This was going worse than Andi had feared. He tried to lighten the mood a little with a small joke. “If you must know—the vein ticking in your right temple is pretty telling, as is your passive-aggressive silence. You really know how to pump the atmosphere with dread.”
“Andi, this isn’t a joke!”
Apparently his attempt had failed. Suddenly tired of all this shit, Andi let his frustration show in his tone. “Do you see me laughing? I thought we had a truce!”
George slammed his palms against the steering wheel, clearly no less frustrated than Andi. “I thought so too, but what you did in there…. The questions you asked. Any decent lawyer will dismiss them as suggestive. Asking those kids, those drugged-up, traumatized kids, if the lion man appeared somehow weak? No matter how you try to spin this, it sounds an awful lot like you already know who it is. Or as if you have a candidate in mind you’re planning to take down. And I was right there with you and didn’t put a stop to it!”
Andi scowled. He really hated having his methods questioned when he was definitely on to something. A nasty little voice in the back of his head reminded him that this was one of the reasons detectives usually had a partner—to not become high-handed. He pointedly turned his metaphorical back on the voice and went for a direct assault instead. “First of all, if you’re that worried about your career, you should back out right now. I have no use for a lead weight on my ankle. Secondly, if we catch whoever is in charge of that trafficking ring—and that’s a big if, as you well know—do you really think the interview we did today will have any weight in the process? Because all we’ve learned is that the man who is supposedly on top wears a lion mask and moves as if he’s exhausted. If that’s all the evidence the prosecutor gets to work with, the case will never see a judge and jury, and you know it. So why are you so pissed? You were fine with my—” Andi searched for an appropriate word for hisgeschenk. “—intuition when I managed to get Vance to talk!”
George let out a strangled growl. Andi couldn’t tell if he was angry with him, the situation at hand, or the case in general. “You caught me unawares. I thought we were both on the same level of cluelessness, and suddenly I realize it’s only me. Again.” George sounded even more frustrated than Andi felt, which evoked a strange mixture of kinship and pity in him he wasn’t sure what to do with. George went on. “We’re supposed to be partners, and I get you can’t tell me about your secret, whatever it is, but if you pull shit like that, I don’t even feel like a rookie detective with you. I feel completely and utterly excluded from something vital to a case I know we both want to solve at all cost, while at the same time being expected to cover up for you if it leads to something solid—which I know it will because so far that was always the case.”
“And that’s the second reason I don’t want a partner.” Andi felt his anger had drained. Now all that was left was a bone-deep tiredness. This had been a bad idea from the start, and he should have stopped Chief Norris from doing this to him. Now he was here, entangled in a web of brief hope, disappointment on both sides, and a stale taste of the kind of partnership he could never have. All in all, a disaster. Andi vowed to never forget this moment so he would be steeled for future arguments with the chief.
George looked at him sharply. “My trust issues only make it to second rank?” Andi hoped he wasn’t mistaken in detecting the hint of amusement in George’s words. He allowed the ghost of a smile to flit across his face.
“In case you haven’t noticed, my utter dislike for people in general will always be number one.”
George chuckled, if only briefly. “Fine. So we’ve established you have two valid reasons not to want a partner, one of which I just reiterated for you. I’m almost afraid to ask if there’s anything good about having me around.”
Andi hesitated with his answer for so long that George started to shift nervously in his seat. It wasn’t because Andi wanted to make him uncomfortable; he just wasn’t sure how much of his thoughts on the matter he should reveal. They were already on thin ice, as their argument just now had proven. George had cooled down a lot faster than Andi would have thought, but Andi had been hurt more by George’s anger than he wanted to admit.
Telling George he actually liked having him around would make Andi even more vulnerable at a time when his personal shields should have been up to the maximum. His grandmother’s face appeared before his inner eye, the hard lines around her mouth, the cold and unrelenting gaze she had for everybody, even her own family. He saw his own face melting into hers, becoming just like her, never letting anybody in, always pushing people away. Andi shuddered. Ultimately this might be his fate. But not today. Today he would make a conscious effort not to be like her, even if he risked getting hurt.
“To be honest, I like having you around. You bring me tea and bagels. And you’re a good detective. Working with you is fun.” Andi stared out the window, unable to make eye contact with George. “I’m not going to lie to you. When Chief Norris assigned you to me, all I could think of was how to get rid of you as soon as possible. But you’ve grown on me. I—I realized having a partner is kind of nice.”
To Andi’s utter surprise, George checked him with his elbow. “Admit it, you fell for my charming personality.”
The teasing tone assured Andi that—at least for the time being—they were good again. “If by personality you mean your willingness to pay for my breakfast, then yeah, I did fall for it.”
“Charming as ever!” This time George laughed out loud. He started the car and backed out of the parking space. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m not used to being out of the loop.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you beforehand. I’m not used to explaining myself to others. Too long without a partner. I promise I’ll try to do better in the future.”
“And I promise to be more patient. Deal?” George had stopped at the exit of the parking lot and turned to Andi. The expression in his eyes was sincere enough to let some embers of hope flare in Andi’s chest. Perhaps things could work out between them.
“Deal. If it’s any consolation to you, all I know about this man is that he’s got a blood deficiency. That, and the lion mask.”
“Hence the question if he somehow appeared to be weak. I get it.”
“Yeah, I wanted confirmation.”
“Which you got. What now?”
Andi leaned his head against the seat. “To be honest, I’d love nothing more than to go home and sleep for fifteen hours straight. Before we do that, though, we should check in with the IT department and with Evangeline. Perhaps one of them has something for us.”
“Good plan. Let’s stop at the Starbucks and get more coffee. My eyelids are heavier than they should be. I think I’m getting old. All-nighters didn’t bother me that much when I was younger.”
“Amen to that. Starbucks and the precinct. Then back home to get some sleep.” Andi was relived to be back on good terms with George. He only hoped it would last.
AS ITturned out, Shireen did have information for them. “Do you want the good news first or the bad news?” she asked with her ever-present tablet in hand. “Actually, the good news is kind of the bad news, so limited choice there.”
“Just spit it out, Shireen.” Andi took another sip of his herbal tea. He had put three tablespoons of honey into it, and the sugar was starting to work its magic, though not fast enough to make him polite. Thankfully, Shireen had known him long enough to just shrug at his grumpiness.
“You’re insufferable when you haven’t gotten enough sleep.” She tapped away on her tablet and the biggest screen on the wall sprang to life. “When we worked on Taylor Vance’s phone, we realized he wasn’t the only outside contractor to work for that trafficking ring. The next logical step was to search the darknet to see if the suspects made contact there. These days eight out of ten nefarious schemes are set up through the darknet, as you may know. Anyway, we had to go back two years, but there we found an ad, as well as a chat concerning the transportation of ‘sensitive’ cargo.”
Line after line of a conversation about payment for transporting girls and boys across the country appeared on screen. Andi had to fight to keep his tea down. Shireen continued with the false cheer she always showed when something truly disturbed her. “To cut it short, the different parties came to an agreement and, as we know now, started working together. We were able to identify three of the guys you busted the other night as those who made a deal with the unknown person behind the ad. The million-dollar question is, why weren’t the ad and chat deleted afterward?” Shireen looked at them expectantly.
Andi shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood to guess. George furrowed his brows. “I assume that’s what would normally happen?” When Shireen nodded, he went on. “Perhaps they forgot it?”
