Chapter 38:

Sharon got in her car in the evening and headed to the coffee shop that Richard had picked for them. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn't get rid of the bad feeling she had about the whole thing. Knowing Richard, she was certain that he had an agenda, and was determined to figure out what it was.

Her iPhone rang, disrupting the silence and startling her.

"Captain Raydor, this is Captain John Martin," she heard the voice on the other end of the line.

"Oh, John, I've been meaning to call you…"

"I need to speak with you. It's very urgent," he interrupted her, his voice sounding cold and distant, formal.

"Is tomorrow fine?" she tried to sound calm, although fear spread in her stomach, causing her to feel sick.

"Actually, I prefer doing it today."

"Today?"

"Right now."

"Um… okay… I'm heading to a meeting but I can reschedule it and meet you back at the office," she said hesitantly.

"No, I'm already in my car. I wasn't going to call today, but eventually I decided to do it. Tell me where you are heading and I'll go there."

Sharon stopped at a red light and shut her eyes hard for a second. She gave Martin the address before they hung up, and she immediately called Flynn, who left work five minutes after her so they won't be seeing leaving together.

"Hey, are you there yet? I'm almost there," he said when he picked up.

"No, go home. John Martin just called; he wants to talk to me right now. I'm meeting him there."

"Oh… well, I'll come too. You shouldn't take the fall for this –"

"No, we don't know what he's going to say. Maybe I can get us out of this. If he knows about us, your presence there will only make things worse."

A few minutes later, Sharon parked her car in a nearby parking lot and crossed the street. The coffee shop was right in front of her, and she looked inside through the big windows to see if Martin was already there.

"Captain Raydor!" someone called her name to her right and she saw Martin coming her way.

"Hello, John. How are you?" she tried to sound friendly and gave him a little smile, but he kept a straight face.

"I think you already know why we're here," he said coldly.

"Enlighten me," she responded with the same cold tone. "Shall we go inside?"

"No, this won't take more than a minute," he roamed in his pocket and pulled out four pictures. "I'm aware of your affair with Lieutenant Andrew Flynn," he handed her the pictures and she examined them. Two were from the parking floor of their workplace, and two were from outside her apartment. In all pictures she was seen kissing or hugging Flynn.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked quietly, trying not to show him how scared she was.

"Frankly, I think you made a poor choice when you preferred him over me… but the heart wants what the heart wants," he waited for her to respond but her face remained sealed and she didn't say a word. "It's all very nice… when you don't break the rules. I'm going to have to report this to the right people in IA."

"Isn't there another way to resolve this?"

"Not really. There are consequences for one's actions. There's no way around it."

Sharon nodded and smiled. She wasn't going to let him enjoy her suffering. "I understand," she said quietly, clutching the pictures in her hand. "When did Richard tell you about it?"

Martin arched his eyebrows for a moment as she took him by surprise with the question. He wasn't planning on mentioning his source. "I don't know, about an hour ago maybe."

"Hey, Lieutenant!" someone yelled and both Sharon and Martin turned their heads towards the sound. From that point on, everything seemed to have happened in slow motion. Two men dressed in black with baseball caps stood a few yards away, behind Martin. One of them was pointing a gun towards him and the other also had a gun in his hand, but he wasn't pointing it at anything.

Sharon moved from behind Martin and intended to show them her badge, but before she could do it, the man holding the gun squeezed the trigger all the way, and a bullet flew out of it, entering Martin's chest in less than a second.

"Oh, my god!" Sharon yelled as he fell back, and knew that she was next. She tried to see the shooter's face, in case she survives it, but the baseball cap shaded it and she could barely see anything but his chin, which wasn't very helpful in identifying suspects.

"Please, don't shoot!" she begged with her hands up and both men stood still for a moment. She couldn't see their eyes, but she knew they were looking at her by the position of their heads. The images of all the people she loved appeared in her mind and she hoped to see them again.