Charlie. Brax is a canny bastard and even though we have him on the assault, we still need to get him on the arsons, so we need to be at our best and not distracted."
"I can't help it, I'm just so angry with Georgie." She sighs and leans against the filing cabinet. "I guess I was right about her loyalties and that disappoints me so much because I really thought Georgie had left all of that behind." Charlie looks away. "I shouldn't be surprised though, the people around Brax are loyal to a fault."
"I think you misjudge your cousin."
"It wouldn't be the first time," she replies. "Georgie confuses me at times, frustrates me at other times and sometimes, I just don't know what to expect from her."
"Loyalty and respect for the uniform she wears proudly," Aden says simply and without censure but nonetheless, Charlie felt like he had slapped her. "I've heard all the talk about Georgie, yet I just don't see the woman so many people gossip about and the Georgie I do see, is one who is dedicated to her job, is loyal to her family and yes, difficult at times, but she has never given me one reason to mistrust her, even after you warned me to keep her from this case. Maybe I have the advantage in that I met her before I started to hear the rumours and so I'm not influenced by them or her past."
"Like I am," Charlie says quietly.
"From what I do know of her background and that of her family situation, I have no doubt that Georgie was far from being an angel when she was younger, I just don't think it was as bad as people seem to think it was. She did get into the Academy after all and you know how difficult that is to do."
Charlie nods. It wasn't just good grades you needed, you had to pass all sorts of fitness tests and not just in relation to your physical fitness.
"I like to know who I work with, so I looked over the records of everyone here. Were you aware that your cousin excelled in most areas at the Academy?" Charlie looks at him in surprise. "In some areas, she actually did better than you did, though she did struggle with the written element, which is understandable considering her difficulties and not surprisingly, she didn't score too well in discipline. Despite that though, one of her Academy instructors actually predicted big things from her, provided she had a senior officer who could harness her potential and instil discipline and I think if she had stayed at another station, she would have been further along in her career. In fact, from her reports since she's been here, she seems to have taken a massive step backwards. Can you think of a reason for that?"
"Because we all have a preconception of who Georgie is and it's affected the way we deal with her, even when she's in the uniform and it's made things so much harder for her," Charlie admits. She had thought she was better than the other gossips in town, yet in reality, she was worse. Not only was she Georgie's cousin, but also her colleague and superior officer and she should know her better than most, except she didn't. "Georgie used to complain about Sgt Harris and I thought she was just overreacting, seeing something that wasn't there, but Martha told me recently that he was also rude to her, it's just that I never saw anything between them other than a personality clash, which isn't unusual when Georgie is involved and I certainly saw nothing unprofessional from Harris toward her." Of course, just because she didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen, she thought to herself.
"And now it's happened again with Angie." Charlie nods. "You're not just her cousin now Charlie, you're her Sergeant and you're going to need to find a way to trust her."
"I."
He holds his hand up to forestall Charlie's reply. "Don't tell me again that it's not that you don't trust her, because clearly you have trust issues and like everyone else, you jump to conclusions about her. Charlie, if you can't get past your own ideas of who Georgie is, then you're going to end up no better than Harris or Angie."
"I don't want that, but what am I supposed to think when we're about to arrest Brax, she's on the phone, then rushing from the station to meet with him?"
"If it had been any other officer with Braxton when we arrived, would you have suspected some ulterior motive on their part?"
Charlie shrugs. "I don't know. I guess it would depend on if that officer had a history with Brax, like Georgie does. They were a big part of her life once and though she seems to have kept her distance from them these days, Heath was her best friend and Brax inspires such loyalty in his friends."
"That may be so, but there could be any number of reasons for Georgie to have been meeting with him and it didn't seem all that friendly."
"Maybe he was calling in a favour or has something over her, I don't know, but why else would she be meeting with him in the middle of nowhere during an investigation and why now, when she's had so little to do with him in recent times?"
"Why don't you ask me?"
Her cousin's voice from the now open doorway makes both Charlie and Aden jump. Facing her, Charlie takes a sharp intake of breath when she sees the mixture of anger, hurt and betrayal etched on Georgie's face. "Oh god," Charlie thought, wondering how much she had heard.
