A/N: Hey, everyone! I just want to start by saying this chapter is a bit of a filler. There's not much to it, but it sets up the crime part of the rest of the story, so it does serve a purpose, I promise. Next, I really want to thank everyone for their awesome reviews. I love hearing about your thoughts on the story. And just a warning, this might be my last post for a week or so because I'm going on vacation, but if I can get to a place with reliable wifi, I promise I'll upload a chapter. Now, as always, read review and enjoy!
"Okay people, I know this isn't exactly what you wanted for your Friday night," Frank addressed the small group of officers in front of him. "But the detectives needed some helping hands, and you guys are my best. The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can go home. And hey, the overtime pay isn't bad either. So, serve, protect, and figure out what the hell is going on. Car assignments are on the board." He nodded and left them to look at the board.
Andy stood to take in the list of three cars on the board: Dov and Chris, Nick and Gail, and her and… Marlo. Of course.
"Ready, rook?" She heard from behind her, and turned to stare at Marlo. The woman who had taken her place. She had known working on a Friday night couldn't be a good thing, but now she knew it would be literally hell. She knew she couldn't complete with Marlo, and at that point, she was ready to stop trying.
"Yeah," Andy sighed, more than ready to get it over with. She knew, even though she had made a fairly conscious decision to back off and try not to let Sam and Marlo's relationship get to her, she and Marlo were not going to get along. They headed out of the room to squad car 1519. Of course. It had to be the car she and Sam had used during their partnership.
Back in the Parade Room, Nick and Gail found their names next to each other on the board. Gail turned to him with a canary-eating cat grin. "Well, honey," she purred. "Looks like our good Staff Sergeant Best thinks we make a good team. What do you say we… take a detour?"
Nick laughed incredulously. "Gail, we're on the way to help the detectives with a homicide. Besides, we can do that when we get home." He'd recently asked Gail to move in with him, and, to his surprise, she'd actually said yes. "C'mon, babe, we're cops. We can't get in the way of finding a killer because we can't control our hormones."
Gail sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. But I'm driving." Nick nodded, relinquishing the keys to car 1505. As much as he used to like Gail taking charge, now all h emanated was someone he could joke around with, someone who would watch old movies with him late at night. Someone like Andy.
"Let's go, babe," she said, pulling him along behind her.
"Rock paper scissors for driving privileges?" Dov turned to his best friend when they realized they were paired together for the drive to the crime scene. Dov knew Frank had been a little sly with his choice of pairings for this Friday night. Pairing Andy with Marlo was devious at best, and there was no way he'd done it unintentionally.
"Yeah, sure," Chris said. Both of them were having the same thought about Frank's… interesting pairing. And pairing Nick and Gail together was also a little bit sneaky. No one was missing the looks that were being passed between Andy and Nick. If there were to be another bet going, it would have to be when Nick and Gail would break up, and Chris would gladly place his wager in the next two weeks.
"Rock, paper, scissors," Dov and Chris said simultaneously, pounding their fists lightly against the table on each word. At the word, "shoot" Dov held up his fist with his first two fingers straight and apart in a 'scissor' and Chris held his fist out in a 'rock'.
"Rock beats scissors, I'm driving," Chris said smugly, plucking the keys to car 1517 from Dov's slack fingers.
"How did you do that?" Dov asked, shocked, as he followed Chris down the hall to the cars. "I always win at rock paper scissors."
"Did you know that 86% of people choose scissors as their first move in rock paper scissors?" Chris asked mildly as he climbed into the driver's seat. Dov groaned, sitting down on the passenger's side.
"What do we have here?" Marlo asked as she stepped out the car at a small convenience store at the corner of two cross streets. A small crowd was already beginning to gather behind the barricade. Andy climbed out behind her and made her way over to where Sam and Traci stood, notebooks out.
"Double homicide," Luke moved out of the shadow of the store and into the light, not looking up from his notebook. "Haven't been able to identify the vics yet. One of them was stabbed multiple times in the legs, chest, and face. The slashes are obscuring some of the facial features, making it much harder to figure out her identity. The other victim has burn marks down the whole right side of the body, and across the entire face. My bet would be that someone didn't want anyone to figure out who these two bodies belonged to."
"There's broken glass on the inside of the store, not the outside," Sam chimed in. "Looks like someone broke in, which makes no sense because this is a 24 hour store. No one else dead, no money or merchandise missing. You got anything else to add, Nash?" He turned and looked at Traci.
She shook her head. "Nope, that seems to be it. Right now, we mostly need you all," she looked around at Marlo, Andy, Nick, Gail, Dov, and Chris assembled in front of her, "to take statement, talk to witnesses, and secure the perimeter. Once we have everything here at the crime scene, you can turn in your notes to sand you're free to go home. If anyone doesn't have any plans this weekend, though, we could always use the extra help." She raised her eyebrows but the cops lined up in front of her scoffed good-naturedly.
"Sorry, Trace, but our overtime doesn't pay that well," Dov said.
"Okay, then," Luke said, clearly uncomfortable with the pleasant banter of the younger cops. "Collins and Epstein, you're with me. Dias and Peck, you two can head off with Nash. And McNally and Cruz, you're with Swarek." Andy sent a murderous glance at Traci, who shrugged helplessly. "We're splitting up, mostly taking statements, but if the detective you're with asks you to do something else, you do it. Because our overtime doesn't pay nearly as well as yours does." He nodded, and Nick and Dov followed him off.
Andy nodded, resigning herself to her fate and following Sam and Marlo to the edge of the crime scene.
"Cruz, you're taking those people over there," Sam pointed to the group of four or five people being treated by the paramedics. "It looks like it's just cuts and bruises from broken glass, but take their statements and a list of any injuries. Anything can help us at this point." Marlo nodded and began to head off.
"McNally." Sam's voice nearly made Andy shudder. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. "You're taking the perimeter. Make sure no one leaves and make sure no one gets to close to the rest of us."
Her internal voice began an angry rant about the fact that she was in charge of the fucking perimeter, but outwardly she nodded. Her jaw was clenched tight, but she moved back to look around at the people she was in charge of. She decided to take note of the people that were there, knowing not all of them were going to be just innocent bystanders who were curious about the abnormal break in. She surveyed the people at the barrier.
As soon as she started to do her job, her annoyance at Sam and Marlo resumed. She knew if someone wanted to leave the scene that was past the barrier, she could do nothing to stop them. Sam had put her in charge of this area because he didn't want her around and he didn't think she was a good enough cop to do any real work. Even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true. He had probably just asked Marlo to take the statements because she was his girlfriend and he wanted to spend more time with her, unfair as that was.
She shook her head to clear it. She needed to focus on her job. Leave it to Sam to ruin her job again when they weren't even dating anymore. He wrecked havoc on her entire life when they were dating and apparently that hadn't stopped when they broke up. Andy took a mental deep breath. She needed to stop.
She turned to the people in front of her. There weren't very many of them, maybe ten or fifteen, but then again, it was nearly 1:30 in the morning. Not many people would be out at 1:30 on a Friday night. Or at least they would be in a club, not wandering the streets of Toronto. She started on the right, scanning the faces and body language of each person in turn.
There was a woman with light, mousy brown hair in a tattered gray sweater and ratty jeans. She had a small nose, pointed up at the end, pale blue-gray eyes and a wide, thin mouth. Andy knew pictures had been taken of the crime scene, but her mental picture of the witnesses outside the barrier was the only one that existed. She moved on to the person to the left of the woman. There was a young boy, no older than eleven or twelve, dressed in a large varsity jacket, probably from a father or older brother, and low slung jeans. They weren't in a wealthy part of town, so the worn in condition of the majority of their clothes made sense. The boy had short, wavy strawberry blonde hair and an impish face with the darkest, deepest blue eyes Andy had ever seen. Next to him stood a tall, wiry man with glasses and a tan belted trench coat. His dark brown hair was balding at the top and shrewd amber yes stared back out from behind the glass lenses. He had a sharp, hawkish nose and extremely sallow skin. He didn't look like he was high income, but he certainly didn't come from the poverty the others clearly came from. Andy made a mental note to try and check the man against facial recognition later that night.
In front of him was a teenage girl and boy, holding hands. The girl had her face buried against his shoulder, so Andy couldn't clearly see her whole face, but she had brilliant, probably bottle blond hair, and clear, clover green eyes. Her full mouth was turned down at the corners, and her eyes appeared to be watering. She wore a loose brown cardigan and faded denim shorts. Her boyfriend had deep, chocolate skin with soulful brown eyes. He had his muscular arms wrapped around the girl, and he placed a soft kiss on the top of her hair. They appeared to come from the small suburban neighborhood a few blocks over. Next to them was an old woman with blue gray hair and clear hazel eyes. Her wrinkled face, for some reason, sent shivers down Andy's spine. Something about her face was just creepy to her. She thought about looking up the woman, too. Sure, she wasn't going to be a likely suspect in a break in and double homicide, but sometimes the unlikely ones were the ones they had to look for.
There was a man wearing new jeans, not classy or anything, but new. He had a nondescript face, medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, clean shaven. Nothing stood out about him. He wasn't particularly tall or muscular, and his clothes were incredibly average. His thumbs were tucked into the pockets of his tan jacket and his toe was tapping on the ground. His body language suggested he was nervous, but his eyes weren't shifting and he wasn't making any move to leave. Andy assumed he had home problems and was watching the scene unfold to pass the time before he had to return and face them. The last people, at the far left of the crowd, were a mother and her three children. The mother had fiery red hair and pale skin spattered with freckles. Her mouth was turned down in a sad frown, probably mourning the two dead inside the store. The children were playing with each other, one of them a taller, thin boy with dark, almost black hair and deep, never-ending eyes. He smiled down at a small girl with fine blond hair and soft blue eyes who stood a full head and a half shorter than him. And there was a smaller boy clinging to the older one's hand, this one with soft orange curls that matched his mother's and a wide smile when he looked at his older siblings.
Andy was satisfied with herself for focusing long enough on her work to get the task she was assigned done. Sam couldn't get in her way when she put her mind to something. Just when she was feeling her best for completing her task, Marlo walked over. "Okay, McNally, Sam wanted me to tell you to get them out of here. We're going to move the bodies."
Andy almost growled. She knew she'd decided to let go of her animosity towards Sam and Marlo, but why the hell couldn't he just tell her that himself? "Sorry, Cruz, but I'm going to need Swarek to tell me that himself. I'm trying to go more by the book now than I used to. I don't need any more stress in my life right now, and having Staff Sergeant Best pull me aside or suspend me again would lead to stress."
Marlo narrowed her eyes at the other woman, but nodded. "Okay, I'll let him know."
"Collins, I thought I told you to help the sketch artist get a rough draft of the killer," Luke said in an agitated tone when Nick returned to him empty-handed.
"I tried, sir," Nick replied, not showing any emotion. Internally, however, he was seething. Working with Andy's ex was putting a strain on him. Working with Swarek was hard enough, but now he had to work with both of her exes on the force, and he knew he couldn't compete with either of them. He really needed to stop thinking about this. He had Gail, he should be satisfied with that.
"You tried?" The annoyed tone set Nick instantly on edge again. He could try all he wanted, but there was no way he could stop thinking about Andy that way. His feelings for her hadn't diminished like he wished they would. They had grown since their time undercover, and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon.
"Yes, sir, I tried," he said patiently. "The cashier was knocked unconscious and he has a bit of post traumatic amnesia. He doesn't remember who knocked him out, let alone who killed those two people."
"Callaghan," Sam said as he walked into the ruins of the store. "I'm going to let McNally and Cruz go home."
"You're what?" Luke turned on Sam, outrage. "We aren't done!"
"They are," Sam said calmly. He knew Luke had something to prove, both to 15 Division and to Andy, and he couldn't help but want to rub the fact that Andy had chosen him in Luke's face. Just like he couldn't help but rub Marlo in Andy's face. He knew it was wrong, and he truly loved Andy more than anything in the world, but she had hurt him. And his natural instinct was to hurt her back for what she did to him. "They've done what they needed to do, and now they should be allowed to go home."
Luke stared at Sam for a charged moment, neither one wanting to back down first. Finally, Luke nodded. "Alright, fine. They can all go home. Make sure they pass us their notes and tell them to have a good night."
Sam narrowed his eyes, but nodded and walked off. Luke turned to Nick. "Okay, Collins, you and Epstein can go. But next time, try a little harder to get the information. I'll take a crack at the cashier tomorrow."
Nick rolled his eyes internally. He knew Callaghan wasn't going to get anything more out of the cashier than he had, but he let him have it. The other man looked like he needed a win. "Good night, sir."
Luke exited the convenience store behind Nick, but both stopped short as they took in the scene in front of them. Marlo was standing by car 1519, but Sam was hugging a woman behind the barrier and dragging Andy over by the hand. Both men watched Andy and Sam's joined hands as they smiled at the woman with the three children on the other side of the barrier. They were joined by Marlo as the three of them nonchalantly made their way over to stand by Traci.
"Hey, Nash," Luke said, leaning against a railing next to her and lifting his chin in Sam and Andy's direction. "Who is that?"
"The woman?" Traci asked. "It's Sam's sister, Sarah."