Crush

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Terrell

“Peak,” Terrell grumbled into his phone.

It was the middle of the night and he was more than agitated at being woke up. A quick glance to his alarm clock told him it was three in the morning. He rubbed his hand over his face.

“Terrell, it’s Josh down at the precinct. You may want to come down here.”

Josh was a new recruit fresh out of the academy that was already gunning to be a detective. His type of enthusiasm was annoying, but Terrell saw potential in the kid. That was the only reason why he had befriended him. The more good quality contacts they had on the force, the easier the Z.P.O.’s life would be.

“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that to get me out of bed at three in the morning.”

“That hooker.”

“Prostitute, Josh,” Terrell growled his correction.

“Sorry, yeah the prostitute, Roxanne. She was found dead.”

“s**t. I’ll be down.”

Terrell disconnected the call and hurried to get dressed. He took a minute to grab himself a cup of coffee before he hopped in his truck and took off to the precinct. Roxanne had started off being one of Terrell’s criminal informants, but it hadn’t taken long for it to blossom into a friendship.

The first few years Terrell tried to help her get off of the streets, Roxanne had, had zero interest in leaving them. To her, the streets were home. It had been the only life she had ever known. Just like Terrell’s mom. Terrell decided then to switch his focus from trying to change her to trying to protect her and the other women out there with her‒ something no one had bothered doing for his mother.

The drive to the precinct went by fast, and before he knew it he was pulling into the parking lot. Josh met him at the front door, his eyes giddy with excitement. Terrell wanted to punch the shithead, but he knew Josh didn’t mean anything by it. He was just new and excited about his career, even if it did come off pretty f****d up.

“Tell me everything you know,” Terrell said in lieu of a greeting.

“The victim was found with one gunshot wound to the back. Looks like she had been beaten pretty bad beforehand. The bruising was a couple of days older, and when we pumped her stomach it looked as if she hadn’t had a meal in a while.”

“So you’re thinking she had been held captive somewhere?”

“Yeah, looks that way.”

“Have you brought any of the other girls in yet for questioning?” Terrell knew the answer to the question before he asked, but he hoped he would be wrong.

“You know how those girls are, Peak. They don’t talk for nothing.”

“It’s they don’t talk for anything, learn how to speak correctly, rookie,” Terrell admonished him.

“Whatever. Listen, you knew Roxanne just as well as some of those girls on the street. Anything you can think of that might help?” Josh asked carefully.

“I haven’t spoken to Roxanne for about a week. She did that sometimes, but then she’d call me up and we’d have lunch or something,” Terrell said as he tried to ward off the nagging feeling in his gut that was screaming at him for not checking in on her more often.

“Roxanne was a pro. She’d been on those streets longer than I’ve been alive, almost. It seems strange to me that she’d get herself caught up in something,” Josh said intuitively.

“You’re right. Roxanne didn’t just take anyone as a customer. s**t, for the past couple years she was mostly working regulars. We need to get those girls to talk. I’ll give it a shot alone. They know I was close with Roxanne so maybe they’ll give me something.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

“Is the medical examiner still in? I’d like to go see her for myself.”

“You got it,” Josh said as he picked up a phone from one of the desks in the bull pen and dialed down to the medical examiner.

Terrell looked around at the handful of cops that were littering the bull pen at such an early hour. The job was a tiring, thankless, and utterly underpaid one, and as bad as he hated to admit it, some of them didn’t deserve one. However, the majority he respected and some of them he even trusted with his life.

“You’re good to go, man. The medical examiner is waiting for you,” Josh said, yanking Terrell from his thoughts.

“Thanks for the call, Josh. I’ll let you know if I get anything out of the girls. Keep me in the loop on this one, will ya?” Terrell asked.

“You got it man. Keep me posted on any openings you got in that cool shifter unit of yours.”

“You wouldn’t last one round in the sparring room, human,” Terrell laughed.

“How would you know? You won’t even let me try. I think you guys are just afraid I could hang,” Josh said with a chuckle.

Josh’s eyes gave him away though. That was one thing he hadn’t learned how to do yet was conceal his feelings from his eyes. They told Terrell that even though he had laughed, Josh had meant exactly what he had just said. Josh wanted a shot in the sparring room. The kid would make a good detective, one day. One day when he wasn’t so f*****g arrogant.