If they were already talking about me coming back to work, that had to be a good sign. If there were plans to fire me at the end of all of this, they wouldn’t waste their time in putting me on administrative leave until further notice and getting me the hell away from the precinct until they could properly draft up the paperwork with a lawyer and boot me to the curb.
That was how it went in cases like this one. Most of the time, anyway.
Out in the hallway, captain Erin McCormick was waiting for all of us with her arms crossed over her chest and her body leaning back against the wall opposite of the interrogation room. Her dark blue eyes were targeted on the two men behind me, her lips thinned into a tight light.
“Well?”
Matthers nodded to her first. “We’ll let you know as soon as we have word from the top.”
“Feel free to take a coffee for the road, boys,” was all she responded with before pushing away from the wall. “Just put on a fresh pot in the break room.”
“Much obliged, captain.”
Both men stepped past the captain and I, Jacobs tilting his head toward her while rounding the corner, and disappeared down the main hall leading out into the mouth of the precinct. With the interview done and over with, a sense of relief hit me instantly.
We wouldn’t know for a few weeks what was to come out of all of this—even more than that if the rumors about Naomi bringing about a lawsuit were found to be true. Getting up on a grand stand to plead my case wasn’t exactly what I thought myfuture would look like here at the 199, nor did I want things to escalate to that point in general.
Then again, walking across the stage at graduation didn’t exactly prepare me for what would come of being stabbed either, so.
“Shit, Bishop.” My captain’s voice was calm, measured. “You were in there for two hours. What the hell were they jabbering on about?”
Turning to her, I let out a soft sigh. “They were pretty thorough. Wanted to know step-by-step what happened, even before we got the call.”
Her short-cropped blonde hair was parted to the side and tucked behind both ears, showing off small twin diamond studs punched into each lobe. Erin was a tall woman, just under my height by barely a few inches and even less than that when she sported her heeled boots. Her broad shoulders and steely gaze commanded attention, exuded authority, with the way she usually stood in a room.
Her wardrobe was strictly utilitarian, crisp lines and tailored pieces that gave her straight figure no illusion to the typical feminine curves of her gender. She cared little for flamboyance and was as clean-cut as they came, unwavering in her discipline and intensity when it came to running a department like ours.
I respected the hell out of her and her unabashed, unapologetic nature against a world that hardly ever favored people like her.
“They only kept Riviera for an hour.” Her stance widened as she shifted her posture.
“Seemed to me like they were being extra precautious. That lawsuit may have them spooked.”
She nodded, her lips thinning at the mention of it. “What a shit show. Take one cop killer down and suddenly the rest of the town is up in arms about it.”
That was interesting. “The news spread already?”
“The girlfriend hasn’t been quiet about it, no.”
Flashing back to how scared Naomi seemed when we found her huddled on the stoop of her house, that took me a bit off guard.
I could understand the desire for answers—everyone needed those in times of crisis—but she would be on my short list of people who understood the gravity of what we were walking into that night. If not us, then she would’ve been the one with a few more holes punched in her body, which I doubted she would’ve survived from given how out of his mind her boyfriend was at the time of the incident.
IAB handling the case was both a blessing and an omen. Rarely, were they ever willing to listen to anyone outside of their organization, and even less so when it came to affairs that brought negatively from the public.
TJ and I had done what we could on that call. The tragedy of losing someone, even if they had willingly put their life on the line by threatening another, wasn’t anything to dismiss so casually with a few drafts of paperwork filed with the town court. A person, a living breathing soul, had left this Earth in the worst of circumstances.
No one wanted their child or loved one to go out that way, no matter how ‘deserved’ the actions had been deemed by my coworkers that ultimately resulted in how everything played out.
“Hey.” She slapped my shoulder blade with enough force that I could feel the slight sting of her palm through my shirt. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll update you once I hear back from IAB. Don’t get yourself worked up about any of this. I can already see those gears turning in there.”
I smiled a little. “Thanks. Good news, I walked up the stairs out back without wincing.”
“Keep at it, Bishop. I want you ready to run a small marathon by the time you get back.”
With her hand still kept against my back, she led me down the hallway into the main part of the station. Eddie and Ty were sitting at their desks, bent over their computers while reports were up on both screens. Across the way from them was Sandra; her legs were kicked up on her desk while she cradled her phone tight to her ear, a finger winding around the cord like a lock of hair.
No one else inhabited the common area, the rest all out on calls or home for the day.
