23
Choosing Sides
Detective Reid
Detective Reid was typing up the last page of a report for an arrest he had completed that morning, some kid from the ghettos that was trying to solicit business for a gambling establishment. It wasn’t that people couldn’t visit these establishments if they so wished, the government was happy to turn a blind eye to these little pleasures if it kept the population distracted. It was that the teen was soliciting outside of the neighborhoods, which was illegal. His cell phone vibrated on the desk. He finished the last touches on his notes before picking up the device, skimming over the lines on the screen as he brought it to his ear. He added a missing period to the last line.
“Yeah?”
There was no response, and then a gasp.
“Amina?” He straightened in his chair, notes forgotten.
James looked up from his own work, as well as several others on their end of the bullpen.
“I’m sorry,” said through another gasp, a voice that he recognized right away. “I didn’t know who else to call,” she added.
“It’s alright. Give me a minute.”
Holding his phone above his hammering heart, he turned to James, who was staring at him with concern. “Rayan hit his head. He’s fine, but Amina’s having a fit.” The lie came easy.
“You sure he doesn’t need a doctor to take a look? I can drive you.” James stood, grabbing his keys from the top drawer of his desk.
“No, no.” He waved for James to sit back down. “It’s fine. He’s fine. She’s just being a mother, you know? Panics at every little thing.” He rolled his eyes with his last words, shaking his head as if Amina worrying over the wellbeing of their son was somehow ridiculous.
James hesitated a moment, a line appearing between his brows as he lowered himself back into his seat. “If you’re sure…”
The back of Reid’s neck was tight. “Yeah, I am.” He stepped back from the desks. “I’ll be right back, just going to talk her down real quick.”
Hurrying out of the precinct, he jogged across the street once outside, and faced the building. He didn’t want to be caught off guard again, on the off chance that James would decide to follow him. Once certain that he was alone, and well out of earshot of anyone, he returned the phone to his ear.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I—I can’t breathe.”
It was difficult for him to make out the words between the gasping breaths of her panic.
“Ok. It’s ok. Are you hurt? Are you in danger?”
“No, I… I’m in an alley.”
“An alley?” Now that she mentioned it, he could hear cars driving by in the background of the call, and he fought the sudden urge to run off to check the lanes between every building on the street. “Why are you in an alley? What happened?”
“I don’t know!” Her yell stabbed at his eardrum. “I was there, and—he was going to… touch me, and I—I ran!”
He squeezed down on the phone. “Touch you? Did someone hurt you? Did this person do something to you?”
She didn’t answer, instead emitting nonsensical noises in between her gasps.
“Operator!”
The thought that something vile had been done to her turned his stomach, setting ablaze a righteous need for vengeance within him. For a brief moment, he forgot that he was just as much her enemy as whoever else may have hurt her.
“No! Not him—the Senator—he—I can’t—”
Anything else she had wanted to say to him was lost as she broke down into heavy gasping sobs on the other end of the line. As his mind caught up with her disorganized words, her sobbing stopped.
“Oh god.”
The line went dead.
Lowering his arm, he stared down at the phone, thumb hovering over her number on his call log. She needed help. He swallowed, moving his thumb from her number to the button on the side of the device. The screen went black with a click. The phone was heavy as it landed in his pocket, carrying the weight of his thoughts with it. If he heard her right, and he was pretty sure that he had, she told him something that may change the course of the investigation—something that could buy more time for his family. He took off, running into the street. A car screeched to a halt, a police cruiser, and Reid held up his hands in an apology as he skipped around the front of it. The men inside the car yelled something from the passenger window as he ran through the double doors and into the building.
“James!”
Every head in the room turned to stare as he came to a halt at his partner’s desk, hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
The other man leaned forward in his chair, hands on the armrests and his eyes wide in alarm. “What? Are Amina and Rayan ok?”
“What?” Reid asked, staring at the redhead in confusion before remembering his lie. “Oh, no. It wasn’t Amina,” he smiled. “It was the Operator.”
James’s mouth opened, anger replacing his worry, and looking like he was going to lay into him for lying again. Reid waved a hand in the air, cutting him off before he could get a word out.
“Yeah ok, you can yell at me later if you want, but shut up.”
James glared.
“She was in a state, man. Panicked, frightened. From the sound of it, it sounded like something bad had happened to her. It’s not important. Anyway, I think she let something slip that she wasn’t supposed to.” His body was practically vibrating with excitement.
James’s face was the definition of fed up, but his green eyes lit with curiosity. “We’re coming back to that other thing later,” he promised.
“Whatever you want,” Reid agreed. He wasn’t about to argue with the man when he needed his help.
“Well, what did she say?”
“She said, ‘the Senator.’”
James raised his eyebrows. “The Senator?”
Reid nodded. “And then she stopped crying and hung up.”
“She was crying?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, she was in a state.”
“Hm.” James looked down as he thought it over. “You’re thinking that their next target is a senator? Bit above their pay grade, isn’t it?” His face was skeptical.
“I don’t know,” Reid said, “but I think it’s worth checking out.”
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