"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 h
ad 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."