“Unit 12 to dispatch.”His voice rang right next to my ear over the radio.“Requesting medical assistance to 92 Bay Road in Edgewood. Possible substance abuse and overdose.”
“Overdose?” Naomi gasped.
“Just a precaution.” I latched onto the handle of the door, pulling it open for her while stepping back. “Why don’t you take a seat? Got the heat cranked up, so you’ll be nice and toasty.”
She had a hard time tearing herself away from watching TJ disappearing inside of the house, a worried frown deepening the wrinkle between her brows. When she finally did so, she slowly sat sideways in the passenger seat, keeping her legs hanging out and her arms still tucked around her body.
“Unit 12, this is dispatch responding to your request. Medical unit in transit. ETA seven minutes.”
“10-4,” came TJ’s response.
Unzipping my jacket, I let both sides part just enough to sneak my notepad from my belt and flipped it open to a crisp blank page, the pen tucked in the loop hanging from the side tugged from it and fitted into my hand.
“Why don’t we start from the beginning. You said he came home late from a friend’s house?”
She nodded slowly. “He got off of work at six… usually, it only takes him half an hour to get to our house. When an hour passed, I tried calling him but he sent me to voicemail and then texted me, saying he was going to a friend’s for a few hours. I was pissed but I didn’t think anything of it until he came stumbling through the doorway.”
Nodding, I scrawled my pen across the page quickly, jotting down the cliffnotes of her statement. “You said he was acting weird?”
“Yeah. He was drunk and slurring his words but it was more than that. Usually, when he comes home from the bar, he’ll pass out on the couch within minutes, but tonight he was yelling at me and throwing things. Acting really manic after I questioned him on why he was out so late.”
“Why would you assume drug use?” I already had a feeling I knew the answer, but leading her into a false statement was the exact opposite of what I wanted. If we were able to convince her to press charges on this guy, her statement needed to be clean without any of my input influencing it.
“His friend has a history of dealing. Got clean for a while but he just broke up with his wife. So…”
“What was the substance?”
“Molly and coke.”
Deadly combo.
Certainly enough to put someone in a manic state after partying until the wee hours of the morning. “What’s the name of the friend?”
Right as she was about to answer, the telltale sounds of shots rang out from inside of the house. Three of them in a row.
My heart dropped instantly, my hand flying to my radio as I pivoted on my feet. “Shot’s fired! All units to 92 Bay Road! Edgewood!”
Tossing my notepad, I ripped my gun out of its holster and brought it forward, climbing the steps up to the front door in one long stride. I had the muzzle trained forward as I entered, a single light on in the hallway leading into the house giving me my only light source to work with. “Riviera!”
“Fuck!” I heard him spout out from deeper inside, following a loud thump that sounded like a body dropping.
The radio next to my ear lit up with responses, drowned out quickly by the blood rushing in my ears. Pinpoint focused ahead, I trailed down slowly to where I could hear my partner’s radiochiming in the silence. My steps were muffled by the thick carpet lining the hallway, no other sound of movement catching my attention while I headed to wherever he was.
Coming up to the first doorway, I wrapped my gun around the corner, stepping in behind it. A dark figure was slumped over on the carpet, next to the shape of what looked to be a couch. Curled in on themselves while they breathed heavy, the chimes of our radios going off at the same time forcing me to lower my gun.
“Riviera—”
“Squirrely fuck,” he muttered. “Hit me in the fucking balls…”
Ouch.
“You shot at him?”
“Got a hold of my gun,” he said, voice strained. “Shot at me.”
My heart lurched. “You hit?”
“Not as far as I can tell.”
