Page 66 of Under Cover
“I know….” He shuddered. Was it less than a week ago, he’d taken that shot? “I know you look at my record and think ‘this guy hates cops.’ That’s not true. I love cops. I wanted to be one since I was a kid. I hatecriminals, and they don’t got no business with a badge.”
“Truth,” she said softly before sticking out her hand. “Fair enough. Go back to your flat, catch some Zs, start tomorrow.”
Ohsweet. McEnany thought he was wrapped up all day! It was only 10:00 a.m….
“Can do,” he said, before looking down at the dress blues he’d been given for his induction day. “But first can I get a locker? I’m going to leave these here and catch a train.”
Going Gnome
QUIET DAY,thank fuck. Garcia was still filling out paperwork on Crosby’s shoot, the Stoya case, and, God help them all, getting Toby out of the Twenty Fourth.
His phone buzzed, and he was almost ashamed at how quickly he jumped on it.
Bring electronics and Narcan. Meet by the gnome.
Oh wow. It had been three nights since Crosby had been called out of bed, and Garcia was so ready to see him. After six months of rarely going more than a day without being in company—whether at work, in training, or hanging out in general—those two days of furtive texting were a terrible taste of the time ahead.
And Garcia needed to know he was okay.
In one moment, Judson Crosby, the most dependable man Garcia had ever known, had been sucked into a terrible underworld where every breathing moment was filled with ways this one could be his last, and all Garcia had to do was… wait. Wait for people to run down leads, wait until the paperwork was done, wait for some direction that would help them get Crosby the fuck out of Brooklyn.
He hadn’t expected Crosby to find a way himself, although the “bring electronics”was a pointed reminder that this wasn’t a social visit.
Garcia picked up his phone and was about to head toward Harding’s office whenhisnew shadow spoke up.
“What’s up?”
He grimaced, not wanting to share anything with Lou Doba but not wanting to brush the guy off either. The officer—sergeant, actually—who had ended up helping Toby Trotter out of the Twenty Fourth wasn’t a bad guy. Single, in his thirties, he’d seen very clearly what was going on, and having watched his precinct, which was in the neighborhood in which he’d grown up, get worse and worse and more corrupt by the day hadn’t been easy on him. He and young Henderson had been offered places in the local field office. They’d both easily passed government clearance, and Henderson had been sent to electronic filing, something he apparently had an aptitude for.
Doba had asked, respectfully but with confidence, if he could work with the—in his words—badasses who had taken on the Twenty Fourth in a war and won.
Well, they were down a Crosby, and while Doba would need alotof training, not to mention FLETC, before he was field ready, having someone to help with the paperwork, organize the training schedule, and feed them intel on Crosby’s general area and the criminals he’d need to watch out for while he was undercover was gold. While Doba hadn’t worked the place, he had friends and family at the Forty Third, where Crosby was, and a solid knowledge of what drugs, gangs, and criminal rackets were flooding the streets of Manhattan and where they were coming from.
Helpful, smart, and—a blessing—humble, Doba knew the difference between federal level training and state, and while he was older than most recruits, he wanted in.
And, well. Crosby wasn’t there.
But since Garcia was the one without his partner, Garcia was left to train him, and Garcia wasn’t ready to trust another partner just yet.
But he really didn’t want to blow the guy off either.He’dbeen the new guy, and the team had taken him in. He felt like he owed this guy a little of what he’d been given.
“Got a meet with a source,” he said. “Ongoing case.”
Doba cocked his head. “You mean your guy who’s under, right?”
And he was smart. “Look, we’re not going to talk about that. Other cases, sure. But—”
“The missing crewman that everybody’s terrified for? I’m not supposed to notice that?” Doba scoffed. “Sure. I’ll try to forget his name.”
Oh God. Garcia rubbed the back of his neck. “We do not know who to trust right now,” he said after a minute. “And we want to trust you—you’ve been great! But it’s been two days. Everybody in this room wants our boy back in a week, but we’re smart enough to know it’s going to be longer than that. So give it some time. Man, you still got tags on your civvies, right?”
Doba gave half a laugh. They’d been trying to explain their dress code—classy but functional, works well with Kevlar, helpful for running, holds the badge case firmly but makes it easily accessible—and in the end Harding had ended up taking him shopping on his lunch hour.
He’d come back looking slick and able to work—and run down a perp—and highly uncomfortable about not wearing a uniform.
Garcia, Chadwick, and Carlyle had been giving him tips for the last two days, and he’d been embarrassed but grateful with every pointer.
“I just….” He looked around. “You may not know this, but you probably saved my life… and Henderson’s, because I do not think the Twenty Fourth would have let that kid walk away. I’d like to help.”
