Stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces every time
And I don't need no carrying on
Daniel Powter, Bad Day
Z
When my alarm went off the next day, I almost hit snooze and rolled back over. Unfortunately, I couldn't hide from life.
This felt like a nightmare.
I drug myself out of bed to the coffee maker. The smell of dark brew in my dim apartment lifted my soul a little bit, but the sight of the thick file I had yet to return to Penning sitting on my kitchen island drug it right back down. In a moment of spite, I shoved it into the kitchen chair before I picked up my coffee and mosied over to my armchair for the ten minutes of internet goofing I allowed myself to start the day with.
I clicked around on social media, liking my way through my Portland best friend's hiking pictures. The loneliness and homesickness set in as I saw her smiling in the beautiful green forests. The smog, traffic, and grey, towering buildings of LA were so far away from where she was standing and I was so jealous I couldn't be there. I kept scrolling down until I landed on a picture that made me suck in a breath.
My ex-fiance was smiling broadly with his arm around a pretty blonde in a lab coat and scrubs.
Not wanting to see more, I slammed my laptop closed.
Stasiak had been suggesting I go back to Portland from the beginning, and I was almost regretting not doing it.
Almost.
FBI was my dream and I wasn't going to let them tear that away from me. I had given up my friends, my fiance, my amazing coworkers, and my home to come here. I was not letting that sacrifice be for nothing.
Sure, there were going to be obstacles; I knew that from the beginning. Right now the biggest ones were that phone call and O'Conner, but they could both be surmounted. O'Conner was right; if I wanted their respected, I had to earn it. That meant finishing the tiny cases they were handing me. Once I did that, they'd pull me away from O'Conner and let me work alone. If I was lucky, I could transfer to a field office in DC or New York, far away from this hell hole that was LA and the black spot that was O'Conner. No one would know him there, no one would lump me with him, and I could get a fresh start where people only looked at me for me.
In the meantime, I would just keep my head down and work.
Maybe I could also find some friends. I didn't have those here because all I had done was work, but in a city this size, there was some group somewhere I had something in common with. I might even find someone to date.
I winced as I thought of Marcus and his pretty fellow doctor. I still didn't want him, and I wasn't sad he had moved on, I was just feeling low as hell and lonely.
My phone vibrated and I flipped it over to see O'Conner's name pop up above the text. With a sneer, I opened the message.
Meet at the office at 9. Remember to focus on what you can change.
I rolled my eyes at the dad message. He'd been annoyingly kind and I was having a hard time not telling him what I thought about his pity.
He was right about one thing though; what I couldn't change wasn't worth getting myself worked up about. With a sigh, I opened my laptop again.
I could do this; face the day, work my case, find a way to meet people. I hadn't let anything stop me before and I was not about to start.
Z
The FBI field office was still quiet and empty when I got there, way before the traffic got terrible and way before my nine o'clock meeting. I crossed the empty bullpen of desks, tossing my blazer and files on top of my desk on the way past. I headed straight for the gym in the basement.
I started slow, working my way up on the treadmill until my lungs burned and my heart pounded. My mind kept running back to the pure adrenaline I felt behind the wheel of the Charger. My runner friends used to describe a high from running, but I'd never felt anything like being behind the wheel of that Charger. I reran every detail through my head, savoring the memory, fantasizing about ways I could have gone faster or cut him off sooner. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I almost didn't notice Stasiak standing next to my treadmill.
His thin lips had a smug twist to them as he started speaking. Already done with today before seven AM, I left my headphones in and ignored him. That worked until he pressed the emergency stop button.
"What the ever-loving fuck, Stasiak?" I shrieked as almost fell face-first on the control panel. I knocked my iPod to the floor and my earbuds were painfully yanked from my ears. He shrugged, no remorse showing on his face. The three guys in the corner holding weight stopped to stare.
"Did O'Conner tell you about Mia?" He asked with no preamble.
"No." I snapped as I turned my music back on and pushed the resume button. He made a noise deep in his throat as he watched me jog for a second. I quickly realized my workout was ruined and turned the treadmill back off with a glare.
"You need to stay away from him if you want to make something of yourself. Penning loves him, but he's about the only one. He's got a terrible track record with women." Anger rippled through me as I cleaned my machine and started making my way to the women's locker room. I was too angry to even be curious.
It didn't matter anyway. Everyone opened up eventually and O'Conner would be no different.
"Penning's not going to love you and your reputation with women when I tell him you were watching me jog," I called loudly over my shoulder. The guys in the corner let out a laugh as I flipped off Stasiak.
Z
The bullpen was loud and buzzing when I came up from the gym to start work. Three agents were struggling to drag in a perp for questioning on one side of the room, and on the other, an agent was trying to pull a crying woman into a private room. My heart broke for the grieving woman; homicide had forced me to have hundreds of conversations like that and it had never gotten easier.
"Rough start, Beck?" Santiago quipped with a smirk as he looked up from his computer at me.
I sarcastically mimed laughing at him, careful not to let anyone else see as I took a seat next to him.
My wet hair was twisted in a bun on the back of my head because my hairdryer died and my shirt had lost a button right in the middle. I'd also dropped my eyeliner on the floor and without it, I looked several years younger than I already did. All that was left was for my heel to break.
"Not looking cute for the new training officer?" Santiago prodded as he made a note on the file in front of him.
"Did you lose all of your social skills when they gave you the desk by a girl or did you just never have any?" I pressed the power button on my computer and leaned back in my chair, fixing him in an unbreaking stare. He chuckled uncomfortably as he tried to go back to his file.
When the perp kicked over a chair I lost my concentration and looked away. Santiago practically scurried over to the printer to get away from me. I watched him move awkwardly for a second before deciding I should actually get to work.
The noise in the room dropped to a workable level as the agents regained control of the clearly drugged-up man and someone took the sobbing woman out to a more comfortable place to talk. I retrieved my legal pad from my drawer and started nosing through the new case Stasiak put on my desk. True to his word, it was entry-level.
There was a car theft ring spanning from Vegas all the way to LA. The list of cars was long and the hits were clean; most of them taking place on car lots well after hours. They were quick, smash and grab jobs; break into the car lot through a window, spray paint the cameras, steal the keys, cut the fence, drive off with the cars. They'd been working their way West towards LA and there was concern that LA was the location of the chop shop.
I counted twenty-four cars in three states on the list. Once I got my computer booted up, I started pulling up red light camera records. Several of the towns didn't have red-light cameras plus all of the cars had dealer tags, and with some of the smaller agencies, I wasn't able to search for the dealership name instead of a tag number. Tracking them was slow going.
I was about three minutes away from my meeting with O'Conner when I got a hit on an LA camera. It was on the fourth car down the list, stolen in Orange County so I wasn't sure it technically counted as a win; it didn't prove that the rest of them were being run through LA. I was about to search for the next car on the list when I felt a presence at my shoulder.
"I just put some coffee on." Santiago offered.
"I'm good, man. Thank you though." O'Conner sounded contemplative as he watched me fast forward through pictures on the camera. I knew about how long it would take the car to reach the intersection from Google Maps, but that didn't exactly factor in car thief driving speeds. I also didn't know if they had caught a green light and avoided the camera.
"It's good thinking. We can get a warrant for the footage." O'Conner reached over me to pick up the list of cars. I couldn't help but notice when his arm came over my shoulder that this time he had on a suit.
"I didn't have any other hits on the first three, but I don't have access to all of the cameras in other states. I'll have to submit a request." I slid him the mouse and let him click through pictures.
"Go ahead and start that, but start with cameras around this area." He backed up the zoom on the map to an area of downtown LA. "We can head over there tonight and check things out, but I'm guessing this is where our chop shop is."
"We don't know it's a chop shop yet." I reminded. "If they take this road here-" I pointed out my route, with the mouse cursor. "Then they could head towards the docks and put those cars straight on a shipping container.
"The only way to find out is to look." He sounded cheerful and in good spirits and I found myself wanting to hit him.
Z
It was hot. So very, unbearably hot. O'Conner wouldn't let me crank the car to get the air conditioner. Fitting, because I was in hell.
O'Conner's driving made me carsick, so he ended up making me drive through LA traffic at rush hour, all the while making good-natured, helpful comments. My nerves were shot from staring at the computer for eight hours straight with no lunch, and that was about the last straw for my sanity.
He was dragging me here to meet a former car thief he had brought in a few times. At first, I thought he was O'Conner's CI, but it turned out we were just here hoping he walked by so we could drag him into the back of the car and question him. That kind of off the cuff policing was absolutely not my style.
O'Conner seemed to be reveling in it. His bright baby blues were rapidly scanning the street and had been for the past half hour. Since we'd been that long without a sighting, he was starting to relax a little and settle into his seat. It hadn't dampened his spirits; in fact, he seemed content sitting there, staring at the dark street.
"So how are you liking LA?" O'Conner broke the silence.
"I hate it," I answered honestly. "So, so much."
"Yeah, terrible traffic, the air quality sucks, the crime rate isn't great, but at least it's home." He flashed me a bright smile and I rolled my eyes.
"Do you always do that?" My words came out grumpy and harsh.
"Do what?"
"Deflect. Hide behind that smile and impersonal statements." His smile slid off his face. "We've spent how many hours together, and the most personal thing you've said to me is LA 'is home'. The only thing anyone at the office has to say about you is a reference to your cases, which means you don't say anything to them either."
He brought an arm up and scratched the back of his head and the car quickly descended back into silence, which was my goal. I didn't do small talk and I wasn't about to start, especially with Brian O'Conner.
He shifted awkwardly and I almost felt guilty. I was looking over at him to apologize when I saw him stiffen. Jumping to alert, I got ready to get out of the car. O'Conner moved first, smoothly opening his door, and stepping out into the street light.
"Eddy."
His contact was a Hispanic male, late twenties, early thirties, five-foot-eight inches, medium build, close-cropped dark hair. He was wearing a white tank top with baggy medium wash jeans and black sneakers. His right tattoo sleeve was finished in black and white and he had a left forearm tattoo. But really, the important detail of our contact was the fact that the second he saw O'Conner, he was running.
"Shit!" We both swore pretty much simultaneously.
O'Conner took off, while I started the car and tore off after them, going a few blocks before the guy cut into a dilapidated looking motel with O'Conner on his ass. I slammed the car in park and I called out for back up on the radio. Yanking my gun out of my holster, I took off into the building.
I didn't have to go far, because O'Conner had him on the floor with his knees on his back. I kept my gun pointed at him and tossed O'Conner my handcuffs so he didn't have to reach back and grab his own.
He turned to look at me with that bright smile again.
"This is how you know you have a good lead, Beck." His eyes sparkled as he pulled Eddy up to his knees.
"I ain't do nothing, man." He protested.
"Then why you running, man?" I asked. O'Conner's good mood was spreading.
I shifted my weight to holster my gun, and the heel of my pump snapped off, skittered across the lobby, and sent me straight to the floor.