The General (Professionals 4)

“Jazz, get this woman a man, would you?”

“You are sadly mistaken if you think just because she has a man, she will stop flirting with everything with two legs and a penis. Well, the legs are even optional,” Jazzy told me, stepping fully away from the drink she was preparing to talk to me, not caring if it meant the customer had to wait a moment longer.

Such was the atmosphere of She’s Bean Around.

“I noticed you stopped flirting,” I observed.

“What? Because of him?” she asked, jerking her chin toward my other side where I turned to find Detective Lloyd sidling in by me.

Detective Lloyd.

He was on her case. Not the lead, but on it regardless.

“Lloyd,” I said, nodding my head at him as Jazzy made him a black coffee with one hand while mixing the previous drink with another, popping lids on both simultaneously.

“Smith,” he said back, giving Jazzy a warm smile, their fingers brushing on the cup as he did so.

“I hope you’re having some luck on that missing little girl.”

There was a pained look in his eye at that, at knowing the clock was running down. “Thanks. How’s your detail going?”

“Detail?” I asked, stiffening a bit. Hopefully only on the inside. The man had eyes like an eagle.

“Your new security gig,” he said, giving me a knowing look. “Beaten widows, of course, need protecting,” he added, but there was an edge to the words I knew not to trust. Like he knew something. And I couldn’t tell what that might mean. “Are you ordering for the two of you?” he asked, nodding toward Gala who was leaned on the counter, her chin in her hand, watching us aptly, completely unconcerned that the line, once again, was out the door.

“Right. Black coffee. Tea with regular sugar.”

“Black tea?”

“Ah… I guess? Hers say Stash on them…” I offered, feeling a bit lost.

“Probably black then,” Gala decided, moving away to make them while I tossed a twenty their way, knowing they had a long ass night ahead of them. There was no partying on their horizon. Not that Jazzy would want to be home anyway with Lloyd pulling all-nighters until the girl was found.

“Smith,” Lloyd said, voice a bit low, like he didn’t want to be overheard.

“Yeah?”

“You can tell her to breathe,” he said, giving me a knowing look. “There’s not a single lead. The case will be cold in a week, connections or not. She can start moving on. There will be no… issues.” His words were careful, but his tone pointed.

He knew.

He one-hundred-percent knew.

And he wanted to reassure me that he wasn’t going to act on that knowledge.

“Were you in town with the Mallick thing?” he asked, voice so low it could almost be called a whisper.

“No.”

“I had to question that woman who had to spend a couple days in the hospital for what that fuck of a husband did to her. She could barely speak her jaw was so bruised, her back teeth loose, her eye was swollen shut. He damn near knocked her unconscious. And in my line of work, you learn things about domestic abuse. Namely if it happens once, it will happen again. And that woman was trapped. And likely spent the last decade or more enduring more of that. I think you and I both know that sometimes the justice system isn’t just. So it is better for some of us to focus elsewhere.”

He was going to let it go, despite knowing there was a murder. For a detective that had been by-the-book when he first joined the force, it seemed like he was starting to take a page out of Collings’ book as he got more seasoned, understanding the intricate workings of our town, that some things were worth looking over in search of worse evil.

“Well, you know, some hunches are wrong anyway,” I agreed, shrugging. “We can’t chase down all of them.”

“Not with a little girl missing,” he agreed, leaning over the counter to give Jazzy a quick kiss to the temple. “If I can’t, one of the guys in uniform will be here to walk you two to your cars,” he said.

“Good luck,” Gala called to him.

“Tell Ms. Ericsson to have a Happy New Year,” he said in parting.

Feeling a weight lifted I hadn’t realized was even there, I made my way out, stopping at my place for her surprise, then driving back to the house, seeing Lincoln come out to greet me, only shaking his head, not saying anything about being late.

“Give me a hand,” I demanded, pulling open the bed of the truck, handing him the bags and coffee so my hands were free to grab Jenny’s gift.

“Oh, fuck,” Lincoln said, sighing.

“What?” I asked, hauling the weight down.

“You too?”

“Me too what?”

“First Quin, then Gunn…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You are making shit for her. You’re interested.”