Cold Case
Companion to "Intake"
Companion to "Intake"
Julianna was multi-tasking, looking down at the next page for review while passing a paper over the desk for him to sign. Except the paper hung over the desk between them for a period longer than what was acceptable. Julianna looked up from the page she was reviewing and stared hard at the man who, at first glance, appeared to be daydreaming. She wiggled the paper so that it would rustle and then cleared her throat. There was a vocalization in the throaty noise she made, both feminine and impatient. It was both a warning and an opportunity to correct his misbehavior.
Grey eyes popped back into focus on her face and then Owen snatched the page from her to sign hastily at the bottom. There was nothing sheepish or apologetic in his behavior. He even dared to seem annoyed that she was keeping him on task.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She didn’t say anything but simply returned to the review-and-pass process. He stayed on task for a few minutes before once again he neglected to notice she was passing him a paper. This time she stared at him carefully. His eyes weren’t glassy like those of a man distracted or dreaming. They were focused, moving as if examining something, and he frowned some. His lips moved subtly as if he were reading something or reciting something to himself.
Then she remembered the display behind her. They were still in the process of boxing up that cold case. The cork board on the wall behind still had pictures, newspaper clippings, and a map and timeline.
“Do we need to change rooms, Special Agent Hart.” Somehow she could employ that kind of bossy issuance of both a question and a warning.
“It’s just that -” He started to say. His mouth snapped shut and he snatched the paper from her instead.
Except she didn’t let go. The paper trembled pulled taut between them. “Cases go cold, Agent Hart.”
“I know that.” He said as if she were condescending to him. He pulled at the paper to test her and she let it go. His pen scratched aggressively and then he hastled the paper into the stack next to him. Now it was looking a bit crumpled. His face was troubled.
“What is it?” She asked and when he tried to avoid her eyes, she cocked her head and gestured at him to speak his mind.
“It’s a serial killer. I -”
“You don’t know that.” She interrupted to keep him from going down the road of conspiracy theories. So often, over-involved agents could become conspiratorial, superstitious about cases. Obsessed even.
“I do know it.” He countered, leaning forward with intensity.
“How do you know?” She pushed back.
“I - I have a hunch.” His fingers pulled together and he pressed them to his stomach. “I feel it.”
“Gut feelings are not evidence, Agent.”
“I know I’m right about this.”
“You need to let it go.”
“I want that case.”
“That case is cold and you’re on Senator Bartow’s case.”
“I’m sick of reading his emails.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Well now you know.” He held his hand out for the last page so he could just get out of her office and on with his day.
She refused to hand it over. Instead she folded her arms over it. A power play that annoyed him to no end. Not to mention, that it pressed her breasts together. Her cleavage was - His nostrils flared and he threw himself back against the chair moodily, crossing his arms over his chest as if they would enter a staring contest.
“How’s therapy going?” She asked changing the topic. So she was going to hold that last page hostage in order to interrogate him about therapy? But actually, she leaned back herself, mirroring his posture. That piece of paper stayed on the desk like a challenge. A dare to him to take it even though she hadn’t handed it over to him.
“Fine.” He lied without hesitation obediently leaving the page where it was. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of displaying his impatience.
“Really?” Julianna shifted a couple of files and pulled a pendaflex in front of her. She opened it. Green eyes were lidded as she gazed down to read over a page. They flicked back to his face. “Dr. Reed has indicated that you’ve been missing sessions?”
“What.” He growled at her. Owen sat up and leaned across the table to snatch the file from her hands. She resisted but the violence of his pull had him confiscating the folder. “How do you have access to my private medical -” He stopped as he opened the file. It was full of blank pieces of paper. She had tricked him. Owen slammed it closed on the table and then stood up. “Are we done, Executive Assistant Director Maxillion?” He asked throwing her title into her face as if to accuse her of pettiness beneath her station.
“So you freely admit you’ve been missing sessions?” She asked unperturbed by his suggested accusations.
“I don’t have to talk to you about that.”
“You do if you want to be put back on homicides.”
“I don't want to. I like reading the Good Senator's emails” He lied reaching for the paper she was still holding hostage.
“You’re a great detective. Get back into treatment. Show me that you’re emotionally stable. Then we’ll talk about reassignment.”
“I don’t have a partner anyways. I’ll stick to my desk.” He lamely redirected the focus as if she wasn’t offering him exactly what he wanted.
She stood slowly and smoothed her hands down the front of her pencil skirt before she rounded the table, bringing that last page with her. Curls bounced on her shoulders as she walked. She came to a stop in front of him. She had a way of looking at him that made it seem like she didn't have to look up at him. “If and when you get reassigned to homicides, I’ll be your partner in the interim until someone else can be assigned with you.”
Owen sucked at his cheeks seemingly annoyed. His eyes tracked down her body to the black patent leather pumps. “You gonna work the field in those?”
She smiled and pressed the paper into his chest. “I’ll worry about my own footware.” She was clearly angry that her efforts to encourage and push him were so vehemently resisted. Julianna exited the room with a kind of sashaying to her hips that he found supremely obnoxious. The image of her ass working in that tight pencil skirt made him want to bend her over and spank her. And she walked like she wanted him to do it. Like she knew what he was thinking.
But...hadn't Dr. Reed told him not to assume her motives?
He returned to his desk both frustrated and on edge. He didn't understand Julianna at all.
___
It was dark when he finally came home. He shifted the pharmacy bag around under his arm while he fiddled for the key to unlock his apartment. Except it was already unlocked. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his heart kicked into gear for a fight. Owen stood back away from the doorframe and then pushed the door open.
Nobody rushed him.
No shots were fired.
He peered around the frame and then crept into the house tripping over shoes left by the door. The pharmacy bag fell from his hands to the floor with a crash ending all chances of him sneaking up on his intruder undetected.
“You okay?” A familiar feminine voice asked from the living room. The TV screen flickered light from adjacent room and the muted sounds of a commercial reached him. It was all kind of surreal.
Owen looked down at the shoes he’d tripped over. Black pumps.
It clicked together. He strode into his sparsely furnished living room to find his boss with her bare feet tucked under her cozied up on his couch. She had a beer resting on her thigh and her head propped up on a hand resting on the arm of the couch. Her curls spilled downward pulled over one shoulder. She looked beautiful even with the strange blueish TV light flickering on her face. Beautiful and smug like she enjoyed catching him completely off guard.
“What -” he waved his hand, “nevermind,” and stalked back the way he came, picking up the prescription bag and heading into his kitchen. On the counter she had left her briefcase, purse, and a little black pouch. Owen flipped open the pouch to reveal what he expected: a lock picking kit. He flicked it closed again and dumped the prescription bag onto the counter. Pills rattled somewhere inside. “You have a warrant, officer?” He asked moodily when he heard her pad into the kitchen behind him. He was digging in the fridge for a beer for himself. She had the right idea. A nice cold beer.
“You went to see Dr. Reed?” She seemed hopeful, glancing somewhat sheepishly at his prescription bag.
“You tailed me didn’t you? And broke into my apartment?”
She swayed back and forth acting like a guilty child. “Maybe.” She said in her cute voice.
“This is not at all a dysfunctional supervisor and subordinate relationship.” His voice dripped with sarcasm as he opened the beer with a satisfying crack. He took a swig and then dug around in his pocket before producing a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out and placed it between his lips before patting himself down for a lighter he didn’t have.
Though she went for her purse to fetch him a lighter, he was already turning on the gas stove and bending over towards the blue flame.
“That...works.” She said as she fished around for her own cigarettes.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you.” He warned, puffing.
“Why’s that?” A flash of light. The cigarette glowed when she pulled at it.
“You’ll catch all that -” he gestured at himself, fingers petting down imaginary hair at the side of his head, “pretty hair on fire.”
She giggled flirtatiously. “I think I could manage.” She said trying not to look flattered that he had noticed something about her. Her hair, her shoes. Did he like the way she looked? She tried to look casual, leaning against his counter, as she dragged at her cigarette.
“Can’t smoke in here.” He said passing by her and out of the room as if he couldn’t care if she was there or not, or if she was posing for him or not. In actuality, the way her red lips looked making a perfect ‘o’ around that cigarette made him want to die. Or fuck her against a wall. But preferably die.
She scoffed, deflated, when she was sure he couldn’t hear. He was so hot and cold; he gave her whiplash. She followed after him onto the balcony, anyways. He slid the glass door closed when she joined him. She briefly caught their reflections in the glass. They were an image of opposites almost. Yin and yang. He was oversized. So tall and broad. She was shorter, slimmer. He was a blonde with straight and fine hair and pale skin; she had dark hair, and thick curls, and brown skin. His t-shirt and jeans juxtaposed the pencil skirt and blazer she wore. But they looked good together anyway, even though they were poorly reflected and the glass was warped so their images were kind of distorted.
There was a dingy metal table and two uncomfortable looking metal chairs on the balcony. A heaping of ashes on a saucer and several empty bottles of beer occupied the table. Julianna felt sad thinking about him drinking and smoking alone out here in his nearly empty apartment.
She knew he hadn’t lived there long. The place was provided by the FBI to him after his partner had been killed. He’d been doxxed himself and needed a secure place to stay. That was all before her promotion and reassignment to his division. She had read it in his personnel file. They had warned her about him. Moody, reckless, argumentative, disrespectful, insubordinate. A good detective, one of the best maybe, but poor leadership material. He’d never go anywhere beyond where he was in his career and she was beginning to think he was right where he wanted to be. Except he wanted to be on homicides, not investigating some shady Senator’s inappropriate use of government resources.
He rested his forearms on the balcony railing, staring down at the street below watching traffic and passersby. He was doing a great job at promoting the image of the pained and lonely man…
Until he spoke. “You done holding your authority over my head now?” He asked suddenly, half turning towards her.
“What?” She took a self-conscious drag to occupy herself while she tried not to look guilty. She didn’t know how he could make her feel that way even though that hadn’t been her intention at all. “That’s not what -”
“Oh okay. My bad.” He interrupted her and turned back to his sulking.
Julianna plopped down on one of the chairs and crossed her legs, smoking and ashing into the saucer while they maintained a tense but peaceful silence. She watched him smoke. The way he was leaning over pulled his shirt tight across broad shoulders. His muscles moved under the shirt when he lifted the cigarette up to his lips. He ashed over the balcony.
Irresponsible. She tsked and made sure he heard it.
She picked up the saucer to bring it to him. She paused noticing lipstick staining the mouth of one of those abandoned beer bottles. She picked it up with her index finger like it was a piece of probative evidence.
“Girlfriend?”
He barely glanced at her over his shoulder. “What do you care about my personal life?”
She dropped the bottle back onto the table with a clink. “You’re right.” She said too quickly giving away the wound he’d just inflicted.
He turned around to catch her putting out a half-smoked cigarette, smashing it into the heap of ashes. What a perfect metaphor for everything he touched. Heap of ashes. He was in such a black mood that he could barely care about the fact that he was clearly hurting her. She was showing an interest in him that no supervisor had shown him - other than his own father whose career had rocketed him to the directorship in Washington.
“I’ve got to go.” She opened the sliding glass door just enough to admit herself and then slammed it back into place behind her even though Owen was trying to follow.
He pushed the door open and met her at the doorway where she was hastily putting those pumps back on. She was half bent over with one leg crossed over the other while standing up. She put the shoe on and then stepped down instantly rising a few inches before she put on the other in the same way. “I put a casserole in the fridge for you.”
“Why?” He was annoyed that she seemed so hurt. So ready to run away.
“Because you need a hot meal once in a while.” She snapped, pushing past him to retrieve her things from his kitchen counter. She tucked the little black pouch down into her purse.
“What did I say?”
Julianna didn’t answer. She laid the briefcase down and released the springy clasps. She pulled packed manilla folder from the case. Everything stuffed inside was held together with two large rubber bands. Julianna shoved the folder at Owen. “Here.”
“What’s this?” He asked stupidly. He balanced his cigarette on his lips while he pulled the rubberbands off the folder to take a hopeful peak at what was inside. It was the case they’d argued over earlier that day. “There’s gotta be more evidence that this.” He said unintentionally sounding ungrateful.
Julianna stole his cigarette and puffed at it while she stared at him in disbelief. “I know if I gave you that whole evidence box you’d stay up all night reading it.”
“And?” He wasn’t even looking at her anymore. His eyes were rapidly reading the information she’d given him. “I like my job.” He said distractedly.
There was something endearing about the way he retreated from the world into that stupid file. Infuriating, yes. But endearing. She touched his forearm. “Too much.”
“Huh?” He looked at her hand touching his arm and then at her face questioningly. “What?”
“You like your job too much sometimes. You need balance.”
Owen pursed his lips at her. “I’m fine.” He reached to reclaim his cigarette from her but she moved to evade him.
“You need a hot meal. And sleep.” She ordered, stepping around him and guarding the cigarette. “And get some fucking furniture, Owen. This is pathetic.”
“Always bustin’ my balls.” He complained. “I went to the doctor like you asked.”
“Good boy. Now roll over.” She sassed.
“Just go home already.”
Julianna pulled the casserole from the fridge and dumped the pan onto the counter. She set the oven to preheat for him. “Clear your plate and maybe you’ll get another file.”
“So that’s how this is going to go?”
“Precisely.” Her heels clicked on the kitchen tile as she crossed the room to retrieve her things for good this time. “You got away with being a disaster under your old command, but not me.”
“Looking forward to all the forced personal development.”
The oven door creaked behind her.
“Wait for that to preheat first.” She commanded with her back to him as she headed for his door. A trail of cigarette smoke snaked behind her from the stolen cigarette.
“This is all wildly unorthodox, you know.” He complained uselessly. She was already closing the door.
“See you in the morning, Special Agent Hart.”
She had left behind her own bottle of half-finished beer stained with lipstick on his counter. He thumbed at the red lipstick on the rim and then rubbed the pigment into his forefinger. He finished the rest while reading the file she left him.
Bitch, I'm limited edition.
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