Just One More

And it was true — I was here through the generosity of some rich donors. My mom had always struggled as a single mom to four girls, and I was the baby, the last one to leave the nest. But our situation was changing because Mom recently got engaged to Harold Manning of Manning Pharmaceuticals … hopefully, financially things would be looking up in the near future.

But I was getting ahead of myself.

“So what brings you guys to Canterdale?” I asked curiously. “I mean, it’s midway through senior year. Why didn’t you guys finish at your old high school?”

“It’s a long story,” chuckled one brother. “And more complicated than we’d like it to be. But listen, we need to get back, Chrissy’s probably chopped that cat into fifty pieces by now without us. Feel better, you hear?”

“Sure,” I said, intrigued. “But listen, there’s a party tomorrow night at her house. I’m sure Chrissy wouldn’t mind if I invited you,” I said hastily, “Everyone’s invited and we’ve been friends since childhood, she’s almost like family to me. Stop by if you have a chance. Meet some people, have some drinks, no pressure,” I said a little lamely.

“Sure,” said Blake as he sauntered out. “We’ve got nothing planned for Friday right Bryan?”

“Nope, not yet,” winked his brother. “But we do now.”

And with that, the boys were gone … and my Friday night was shaping up indeed.

3

Blake

The girl had been amazing. She was beautiful, a little shy, and sweet. Sure, she’d fainted at the sight and smell of dead animals, but who wouldn’t? That shit’s disgusting.

Of course my brother and I hadn’t batted an eye. Dead corpses and spilled blood is part of our job for better or worse. Because, you see, we’re undercover cops at Canterdale High, kind of like Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street. Due to our youthful looks, we’ve been placed at school to ferret out an alleged drug racket.

The underground drug ring wasn’t altogether unexpected because Canterdale is a ritzy academy in a nice neighborhood. The kids have plenty of disposable income and little adult supervision. With no one around, a bunch of bored rich kids with too much time usually turn to crime, and drugs are a common sin of choice.

So Bryan and I have been sited here. The assignment had been sudden, our sergeant calling us into his office just last week.

“Officers Hanson,” he said nodding to me, then at my brother. To tell the truth, we’re not really biologically related. We were adopted as infants from different orphanages, and then raised by well-meaning families two cities apart. When Bryan was two, his adoptive parents died, and my parents took him in. As a result, we call each other brother, but in fact, we’re not blood related. It doesn’t matter though. We’re brothers by choice, and that’s a much more important distinction.

Of course, by some weird stroke of fate, Bryan and I actually look like twins, with the same dark hair, mesmerizing green eyes, and chiseled features. But in fact, we don’t share even the slightest bit of DNA. That’s life for you, with its strange twists in turns.

But it doesn’t matter because we’ve done everything together since we were young. We went to the same schools, and after high school, Bryan and I both chose to attend the Police Academy. Our parents were so proud when we graduated, with our stiff blue uniforms, smart caps, and shiny gold badges.

But even though we’re only two years out from the Academy, Bryan and I are no newbies. Our first assignment was patrolling the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, which is a shit show, to put it succinctly. It’s an experience that will transform the greenest rookie into a hardened cop overnight because the poverty, disease, domestic abuse and general crime were overwhelming. Just last week, a woman was arrested for tossing her newborn baby girl out the window in a rage. Can you believe that? A baby thrown like garbage from the eighth floor. Needless to say, the little girl didn’t survive.

So our new assignment in Canterdale wasn’t going to be cakewalk, sure, but there wouldn’t be the atrocities we witnessed in a crime-ridden neighborhood … or so we hoped.

“Hanson,” barked my sergeant. “We’re doing a sting in St. Francis Wood, you know that neighborhood just south of Sunset?”

My brother and I nodded. St. Francis Wood was a hoity-toity place where Jags and Mercedes were stolen. It wasn’t exactly a source of violent crime. But our sergeant lowered his voice.

“There’ve been two overdoses in the last month,” he said. “Two kids at the local high school. It’s been kept hush-hush because people are so protective of their property prices that they don’t want anything to sully their image. But evidently there’s a lot of drug use going on and the kids are getting it somewhere,” he continued. “The parents want us to bust the ring.”