Chapter 3
"So whatcha reading?" Aaliyah peered over Eddie's shoulder while she was reading her college Econ textbook. When Aaliyah received no response, she quickly flipped the textbook closed to see the title of the book.
"What the hell?" Eddie looked up, clearly startled that she had just popped out of nowhere. "You know if you wanted to know the title of the book you could have just asked, like any other regular person."
"I did ask, and then you didn't respond. So I took its upon myself to look for my own answers. And plus, I'm not normal, you should know that by now Em." Came Aaliyah's witty response.
But it was true and Eddie knew it, for the short month that she been working at the restaurant, she had become fast friends with Aaliyah, through her constant chatter, an appetite that nearly matched her own and no-nonsense attitude, Eddie had quickly learnt that Aaliyah Johnson was basically another taller version of herself.
"Yeah you know what, you're right; I mean you are pretty crazy aren't you." Eddie teased.
"Hey!" She put her hand in the universal stop sign. "Nobody, gets to make fun of Aaliyah Johnson, except Aaliyah Johnson. You got that short-stack?" She had a serious look on her face but Eddie knew she was joking.
Eddie raised her hands in mock defeat and added, "Okay fine, but don't ever call me shortstack. It's just weird."
"Yeah sorry about that," She chuckled. "It even sounded weird coming out of my mouth y'know." She paused and they shared a smile.
Eddie looked down at the textbook and realised that she was technically supposed to be studying, she rolled her eyes and looked at Aaliyah. "See look what you've done now. Now my break's nearly up and I can't study for my test next week."
"Ah college, I definitely don't miss those days. Honestly it was a complete nightmare." Eddie had also learnt that Aaliyah had in fact finished college, she went to Columbia and studied Marketing and Finance and passed with honours, but the problem was that she hated every bit of it. Now she was out of college and able to do quote 'whatever she wanted without her parents pushy presence' but she was finding that living in NYC with a whole lot of student debts to pay off wasn't as fun as she had previously hoped. Eddie understood her pain and wanted to empathise with her, but for obvious reasons she couldn't. So she kept her mouth shut and just listened to what Aaliyah had to say, it was times like these that she wondered why she'd ever agreed to do this UC, she hated having to rethink what she was going say to people instead of just going with her gut instinct.
"You don't miss it? Not even a little." Eddie asked although she was pretty sure that she already knew the answer.
Surprisingly, Aaliyah looked nostalgic for a momentary second. It was slight and any normal civilian probably wouldn't have noticed it, but Eddie did. However, as soon as Eddie had seen it, it disappeared. "Not even a little." She paused and retied her ponytail before saying. "Come on Em, we've got work to do."
"So you're telling me that after a month of working in this place, you still have no information about the Red Room? Not even its location in the building?" Thompson asked seething. He was annoyed but he couldn't exactly display his full range of emotions in the small diner that they sat in.
Eddie winced as Thompson spoke, when he put it like that he made it sound like she'd been taking a vacation while working at La Bernadine. "It's not that easy, I have to gain people's trust first. You really think that they're going to allow an employee who's been working there for a month to just have access to it."
"What he was trying to say Emily," Martinez, who was obviously the good cop in this partnership, began to paraphrase, "is that we all know that the NYPD has limited resources so you know that we can't keep this op going for too long. Meaning that you need to try to find opportunities to find more information about the Red Room."
"Yeah cause that was clearly what he was trying to say." Eddie mumbled under her breath.
They were all located in the back of a small diner on the other side of town from where the restaurant was. It was a cliche meeting place but it was required for them to meet in person once month to gather intel and check up on how Eddie was doing. Especially as she was such an inexperienced officer who was delving pretty deep into the undercover world. There was also the fact that the owner of the diner was conveniently a former cop who, known only to the NYPD, provided small meeting places that detectives could meet with their UC's.
"I have met Jack Rhodes a couple of times in passing but he's unlikely to notice me." Eddie added.
"Okay then, is there anything else we need to know?"
"No," Eddie hesitated and bit her lip, she didn't want to rock the boat but she needed to at least ask. "You got any news on my partner, I mean do you know who he's riding with now and if he's alright?"
"I'm sorry we don't really tend to look into the lives of other officers that don't really concern us." Thompson added sarcastically after being quiet for a while.
"Come on Thompson, please?"
He rolled his eyes but eventually gave in to Eddie's demand. "All I can tell you is that he hasn't been in the news at all and I heard that he's riding with some Sergeant called Renzelli or something."
"Renzulli." Eddie breathed a sigh of relief that he was riding with his old TO, she felt that Renzulli may be the only partner that would distract Jamie enough so that he would forget about her. "That's good."
That was definitely the understatement of the year.
"We better be heading off, remember to stay in touch." Martinez said as they all stood up and departed in separate ways as to not draw too much attention or suspicion to themselves.
As Eddie walked to the nearest subway station, she reflected on what Thompson and Martinez had said and she knew they were right.
She needed to get into that room, at all costs.
A/N: Sorry guys for not updating last week as I wasn't feeling to good but I'm better now and I'm actually trying to stick to my writing schedule. The action picks up much more next chapter as an opportunity arises for Eddie and we may just check in on how Jamie is doing depending on where my crazy brain decides to take me. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, please know that I appreciate them all so much.