“Did y’all finish taping off the diagram?”
“Yeah. Had to keep DeShawn from using his protractor.”
“Good. We’re going to rehearse this thing until we know it in our sleep.” Lena grabbed her jacket on the way out.
Paul said, “It’s eighty degrees in the shop.”
“Thanks for the weather update.” Lena pulled on the jacket as she walked down the hallway. Her hormones were still out of whack. She was cold all the time, except when she was burning up. That’s what she should’ve asked that stupid woman from Dr. Benedict’s office about, not something that had happened six years ago.
Paul said, “You’re going to—”
“Shit.” The zip was caught in her shirt.
“Here.” Paul stood in front of her. He started working on the zipper like she was three. Paul wasn’t the only one who’d been treating her more delicately lately. Lena guessed she was putting out some pregnant woman pheromones. Or at least she had been.
Paul said, “I think we’re gonna have a problem with Eric. He’s acting weird.”
“How?”
“He’s being too quiet.” He added, “That thing in the van the other day was funny, but he’s hiding something.”
“Hiding what?”
“Exactly.”
Lena watched Paul’s fingers as he tried to free her shirt from the zipper. She thought about the little blue jacket she’d ordered online. Jared’s family loved Auburn football to the point of making it a religion. Lena had yelled at him for painting the nursery, but she couldn’t resist going online last week and ordering a baby-sized Auburn hoodie from Tiger Rags.
The jacket was on back order. She wondered when it would be delivered. What day in the near future would she go home and find a tiny jacket waiting for little arms that would never exist?
“Lee?” Paul asked. “Where’d you go?”
She shook her head. “It’s too late to switch out Eric. He’s just gonna have to man up.”
He finally freed the zipper. “You’re the boss.”
The word grated; it had started taking on mocking undertones. “Lucky me,” she muttered. Technically, their lieutenant was supposed to be the boss, but a particularly aggressive form of leukemia had taken him out of the equation and Denise Branson had yet to find a suitable replacement. At first, Lena had been happy to fill the role, but now she was seeing the downside of her new responsibilities.
Paul said, “Shit, look smart.” He puffed out his chest and pressed his back to the wall as he stood at attention.
Lena didn’t have to ask why. Lonnie Gray was talking on his cell phone as he walked down the hallway. He ended the call when he saw Paul and Lena. There was no preamble. He asked, “Status?”
Lena provided, “We’re doing run-throughs. No mistakes this time. We’re gonna nail Waller.”
Gray’s voice was stern. “That’s exactly what needs to happen, Detective.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, knowing he wasn’t kidding around. Lena had seen more than one detective leave the Macon PD before he was planning to because he’d disappointed the chief. “You have my word that the entire team is at one hundred percent.”
Paul added, “You can count on us, sir,” sounding like a third-grader bringing an apple to his teacher.
“Good.” Gray headed back down the hallway, but not before giving Paul a curt nod. Lena could practically hear Vickery’s ball sac quiver. She felt the same respect toward Gray, but she hoped she didn’t look like she was creaming her pants every time the chief was around.
As soon as Gray was gone, Paul clapped his hands together. “You heard the chief. Let’s rock this bad boy.”
He preceded Lena down the hall toward the shop. Paul was obviously pumped, and not just because of the chief. He walked on the balls of his feet in that weird way that made him look a little effeminate. Lena knew Paul had served two tours in Afghanistan before a piece of shrapnel got lodged in his arm. Physical therapy had brought him back to one hundred percent, but being home had made him lose his taste for war.
Paul still relished a good fight, though—one of the many characteristics they both shared. At first, Lena thought their matched temperaments made for a good partnership, but she was beginning to see that maybe a differing opinion would offer a better balance.
Part of the reason Lena had respected Jeffrey Tolliver so much was that he’d always told Lena when he thought she was wrong.
Paul kicked open the door to the shop. The sound of metal hitting metal reverberated through the hangar-like building. The shop was where they brought seized automobiles and boats so they could take them apart and look for drugs or contraband. They also used it to do routine maintenance on the squad cars, which was why three cruisers were hanging on lifts.
The mechanics had cleared out a large space for Lena’s team to work. The footprint of the shooting-gallery house was thirty-five by sixty, and even in the large building, space was at a premium. They were using the log sergeant’s duty desk as their workspace, which had infuriated the sergeant, but orders were orders. Lena was surprised Denise Branson hadn’t taken the space away from them. She was pissed enough at Lena to strike out, and Branson didn’t get to the rank of major without knowing how to punish people.
DeShawn Franklin, Mitch Cabello, and Keith McVale stood around the duty desk. Lena took the lead ahead of Paul. She lengthened her stride so that he wouldn’t pass her. Back in Grant County, Lena had been the only female detective on an all-male force. She knew the rules when she signed up. Every second of the day, she had to fight to keep her place in the pecking order.
“Hey, boss.” Mitch looked up from the diagram they had gotten from the tax assessor’s office. “You gotta cold?”
Lena knew what she probably looked like: red-rimmed eyes, bloodshot from crying. She wiped under her nose with the back of her hand. “Yeah. Jared gave it to me.”
“I bet he gave it to you.” DeShawn made a grunting sound that invited a chorus of porn music from the team.
“Shut up, assholes. I just ran into Chief Gray in the hall. He made it clear we’d better come back here with Waller or keep on driving out of town.” She gave DeShawn a pointed look. “That means you, too, golden boy.”
Mitch made a “rut-roh” sound straight out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, though they all knew DeShawn was one of Gray’s favorites.
Lena looked around the shop. The mechanics had gone to lunch and the duty sergeant was probably sulking in his car. The B-Team had worked surveillance last night. Lena told them they could come in late. During the raid, they were assigned to guarding the perimeter, so they didn’t need to run the inside drills like the rest of them.
Still, someone was missing.
She asked, “Where’s Eric?”
DeShawn provided, “Shitting out lunch from the sound of it.”
Lena glanced at Paul, whose face tended to show every single thought that crossed his mind. He was still worried about Eric. Maybe he had a right to be. To mangle the old saying, Eric’s stomach was the window to his soul.
DeShawn asked, “Something wrong, boss?”
Lena tried to summon up her old self. “Yeah, I gotta bunch of little girls on my team.”