“There’s no inspector here. Only me and the team.” She slumped into a swivel chair behind the desk, gesturing for them to sit in the two opposite.
And… Taylor wasn’t there.
Johnny rubbed his temples, about to head back to look for him when the sound of footsteps bounding up the stairs echoed through the corridor.
“Sorry,” Taylor said, slipping into the room. He was holding three plates of chocolate cake, and he placed one in front of Isla and another in Johnny’s hand.
“What if something big happens?” Taylor continued, clearly having caught the tail end of the conversation. “Say there’s a murder, or… I don’t know. A sex trafficking ring from Poland?”
Isla’s eyebrows pulled together as she shook her head. “We don’t… we don’t really have crime here. More social care issues than anything. The higher-ups prefer that we deal with things… holistically. But I guess if anything big happened, we’d ask Falkington City to come and assist. They cover our weekend shifts, and we help them out if any big public order incident happens.”
Johnny frowned and stuck the fork into the cake. “Holistically? What does that mean?”
Isla shrank into her seat, snatching up the plate from the desk and holding it in front of her. “Yes, you know… communityresolution. Letter of apology, that sort of thing. I mean, most of our residents are elderly, so…”
Taylor licked his lips and placed his empty plate on the table. “Bloody delicious.”
“Do you even have a custody block?” Johnny asked, handing his own plate to Taylor.
Isla nodded. “We do. Two cells, but no Wi-Fi in that part of the building, so booking in would have to be done on paper.”
Johnny sucked his lower lip. “Wow.”
Oh Jesus, now he was doing it.
“A-anyway,” Isla continued, jabbing her fork towards them. “When the bosses said I’d be getting two alphas, they didn’t say I’d be getting twomatedalphas. I mean, you’re going to have to be separated for sure, can’t have you getting all growly at the residents.”
Johnny coughed, then spluttered. “We aren’t—what you saw in the cloakroom was?—”
Taylor tapped the plate with his fork, giving Johnny an exaggerated pout. “Whaddya mean, baby?” he said, lips twitching. He put the second plate—now also empty—down and rested a hand on Johnny’s shoulder with a mischievous look in his eyes.
Fuck you, Taylor Campbell.
Isla dropped her plate onto the desk with a clatter. “Apologies,” she said, the tips of her ears turning pink again. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have assumed. I couldn’t see a bite on either of you, but then again alphas can get funny about that sort of thing.”
Johnny held up a hand. “Relax, Sarge,” he said, smiling a little. Because he couldn’t deny that the sergeant was kind of cute.
“We’re friends. And the reason we left West Newton was because of professional differences. We won’t cause any trouble for you or the others.” His eyes slid to Taylor. “Right, Tay?”
Taylor nodded, “Best friends.” He pointed at Isla’s plate. “You eating that?”
Isla let out a strained laugh and slid the plate towards him. “Thank you. I really appreciate that. I just… I really need things to go right here, you know? Once I’ve done my time I’m hoping they’ll let me apply for a DS position back in CID.”
Taylor nodded, running his tongue over his teeth. “So, what didyoudo to piss the bigwigs off?”
Isla didn’t blush that time, instead she set her jaw and her expression turned very, very cold. And as much as they enjoyed testing the boundaries of their supervisors, Johnny realised that they had reached a line they should not cross.
“That’s none of our business,” he said, taking the third empty plate out of Taylor’s hand and placing it on the table.
Isla breathed in a few times, eyes lingering over the multitude of bracelets stacked up Johnny’s arm.
“You won’t be able to keep those on during the shift,” she said, crossing her arms. “Or the nail polish. I don’t know what you were allowed to get away with at West Newton, but I’m afraid we’ve got to respect uniform regs here.”
Johnny’s mouth went dry at the sudden change in her demeanour, and even Taylor sat back. He wondered momentarily about whyWendywas allowed to wear bright pink fucking eyeshadow but they weren’t allowed to wear bracelets and nail polish, but… lines had definitely been crossed in the last thirty seconds and he wasn’t prepared to cross them again.
“Right,” he said, scratching his arm before sliding them all off.
Isla nodded. “Thank you.” Some of the colour returned to her cheeks. “I think I’ll pair you each with one of the others to beginwith. Just until you get to know the area and understand how we operate. Plus, we don’t have enough cars for everyone to be single crewed.”
