It figured, too. A guy like that would be in the Navy instead of the Army.
Oh well, just so long as he didn't intend on swapping war stories, Derrick could manage.
He flicked another sidelong glance at Jade. She was staring at Flynn, her blue eyes glazed over with something that looked dopey and strange on her square, serious face.
You know this guy or something?
He scrawled the message while the supervisor moved on to overviewing what each detective would be working on that day.
Him?
That was it? All she had to write?
No, the other new guy
She rolled her eyes.
We went to high school together.
High school. He always forgot Jade was from Hawaii. He always assumed that everyone around was an implant like him, using their military experience to get a leg up in their detective training. But no, she'd gone and done things the old fashioned way.
So this guy was from Hawaii, too?
Interesting.
She didn't bother to respond, and for the rest of the meeting he watched as her expression dipped in and out of dreaminess while she stared at Flynn. Or, more accurately, poorly concealed her efforts not to stare at Flynn. She was unusually, quiet, too. She didn't even mouth off when Fitzsimmons made a crack about female detectives.
He wanted to reach over and shake her, ask what was wrong with her. He'd never seen her this way before, and in the year they'd worked together that was really saying something.
When the meeting was over, the other detectives slowly filtered out of the room with the supervisor leading the charge, but Derrick hung back and grabbed a donut from the box on the counter, then poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred.
Eventually, there was nobody in the room but Flynn and Jade, the later of whom was scrawling absentmindedly on a notepad and trying her best to look important. She was failing.
Staying in the corner, he took a bite of his donut and pretended not to pay attention.
"Long time no see," Flynn said to her and she let out a little gasping sound.
"Oh my gosh, yeah, sorry, I was just-"
Derrick rolled his eyes. She couldn't do better than that?
"No, no problem. That was quite an entrance you made. I don't think Supervisor Sanders ever let you say what you came in here on fire about."
"Oh it was nothing. Just, you know, some...reforms. For a children's shelter. That...caught on fire."
Derrick nearly choked on his coffee.
"Wow, sounds important. I hope he lets you talk about it soon." Derrick chanced a glance behind him and caught Flynn beaming down on a clearly flustered Jade.
"Yeah, it's my passion. Helping the less fortunate." She bit her bottom lip.
"I remember," Flynn said.
"Oh, right, duh. You totally would."
An awkward silence fell between them, and then Flynn knocked his knuckles against the wooden conference table and said, "You know, I should probably start in on that case file. By the looks of it, this unit moves fast."
"Super fast. So fast you might not even notice how...fast it is." She finished lamely and Derrick closed his eyes, a coil of embarrassment slithering through his stomach on her behalf.
"Right, well, I hope we can catch up later." Flynn nodded, then headed out the beige office door.
Derrick waited until the other man as gone to turn and face his friend, but as soon as their eyes met she hissed the word, "Don't."
"Don't what?" Derrick had to restrain his laughter.
"Just don't."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Or maybe you're just talking so fast I didn't even notice how fast you were going." He grinned, and she shuddered.
"Okay, that was bad."
"Very. Very bad." Derrick nodded.
"It's not my fault!" Jade hid her face in her hands, then glanced up at him between her fingers. "Did he say what time the witnesses are supposed to come in? Do I have enough time to drown myself in my shame?"
"I don't think there's enough time in the world for that one."
She made a sound that was something like a cross between a gurgle and a cat dying.
"Look at it this way," Derrick offered, "At least you'll have a whole bunch of time to get used to him being around. There's so many more occasions when you'll talk to him and-"
"Ugh, you are so not making this better."
"Oh, that was never my intention." Derrick raised his hands in mock innocence.
"Why are you the worst?"
"It's a gift." He shrugged. "Now come on, you should probably prep before the interview. When we're done, we'll have lunch and go over the notes. It'll be fun."
"Like a root canal is fun," she groaned, then leaned back in her metal fold out chair until she was practically prostrate, her long gold hair swinging in the air behind her.
"Still more fun than that train wreck I just witnessed." He walked over to her and held out a hand. "Come on, work is calling."
She glanced at the hand, then allowed him to help her up. Walking over to the coffeemaker, she looked over her shoulder and said, "Did you really tell the supervisor that the new badge looks like a...you know what?"
"And deprive you of the honor? No." He smiled, remembering the horror-struck look on her face when the email had dinged into their in-boxes the day before.
"Good. I have a speech prepared."
"Oh, I'm sure you do." He chuckled. This from the woman who planned speeches to request vacation time. Her soliloquy on the badge was sure to be right up there with the "I Have a Dream" speech.
"You laugh, but are you really going to walk around town with that symbol on you?"
"You're right. You're a freedom fighter."
"Damn straight." She nodded, then grabbed her coffee cup from the counter and made for the door. "What would you do without me?"
"Probably a better job."
She leveled him with a glare before heading out the door, but he hung back, still trying to shake the weird uneasiness that had clung to his chest since the meeting had begun this morning.
This wasn't the first time a feeling like this had plagued him. Way back when it had just been him and his dad and his two little siblings, he'd always gotten this feeling when Andy or Matt was about to get sick or in trouble. And when he'd been in the Army, he'd felt this way, too. Just before trips into Kabul when they could never be sure what they'd find or what might happen.
It was more than apprehension, and less than certainty. Suspicion, but not belief. And whatever it amounted to, the end result was that it made him uneasy.
Maybe he was missing something in this case. Something obvious he'd picked up on subconsciously. He reviewed the notes in his mind and leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, but nothing came.
Nothing.
And that was the worst part of all.
Chapter 2
Derrick exed out of the email from his sister and glanced at the clock in the far corner of the office, just above the wide glass conference room partition. It was nearly noon. The whole morning had passed and this stupid feeling still hadn't gone away.
Worse, his interview had done nothing to assuage the feeling. He'd been assigned to a little old lady, Agnes, who was nice enough and cooperative enough but...there was something else. Something he couldn't put his finger on. It had something to do with the way she almost flinched when he tried to get specifics of who she'd seen. The way she suddenly stopped talking and had to go when she'd finally broken down and told him how the crime had transpired.
He gritted his teeth and glanced at Jade's cubicle. She was staring off into the distance, her blond hair tucked absently into the back of her blouse from where it had fallen out of its haphazard knot. He shook his head. Damn girl was a mess.
Sliding from his seat, he walked over to her and tapped on her shoulder. She gave a little start, then pressed her hand to her chest and shot him a glare. "Hey, didn't your father teach you better than to scare people?"
"Guess not." Derrick shrugged. "Ready for lunch or are you busy solving something?"
He was teasing her, and she knew as much. She almost never came up with epiphanies when she was sitting by herself. She was one of those weird kind of people that had to be talking to someone, working through it, pushing themselves to keep talking until they stopped and the answer was staring them in the face.
Just last month she'd called him on his weekend off to try to talk through a gang-related murder. He'd fallen asleep while they were on the phone, but she hadn't cared. She just needed to feel like someone was there to listen.
"Okay, fine, you caught me spacing out. But yes, I'm starving. Did you bring anything good today?" She pushed out of her seat to walk with him toward the break room.
"Nope. Peanut butter and jelly. The usual."
"Trade you for my lean cuisine." She batted her eyelashes up at him. "It's sesame chick-en."