Double Tap (Code 11-KPD SWAT 2)

His hair was a bleach blonde, and he had so many freckles covering his face that I couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended.

“How are you doing?” I asked, offering the old fisherman my hand.

He took it, shaking it once, before dropping it again.

“I’m good, how about yourself?” He replied.

I shrugged. “Not even eight in the morning and I’m already busy.”

He laughed with me, nodding his head in agreement.

“What’s going on?” He asked, gesturing to the commotion up above.

I nodded to the area of the river where I kept seeing the bob of the black bag. “Do you mind taking me out there to see what that is? I have a man up there that swears there’s something down there, and I want to show him it’s nothing so he’ll move his truck.”

I don’t know what it was, maybe instinct, but, for some reason, I just had to show that man that it was nothing. Had to. I couldn’t not do it.

The man nodded and I found myself trailing up the river at an extremely slow pace. The old boat was fighting hard against the minuscule current.

The water was low for this time of year, but lack of rain and a drought would do that easily to this river. There were places that it was little more than a swift creek.

“Do you have a fish hook or anything?” I asked, gesturing to the bag.

He shook his head, and I sighed.

Of course it’d be me reaching in without any gloves on or anything.

That’s exactly what I wanted to do was stick my hands in a bag of trash.

Except it wasn’t a bag of trash.

In fact, it was a fucking body.***Six hours later

“I’m going to be late, mamá,” I sighed. “I’m in the middle of a shit storm of mass proportions, and I don’t’ have time to make it to dinner.”

My mother grumbled about me having a job that demanded too much of me, but there was little I could do. We’d had a homicide in our small town. In fact, it’d been multiple homicides.

What Officer Goddard had been trying to convince the poor old man was nothing, was in fact a dumping ground. It looked like it’d been used for going on years, and the only thing that’d made us privy to it now was that the river was low.

The river was dragged for nearly five hours, two miles upstream and two downstream, and in that four miles of river, three bodies were found.

My next call was to Georgia to apologize.

“Hello?” Georgia’s sweet, husky voice answered two rings later.

“Hey, niña. I’m going to be late, if I even come at all. I’ve tried to get out of here for the last hour, but it’s not looking good,” I said remorsefully.

I heard her exhale. “It’s okay. I heard what happened on the news. Are you okay?”

Her concern for me was touching. “Yeah, I’m okay. It was a surprise, that’s all.”

I’d seen dead bodies before. And I’d seen mass graves. However, that’d all been overseas. Not at home. And certainly not in my own backyard. That was something that happened anywhere but here.

“Okay. I’ll set up a different day with your mom. You should come over to my house when you’re done. It doesn’t matter what time it is,” she whispered.

I looked down at my hands and squeezed them into fists. “Sounds good, Georgia. Thank you.”

“Be safe,” she whispered, then hung up.

I placed the phone down in the receiver and then collapsed into my chair.

I had about eighteen more reports to fill out, and I could really tell that it’d be fun. Not.

It was when I was in my ninth report that I heard a soft knock on the door to my office.

I looked up to see Georgia there.

She was wearing black leggings, a baggy Gladewater Soccer shirt that looked remarkably familiar, and a small smile graced her lips.

“Hey,” I said, setting my pencil down.

My hand screamed in relief, and I stood up to clear my chair off.

She sat before she said anything, handing me food that smelled mouthwatering.

“Oh, my God. How’d you remember?” I asked as I dug into the gas station bag.

I had a soft spot for these chiquitos that the gas station near our place sold.

It was probably unhealthy as hell, but fuck, the taste was out of this world.

She rolled her eyes. “Nico, I remember everything. The way you roll your tongue when you’re concentrating. The way you crack your knuckles when you first wake up in the morning. Everything. Even your love for these vile things.”

I dug in and started to write again while she ate what looked to be a taco salad and played on her phone.

That was another thing about Georgia. She knew how to be silent.

I’m not saying that in a mean way or anything, but I’m not a talkative person, and she accepts that. She accepts me, bad attitude and all.

I finished my last three reports in silence, getting down to the very last report before she finally said something. “You’ll have to give me a ride home.”

I nodded, continuing to write. “10-4.”

She snorted but didn’t say anything else, only started gathering up our trash and tossing it into the garbage can beside my desk.

“I’m going to be tired tomorrow,” she giggled once everything was cleaned.

I flicked my eyes up to her and back down to my report. “It’s only eight thirty.”

She nodded. “Yeah, but I have to be at work at eight, which means I have to get up at five to workout, feed all the animals, and get to work.”

“Work?” I asked, raising my head.

She nodded. “Yeah, they want me to start tomorrow. Something about one of their other case managers being on maternity leave.”

I signed the bottom of my report and sat it in the stack of mail that I’d take by the chief’s office before I left for the night.

“I didn’t realize you were starting so early. You’ve only been here less than a week.” I stood. “Not to mention it’s the middle of the week? Who starts work in the middle of a week?”