Chapter Text
Tim drummed his fingers impatiently against the wheel as Lucy loaded the gear into the back of the shop. He could hear her voice mingling with Nolan’s and echoing off the walls of the garage. A countdown clock had been running in Tim’s head for over a week now. It was day twenty-four of the thirty-day push. Usually, he barely noticed these days as they passed. Some of his rookies had washed out well before this point. Others had clung on for the entire probationary period, reaching for their gun on every call, yammering away about their life stories and forgetting evidence bags in the shop. They would go on to make decent cops once he trained them not to be so trigger-happy, but they would never make great cops. He hadn’t been sorry to have the shop to himself when they were gone, but for some reason the idea of Chen not riding in the seat beside him left him with a cold, empty feeling in his chest. Tim sighed and reached for his phone. No missed calls from Rachel, and she hadn’t responded to his “good morning” text.
Tim heard the passenger side door open and started the shop before Lucy had the chance to get in—mostly because he knew it annoyed her. “Took you long enough,” Tim said, tossing his phone back in the center console and reaching up to click the transponder to raise the bay doors. “Did you have a good time gossiping with Nolan?”
“That’s called a friendly conversation,” Lucy said cheerfully, refusing to take the bait. “You should try it sometime.”
“With Nolan? Not likely.” Tim hit the gas as soon as he heard Chen’s seatbelt click into place. She had told him once that he pulled too quickly out of the garage, so he made a habit of doing it just to prove that he could. He always made sure she had her seatbelt on first—annoying Chen was fun, but watching her do a header into the dashboard wasn’t. Neither of them spoke as he left the precinct lot and wound his way through the morning traffic toward their patrol zone. The silence was comfortable and easy, giving Tim a little space to think.
He’d told Chen at roll call that she would be the primary responding officer on all of their calls from here on out. She needed to practice being the first one in the door. He knew she was ready for it, and he knew he’d be doing her a disservice if he held her back just because that rookie Chris had died last week. Chen never would have run out from cover like that. She was careful and well-trained and smart. But what if that isn’t enough? An image of Lucy bloody, bruised, and curled up in that barrel flashed in his vision. Fuck.
A sharp intake of breath beside him brought Tim back to the present. He glanced over to see his rookie yawning, one hand in front of her face and nose wrinkling. It was hard not to smile when Lucy Chen’s nose wrinkled, not that he’d ever admit that out loud.
“Am I boring you, Boot?”
“Never, sir.” He heard the smile in her voice. They hit a red light and Tim reached for his coffee, draining it in one gulp. He wasn’t sleeping well these days. He couldn’t get used to sleeping alone after Rachel left. It was so strange. He’d never thought of himself as much of a relationship guy, but here he was getting all…agitated about sleeping alone and patrolling alone.
Tim glanced over at the seat beside him only to find that Lucy was looking at him with her eyes slightly narrowed. He’d come to know this expression well. It was the you’re not telling me something, but I’m going to figure it out face. He really preferred when she used it on suspects.
“I’m getting grumpy Tim vibes over here. Do you want to talk about it, or are you just going to brood until we get a call that requires running up ten flights of stairs? You always seem happier after those.”
“That’s because we race and I always win.”
“Bullshit, I won the last one!” Lucy stabbed an accusatory finger at him and he grinned.
“The last time we raced was when we ran the stadium stairs with Kojo and the massive dumbass tripped me. That doesn’t count.”
“It does too! Kojo just likes me better than you.” She tipped her nose in the air and Tim choked back a laugh.
“That’s because you give the lazy bastard belly rubs and table scraps. Now that’s cheating.”
“No, that’s love.”
“It’s all love until he chews a hole in your work boots.”
Lucy practically cackled. “That’s my boy.”
Tim shook his head. It was still a mystery how the big lug had managed to bore a hole straight through the shole of his shoe. Maybe if he let Kojo sleep on the bed, he wouldn’t feel so much like he was sleeping alone. But that would be pathetic, and Tim Bradford didn’t do pathetic. Or lonely.
“Seven-Adam-nineteen, respond to a report of a disturbance, 4302 West Pine Street.”
Tim groaned and flipped on both the siren and his blinker. They were going to have to loop back the way they’d just driven. “Seven-Adam-nineteen, responding.”
Tim disliked disturbance calls. There was a greater unknown element because ‘disturbance’ could range anywhere from ‘idiot teenagers sneaking into an abandoned building’ to ‘active shooting.’
Chen must have been thinking along these lines because he heard her mutter, “Disturbance. Could you get anymore vague? I think the city condemned at least four buildings on West Pine in the last three years. Do you think we’re heading for one of them?”
“You tell me, Boot.” In a few weeks, she wouldn’t be able to check her knowledge against his. She’d be on her own, or partnered with someone who would likely know less than she did.
Lucy snorted. “Yes, Officer Bradford, that’s definitely a condemned building.” Tim didn’t miss the slight sarcastic emphasis on his name, but he let it slide.
The light in front of them flashed red and Tim slowed the shop, scanning the intersection for any car that didn’t see him coming. Sure enough, a silver F-150 coming from the left decided that the rules didn’t apply to him. Tim hit the brakes as the truck swerved to avoid him. “Idiot.”
He heard Chen quietly release the breath she was holding. Her first few days on the job she hadn’t been able to stop herself from flinching every time Tim pulled an evasive maneuver. She didn’t jump or grab for the seat anymore, so either she was used to pursuit driving or she trusted him behind the wheel.
Tim focused on the road ahead, but heard the scratch of the radio as Chen called dispatch, asking for more information on the owner of the building they were responding to. It was a smart move. Even if they didn’t know what type of disturbance they were responding to, it was good to know if someone had bought the building and might have a legitimate reason to be causing a disturbance.
“Oh, come on, move,” Tim muttered as a minivan wavered in the lane in front of him, trying to decide whether to pull onto the shoulder and let him pass.
Traffic eased as they headed farther away from the center of the city. It took dispatch several minutes to relay the information that the building was scheduled for demolition in three days. There was definitely no good reason for anyone to be in that building unless they were looking for shelter.
Lucy let out a little humming sound she sometimes made when she was thinking. “This should be interesting.” Tim kept his eyes on the road, but he could still hear the mingled nerves and excitement in her voice.
“You’re primary on this one, Boot. Stay focused.” Chen had always been good at regulating her adrenaline on a scene, but he didn’t want her to come in too hot just because he was giving her a chance to lead the way.
“I know, Tim.” He knew she heard the warning in his voice. “Look left.”
Tim jerked his eyes left, spotting the back end of the truck just in time to swerve away. Fucking eighteen-wheeler backing out of a convenience store parking lot. Tim let out a stream of curse words, and a few choice opinions about people who shouldn’t be allowed to drive anything bigger than a golf cart.
They sped away from the truck and began winding their way into a residential area. The apartment buildings they passed started at “decent” and took a nosedive toward “grim.”
“Sirens off,” Lucy said quietly just before he reached for the switch. It was the right call; announcing themselves wasn’t an advantage going into an unknown scenario like this. “I just saw 4240 West Pine. We’re close. Let’s slow it down.”
Tim followed her directions, slowing the car to a crawl to give her enough time to see the numbers as they passed. It would be a better idea to—
“Take a left here. We can go around the block and approach the house from the other side so they don’t see us coming.”
Well done, Chen. Tim made the left. The sirens were off and the radios were quiet; he could hear Lucy’s breathing—fast and shallow. She’d get it under control before they got out of the car.
“What’s the approach, Boot?”
“Stage a block away and approach on foot to do a perimeter check. Let’s pull the shop over here.”
Tim did as she ordered, careful to keep his face impassive. In less than thirty days, she was going to be making decisions on her own; she had to break the habit of looking for his approval and develop her own instincts. It should have made him proud when she exited the car without so much as a glance toward him. He did feel proud, but he was surprised to feel a pinch of something like sadness. Lucy Chen didn’t need him anymore. But I need her. The thought was sudden, unexpected, and crystal clear. Tim put a hand on his gun and forced himself to focus on the task at hand as he followed Lucy down the cracked and crumbling sidewalk toward the house. “Seven-Adam-nineteen to dispatch, show us on scene.”
Even at a distance, it was easy to see why the building had been condemned. The whole structure was sagging, and a section of the roof had completely caved in. A tree had probably fallen on it during one of the last few earthquakes. The houses on the rest of the street didn’t look much better. It was quiet—too quiet. Tim wondered if anyone even lived here; there wasn’t a single car in any of the driveways on the block.
They paused in front of the house and Tim noticed that all of the windows on the first floor had been boarded up, though only two of the windows had been broken. “Eyes up, Boot,” Tim said automatically, even though he could see that she’d already spotted the windows on the top floor. Those hadn’t been boarded up and provided the perfect vantage point for a guard or a sniper. They both drew their weapons. Lucy gestured, indicating that she was going to move for cover. As one, they ran across the patchy brown lawn, seeking a more defensible position by the building.
Once they had their backs to the brick, Tim looked at Lucy, raising his eyebrows in silent question. What now? Her eyes narrowed as she swept her gaze across the lawn; he could practically see the gears turning in her mind. Sweat shone along her hairline, but the hands holding her weapon were steady. He saw the moment she made the decision. She turned to him, jaw locked, dark eyes serious as she gestured for a perimeter sweep.
They walked the perimeter of the building, keeping close to the walls. Tim watched Lucy like a hawk as she cleared each window before moving past it. It was impossible to see inside the house with the windows boarded up, but there were two vehicles parked on the lawn behind the house. One was a van with North Carolina plates, and the other was a Toyota SUV that had seen better days. The back of the lawn was bordered by scraggly hedges that obscured his view into the neighbor’s house next door.
Lucy stepped behind the SUV where they were less likely to be spotted from the upper window. “Something’s not right. It’s too quiet and we can’t see inside.” Lucy adjusted her grip on the gun and glanced at the house again before looking up at him. “Call in the plates on both of these vehicles so we can find out who they belong to. There should be a window to the basement somewhere along this wall of the house because the slope of the land is lower here. I’m going to find it.”
Tim frowned. “What does the slope of the land have to do—”
“Nolan.”
When had she learned about house construction from Nolan? A question for another time. She turned away, raising her weapon as she prepared to move toward the house again.
“Be careful, Chen,” Tim said before he could stop himself.
She looked back over her shoulder and flashed him that lopsided grin she always gave when she was nervous. “I’m always careful.”
He stayed by the car but kept his gun at the ready as she sprinted back toward the house. She gestured an all-clear as soon as she had her back to the wall again. Fuck, he really didn’t want to take his eyes off her, but he needed to call in these plates. He read the plates off to dispatch as quickly as he could, then checked the doors and trunk of both vehicles. All were locked, and there was nothing visible through the windows that would indicate who owned the car or why they were in the house.
Tim glanced back toward the house, checking for Lucy. She had disappeared.