Page 9 of Only You and Me

“I’m Captain Flynn. Tell us what’s going on.” I pretend the men hadn’t been catcalling at me. Truthfully, it’s not that uncommon, so I usually ignore it. Once in a while, it gets bad enough that it pisses off one of the men on my shift and they say something. I’ve instructed them all to turn a deaf ear to it. We’re representing Elladine and have to be above reproach. The last thing I’d want is one of my colleagues to get reprimanded at work for getting into an altercation—physical or verbal—with a citizen on my behalf.

“Sorry about those idiots.” I simply nod, so he gets on with it. “Smoke detectors have been going off intermittently this morning, but a few minutes ago, several started going off at once.”

“And the building is empty?” He nods. “Have you been doing any welding or electrical work today?”

The man shakes his head. “Just some demo on the upper level and some drywall work on the main level.”

“Okay, thanks. Stay out here and we’ll check it out.” I don’t wait for a response and Thompson and I head into the building.

We spend the next twenty minutes going through each section of the building. It’s so dusty in here it’s like someone took bags of baking flour and bombed the place.

“Let’s check these smoke detectors.” I reach up and pull one down and, as I suspected, dust is filling the detection chamber. I show Thompson. “Can you pull that one over there down and check it?” He does and finds the same thing.

I walk back out the front door and find the foreman, asking him to come in with me.

“So, I’m nearly positive that your issue is all this dust from the demo and the sanding of the new drywall. See this here?” I show him the smoke detector I’m holding. “All of this dust is messing up the electronics in the sensing area. Do you have a shop-vac around so I can show you how to clean it?”

I spend the next five minutes showing him how to clean the detector and explaining that they’ll need to do all of them.

He, Thompson, and I walk out of the building. “If you’re not almost done here, consider a dust mitigation system, too.” He smiles with his eyes and reaches into his pocket.

He hands me a business card, and I read the name on it: “Joe Alero, Owner.”

“I’m Joe,” he says with a flirty grin. “If you ever need any residential construction or remodeling work, I’m your man. I give a discount to firefighters, nurses, and police, and I owe you a favor for helping us out today.”

“You don’t owe us anything. We’re doing our job.” I smile politely at him before Thompson and I walk back to the engine.

As we’re climbing back in, one worker yells out, “Hey, gorgeous, why don’t you take my number, too? You can play with my hose sometime.”

I roll my eyes and don’t acknowledge him. But, as Thompson pulls away from the site, I watch in the mirror as Joe Alero sends all the men inside except for the one with the poetic parting words. It’s clear by their body language the creep who made the pervy comments is getting reamed.

* * *

BEN

All I want is to have one celebratory beer with my partner, Rachel, since we’re finally done with the fraud case we’ve been working for months. It’s eight-thirty p.m. and I’m tired. Too tired to be dealing with this asshole who is determined to ruin my peace as Rachel and I sip our drinks.

I watch discreetly as the barmaid, Vicki, tries not to engage too much with the man. Yet she seems to recognize that if she totally ignores him, he’ll likely escalate. Vicki has worked here a long time and lived in Elladine even longer. So, she knows Rachel and I are detectives and that we won’t leave here without this situation being resolved.

The dude slams his glass down on the bar. “Another, ye wench!” He’s the only one who laughs.

Now, I’ve had enough. I turn to the rude loudmouth.

“I think it’s time you apologize to the lady,”—I gesture to Vicki—“then call it a night.”

The beefy dude turns to face me and, even with him sitting, I’m guessing he’s only an inch or two shorter than my six-foot-four. “Wasn’t talking to you, man. Damn, all you people in this little town are sensitive as fuck.”

Rachel stands and walks about twenty feet away and I’m sure she’s calling for one of the patrol units to come as backup.

I stand and glare at the man. “I don’t care who you were talking to. Not sure where you’re from, but you’re in Elladine today, and we show some respect to our fellow citizens around here. How about you take your leave for tonight?”

The stranger stands, and, like I thought, he’s only slightly shorter than me, but he’s much bigger. He probably has forty pounds on me. Fortunately, he’s pretty doughy and, though I’m lean, I run almost daily and weight train to keep my strength up as I never know what I’m going to encounter during my work.

“How about you fuck. Right. Off.” He pushes me in the chest with his hand to enunciate each word. “I’ll stay exactly where I am. I ain’t got nowhere to be in the morning, since some slut pretending to be a firefighter got me fired from my job today. Real men used to be able to say whatever they wanted to a bit?—”

Before he can finish, I’ve grabbed his arm and have it twisted behind his back with his face pressed down on the bar. When he started talking, it only took me a nanosecond to figure out he was talking about Trina. There isn’t a single day it’s A shift at Station Three that I’m not acutely aware of. That I don’t keep my ear attuned a little more intently to the dispatch radios, worrying about a major fire she might be called out to. She may hate me, but the feeling is definitely not mutual. Hell, my life would be a lot less complicated if it were.

Rachel walks over and works on cuffing the guy and I lean forward so he can hear me loud and clear. “Remember those three wimpy shoves you gave me a minute ago? Congratulations, you just assaulted a police officer. Oh, and that firefighter? She’d kick your ass down the street and back again and barely break a sweat. Enjoy your weekend in jail. You won’t be seeing a judge until Monday morning.”

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