Roswell Fanatics

Title: R.I.S.K
Author: Chad
Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the making of or characters of Roswell. No infringement is intended.
Rating/Category: AU/Adult/Mature for eventual graphic violence and just plain out nastiness.
Summary: Max Evans is a member of RISK (Roswell Investigators of Serial Killings). An elite group of Police investigators who specialize in doing just as the name implies: stopping serial killers. When a string of cop murders start to show up in Roswell, taking the life of his partner Tommy, Max makes it his duty to find out who the culprit is. However, he isn’t counting on having the aid of a new partner. Elizabeth Parker has idolized Max Evans since she was a rookie at the Roswell Police Academy. It’s a dream come true when she is assigned to be his new partner. But Max doesn’t want anything to do with her. She’s too green and too damned cute for his taste. But all that will change once Max discovers who the killer’s next target is.
Beta(s): Thanks to Christable, who is betaing for me now, and to BelevnDreamsToo, who betaed for me before.
AN: This is a repost of my very first fic. I started this fic way back in June of 05 and put it on hiatus around August of 06. Now I’m finally getting around to finishing it. I apologize to those of you that have already read the first thirteen chapters of this. Nothing about the story has changed drastically, but I have made a few edits to the original version so if you have already read it…well lucky you, you get to read it again. Hopefully it will not take me too long to get to the new stuff.

“Are you scared?” he asked pointing the gun at the dead center of my forehead. “Are you afraid to die?”

I don’t know what he wanted me to say. I suppose I could have mumbled “mmmm mmmm mmm,” for him, but I don’t think that would have helped my situation. If he was looking for an answer from me then that was all he was going to get. Hell, I was gagged and tied to a chair with a gun shoved so far into my skull I’m sure it would leave a print. Worst of all, I was stark fucking naked, and my partner was laid out unconscious on the floor.

“Talk to me you little prick! Say something!” I rolled my eyes as my captor shouted at me like the raving lunatic I knew him to be. Talk to him? It wasn’t exactly the ideal time to exchange pleasantries. Not to mention, I wasn’t exactly capable of communication at this moment, seeing as how the idiot had me gagged. He reached for my mouth yanking the gag out.

“Thanks a lot balls for brains,” I said, spitting the foul taste of grubby rag out of my mouth. The damn thing tasted like it had been soaked in muddy water and left there for weeks. I aimed my spittle at my crazed captor’s face, praying that it would land somewhere in the vicinity of his eyes. To be honest, anywhere on his face would have been sufficient. It didn’t land where I had hoped it would, but he did end up with a heaping glob of saliva on the front of his shirt. That sure ticked him off.

“Ahh!” he said, jumping back and surveying the damage that I had done.

“Oh sorry Andy, did I get some on ya?” I asked him with a wry smile.

I guess it may have been a bit much. I wasn’t exactly dealing with a sane person, and my tendency to let my words spill out before my brain had a chance to filter them was on overload. BillyBob here was already certifiable. I suppose I shouldn’t have been pushing him any closer to the edge than he was already dangling. The bite of the gun pressed in the back of my head was testament enough to his lunacy.

“You’re real funny Evans. You always got something to say, always real quick with the comebacks,” he laughed, the laugh of a man who had truly lost his cookies. Then, he used the palm of his hand that wasn’t holding the gun trained on me to wipe the dribble off his shirt.

“That about sums it up, Ralphy.” I said. My filter was all the way gone, and I didn’t give flying fuck what I let get past my lips.

“You damn cops are all the same. Always harassing the innocent, always thinking you’re above God Himself. You’re above God aren’t you Evans?” Wack-job asked me the question as if he were expecting me to agree with him. Damn, this was worse than I thought. Whenever guys like this started talking about God and holiness I knew things were about coming to a close.

“Sorry Chucky. I ain’t above God. I ain’t above nobody. You’re the one with the devout tendencies. You think you have the right to take other people’s lives. That you can decide who lives and who dies? You think by ridding the world of us cops, us ‘omnipotent beings’, you’re doing the world a favor?” I stop for a moment so that I can give Bart here time to let my words sink in. Rule number one of being held hostage by a psycho: always try to throw your subjugator for a loop.

“But, hey don’t worry about it, Robby. I guess you are doing us a favor. By not masquerading as a normal human being, you’re showing us the type of person that you truly are.”

My new friend didn’t take too kindly to my words. He showed his aggravation by bringing the gun down hard against my skull. It didn’t tickle. The force of the blow caused my head to ache like the very devil. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out in pain. So, I just closed my eyes, and forced my mind to concentrate on anything besides the pain of the huge throb that was now in the back of my head.

I gave a haughty laugh, just to tick Cody off as much as I could. Also, because I was more than a little sore about that blow to the head. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re not on some mission from God,” I continued my rant from earlier, not missing a beat. I wanted Peter here to feel as if a knock on the head had not affected me at all. “You’re not doing ‘His’ works by getting rid of the people that you surmise think that they are better than Him. You’re just a sick little man that someone gave a gun.” Damn Second Amendment. “Well guess what, Davey? I’m taking you down. One way or another, I’m taking you down…”

My partner was dead.

After three years together. Three long years of what I guess you still couldn’t really call friendship, Tommy Ray Anderson was dead. We weren’t friends. Not even a little bit. Hell, I didn’t even like the guy. But I’d never wish death upon him. He had a wife. He had a family, and maybe I didn’t know much about that…well I didn’t know anything about it, but I knew was he was a good man, and a damn good cop.

“Shit!”

The Captain came over to me, looking at the blood bath that was the back of the ally where Tommy had been gunned down. Kyle Valenti was a man who rarely used expletives. But when he did, you could be sure as hell that he was in a foul mood.

“Not Tommy,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s got a baby on the way.”

Had a baby on the way. It was a sad truth, but a truth all the same. I didn’t let the words escape my mouth though. It wasn’t the time or the place. However, now Tommy was quite dead, and the sound of the hysterical screams of his pregnant wife: a wife, who had to be restricted by three deputies, not a small accomplishment for a woman that looked like she were ready to burst at any moment, put a solemnest into all of our souls. I purposely kept my back to Kelly Anderson, not wanting to see the face of the woman who was living the greatest fear a cop’s wife could ever live. Instead, I kept my gaze focused on the corpse of my dead partner. Honestly, looking at Tommy’s dead body was easier than watching the stream of tears that I knew went along with Kelly’s panic-stricken screams. I gave myself a mental shake, shocking my body back into a staid mode. It was the only way I was going to be able to deal with this in a proficient manner. As I examined Tommy’s body I allowed myself to go over the facts of the situation in my head.

His body was at an awkward angle, his legs folded beneath him, broken. Not from the strength of a sledgehammer, a crowbar, or any item that was heavy enough to break bones. The way the bone was broken just so, could only be the work of a bullet. His limbs clung to his body as if they were held together by skin alone. Whoever had done this had obviously broken his legs, denying Tommy the luxury of running away. Tommy wasn’t stupid. He was off duty and unarmed. If he had come upon an armed man he wouldn’t have engaged him. He’d have gotten out of the situation anyway that he could. The person that had shot Tommy had shot him in the leg to make sure he couldn’t get away.

“He was off duty,” I said as I caught site of the grocery bags that was strewn across the ground. “I checked his pockets when I got here. His wallet was still there, along with the exact change from his receipt.” From what I could gather from the scene, Tommy had been out to get a couple of late night items for his wife. The peanut butter and can of sardines that had rolled out of the bag led me to that conclusion. I would have to get a statement from Kelly later to confirm my suspicions, but I was pretty sure that I was on the mark.

Kyle looked at me as if he was aware of what my next words were going to be before they had a chance to leave my mouth. “Whoever did this didn’t do it for cash, or bread and honey. They did it because they wanted Tommy dead.”

Kyle sighed and ran a troubled hand across his face. A sign to those who had known him as long as I had that he was truly disturbed. Deciding that it would be best to get this over with, I continued to go through everything that I had observed about Tommy’s death.

“There’s a bullet wound in his head, but there are also marks around his neck that suggest he’s been strangled. See those grooves? They’re probably from fingernails.” Tommy had obviously given his killer an arduous fight. I looked over at Kyle, who I was sure was noticing the same things that I had noticed upon my arrival on the scene. “The question, is why would the killer shoot Tommy in the head if he’d already been strangled?”

Kyle didn’t answer me. His concentration was centered completely on Tommy’s body. I knew he was observing the layout of the scene. Kyle was nothing if he wasn’t thorough. Finally he looked back to me. “Maybe to make sure he was dead.”

I shook my head no. For some reason, I just didn’t buy that theory. “Not likely. If the killer wanted to be sure Tommy was dead, he would have shot him to begin with. Strangling requires that you have some sort of an advantage on your pray. That means that our killer must have shot out Tommy’s legs, strangled him, and then shot him in the head.” But why? Why go to the trouble of shooting him, drawing more attention, after he was already dead? It didn’t make since.

“Ok, so why would you shoot a man you just strangled?” Kyle asked

I looked from Kyle to Tommy’s dead body.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but I sure as hell am going to find out.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, I did some research, looking into the records of homicides that had taken place in Roswell in the past year. It had just been a rough search to see if I could find any cases that were similar to Tommy’s. As it turned out, I found some pretty interesting information. Tommy had been the sixth cop killed in this state in the past two months. Six cops in two months? Not exactly what you would call a small fete. Although New Mexico had the 5th highest rate of murder in the country, it was less than likely a coincidence for six cops to turn up dead in such a short span of time. All off duty, all murdered. But there was something else that connected the victims, besides the fact that they were all officers of the law. They had all been strangled, and all of the victims had an unexplained fatal bullet wound that had obviously been given to them after they had already been murdered. No, their deaths definitely weren’t a coincidence. It seemed as if we had ourselves a cop killer.

When I walked into the station the next day I prepared myself for the looks I knew I would receive form my fellow cops. They were the same looks that had been given to all cops when they lost their partners. Although, the looks that were cast my way were slightly different. People looked at me strangely, as if they were expecting me to flip at any moment. As I walked past, some of them even backed away. I had to stifle a laugh. I wasn’t known for being the most levelheaded guy in the precinct, but I wasn’t going to attack any of my co-workers because Tommy was dead.

“Max, the Captain told me to tell you to meet him in his office as soon as you arrived.” The dispatch/secretary told me as I made my way over to Kyle’s office. I just nodded, fully aware of the fact that Valenti was going to want to see me first thing this morning, and boy did I have some news for him. News that I was positive he wasn’t going to like.

As I entered Kyle’s office I noticed the stack of files that were sitting on his desk, as well as the thermos full of what I could only assume to be coffee. But if the Captain had been at his desk all night, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t coffee in that thermos at all.

“Long night Captain?” I took the seat that was directly across from Kyle’s desk. He of course was standing; which was his normal practice when he was worried about something.

“You know you shouldn’t be here Evans,” Kyle said ignoring my question. “Your partner just died.”

“Well I’m not going to find out who did it by sitting in my apartment and waiting for him to kill someone else.” I reclined back in my seat, crossing my legs at the ankles.

“No, I didn’t expect that you would even conceive of not coming in today,” Kyle sated. He and I had been working together for a long time. He knew me; he knew my style and the type of cop that I was. “I suggest that you take some time, but I know you’re not going to yield to that suggestion, so can we just get down to business?” It didn’t surprise me that he didn’t expect me to sit idly by during this investigation. Although it was the norm for cops to be excluded from cases involving the death of their own partners, seeing as how they were often too close to the situation to handle it properly, Kyle knew that the fact that Tommy was my partner would only fuel my fire to handle this case smoothly and efficiently.

“You need a new partner,” Kyle said unabashedly.

I just shook my head. “I’d do better on my own.”

“I don’t care about that. You still need a partner. That’s how this works. I don’t want you getting killed because you’re too stubborn for your own damn good.”

I shrugged my shoulders casually. “I’m not stubborn, Kyle. I’m practical. Any partner of mine would just be a liability. It’s best if I do this on my own.”

Kyle stood from his desk and walked around to stand in front of his window. He pulled the blinds back looking out at the street and then turned back to face me. I knew I was in for a lecture.

“Evans you’re a good cop; one of the best that we have actually. I like you.” Kyle stopped as if he had to think about whether or not that statement was true. “At least as much as a boss can like a subordinate, but you’re too damn cocky and too damn rash.”

“I was never good at doing things by the book sir.” I interjected.

Kyle just kept speaking as if I had said nothing. “I decided that I need someone calm for you. Someone that will compliment you. Someone who is reasonable while you are…” he stopped and gave me an assuming look. “…Not reasonable.”

“You gave me a stiff?” I asked.

Kyle didn’t answer. He pressed down the button on his intercom that would allow him to speak with his secretary. “Olivia, will you send Ms. Parker in please.

Ms. Parker? That name sure got my attention. I sat up a little straighter in my seat. If what I thought was about to happen was about to happen then Valenti had set me up with a woman. It was not that I had any objections to being paired with the opposite sex; it’s just that I had objections to being paired with the opposite sex. After all, women were known as the fairer sex for a reason. And I was a rough-and-tumble type of guy. I had enough trouble being paired with a man. I actually preferred to run solo, but protocol was protocol.

“You put me with a woman?”

Kyle just nodded his head in the affirmative. “I think Liz Parker is exactly what your feral ass is going to need.”

Liz Parker. Though I had never met her in person, I had heard the name Parker around the office several times before. She was a rookie, new to our little club of public defenders, but apparently she was only a rookie in the sense that she didn’t have that many years under her belt. Aside from that, Word was she could hang with the best of them. That didn’t change how I felt about the situation, if anything it made it worse. It gave me the feeling that she wasn’t going to be satisfied with just backing me up.

The door to Kyle’s office swung open slowly in one of those banal moments that seemed to come straight out of a movie, and wasn’t actually happening in front of me. It was like a theatrical scene that was meant to build suspense for the audience, only the suspense was for me. I watched as my new partner stepped from behind the mask of the door and into my range of view for the first time. My first look at her confirmed that this was even more of a bad idea than I had thought it would be, only minutes earlier.

She was absolutely gorgeous. Not in the sense of superficial beauty, but in a way that was all her own. Her hair was in a ponytail so loose you could barely tell that it was being contained. She didn’t wear a suit like the other females I’d seen in the office. Instead she wore a tight sky-blue collared blouse that pressed against her skin very nicely, along with a black skirt that stopped mid thigh. The top two buttons of her shirt were left undone creating a desirable V of cleavage, and her skirt was secured around her hips by her belt holster. She had on the sexiest pair of black fuck me boots that I had ever seen a woman wear. The only jewelry she wore was a silver chain that hung in the V of her unbuttoned shirt. A small sliver pendant that was in the shape of a gun accented the necklace.

“Max Evans, I would like you to meet your new partner.” I watched as Ms. Parker turned around to face me. I watched her eyes as they took me in, wondering what she was thinking of me as I was thinking what I was thinking of her.

“Liz Parker.” Of course I was not able to read her gaze. She was all sleek and professional. She walked over to me and stretched her hand out to me in greeting.

“Mr. Evans, it’s an honor to meet you.” She took my hand firmly in hers.

“Likewise,” I said with an equal amount of professionalism in my voice. I could tell she was examining me the same way that I was examining her. Of course I supposed she was a bit less obvious with her examination. But every now and again her eyes would gaze over me and I could tell that her eyes were not entirely focused on what I would believe they were focused on.

“The two of you will be working very closely on this investigation, so I suggest you take some time to get to know each other better,” Kyle said.

“Sir, actually there was something that I wanted to talk to you about,” I said trying to get his attention. I wanted to inform Kyle of the information that I had discovered.

“Later Evans. It’s been a long night, and I think it’s about time I go home to my wife.” Completely disregarding the importance of what I had to tell him, Kyle stood up, taking his thermos of ‘whatever’ off of his desk, grabbed his coat. “Parker.” He said nodding to her and then headed for the door, leaving me alone in his office with my new partner.

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Welcome to all the new readers and welcome back to all the old. Enjoy.

~Chad~

She slid onto Kyle’s desk like she knew I thought she was sexy as hell. Then she did that thing that all women do subconsciously at the moment when they supposedly have no idea that a guy is lusting after them: She crossed her legs, slowly and elegantly.

Damn!

She tossed her hair. That’s the other thing women do so-called “unconsciously” that drives men wild. “So you’re Max Evans?” she asked. At least that’s what I thought she asked. Honestly, my mind was more focused on the sight of her shapely legs than they were on what she was actually saying to me.

“That’s what it says on my birth certificate,” I answered after a substantial pause. She laughed, and thankfully didn’t seem to notice my lack of properly focused attention. I gave myself another hard mental shake and tried to focus on anything other than the way her legs looked encased in those damn boots. I was a cop and this wasn’t the first time that I had ever seen a beautiful woman. Be that as it may, at the moment I felt more like a hormone crazed teenager than the adult that I was. I had to pull it together if I was going to get through this without taking her right on top of Kyle’s desk. So, instead of looking at my new partners legs, I focused my attention on her other assets. Something like her face perhaps? I’m sure she had a beautiful face. However, had I been asked to describe it, I would have been up shit creek without a paddle.

What the hell was wrong with me? This was not the first time in my life that I’d seen a beautiful woman. There were beautiful women all around the world. I saw them all the time and I still somehow managed to make it through my days without ogling any of them. So why couldn’t I manage to stop ogling Liz long enough to have a damn conversation with her? I needed to talk to Valenti. There was no way that this partnership was going to work out.

“Max?” Liz asked, bringing my attention back to her in less than a physical sense. Apparently while I had been ogling, she had been talking.

“Yeah?” I asked, trying to play it cool.

“I said maybe we should go over the case.”

The case, right. After all, that is what we were here for. Now, more than a little embarrassed: a state of which I rarely ever found myself, I looked at my new partner respectfully. “Valenti said that we should get to know each other better,” I reminded her. Mostly, I was trying to throw her off topic. As cute as she was, I didn’t like the idea of heading this investigation up with a rookie.

She smiled, and pressed her palms flat on Kyle’s desk, then leaned on them.

“You want to get to know each other, Max Evans?” she asked with a sly grin. The look gave her a sweet, yet sultry persona all at the same time. Man was I in trouble. Any woman capable of that look couldn’t be good for me.

“Captain’s orders right?” I said sitting back down in my chair.

She gave me that look again. “Fine then, if that’s how you want to play it.”

Oh God, if she only knew how I really wanted to play it.

“Your full name is Maxwell Zander Evans. You enrolled in Western New Mexico University when you were eighteen years old. You completed your Law Enforcement academy training in one semester instead of the standard two, and passed the New Mexico Police Officer Proficiency Examination after only taking it one time. Although you were certified as a police officer upon employment with a law enforcement agency, you continued at WNMU and received your University Associate and Bachelor's degrees in Administration of Justice, Criminal Justice, and Police Science. You’ve been a New Mexico State Police officer for five, almost six years, and you’ve been promoted a grand total of twice. And last but certainly not least…you like…your coffee…black.” She added that last bit with a slight upturning of her mouth in an oh-so-sexy grin. “Did I leave anything out?”

As I sat there listening to this woman recite to me my entire law enforcement career, I didn’t know if I should have been impressed or afraid. It was pretty imposing for her to have done such a semi-thorough background check on me in such a short span of time. After all, she couldn’t have known that she would be assigned as my new partner until late last night or early this morning. I’d give her points for meticulousness.

“You forgot my weight and height,” I said with a shrug. “So you did a background check on me?”

She shook her head no. “I didn’t have to, Max Evans. Didn’t you know? You’re somewhat of a legend. Not many cops can say they have your record. It’s quite impressive.” She swung her crossed legs back and forth as she leaned back lazily on the desk.

“And what about you, Liz Parker? How impressive is your record?” I asked using her full name the way she used mine. Turnabout was fair play after all. But somehow I got the feeling that Liz Parker wasn’t too fond of my fairness. I stood up from my seat and moved a little closer to the desk.

“You’re a rookie aren’t you Liz Parker,” I stated rather than asked.

“This certainly isn’t going on my sixth year,” she said in a non-answer.

I stepped even closer to her, standing slightly to her left. Then placed my hand on the desk next to hers and leaned on it in the same fashion that she was. “Yeah, well mine neither.” She was obviously unprepared for my words. She hid it well of course, but I could still tell her surprise by the way her eyes lifted slightly.

“Try going on eight years, Liz Parker. I did two years in uniform before I went back to WNMU.” If anything, that accomplished my goal of shocking her. “Don’t believe everything you hear in academy.”

As I pushed off the desk and away from Ms. Parker I could see a hint of awe, and something else in her gaze. Whatever it was, I ignored it, and instead headed for the door. I wasn’t going to stand here and try to weasel anymore information out of Liz that she clearly didn’t want to give. If Liz Parker was ashamed of being green then that was her problem. I didn’t need the hassle of building up her confidence, nor was it something that I was going to deal with. I had a job to do, and that was finding what the deal was with my new friend the cop-killer. Liz Parker was a distraction, and one I could ill-afford. It would be in my best interest, as well as hers if I just handled this case the way I worked best.

By my damn self.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max Evans was arrogant, conceited, egotistical, haughty, bigheaded, overconfident, supercilious, and condescending…

But he was the sexiest arrogant, conceited, egotistical, haughty, bigheaded, overconfident, supercilious, and condescending man I had ever met in my life. That really ticked me off. It would have made my job a whole lot easier if he were ugly. But no, he had to look like sex incarnate. What could I say, I’d been expecting a god, and he’d certainly delivered. It was all in the way that he carried himself. A way that said “I’m a law unto myself, and I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.” It was sexy, and appealing, and damned annoying.

When the Captain had informed me that I would be assigned as Max’s new partner, and the circumstances of why, I had gone through a plethora of feelings. The first of which had been shock when I’d learned of Tommy’s death. Then there had been remorse for his family. Afterwards there was anger. Tommy was a good person, and no one deserved to have their life taken away from them the way that he’d had his taken. And last of my array of emotions, I’m ashamed to admit, had been excitement.

Ever since the day I graduated from the academy I’d had a bit of a glorified image of Max Evans. Even though I had never actually been formally introduced to him until a few minutes ago, I knew all about him. He was absolutely brilliant. He wasn’t just a cop in name, but in spirit as well. Max Evans had had a hand in almost every big bust that we had ever made. It was said that his mind worked in such a way that he could construe things from a crime scene that it would take a forensics lab weeks to come up with. He was everything that I wanted to be. And I could see from the moment that I walked in the door that he was dead set against working alongside me.

I hopped down off of the desk, and followed Max out of Kyle’s office. Although I knew that this was not an ideal match for Max, there was no way I was going to give up this case. He started down the hall and I followed right behind him, already aware of where he was headed.

“Kyle already knows that this is a serial case,” I called out to him.

“What?” he asked as he turned around to face me. At least I was no longer talking to his back.

“Why do you think he partnered you with me? I’ve been looking into this case for a month already,” I informed him.

Although I wasn’t too thrilled at the fact that Kyle had automatically given Max ground over an investigation that I had been working on for a month, I was pretty sure that I could get this thing wrapped up faster with his help than without it.

“You’re the new RISK agent?” he asked me, as if the idea of me being a RISK agent was some sort of otherworldly phenomenon. Well he had better believe it.

RISK, an acronym for “Roswell Investigators of Serial Killings” was a group of police investigators that specialized in looking into serial homicides. And I had the privilege of being the newest member. That meant little respect and constant questioning of my credibility. It was every little girl’s dream come true.

“Yes. I’m her,” I continued speaking without giving Max time to say anything. “Listen Max, like I said, I’ve been working on this case for a month already. I have some leads and some thoughts. I actually hadn’t expected it to hit Roswell this soon but…”

To my complete and utter shock, he walked away. In the middle of me talking to him, he just walked away. And like an idiot, I stood in the middle of the hallway watching his retreating back.

“Ouch, shot down Parker.” I turned around at the sound of Alex Whitman’s voice. Alex was another RISK officer. Though he was less hands-on and more high-tech, the work he did was just as important as any of the other officers we worked with. He was actually the only one that had made me feel welcome in my short time here. Where everyone else saw me as just a rookie who had caught a lucky break in scoring this case, Alex had actually helped me out in every way that he could. He knew the tricks of the trade, and he was nice enough to share some of them with me.

“Is he always like this?” I leaned heavily against the wall and blew out a puff of air.

“Oh no, he’s usually way more surly,” Alex said.

That just made me feel loads better. Alex tried to soften his words with an encouraging pat on my shoulder. Somehow I didn’t feel any more encouraged.

“Alex, this is going to be impossible.” Now Alex was going to ask me where my spirit was, and how I could know this wasn’t going to work out after only just meeting Max.

“Come on Parker, where’s your spirit? How can you know that this isn’t going to work out after only just meeting the guy?” I rolled my eyes. Predictable Alex.

“And besides,” Alex continued, “Weren’t you just telling me last week how you would give your right eye for a little Max aid on this case?” Alex raised his eyebrow in a suggestive manner. Making it sound as if he were speaking of something other than helping me out with my first real case.

I shook my head in objection. “No, I believe my exact words were. ‘I wonder what Max would make of this.’ Not once did I say I would like any ‘Max aid’.”

“It was an implied thought,” Alex said with a shrug. I don’t think he would ever tire of making fun at my expensive, no matter how innocent his banter always was.

“So, you wanna help a girl out with a guess on where he’s headed?” I hated asking for Alex’s help so much. I knew he would never make anything of it, but doing so always made me feel like such a…rookie.

“My guess is that he’s headed to see Jaxk.”

“Jack?” I had never heard of any Jack.

Alex nodded his head. “Jaxk with an X,” he held his hand to my lips stopping me before I had a chance to question that. “He’s an eccentric. Anyway, he owns a chain of morgues throughout the state.”

“Morgues?” I asked. That seemed a tad more than eccentric to me.

“Yeah well, it was either that or go into the fast food business.”

“That’s disgusting Alex.”

“Alright, sorry. Anyway, Jaxk deals with any dead body that passes through this state. They look at bodies for a lot of hospitals and stations in New Mexico. Any OCBs would have at one point ended up in Jumping-Jaxk’s House O dead guys.”

I made a mental note to smack Alex later for having such a morbid sense of humor. “What are OCBs?”

“Open Case Bodies,” Alex answered. “It’s what we call dead bodies whose deaths are still undergoing investigation. Jaxk works closely with Max so that’s where he’ll most likely head. You know, for records and stuff.”

Well that was mildly annoying. “I already have the autopsy records of the cops that have been murdered in the past two months. If Max needs to see the records all he had to do was ask for them.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening any time soon.”

This was just perfect. In his stubborn refusal to actually work with me as a partner, Max was going out of his way to create extra work. “I’d better go and catch him. Thanks for your help Al.” Without waiting for Alex to respond I headed down the hall in the same direction that Max had gone in earlier. When I got outside I wanted to scream. But, alas I could only stand and look at the empty spot that had previously been the area where Max’s car was parked.

Janetfl
mary mary
chanks_girl
keepsmiling7
destinyc
begonia9508
Alien_Friend
abbs007
mirae01

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy.

~Chad~

It was a greater challenge than I would have ever guessed to get myself to concentrate on this case and not let my mind wander to other things. Or should I say other people?

That night I sat at my desk going over all the information that I was able to gather regarding cop murders that had taken place in New Mexico in the last couple of months. I found myself plagued by a nagging thought. Actually, it was more like I was plagued by a nagging image. I couldn’t get the sight of Liz Parker out of my head. It was quite annoying really. To think that while I was supposed to be examining photographs of dead victims, all I seemed to be able to think about was how Liz’s legs would feel wrapped around me. And uppermost on my mind was how good it would feel to thrust inside her…

“You stole my autopsy reports?”

My thoughts were interrupted when the object of my lustful imagination stood over me, arms akimbo, legs apart, wearing a non-too pleased look on her face. I got the sudden image of her standing over me in the bed in that very same position. Only instead of wearing a non-too pleased look, she’d be wearing nothing at all.

“Actually partner, I didn’t steal your autopsy reports. After all, if the two of us are going to be working on this together, then what’s yours is mine right?” I hadn’t been aware that there was still anyone here, aside from a few of the night workers and myself. The department was mostly active during the day, and one of the advantages of working at night was that I didn’t have to deal with other people’s noise. Apparently my new partner and I were of the same mind.

Liz folded her arms across her chest and glared down at me. “Oh, so now we are partners?” She looked flabbergasted at the thought. “Well this is new news to me. I suppose that means we were partners when you spent most of the day avoiding me like the plague. Or this morning when you high tailed it out of here without leaving me with so much as a clue as to where you were going?” Her tone dripped with sarcasm and the lady was obviously pissed.

“Donuts,” I said in what I’m sure was an obvious lie. “You know how it is when the craving comes a’callin’.” I gave her an “it can’t be helped” shrug.

“Ah yes, how could I have forgotten? You are a pig, after all.” Liz was mordant enough, but she smiled at me just to add that extra bite.

I smiled back with equal derision. Damn, she was pretty quick witted.

I liked that.

Which really sucked.

I needed another reason to be attracted to this woman like I needed a sledgehammer to my skull.

“I suppose you came over here to do more than just yell at me about taking your autopsy reports?” I asked, admitting that I had in fact taken the reports.

“You supposed right,” she said. “Those,” she pointed to the files that I had sitting on my desk. “Were for you anyways. I made copies”

Well, wasn’t she just little Miss efficient? I didn’t have anything to say to that.

“I actually was about to head out, and I saw that you were still here,” she continued.

I twisted back around in my chair so that I was facing my desk again. “And you just wanted to stop by and say hello?”

Liz didn’t make any verbal response to that comment. “I wanted to talk to you about our situation.”

“Our situation?” I asked. I was curious about something. Why was it that women always referred to things by other names? It wouldn’t make them less than what they truly were. But for women, disasters weren’t “disasters” they were “minor incidents”. Problems were not “problems” they were “situations” or “circumstances”. As if calling it something else would make a big difference

Liz walked over to my side and leaned her hip against my desk, right in sight of my peripheral vision. “Yes, our situation,” she repeated.

The second she made the move my attention shot immediately to the curve of the skirt clad hip that rested against my desk. It took all of my strength not to reach out and toss her down on the floor so I could...yeah...but instead of doing that, I forced my gaze down to my desk, focusing only on the contents that littered it.

Files.

My computer.

Digital clock.

Stapler.

A bobble head that I’m pretty sure wasn’t mine.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked, sounding a bit annoyed by the fact that I obviously wasn’t.

I nodded, looking only at Lance Berkman’s big ass bobbling head.

“I’m willing to work with you if you are willing to work with me. If you want to make this more difficult than it really has to be then maybe you should talk to Valenti about assigning you to a different case.”

Ok, that certainly got my attention. I twisted my seat back around so that I was once again facing her. “Are you suggesting that I just hand this case over to you?” Hell would freeze over first.

“I’m suggesting, Mr. Evans, that you either work with me, or work on something else, because I don’t need you working against me.”

Was little Miss Lizzie giving me an ultimatum? I think she was. And it was a rather screwy one at that. But Liz was about to find out, I wasn’t really one that took well to provocations. “So let me get this straight. You’re saying that I can either work with you, or you don’t want me to work on this case at all? Those are some mighty big words. Yet, I find I have a hard time figuring out how you are going to enforce them.”

She didn’t crack an inch. “Diametrically opposed working conditions, Mr. Evans. I’ll have Kyle reassign you if I have to.”

Diametrically opposed working conditions? I wasn’t sure if there was really such a thing. But for some unknown reason I found the fact that she had the guile to try me…admirable. I stood up from my seat. Mostly it was a male thing, seeing as how I was a good seven or eight inches taller than her, and it forced her to look up.

“Alright Liz. How about we make an arrangement?”

“An arrangement?” she asked.

“Yeah, an agreement as to a course of action,” I elucidated childishly just to tick her off.

“I understand the meaning of the word arrangement, Mr. Evans. I was just curious as to where you were going with this,” she said, sounding more than slightly ticked.

Mission accomplished.

“We can work together harmoniously if…” I paused for dramatic effect, as I decided that I would let her sweat.

“If?” she asked edgily.

“If you follow my lead,” I finally told her.

“Follow your lead?” she asked. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What is this, some kind of macho male thing?”

“No, this is a me preventing you form ending up dead thing. Whether you want to admit it or not, this is your first big case. I know you think that I’m just being bossy, or selfish, or whatever, but I have way more experience doing this sort of thing than you do. I’m just looking out for you.”

She looked at me disbelieving. I couldn’t fault her for not trusting me, since I was only partially telling her the truth anyway. Of course, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. Sure, in some ways I was “looking out” for her. But mostly I didn’t want her screwing up my investigation.

Liz stopped leaning on my desk and stood up to her full height, which was about short-feet nothing when compared to me. “I’ve been working on this case for a month, Evans. I don’t think that Kyle would have assigned it to me if he didn’t think I could take care of myself.”

“Be that as it may, like you said, you’ve been working on this case for a month already, and you’re still no further on it than I am. I just started working on it today. You could use the help.”

She was quiet, and she didn’t dispute my logic, but I could tell that she didn’t like the fact that I was right.

“Fine, I’ll take your advice and…follow your lead if the situation calls for it.”

Ahh she was ever the rebel. “We have a deal then?”

“Deal,” she agreed.

I held my hand out to her, which she just eyed suspiciously without taking. “I think this is the part where we shake hands,” I told her.

Slowly, and kind of begrudgingly, Liz took my hand.

And we shook on it.

I smiled at her as I released her hand. “Oh but one more thing, Parker.”

“Yes?” she asked.

“Call me General.” I said.

“Screw you.” She obviously didn’t find my attempt at humor very amusing. That was made clear by the way she turned around and stormed angrily for the door. I suppressed my preliminary reaction, which was to just let her leave, and went after her.

“Liz wait,” I called out as I hurried to catch up to her. She didn’t stop, and I had to run down the hallway to catch her before she left the building. But I was able to grab her arm, preventing her from leaving.

“Would you wait a minute?” I asked.

“What?” She asked harshly, not turning to my direction. Evidently I had really pissed her off.

“I was only joking about the General thing. You can call me Sergeant if you want to.” I said, and was impressed that I managed to keep a straight face.

Okay, I knew this probably wasn’t the best time to be joking around, and my attempts at baiting her were more than purposeful. But something foreign in me wanted to see her riled up. All day, aside from when we had been inside of Kyle’s office, she had been completely professional with me. Even though I had managed to avoid her for the majority of the day, whenever our paths had crossed, she had been nothing but standard. Even now, as she was giving me her so-called ‘ultimatum’ she lacked any resemblance of defined emotion. Although it was fine with me if she wanted to remain detached, it even made my job of avoiding her easier; a part of me wondered what had happened to the woman who had teased me in Kyle’s office. I’ll admit, I wasn’t really leaving room for her to be Passionate Polly with me, but I wasn’t expecting her to act so stiff either.

Liz sighed and turned sharply to face me. “You don’t take me seriously at all do you?” she asked.

I shrugged without answering. The problem wasn’t me not taking her seriously. The problem was her taking herself too seriously. Fortunately I was smart enough not to say that to her.

Even though I didn’t actually say anything, I was pretty sure she could read my answer clearly on my face. “You think the same thing that everyone else here thinks, don’t you? That I’m just some kid that has no idea what she’s doing. Well let me tell you something.” She yanked her arm away from me and stuck her finger deep into my chest. “Methuselah you are not, pal! And I have just as many qualifications to do this job as you, or anyone else!”

Her face was scarlet with anger. Her hair, which had come loose from its ponytail when she had whipped around, flanked her face. Her eyes were, if possible, even bigger and rounder than before, and her chest heaved in excretion from releasing the long breath she had taken just before she started her little rant.

“Damn, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry.” I let the words slip before I had the chance to stop myself. Once they were out I couldn’t take them back, so instead I just smiled at her, not trying to deny what I had just revealed, and loving the expression on her face as she took it in.

“Max, that was highly inappropriate.” She was blushing like a virgin catholic school girl. And this was the first time she’d forgotten to address me as Mr. Evans—a definite sign that my words had flustered her.

“Was it? I thought I was paying you a compliment.” I didn’t know what possessed me to bait her the way that I was, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave well enough alone. As she stood there, looking all sexy and befuddled, I had a strange realization that I had never in my life wanted to kiss anyone as much as I wanted to kiss her.

“Well…” she paused as if she were trying to figure out what she should say next. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I answered, still smiling at her.

There was a diminutive pause afterwards that was a little uncomfortable—for her anyway. I on the other hand found myself quite content.

“Well then…I’d better…go.” She turned around to face the door, and then slowly started walking towards it. Evidently, she had forgotten that she was supposed to be angry with me, which was more than fine with me.

I watched her go, wondering if she was going to give in to the temptation that I knew she had to turn back around and see if I was watching her. She didn’t, but I had the feeling that she wouldn’t.

Walking back to my desk, and feeling quite pleased with myself, I sat back down in my chair. After giving Lance Berkman a good thump on the head, I opened up the file that contained all of the autopsy reports that I had been previously trying to go over. But just as I had been before, I found myself plagued by a nagging image.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max Evans confused the hell out of me.

At one moment he could be so cold and harsh—a complete a-hole. And the next moment he was looking at me with that smile, and telling me that he thought I was gorgeous.

His words should not have affected me so strongly. It’s not like I’m some half whit Barbie that’s easily seduced by a few flattering words from a handsome face. I’m a professional and I take my job very seriously.

So why the hell was I was blushing like a teenage girl on prom night?

As I sat in my car with my hands firmly placed at ten and two on the stirring wheel, my foot floating over the gas, and effectively going absolutely nowhere, I tried not to picture in my head how much of a laugh Max must have been having at my expense.

It hadn’t dawned on me until I was halfway to my car that for the second time that day I had let Max get away with walking all over me. The worst part was that there was no way for me to save face. I couldn’t go back in there without looking like a complete idiot. And if I didn’t pull off soon, Max was probably going to walk out of the building and see me sitting here like a fool.

I started my car and pulled out of the parking lot. The best thing that I could do right now was just go home and not worry about my Max issue until tomorrow. I was tired, I was cranky, and I was pissed off, with him and with myself. This was not what I had expected my day to be like, that’s for sure.

And I had the strangest feeling that tomorrow wasn’t going to be any better.

Janetfl
destinyc
keepsmiling7
chanks_girl
begonia9508
mary mary
XAF RU208
jake17
Lena7
mirae01
Alien_Friend
Smac
Christable
abbs007

Hey thanks everyone. Originally this was chapter 4 and 5, but I realized chapter 4 was much too short, so I added them together. Enjoy.

The next morning I received a call from Max telling me that he wanted to meet me. He didn’t give me much reasoning. He only said that there was something he wanted to go over about the case. This was a big fat surprise to me. Last night I hadn’t supposed that he’d have a change of mind regarding our working together. Although we’d made a deal of sorts, I was sure that my little ultimatum had done nothing aside from mildly amuse him. He must have wanted to go over something concerning the case. That was the only answer I could come up with.

I decided that I would meet him at a little coffee shop that I frequented from time to time called Morning Perk. It was seven in the morning and I didn’t much feel like going through the hassle of preparing an early breakfast for myself, and Max had made it sound as if he did not want to meet me at work, so I figured that this would work for both of us.

When I reached the coffee shop, to my astonishment, Max was already sitting at a table waiting for me. This was a place that I had come to at least four or five times a week, and yet I had never once run into him here. I wasn’t expecting him to know the place, let alone arrive before me. It seemed I was coming to realize my new partner was forever full of surprises.

Even though I had already noticed him, I did not go over to Max right away. Instead I made a straight course to the counter and ordered a Caramel Frio and a raspberry muffin. I leaned against the counter and waited for it to be prepared, all the while silently watching Max to see what his reaction would be to my deliberate disregard of him. As per usual, he remained his customary aloof self.

After I received my muffin and coffee, I went over to join Mr. Evans at his table. To my frustration, the first thing I took in was his appearance. I liked to consider myself a relatively professional person, but there was nothing professional about the way I allowed myself to inspect Max Evans. It was a particularly hot day, and he was wearing a white buttoned down shirt with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up all the way to his shoulders. The shirt was thin, so it was clear that he wore nothing underneath, and I could noticeably see the outline of his pectorals through it. His jeans were loose and fit him naturally, and to top off his cool apparel, he wore a pair of dark shades that rode low on his nose so that his eyes were still visible over the top rims of them. He didn’t look like a cop. He looked like a freaking model.

Well, how annoying.

I voided my thoughts on how good Max looked and instead concentrated on the fact that I was here to discus important police business with him, not strip him down to nothingness with my eyes. And definitely not so that I could have my sinful way with him on a coffee shop floor.

What would the patrons think?

As carefully as I possibly could, without giving my highly tactless thoughts away, I placed my coffee and muffin on the small round table that separated the two of us. Then I took my seat across from him. I didn’t speak; rather I waited for him to talk first.

“Isn’t it a little early for iced coffee?” he asked. I didn’t make a guess as to how he knew my coffee was iced.

“We’re in New Mexico, Evans. It’s hot. And besides, it’s a little early for almost anything.” I took a sip of my Frio, letting the coolness and the taste of the drink bathe my tongue. This immediately brought about thoughts of Max Evans covered in caramel, and what that would do for my tongue. Straight away, I placed my drink away from me on the table, and hoped there were no minute signs of my thoughts written across my face.

Max smiled at me. That same slightly sinful smile he always seemed to have whenever the two of us engaged one another. “Not a morning birdie, Parker?” he asked.

“More like a night owl,” I answered. I wasn’t really much of a morning person. I would have preferred to have met Max at a more presentable hour. Say like noon? Max however, to my ever increasing annoyance, had that morning look written all over him. Where I was sure I appeared extremely tired and not completely awake, Max looked almost chipper. It was yet another contrast between the two of us.

“Know what you mean. I’m more of a night person myself,” he said.

Of course he was. That’s why he looked so well rested and relaxed.

“Max, what did you want to meet me about?” I asked effectively changing the subject.

“Straight to business, huh Parker?” The way he said it made me sound so cold and impassive.

“I just thought that it would be better if we…”

“I lied about wanting to go over the case with you,” Max interjected before I had time to finish my explanation. I had to admit, I was not even a little bit prepared for that one. The man excelled at taking me by surprise.

“You did?” I gave a rather weak response.

“The truth, Liz is that this meeting of ours has a completely different purpose.” Max leaned forward in his seat a little, and then removed his glasses, giving me a full look into his eyes. They were stunning, and it took all of my strength not to get distracted by them.

Thanks a lot God. Could you have made him any more distracting?

I took another sip of my Frio and tried to get a handle on myself. So far it was not working. “It does?” I asked when I was finally able to speak around the lump in my throat. It seemed that at the moment I could not manage to give more than two word responses. Oh well, I was just happy that I could even remember what he had just said.

“After last night it became remarkably clear to me that there is no way the two of us will be able to get around working together,” he said.

That had just now become clear to him?

“And it also became clear to me that my refusing to cooperate with you was pretty juvenile. You seemed to know an awful lot more about me than I know about you. I believe they call that having an unfair advantage.”

Max’s tone of voice had an odd sense to it. Not too much mockingly, but in an incredibly sexy sort of way. Kind of like he was teasing me…or flirting with me.

“So I decided that it would be best for the two of us if we were to start over,” he said.

“Start over?” I asked, still unable to break away from my brilliant two word responses.

“Yeah, you know, like Kyle suggested. Get to know each other.”

I eyed Max suspiciously. Get to know each other? Yeah right. Max Evans was now screaming red flag. “So now all of a sudden you think it’s a good idea for the two of us to get to know each other? And instead of just telling me this out and out, you decided that it would be a better idea to trick me into meeting you someplace? Forgive me if I find all of this somewhat incredible to believe.” I wasn’t so much angry about what Max had done, I was actually rather fairly amused, but I was also curious as to why Max would devise something like this all of the sudden.

“To be honest, I sort of got the impression that if I had just asked you to meet me personally you would have refused. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to be sort of a stiff.”

I wasn’t sure what other way was I supposed to take that comment.“Well I suppose, in a way you just proved that you don’t know me at all, because I would not have turned you down.”

Max raised an eyebrow, indicating that he had taken that statement in a way that I had not meant for him to. I didn’t correct myself. I had a feeling that if I had tried to I only would have ended up saying something even more suggestive.

“So what do you want to know?” I asked, moving on.

I watched as Max rose from his seat, and walked over to stand beside me. I followed his movements with my eyes, wondering what he was about to do. Then he stuck his hand out to me in invitation to help me from my seat.

“Let’s walk,” he said, and waited for me to take his hand.

“Walk where?” I asked.

“Just around. Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a walk before?” There was that hint of teasing in his voice again.

“Of course I’ve been on a walk before. Anyway, I’m not done,” I said pointing to my almost completely full Frio and my untouched muffin.

Max picked up one of the napkins that had been given to me along with the muffin. He then picked up the muffin and wrapped it inside of the napkin. Then he took my hand and placed the wrapped muffin inside of it.

“Well would you look at that? Now you can take it with you,” he said, sending me a particularly charming smile from across the table. I was seriously starting to wonder what had happened to the callous partner I had met just yesterday. I was actually starting to prefer him, to this charming guy who was before me. At least when he was being a jerk, I could tell that he was being sincere. Now I had a pretty hard time determining if this Max was truly genuine, or if he was just acting this way for a specific reason.

“Alright Max, I’ll walk with you,” I agreed as I allowed him to help me out of my seat. Although I still could not shake the feeling that I must have stepped into some sort of alternate universe. Somehow this didn’t seem to me to be normal behavior from the Max Evans that I had met previously. And even stranger than that, this little meeting was starting to feel more and more like a date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
I waited until the last possible second before I released Liz’s hand from my hold, but she either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. That was a good sign. As she headed for the coffee shop exit I put my glasses back on, openly examining her behind them. She looked good. No, she looked damn good.

She was dressed in a thin spaghetti strapped shirt and a pair of hip hugging black pants. Her hair was loose and followed behind her like a dark silk curtain. A part of me wondered if she was trying to torture me. Well, at least there were no FM boots today. As my eyes followed behind her I couldn’t stop them from drifting down to her rear end.

What could I say? I’m a man, and it was a really nice rear end.

Liz turned back around and looked at me. “You coming?” she asked.

I nodded and started to follow her.

Oh yeah, I was definitely coming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max and I walked a little ways down the street in a silence that was not altogether uncomfortable, but particularly pointless. If the point of our little jaunt was truly to get to know me, I had to say he was doing a pretty piss poor job of it. Then again, I guess I couldn’t say that I was doing a very high-quality job of offering up information about myself. I wasn’t sure if Max wanted to know everything about me, lock, stock and barrel. But even if I wanted to tell him my life story, it seemed, at that moment it would be best for me to just keep my mouth shut. I wasn’t usually prone to foot-in-mouth syndrome, but around Max Evans I never seemed to have the ability to find the right words to say.

“Is there any particular reason you wanted to walk with me? Because you know you probably could have done this alone.” I tried to keep my tone at a joking pitch so that Max would know that I was just teasing, but it actually came out sounding quite rude, as if I were annoyed with him.

To my sheer bewilderment, Max laughed. I liked the sound of his laugh. It was almost a chuckle. The smile that accompanied it was downright breathtaking. Very sexy. I looked away from Max quickly, hoping that he had not caught yet another one of my moments of assessment of him. It was strange; I never let myself assess my co-workers on anything higher than a working level. With Max I found myself appraising everything about him on every level.

“Actually, I enjoy walking with you. It’s nice isn’t it?” Max asked the question all the while still flashing me that alluring smile, but his question threw me for another loop. There was that hint of flirtation in his voice again.

“Yeah it’s nice,” I agreed. I wondered if Max had forgotten that I wasn’t a morning person.

“This is good,” he said stopping at a table and bench area that was located around the park. It was one of those tables that were set up for people that liked to play chess in the park. Behind us was a picnic area with more benches. They were a crisp grass green, from the long bench tables, to the mounted bench chairs. The smell of fresh paint lingered in the air signifying that they must have been recently painted. Max sat down on one side of the chess table and then gestured for me to sit down beside him. I sat my muffin and Frio down on the table, then took the seat across from him. He looked at me, noting that I did not sit beside him, but made no objections.

“Do you play?” he asked running his fingers along the squares that were painted on the top of the table.

I shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t bring my chess pieces,” I said in jest.

He laughed again. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have,” he answered.

So Max Evans was cute, charming, and amiable, I would give him that. When he wasn’t being offensive, or crass, or exhibiting any of the other crude behaviors that he had shown me when we’d first met, he was actually a pretty okay guy. In fact, he was being quite gentlemanly about this whole thing. All of this led to one simple conclusion.

Max Evans was up to something.

“What’s going on Max?” I asked him out and out. It was better to have gotten this over with, than to have dragged it out farther than it had to go.

“What do you mean?” he asked innocently. Oh he was good, and if I hadn’t gotten a glimpse of the real Max, or the person whom I believed to be the real Max, yesterday, I would truly have believed that he really had no clue as to what I was talking about.

“This is a complete three-sixty from the Max Evans I met yesterday.”

He shrugged his shoulders imperturbably. “I could have had a change of heart,” he said. His words lacked all sincerity, and his tone did nothing to give them much testament.

My smile was affable, but I shook my head in disagreement with his words. “Rome wasn’t built in a day Max.” And I could see that it would take a lot more than a day for Max Evans to change his mind about something, or in my case, someone.

He feigned a slighted glare. “Do you like my ability to be a nice person to the building of an ancient city?” He didn’t sound in the least bit affronted. His smirk told me that he was more than likely not offended, and his devilish grin said that he was maybe even a little bit charmed. Sooner or later, I expected he would start winking at me.

Max Evans was definitely a character.

“If the shoe fits,” I said, then took a sip of my Frio. The early morning New Mexico sun was causing it to drip condensation onto the table top, forming a water ring around the bottom of the cup.

Max bit his bottom lip as he continued to smile at me. He gave me a furtive grin, looking considerably like a young boy who had just been caught doing something mischievous, and was prepared to charm his way out of his punishment. I knew he was deliberately teasing me, but when his perfect teeth raked over that sexy lip, and his jaw curved up in that devil-may-care smirk of his, I didn’t care if he told me the sky was polka dot pink, and the grass was striped black and white.

“Well, I suppose there is no use in beating around the bush then.” Max leaned in closer so that he was a little less than the table distance away from me.

“You know what I’m talking about don’t you, Liz? This thing between us?” His voice sounded low and husky. His words matched his suggestive tone perfectly. My hand was now firmly squeezed around my cup of coffee. Either I was going completely insane, or Max Evans was now coming on to me in a way that was less than restrained.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re alluding to, Mr. Evans.” My voice sounded horse to my own ears, and the lie that spilled forth sounded weak. I knew what Max was alluding to. But it was one thing for me to imagine things I would never do and say to Max, in my head. It was completely another thing for me to actually do or say them.

“Neither of the two of us can deny that there is something between us. We’ve only known each other for what, a day now? And yet we can’t seem to find a comfortable working situation. So…” Max let his words trail off, but I was starting to get the feeling that I was not going to like the direction that this conversation was headed.

“The best way to get past something is to get over it. Or…under it.” He smiled to himself and then continued. “I believe they call what we have sexual tension, and well, I only know one way to get over that.”

I would not have been more stunned if Max had taken out his gun and shot me in the leg. Not only was Max suggesting that we have sex, he was doing it in a very lewd and cloddish manner. In that moment all of my former thoughts of Max Evans changed. He no longer seemed appealing and sexy. He seemed boorish and perverted. I couldn’t believe that he was suggesting that the two of us have sex in order to create a suitable working environment.

“So let me get this straight. You think you can just butter me up like some Thanksgiving roll, and I’ll just hop into bed with you, all because of a few nice words? You must be out of your sanctimonious little mind. I am not that type of woman. And you know what; even if I was it would take a hell of a lot more than a few pretty words to get me to sleep with you.”

I stood up from my seat on the bench with my coffee cup still gripped firmly inside of my hand. I took much pleasure in the knowledge of what I was about to do. Oh how wonderful it would be to watch as my caramel iced drink splashed all over his dapper face, and soaked up into his immaculate white shirt. I thought about how worth the three dollars and seventy-five cents it would be to see the horrified look on his face as the cold coffee struck him.

I squeezed my hand around the cup in an even tighter grip until I felt the papery material start to give under the pressure of my clutch. Then I raised my hand and tossed the cup…into the wastebasket that was sitting beside him. As I watched the cup splatter into the trash can, I silently prayed that some of it would splash on to Max. It didn’t, and I could do nothing but berate myself for going against my first instinct and not dumping the cup on his pretentious little head.

“Goodbye Mr. Evans, see you at work.” Amassing as much blasé as I could muster, I made my way away from the park benches where Mr. Evans was sitting, and headed back to the coffee shop where I had left my car parked. There was nothing left for me to do but except that the morning had been a complete waste of my time.

I couldn’t say that I wasn’t disheartened. I don’t know why I expected Max to have gone from being a miraculous jerk to a pretty decent guy all within the span of a few hours. Actually, I hadn’t believed that at all. But more than that, a part of me didn’t want to be right about my earlier suspicions. For some imprecise reason I still had it in the back of my mind that if Max and I could just form some sort of professional relationship with each other we could get this case over and done with. I was stupid to ever believe that Max could ever see me as anything more than a novice and a rookie.

Or, even worse, a piece of ass he’d like to tap.

As I made my way back to the coffee shop I cursed the little part of me that was angry that Max hadn’t made a move to come after me. Why did he have to affect me this way? There was absolutely no reason for me to want him to come after me. I had said everything that I wanted and needed to say to Max, and still, I was now even angrier at him than I had been before.

“Liz wait!” It took a moment for me to register that it was Max’s voice that had called out for me to stop. Well at least he had come after me. But I was still angry and I wasn’t going to just stop at his behest.

“Would you stop?” Max said in a disgruntled tone. I was not sure how he had caught up to me so quickly, but already I could feel his hands clasping me around the arms to stop me from walking away.

“Let go of me,” I said pushing myself away from him.

“Would you just listen to me?” he said not releasing me form his iron grip.

“No,” I said, not letting up my struggle. I didn’t want to listen to him or hear any of the excuses that he was going to make up. I just wanted to get back to my car so I could get to work and get back to my job.

Without any help from Max Evans.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Damn! My job was never easy. It was always anything but.

Difficult? Every day. Complex? There was nothing more. Demanding? Like an ex-wife Intricate? To the very last detail. Convoluted? To the point of exhaustion. But easy?

Never.

And to think, I had thought my life was about to start heading in a simpler direction. God forbid the cosmos should allow a thing like simple to happen to me. Now some nut job that got his jollies knocking off cops had to go and spoil my life, leaving me stuck working with Miss Temptation Island herself, and throwing my concentration completely off kilter. Only two days into the case, and already it was turning out to be a one of the most difficult cases of my career.

Distraction, thy name is Liz Parker.

Because of my new partner, last night I had succeeded in getting absolutely nothing constructive or relative to this case accomplished. As of yet, I still didn’t have any real leads as to who could be doing this. I must have spent hours going over the coroner reports of the bodies a hundred times, and still nothing stuck out to me. The only scenarios that my brain could come up with had nothing to do with murder, and involved a sexy little brunette, and a pair of handcuffs.

Sure, I could have chalked it up to this being a comparatively difficult case, but if I did I would have been comparatively lying to myself. It had finally come to me late last night while I was leaning over the reports trying to concentrate on the dismembered leg of Officer Paul White instead of the shapely white leg of Liz Parker, that there was only one way for me to get Liz out of my system.

Of course I wasn’t stupid. I knew that going up to Liz and asking her to have hot steamy sex with me wasn’t going to earn me anything but a well deserved slap in the face. No matter how appealing the thought was. But, if I could get Liz to believe that I was that much of a jackass, maybe I could get her to rethink this whole us being partners thing. It was risky, but the way I saw things, it was the only way I was going to manage to get this case wrapped up.

What I hadn’t been expecting was the piece of shit feeling I got in the pit of my stomach as I watched Liz walk away from me. But it was all for the good of the case. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself in order to keep from going after her and apologizing. That worked out for all of five seconds before my damned conscience got to me.

Let your conscience be your guide? Yeah right. Right now mine was screwing me royally.

I stood up from my seat at the table and ran to catch up with Liz. “Liz wait!” I said calling out to her. Her pace slowed a little and I could see that she had heard my call, but she didn’t make any move to stop, not that I could blame her.

“Would you stop?” I said as I came up to her side. I could see that she was still not going to cease her flight, so I clasped my hands around the top of her arms to keep her from walking away from me.

“Let go of me.” Her voice was low, and I could hear the ample measure of anger in it, but I didn’t release her.

“Would you just listen to me?” God, was that my voice sounding so…begging.

“No.” Then she started to struggle even harder from me. I didn’t want to cause a scene, and she was a slippery little cat, so I was forced to let her go. She stumbled from my grasp, but straightened herself quickly.

“Liz I’m —” Sorry was what I had been about to say, but I didn’t get the chance to finish before the sting of the palm of her hand slapping across my cheek hindered me from speaking.

“You are a jerk, an ass, and a surly son of a bitch, but above all that, you’re a moron of epic proportions. If you think for one moment that this is going to stop me from working on this case then you had better think again, buster. I have never run away from anything in my life, and I’m damn sure not going to run away from this.” Without another word she turned around and headed off in the direction of the coffee shop.

I was too floored to speak. I had to admit. Liz Parker wasn’t some soft kitten to curl up in a ball and lick her wounds. No, she was a fierce tigress that was not about to back down to me at any cost.

I liked that.

I smiled furtively to myself. Liz Parker was definitely a woman to be admired.

I started walking along the same path that Liz and I had walked from the coffee shop.

I walked a little slowly.

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Thanks for reading everyone. I hope you all enjoy.

~Chad~

Maria Deluca owned the sex shop that was located on the corner of Citrus Ave. Okay; I guess it wouldn’t actually be fair for me to say it was really a sex shop. But the two of us had been good friends for a long time, and I liked to tease Maria by calling it that. She lived in the apartment directly across the hall from mine with her boyfriend Michael Guerin. As long as I lived I would never forget the way we’d met. It was late one night, and I had been right smack in the middle of REM when the sound of a loud banging on my door woke me from my sleep. My initial intent had been to ignore the banging in hopes that whoever it was would just go away, but my late night visitor had proved to be on the persistent side. In the end I’d had no choice but to give in. Little did I know, opening that door was going to change my life forever.

As it turned out, Maria and Michael had locked themselves out of their apartment—just Michael, let Maria tell it. They’d called the super to let them back in, but Maria claimed she had to go to the bathroom really badly, and her bladder was not going to wait for the super to get there. When I opened my door she almost ran me over as she dashed into my apartment. I believe her exact words had been something along the lines of: “Where’s your bathroom? I gotta go. Tengo que ir!”

The next morning Maria and Michael showed up at my door for a second time, but this time they came bearing gifts of orange juice and a box of cinnamon bagels—which just so happened to be my favorite. Maria had explained it as being her way of thanking me for not causing her to have to have major bladder repair surgery. I don’t even pretend to know how it happened, but after that day, she and I became really close friends. According to Maria, I was her “new thing”; even if I had no idea what that meant.

But apparently it meant that she now had cause to start popping up at my door with random food dishes, asking me if I thought that they tasted right. Or that she could knock on my door at seven o’clock every morning so that the two of us, and sometimes Michael, could have a breakfast of Maria’s choosing. Or it might have meant that she would now start taking my clothes from my dirty clothes hamper so that she could wash them with her grandmother’s special homemade detergent and extra strength fabric softener. Apparently, whatever I was using just wasn’t getting the job done. This however, I couldn’t really bring myself to complain about. After all, it was free laundry service.

Whatever being Maria’s “new thing” really meant, I knew that I was stuck with Maria Deluca as a friend for the rest of my life.

It was a little before six pm when I walked into Maria’s shop. The place was called Sensualidades de Vida, Sensualities of Life. Maria named it after her strong belief that sensuality was a key component when it came to leading a long and healthy life. The place specialized in home remedies, aromatherapy, perfumes, lotions, and whatever else Maria could think of. There were all sorts of herbal teas and relaxation technique books for women…I mean people, that enjoyed that sort of thing. At least, that’s what was written down on Maria’s business cards. But, scented candles and bitter beverages were not the only things that Sensualidades specialized in.

In the back room, behind the retro styled beaded curtains, was what patrons that were bold enough to admit that they had actually been back there, liked to refer to as: “Maria’s Magic Marriage Makers.” Think Kama Sutra meets Victoria Secret, tremendously risqué. I still hadn’t figured out why so many women actually believed that what was behind these closed doors was guaranteed to make a man go down on his knees and pop the question, not to mention go down on his knees for other things, but they definitely believed it. Of course, this was the side of Sensualidades de Vida that no one would dare talk about in polite company. My guess was that the soccer moms of Roswell didn’t want it getting out at the PTA meetings that they were playing naughty games with their husbands, or any other men for that matter, after hours.

Maria got a kick out of watching the “prudes”, as she liked to call them, look over their shoulders like paranoid schizoids as they tried to make sure that no one “important” saw them come in or leave out of her shop. Roswell was a very nosey neighborhood; a place where dirty little secrets were often hard to keep. But I didn’t really mind the nosiness. It only made my job a hell of a lot easier.

Unfortunately, like all of the exceedingly enthralling things in life, Maria’s “special little room” was prohibited for anyone under the age of eighteen. Maria was a prime aid when it came to busting kids with fake ids. She could spot one a mile away. Back when I was in uniform, I used to get floored by the dumbass excuses that some of these teens came up with for being caught with fake ids. The only explanation I could come up with for it is that cops must have the words BORN YESTERDAY stamped across our foreheads and only teenagers can see it.

As soon as I entered Maria’s store I was immediately overwhelmed by the familiar scent of patchouli oil, Maria’s fragancia de preferencia, and some frou frou scented aromatherapy candles that she was in love with burning. It didn’t take long for me to spot Maria. She was standing behind the counter talking to a middle aged woman and holding up a bottle of something between her fingers.

“Now, all you have to do is remember to rub this under your eyes every night for the next two weeks. That should help with those bags tremendously.” Maria placed a little bottle of oil, or lotion, or whatever it was that this woman thought was going to get rid of the raccoon eyes she was sporting, into a bag and tied a little purple bow around the top of it. I had obviously come in on the tail end of some of Maria’s infamous cosmetic advice.

“Thanks Maria, you’re a lifesaver.” The women took the bag from Maria’s outstretched hand. She smiled down at it rather anxiously, and the look on her face told me that she couldn’t wait to get home and try out her new magic cream.

“De nada, Mrs. Smith. Oh and don’t forget your complimentary incense.” Maria took two sticks of incense from the box that was sitting on the counter top, and stuck them into the woman’s bag.

“Thanks again, Maria. Goodbye.” The woman smiled at Maria and she headed towards the door.

“Adiós,” Maria said, giving her a friendly wave. The woman walked past me without a second glance as she hurried out of the store.

With a silent shake of my head, I walked over to Maria and leaned over the counter top. I folded my hands across the crystal glass and waited patiently for her to acknowledge my presence.

“Guapo, there you are,” Maria said, using the pet name she had given me. “Where were you esta mañana? Comió usted?” She did not stop from arranging the bottles on the shelves behind her, nor did she look up at me.

“Yeah, I ate. I wasn’t at breakfast this morning because I had something that I had to do.” The last thing I wanted to think about was the travesty that was my quote-unquote “breakfast” with Liz this morning.

Maria didn’t continue speaking to me until after her bottles were perfectly arranged. That was an annoying little habit of hers. Sometimes she would go for long periods of time ignoring me until she had gotten finished with what she was doing. She knew it drove me crazy, and I think that’s part of the reason why she did it. When Maria did this it meant one of three things. One: she was mad at me. Two: she was annoyed with me. Or three: she was just being a bitch for no reason. Since this was the first time that I had seen Maria all day, I couldn’t think of any reason why she could have been mad at or annoyed with me. So it had to be option number three.

After her bottles were arranged in whatever order it was she wanted them to be in, she turned to give me her undivided attention. “Max, would you hand me that bottle of rosemary, por favor?”

Or not.

I hadn’t come here to sort perfumes with Maria. I had to get back to the station tonight. I looked down at the display table that was next to me. There were a half dozen bottles on it.

“It’s the one that’s labeled Rosemary, guapo,” she said, ignoring the peevish look that I gave her. I sighed then turned a few of the bottles around to look at the labels. When I found the rosemary I handed to her.

“Gracias. I’m actually glad you’re here. Tengo un nuevo perfume que quiero intentar.”

“Maria, no I don’t have time to be your guinea pig. And what the hell would I look like going back to the station smelling like women’s perfu—”

“Esto no tomará mucho tiempo. It will only take a second.”

Cutting me off. That was another annoying habit Maria couldn’t seem to overcome. “No, I’m not going to let you test your scents on me. I learned my lesson from the last time you said you wanted to test something out on me.”

“What was so bad about last time?” she asked.

I almost laughed at that question. For a month I hadn’t been able to get the smell of jasmine out of my uniform. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it damn sure wasn’t a very masculine one. “Nothing Maria. It’s not that I didn’t love being the cop that walked around reeking of fresh flowers, but somehow, it still managed to take the bad ass right out of the job.”

Maria rolled her eyes as she continued mixing the bottle of rosemary oil with another bottle that she had taken down off of the shelf behind her. She shook the mixture up thoroughly.

“Can’t you just sniff it to tell if you like it?” I asked.

She shook her head, still shaking the bottle. “I need to see how it mixes with a natural body scent.”

“Then why don’t you find a female body scent to mix it with? Say, I don’t know…yours?”

“Don’t be such a chicken, guapo. It’s just a little rosemary, mixed with crushed baby’s breath. You’re not afraid of a little baby’s breath are you Max?”

I didn’t even bother to answer. I knew now that Maria was deliberately screwing with me.

“What’s your problem, Maria?” I asked, leaning my back against the counter.

“What makes you think tengo un problema?” Maria said dismissively as she walked from around the counter. She walked around until she was standing directly in front of me, but before I was given the chance to speak, she started talking again. “But you know, I did hear a funny story form Patty Lewis today.”

Here it comes.

“Patty told me that she saw you at the park this morning when she was walking her dog.”

Wasn’t that just peachy? There was very little chance that Mrs. Lewis hadn’t seen what had happened this morning between Liz and me.

Maria continued. “And she said she saw you with a strange woman.”

I sighed. “Maria, it’s not what you—”

“Then,” Maria continued, once again cutting me off. “She said she saw this same strange woman slap you in the face.”

Damn it! I should have known it was a bad idea to go somewhere as public as the park. And Patty Lewis was the world’s biggest gossip. If anyone would have told Maria, it was going to be her. This was my own fault.

“Qué pasa?” Maria asked as she folded her arms under her chest. There was a tease of a smile on her face. It was nice to know she found this so amusing.

“Maria, it’s not what you think. She is my new partner,” I explained. I’m not sure why I even bothered. Once Maria got an idea in her head it was near impossible to get it out of it.

“Oh, well that just explains everything, gracias, Max for clearing that all up for me,” Maria said sarcastically. “What did you do now?”

“I didn’t do anything…” that was a lie. “I mean, why do you automatically assume…” that was a lie. “Well I…” that was a lie. “I mean I…” that was a lie too.

Damn it!

Maria took a seat at one of the boutique chairs that were decorated all around the store.

“Sit down,” she demanded as she gestured for me to sit down in the chair adjacent to hers.

“I do not need a lecture, Maria. I just wanted to pop in and say—”

“I want to know about this strange girl. She’s your new partner, you say?” The question was leading. Meaning Maria wasn’t going to let it go until she led me to tell her more about my new partner. Great, this was just what I needed.

“Her name is Elizabeth Parker. She’s my new partner. I said something that pissed her off, and she slapped me. End of story.” Yeah right. Even I knew that wasn’t going to work.

Maria laughed. “Yeah right. Like that’s going to work.”

I groaned.

“What did you say to piss her off?” Maria asked. Of course she would target in on that part of the conversation.

“Nothing, Maria. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Max, I don’t care what—”

“Max! I mean Det. Evans…I mean…hi.”

Maria and I both turned around at the sound of the shrill screech coming from the doorway. The bane of my existence was standing just inside of the door with a large bright pink backpack swung over her left shoulder. She was wearing a gold and royal blue Roswell Comets cheerleading uniform, blue and gold hair ties, white Nike sneakers, and of course, she wore the traditional pink blush of a teenage girl staring face to face with her adolescent crush. A crush that just happened to be several years older than her, and one that just happened to be me.

Angela Keller, what could I say about the girl? When she was sixteen years old she had begged Maria to let her come and work in the shop as her tyro. Maria had been against the idea at first, clamming Angela was too young to work in the shop. But Angela had turned out to be just as persistent as Maria, and so only after Maria made Angela and her mother sign a contract indicating that Angela was not allowed to go into certain sections of Sensualidades, and Maria was not to be held liable if Angela were exposed to anything that her mother was in disagreement with, Angela had been given the job of Maria’s assistant.

“Hi, Det. Evans,” Angela said in her normal soft shy tone.

“Hi Angie,” I answered back. Just like every day that I came into Sensualidades and saw Angela, she giggled as if my simple greeting was the funniest thing she had ever heard in her life.

“You’re late niña,” Maria said in a full out managerial voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Deluca. The four o’clock game went into overtime, but we won!” Angela exclaimed, breaking out of her lovesick reverie so she could wave her arms excitedly in front of her. When Maria didn’t look impressed Angela immediately lowered her arms back to her sides. “I’ll go get changed right away,” she said hurriedly. Without waiting for Maria to answer, Angela headed into the employees only section of the store.

When Angie was gone Maria turned back to me and frowned. “We’ll finish this later,” she whispered to me, obviously not wanting Angela to hear.

“Not likely, amiga. I have to get back to work.”

“Later tonight, Max,” Maria insisted. “I want to know everything.”

“There’s nothing to know, Maria. As a matter of fact, you should just forget that I even came in here.”

“Sabré,” she insisted. “You know that I will find out. I always have a way of finding these things out.” In all the time that I had known Maria, I had learned to read her like a book. Right now I was reading a large print addition “Prying” a Maria Deluca classic.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” I answered, and walked out of the store before she was given the chance to make a snide little retort. One thing was for sure, I was not looking forward to coming home tonight.

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Hey thanks for reading peeps. Keep reading. I’ll keep writing.

~Chad~
“If a tree falls down in the middle of the woods, and nobody is around to see it, does it really make a sound?”

I looked up at the peculiar question, to see that there was a big fat Alex Whitman sitting on my desk. Well, not really fat, but he was sitting on my desk. He was staring down at me as if he were truly pondering the meaning of life.

“What?” I looked at the spot where Alex had just plopped his butt, and frowned. “Alex, you just sat—”

Alex laughed and shook his head, before I could finish talking. “I just came to tell you that I got those records you wanted. You were staring at the back of Evan’s head so hard; I figured I had to find some way to get your attention.

I turned around to face the back of the head that I had previously been staring at. Max had just come back into the station from wherever it was he had gone. I didn’t really know, nor did I care where he had actually come from. The second he walked back in he had immediately gone back to his desk without saying so much as a word to me. Things had been like this all day. I wondered if Max had the chutzpah to come up to me and say something. He hadn’t, and I silently took pleasure in the way he’d been avoiding my gaze all day. I hoped he was feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and stupid—the jackass.

“I was not staring at the back of Max’s head,” I lied. I turned away from Max’s direction to look up at Alex.

Alex didn’t even pretend to believe me. “Oh, well then you must have super x-ray vision, and really enjoy that painting that is on the wall in front of Max’s desk.” Alex’s derisive humor was something that I found myself loving and hating about him.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than annoy me?” I asked tartly.

Alex winced and leaned away from me, holding up his arms in a yielding position. “Ouch Parker, a little defensive aren’t we?”

I sighed remorsefully and leaned my forehead against the palm of my hand. “I’m sorry, Al. It’s just that this case has got me stressed.” That was partially true anyway. The truth was actually more along the lines of: My new partner is driving me so far up the wall that I want to forget my oath and murder him right here on the spot…and this case has got me stressed.

But Alex wasn’t the person that I was mad at. It was wrong of me to take out my frustration on him. Besides, talking to Alex was something that always cheered me up. He could always take my mind off things.

“Still not playing nice with Evans?” he asked.

So much for taking my mind off of things. “No we are not, but I’ve decided that I don’t need him, Alex. I can do this by myself.” My words had more conviction behind them than I actually felt, but I hoped that Alex didn’t pick up on that.

“Well maybe if the two of you would work on the case together, you know that word ‘together’ don’t you? It’s when two people come to a conclusion by means of a joint effort. You know, when you both cooperate with one another. Ringing any bells?”

“I can do this by myself, smartass,” I said. “As a matter of fact, let me rephrase that. I would love to do this by myself.” I would also have preferred to have never met the real Max Evans, and that he would have just stayed quietly in my mind as my figurative idol.

“Don’t you think that the two of you are being just a little childish?”

“I’m not being childish. I’ll tell you who’s being childish. He’s being childish. You should be lecturing him about being childish, because he’s the one that’s being it,” I said, not realizing how juvenile I sounded until after I had actually gotten the words out. Okay, so it wasn’t my best argument.

Alex just gave me a look that said I’d just proven his point.

“Shut up,” I countered lamely.

“I’m just saying, the longer the two of you dance around each other, the longer it’s going to take for you to finish the case. The longer it takes you to finish the case, the longer you are going to be stuck dancing around each other. Do you see a pattern forming here?”

“But you see Alex, I’m not going to have to worry about that happening. I’m going to get this case wrapped up.” Alex crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a curious look. I didn’t give him the chance to ask the question I knew was forming in his head. “Without Max’s help,” I added, putting emphasis on the word without. “Then the two of us are never going to have to speak to each other again.”

Alex rolled his eyes up at the ceiling. “He’s your partner Liz,” he said. He emphasized the word partner. “You’re going to have to work with him on this case, and the next, and the next, and the next. That’s what it means to be someone’s partner.”

“I know what it means to be someone’s partner”

“Then why are you letting this go so far?”

“Because, Max is impossible to work with, and I’m not going to just bow down to him. Like he’s a master sleuth or something.”

“No one said that you had to bow down to him, just work with him.”

I shook my head. “Oh no, I am not going to do that either.”

Alex sighed. “Why are you being so stubborn?”

“I’m not being stubborn.”

“Fine, then why are you being so hardheaded?” he asked.

“That’s just a synonym for stubborn.”

“Caught that did you?”

“Why are you down my back? It’s not me, it’s him. Go yell at Max.”

“I’m not yelling at you. I thought we were talking.”

“Fine, then go ‘talk’ to Max. And while you’re at it why don’t you ask him why he’s such a butthead too.”

Alex shook his head as he smiled patronizingly down at me. “You know, your seven year old is showing again,” he said.

I frowned up at him and he frowned down at me. We were at a standstill. I had no intentions of relenting, and I could tell that he had no intention of backing down either.

“You’re my friend, Liz. I care about you. Stop driving each other crazy and just work together,” Alex said, tapping me lightly on the head with the folder in his hands “Here” He slapped the folder on to the desk. “I think it would benefit you to know that Max ordered a copy of the same records. Josh told me to tell the both of you that if he has to make double copies of everything regarding this case then you two are going to be supplying the ink.”

I smiled at Alex thankfully as I picked up the folder. He was right. I knew he was right. I also knew that he was just trying to be a good friend, but there was still a grudgingly childish part of me that didn’t want to be the one to cave with Max Evans.

“Thank you, Alex,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered, and scooted off of my desk. I gasped as he walked away from me, and had to place the folder over my mouth to keep from laughing at the sight before me.

“Alex,” I called out to him.

He turned back to face me. “What?”

I held up the remains of the salad that I had left on my desk after I had eaten my fill of it. The cheese, lettuce, and tomato were all meshed together…on Alex’s ass.

“Umm you have a little…salad on your ass,” I said, desperately trying not to laugh at him.

Alex did a half turn and tried to look down at his backside to see that it was covered in creamy ranch dressing. It was exceedingly hard not to laugh when he pulled a piece of lettuce off of his butt.

“Ah man,” he groaned, and then looked back over to me. “You could have told me.”

I gave him and innocent shrug. “I tried to.”

Alex groaned and wiped his hand on his buttocks.

“Alex, I think you’re supposed to eat your food, not wear it,” someone said, causing the whole department to laugh. If looks could kill, I would have been six feet under on the spot, so deadly was the look that Alex cast in my direction.

“I’m sorry Alex.” I mouthed to him. He just turned around, mustered up what was left of the rest of his dignity and strolled proudly out of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kyle Valenti blew into the room like a tropical storm making a b-line straight for his office. He said nothing to anyone until he reached the door. “Parker, Evans, the two of you in my office, pronto,” he shouted over his shoulder to Liz and me, just before the door slammed closed behind him.

I turned around and looked at Liz—something I had managed to reframe from doing for the majority of the day, and saw that she was already looking at me. The two of us rose from our chairs simultaneously and made our way to Kyle’s office. I could tell this was not going to be fun.

When the door closed behind us I got the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like I’d just stepped into hell on earth. Kyle Valenti could be strikingly like good old Lucifer if the urge came upon him.

Kyle held up a picture and showed it to Liz and me. “Do you know who this is?”

“Dana Wilcox,” Liz and I both answered at the same time. I looked over at her and she glared at me.

“That’s right.” Kyle nodded. “I’m guessing that one of you can tell me who she—”

“She’s the sister of Charlie Wilcox, sir. Charlie Wilcox is the DEA officer that was murdered in Albuquerque two months ago,” Liz answered Kyle’s question before I was given the chance to even hear him ask it. I laughed to myself as I inwardly accepted her challenge. If that was how she wanted to play the game, then I had no problem playing with her.

“Correct, Ms. Parker.” Kyle handed the picture to Liz. “Well, it turned out that she was actually a witness to her brother’s murder. She didn’t want to come forward at first. My guess was that it was out of fear, but when she heard that we were leading up an investigation she decided that she would help us out anyway she could. She contacted some of our cohorts in Albuquerque, and they contacted me.”

“What do you want us to do sir?” I asked, knowing that Kyle never told me stuff like this without having a specific assignment for me…I mean us.

Kyle picked up a manila folder that was sitting on the top of his desk. The tab that was on it was marked R.I.S.K specific. He handed it to me and I opened it up, fully aware that Liz was looking over my shoulder to see what was inside.

“This is Ms. Wilcox’s address, phone number, and a brief statement that one of the boys in Albuquerque got from her.”

I knew what Kyle wanted us to do before he voiced his orders, but I watched silently as Liz looked confusedly at Kyle.

“What exactly do you want us to do with this information, Sir?” Liz asked.

Kyle smiled. “I’m glad that you asked, Parker,” he said. He produced a small white envelope and placed it between Liz and me.

“Keys?” Liz asked when I poured the contents of the envelope out into my hand. I had to resist the urge to laugh out loud.

“They’re to the whiteness protection house in Albuquerque. Congratulations kids. You two are going on vacation,” Kyle finished with an evil grin. “That’s where you’ll be staying.”

Yep. Definitely Lucifer.

“Wait sir, you want the two of us to go to Albuquerque?” Liz looked at me, and then turned back to Kyle, giving him a completely horrified look. “Together?”

“I knew I liked you Parker,” Kyle said, pointing to his temple. “You really know how to use that brain of yours.” I couldn’t tell if Kyle was serious, or if he was just yanking the two of us. Either way it was funny as hell. “The two of you will be working with our team over there until I inform you otherwise,” he finished

“Sir, I can’t do that,” Liz said.

Kyle raised a brow. “Oh, really? That’s fine.” Kyle turned his gaze to me. “Evans, you go alone then.” I just nodded my head, but I knew that there was no way that Liz was going to let that fly, not in a million years.

“Yes, sir—”

“No!” Liz shot me a look that was almost one of pure evil. “I can go, sir. It’s not a problem.”

Kyle looked from me to Liz. I just shrugged my shoulders. “Alright then, it’s settled, tomorrow night the two of you will leave for Albuquerque. I’ve got someone expecting you.” He sat down in his chair for the first time since we entered the room. “Now get the hell out of my office.”

The two of us stood up simultaneously and left Kyle’s office. Once outside I waited for Kyle’s door to close behind us, then put my hand on Liz’s shoulder, stopping her from walking away. “Looks like we are going to be spending some more quality time together, partner.”

Liz looked me up and down once, then took the address envelope from my hands. She then pulled a pen out of her pocket and began writing on the envelope. After she capped the pen, she handed the envelope back to me. “This is my address, my apartment number, and my cell number. I expect to be picked up at seven o’clock sharp, no later, no earlier.” Her voice was demanding and shrewish, a word I never thought I would be using while describing the sexy woman that had walked into Kyle’s office two days ago. Liz sauntered away from me, and I couldn’t resist watching the sexy sway of her hips as she walked back to her desk.

What could I say? She may have been shrewish, but she still had a killer body.

Life was so ironic. Here I was, finally thinking that Liz and I had reached a point in our partnership where I could do my job without her interfering in my case, and now here we were again, right back at square one, being forced to work together. But one thing was for damn sure. She was going to be pissed as hell when I showed up at her apartment tomorrow.

Late.

begonia9508
mary mary
destinyc
chanks_girl
Alien_Friend
DaleStateShorty
mirae01
Natalie36
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Hey guys. Hope we’re all having fun. Thanks for reading.

~Chad~
When I heard the knock on my door I automatically knew who would be standing on the other side. I contemplated not opening it, but threw that idea out the window right away. It hadn’t worked in the past so why would it work now? I knew from experience how relentless Maria could be, and she would likely stand outside of my door for the rest of my life until I let her in.

Excepting my fate, I opened the door.

Without a word, Maria walked into my living room and plopped herself down on my couch. She folded her arms across her chest and folded her legs underneath her thighs, then she stared at me, waiting for me to go into a thorough explanation of my actions.

“Can I get you something to drink, Maria?” I asked her. “Anything to make you feel more at home?” As if she could feel more at home than she did with her feet propped up on my sofa.

“Max, don’t be cute, guapo. You know why I’m here. So what happened today in the park.” Maria was always the demander; it was no surprise that she jumped straight to business.

“Maria, I already told you that it was none of your business. For once in your life can you please just leave well enough alone?” Yeah right. The day Maria Deluca left anything alone would be the day I sprouted angel wings, flew to heaven, and shook hands with God.

“Ohh, but you are my business, guapo,” she said with a cavity sweet smile. “I would have thought you’d learned that a long time ago.”

I ignored that last comment and walked behind the couch to the kitchenette. I removed two glasses from the top cabinet, then opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water. I turned around and looked at Maria, who was now sitting backwards on her knees on my couch. She was looking at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to tell her what had happened in the park with Liz. Most alarmingly, she had the look on her face. The one I had come to associate with harebrained lunacy. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head, siphoning through her little Maria filters, and coming up with all sorts of illogical explanations.

Judging from the look on her face, I would bet my head to a hole in a donut that Maria had already come to some distorted version of a conclusions from the conversation that the two of us had had earlier.

I looked down into my hand at the pitcher of water that I had gotten from the refrigerator.

I wished it was vodka.

Taking the glasses and water back over to the couch, I sat them on the coffee table and started to pour. As I watched the clear liquid fall into the glasses, I wondered how far I could milk this pathetic attempt at stalling. Maria had once again turned to face me, and I could almost feel the heat of her eyes glowering into the back of my skull like two little laser beams. I picked her glass up off of the table in what seemed like slow motion, still stalling, then handed the glass to her.

It was clear there was no way I was going to get Maria to leave on her own, and there was definitely no chance in hell of me getting her to back off. Maria was like a raging bull without a matador, and I was wearing a big neon red sign with the words charge here, pasted all over it.

I lifted my glass to my mouth, pretending to drink more than I had, and in actuality just holding the liquid to my lips. I watched over the rim of my glass as Maria took a short sip and then sat her glass back down on the coffee table. I realized I could stall no longer, so I sat my glass down next to Maria’s and waited for her to ask me whatever question I knew she had ready to burst out of that blonde head of hers. I damn sure wasn’t going to volunteer any information.

“Are you attracted to your new partner, Max?”

If I had still been drinking my water I would have spit it out straight on the floor. I’m not sure what surprised me more—the fact that it was so easy for Maria to come to the right conclusion, or that I was being that obvious.

I cleared my thought before I answered, wanting to make sure that there was no way that Maria was able to detect any falseness in what I was about to say. “Liz is my new partner. It’s nothing more, or less than that,” I said confidently, because, it wasn’t more or less than that. It was way more than that.

Liz was a fascinating nuisance, a complete enigma, and a contrast unto herself. She was the perfect example of the saying, two sides of the same coin. On the one side she was…well, a prude, but there was still something about her that I was drawn too. Whatever it was, I hadn’t yet gotten a handle on. She was the only woman I’d ever met that had the power to piss me off and turn me on all at the same time. It was confusing as hell.

Maria was examining me closer than a bug under a microscope, and that was exactly what I was starting to feel like.“My new partner and I just had a disagreement. That’s all,” I said.

“What type of desacuerdo?” she asked.

“A working disagreement.”

“About…?”

“Working,” I answered.

“Max, don’t make me hurt you. Just because you’re my amigo does not mean I won’t do it.”

“You realize you just threatened an officer of the law,” I asked with an arched eyebrow.

“You realize I don’t care if you’re pope what’s-his-name himself,” she retorted.

“Benedict the sixteenth,” I answered offhandedly, then made sure to move out of reach when Maria attempted to plant her foot in my side.

“Tell me!” she demanded.

“Alright, fine. I’ll admit that there is a bit of an attraction between Liz and myself, but—”

“Oh I knew it!” Maria exclaimed loudly in my ear before I could finish.

“But,” I emphasized, “it’s never going to happen. The two of us are polar opposites, and besides that, we work together.” Even if what we were doing couldn’t really be called working together. Still, it was as good an excuse as any.

“Minor detail,” Maria shrugged. “Nina and Eddie worked together and they got married.”

I groaned at Maria’s references to New York Undercover. Since the day the two of us had become friends she always compared my life to every TV police drama she had ever seen. It was too funny for me to be annoyed by it.

“Maria,” I started, stifling my laughter. “Eddie Torres and Nina Moreno were fictional characters. They weren’t real like us.”

“I know that, but they still worked together, and they still got married.” She insisted.

I rolled my eyes. “Eddie died in the exact same episode.”

Maria folded her arms and opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but stopped short. It was a first.

I laughed at her.

“Whatever Max,” Maria rolled her eyes. “That is so not the point. The point is that it can be done.”

“On TV,” I pointed out.

“Why did she slap you?” Maria asked. Her sudden change of subject threw me for a second. But I should have known that she would not be waylaid from finding out the information she had set out to discover.

“Because she was mad at me.” .

“So, you piss me off all the time, but I reframe from slapping you.”

I chose not to remind her that she had just attempted to kick me in the side.

“Besides,” Maria continued. “Patty said that at first she thought it looked like the two of you were on a date. Getting cozy with your new partner, Mr. Evans?”

Maria looked at me as if she already knew part of the answer, but was waiting for me to deliver the rest of the information that she sought into her hands. Damn that Mrs. Lewis. Why the hell was she paying so much attention to Liz and me when she was supposed to be walking her little monster of a dog?

“It wasn’t like that.” Yes it was—damn my subconscious. “She slapped me because I may have suggested that the two of us…”

“That the two of you?”

I groaned. I was already ashamed of what I had done, why was god making me relive it.

“That we…relieve our…sexual tension,” I said, waiting for Maria’s reaction. It was all a matter of when the words registered to her.

Three…two…

“Max Evans, you didn’t! Tell me you did not suggest that you and your new partner sleep together did you?”

I could deny it, but chances were that she would find out the truth anyway. Besides, I had already admitted it, hell I’d done it. It was too late to turn back time now. “It’s not what you think, Maria.”

Maria glared at me and shoved her fingers into my chest. “Don’t give me that ‘it’s not what you think’ crap. You actually went all Indecent Proposal on her? You’re lucky she only slapped you. I would have done a lot more.”

I had been lucky—I knew that. I now realized what a stupid idea it had been at the time, but it was the only option that I saw open to me. I had acted on the hope that Liz wasn’t the “do a lot more” type.

“Maria, again, it’s not what you think. It was strictly for strategic reasons. I knew that there was no way that Liz and I were going to be able to work together with the sexual…I mean tension that the two of us had, so I alleviated it.”

Maria didn’t say anything as she sat on my couch with a pensive look on her face. She sat for so long without saying anything that I started to worry a little. Maria was not known for being one to keep silent, nor was she known to keep her opinion to herself. And I was sure as hell that she had an opinion on what I had just told her, that she was just dying to voice. Suddenly, a surprised look washed across her face and she looked at me with eyes that were so wide with shock, they were practically bulging out of her head.

“Dios Mio!” she exclaimed. She was now standing on my couch with her legs spread wide apart. There was a look of pure excitement painted over her face. “You’re in love!”

The announcement came as a surprise to me. One: because I was certainly not in love. Two: because even if I were in love, how would Maria be able to make that deduction with the little bit of information I had given her. And three: because I was NOT in love.

“Maria that has got to be the craziest thing you have ever said to me.”

“It’s true. Oh guapo, you’re in love. I’m so happy for you.” Maria reached down for me and grabbed my hands and began swinging them back and forward in animated elation.

“Stop saying that. I am not in love. I just met her.”

Maria shrugged. “Haven’t you ever heard of ‘love at first sight’? It only takes one meeting for cupid’s arrow to strike.” Maria hopped off the couch and hugged me around the neck, almost squeezing me to death. I pried her off of me and pushed her back down on the couch next to me. I had to set her straight before she went any farther with this absurd notion of hers. “Maria, I am not in love with my partner, ok. I am not in love, comprenda? I–am–not–in–love!”

Maria wagged her finger at me. “Mucho protesta, mi amigo,” she said. Obviously I was not getting through to her.

“Why, why do you have to turn this into something that it’s not?” I asked.

“Why do you have to deny what it is?” she countered.

I groaned and ran my hand down my face exhaustedly. Oh to have this woman’s power to put a spin on everything that came out of my mouth. “Maria, for the final time. I am not in love with my partner.”

“You are in love, guapo. You’re just too estúpido to see it. It all makes since. Oh, and the way you are being so pueril about it—it’s so cute. Just like a little kindergartner.”

“What?” Like a kindergartner?

“Oh, mi pequeño guapo enamorarse!” Maria squealed and hugged me to her again. “You’re in love and you don’t even know it.”

I was getting sick of the sweet little nursery school teacher voice she was using on me. “Maria, I think it’s time for you to go, because you have truly lost it.”

“No, no Max I haven’t. Think about it. You admitted that you were attracted to her. The two of you have sexual tensión. And more important than any of those things, she was such a big distraction to you that she was affecting your work? Nothing gets between you and your job. You have to be in love with her.”

I wasn’t even going to examine that thought process to see if it was valid or not. I knew I was not in love with Liz, no matter what whacko conclusions Maria came up with that said I was. She didn’t even know the half of the situation. How could she make a call like that?

“Whatever, Maria, I think it’s time for you to go now,” I said as I rose up off of the couch. Maria stood up after me and walked over to the door behind me, all the while smiling like a kid that had just walked into an overstocked candy store.

“Oh you should invite her to dinner tomorrow, so that I can meet her.” She was obviously not going to let go of this incongruous idea that I was in love with someone I had known for less than forty-eight hours.

“I can’t.” Not that I would have anyway. “I’m going to Albuquerque tomorrow.”

“Albuquerque?” she asked.

“Yes, for the case that I’m working on. Kyle’s orders. We have to leave tomorrow night, and I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“We?” Maria lifted an intrigued brow.

Great, I should have just lied and said that I was offing myself tomorrow. “Me…and Liz.”

To Maria’s credit, and my shock, she didn’t gloat or even give me a smug look.

“You and Liz are going all the way to Albuquerque together?” she asked.

Maybe she was just a little smug.

Maria rubbed her hands together devilishly “Oh, I would pay mucho dinero to see that.”

“Well, so sorry, you’re not, and even if you did, it would be for nothing because nothing is going to happen there, and nothing is going to happen when we get back.” I opened my door and stood behind it, waiting for Maria to leave.

“Ok, I’m leaving, but guapo, just let me tell you one more thing.” She reached her hand up and patted my cheek softly. “You can’t deny the sun when it’s shining right in your face.” She patted my cheek again, this time with a little more force, but not enough to be counted as a slap. Then she turned around and left my apartment.

When I closed the door behind Maria I tried my hardest to let her words slide out of my head and off of my back. I knew that I wasn’t in love with Liz. I barely even knew her. Yet I couldn’t get Maria’s last words out of my head. I might not have been in love with Liz, but I did have the most peculiar feeling that something phenomenal was standing right in front of me, and I just couldn’t see it.

Eh, must have been the wind.

mary mary
abbs007
Alien_Friend
Janetfl
destinyc
begonia9508
chanks_girl
DaleStateShorty
keepsmiling7
mirae01

Thanks for reading guys. I promise parts will get longer once we get past chapter 12, I think it is. Just keep in mind I wrote this before I had my 10 page rule, so that’s why the chapters are so much shorter than what I write now.

N+JOY=ENJOY!

~Chad~
It was fifteen minutes to nine and I was still waiting for Max to come and pick me up so the two of us could get this grand adventure over with. However, I was not as angry as I should have been. It was no surprise to me that Max was petty enough to be an hour and forty-five minutes late without calling. I couldn’t wait to hear the excuse that he used for this. Or, I guess the more pertinent thing to say would be: I couldn’t wait to see what lie he used, period. But I’d known form the moment I’d issued the demand that there was no way he was going to show up on time. I finally had Max Evans figured out.

It wasn’t that he was a great and complicated mystery of a man. His mind didn’t work in ways that were any differently than any other member of his species. He was just a control freak. More importantly, he wasn’t used to not being in control of every situation, especially when it came to his job. That was the reason he’d never gotten along with any of his previous partners. He had major “It’s not me, it’s you” tendencies, only he applied this theory to every aspect of his job—probably his life too. He liked to have everything go according to his plan, down to the very last detail. If he saw that the situation couldn’t go the way that he intended, he pushed everyone and everything about that situation to the side. At least, that’s what he was doing with me.

He was definitely used to playing the role of the puppeteer. But I was no longer going to be playing his marionette. Before this trip was over, Max Evans was going to learn to let someone else pull the strings for a change. Willingly of forcibly, the choice was his.

As I walked into the living room to finish watching the TV movie I had been enjoying while I waited for Max, I heard a knock on the door. The firm, fast, three beat rap could be no one other than Max. Besides, he was the only person that I was expecting tonight.

I glanced down at my wristwatch. Eight fifty hmm, my guess had been that the clock would be pushing nine by the time that he arrived. I wasn’t too far off the mark. I opened the door and awaited the excuse he would use for this current show of contempt of my authority. When the door opened Max stood in my doorway looking down on me as if he were only a few minutes behind schedule. I folded my arms and waited.

Of all the insufferable things he could have done, Max Evans looked down at me and flashed a glittering smile. He was leaned idly on one shoulder against the doorjamb as if he owned the place, and just smiling like a little joker…well, a big joker.

“You’re late,” I said, grabbing my bag from the table next to the door where I had left it sitting. “But I suppose you don’t really care that it’s going to be past midnight by the time we get there, or that I’ve been waiting for you since seven. You—”

“So, I’m guessing my tardiness would give you an objection to allowing me to use your can.”

I had to ponder Max’s words over for a moment before I could answer. He wanted to use my…bathroom?

“You want to use my bathroom?” I hated the smug look that came across his face at my question.

“If it’s okay with you,” he answered.

I hadn’t expected him to want to come in. My original plan was to say nothing to him throughout the entire ride and pretend that he just happened to be in the car with me. But that plan was based on the idea that the two of us just walked straight to the car, no personal talk or contact whatsoever. Now Max wanted to use my bathroom? That opened up the door to a world of new possibilities. My bathroom was my bathroom. It was the most personal place in my entire apartment after my bedroom. It was where I showered and brushed my teeth. It was where I took long relaxing bubble baths when I was stressed out. It was where I…well did all the things that a person does in the bathroom. And Max Evans wanted to use it. My first thought was to say no. Hell, he was almost two hours late and in that time he hadn’t gotten the chance to use the bathroom? But I could think of no legitimate reason not to allow Max usage of my bathroom. Aside from me looking like a petty fool, it would be just rude for me to deny him.

“It’s the second door on the right.” I pointed down the small hallway that separated my bedroom and my living room.

Max nodded his head and stepped into my apartment. Without stopping to look around, he headed straight down the hall. Just as he opened the door, an extremely horrifying thought accrued to me. “Don’t leave the seat up!” I shouted as he disappeared into the bathroom, but I didn’t know if he had heard me or not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, the things you could learn about a woman from getting a glance at her toiletries. There’s nothing that says more about a woman than the type of soap, shampoo and conditioner she uses. Everything in Liz’s bathroom was purple—the soap, the towels, the shower curtain, the toilet seat cover—hell, even the plunger was purple. As I stood there I couldn’t see anything that was revealing about her aside from the fact that she hung her toilet paper the wrong way, and she liked things to be color coordinated. What woman didn’t? Anyway, that bit of information wasn’t exactly sensationalist.

I walked over to the purple sink, opened the medicine cabinet above it, and took a look inside. Advil, cough medicine, deodorant, a pack of disposable razors—purple of course. All things that were pretty much standard for any bathroom cabinet. There were also some purple bath beads and bubble bath, what a surprise. I was shocked the girl didn’t have purple toothpaste. Just to make sure, I looked over at the toothbrush and toothpaste holder on the sink top.

Colgate Whitening: Mint flavored.

Well at least she knew where to draw the line.

Wanting to remove myself from Barney’s Bathroom as quickly as possible, I did my business and went to wash my hands with the purple hand soap. I picked the bottle up off the sink and looked at it. “Lavender” it said. Okay, so apparently there was a difference.

I dried my hands with toilet paper. The “lavender” towels looked as if they had never been used before, like they were some sort of decoration or something. I didn’t need to add “demolition of ornament towels” to the list of things that Liz hated me for.

When I walked out of the bathroom Liz was sitting on the couch with her legs crossed. She had the look of impatience written all over her face.

“I didn’t defile your bathroom,” I said, raising my hands in a defensive position.

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Her tone was sharp with an undeniable spark of…well I can’t say it was anger, because she didn’t seem angry, but there was definitely something in her tone and it sure as hell didn’t endorse good spirits.

She stood up from the couch and picked her bag up off of the floor. “Are you ready?” she asked.

I looked down at the bag that she had hoisted over her shoulder. “Is that it?”

She looked down at her bag and then back to me.

“Yeah. Why?’”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just imagined that there would be…more.” The minute the words left my mouth I knew that it was the wrong thing to say.

“You thought I would be more high maintenance? Thought I would have half a dozen bags for you to carry down the steps, Max?”

I wished that I had just kept my mouth shut. I definitely would have if I had known my words were going to invoke this type of reaction from her.

“God, you’re so defensive. Why do you have to take everything I say as an insult?” Another dumb comment that I didn’t realize that I shouldn’t have made until it was too late. Liz eyes bulged and she looked livid.

“Oh I don’t know,” she said “Maybe it’s because you have absolutely no respect for me as an officer of R.I.S.K. Or maybe because you think I’m incompetent because I’m a woman. Maybe because you haven’t said one nice thing to me since we’ve met. Or maybe because you suggested that we sleep together!”

There was that awkward silence that tended to flow after a passionate outburst. It seemed that since meeting me, Liz tended to have a lot of those. She turned around without saying another word to me and headed for the door.

“Come on, let’s go. We’re already late,” she turned around and looked back at me. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

She didn’t know it, but I was already regretting having made the decision to show up late.

“It’s going to be past midnight by the time we get there.”

“Alright,” I said as I followed her out of her apartment. I stood against the wall as she locked everything up. I started to follow her down the hall. I stopped when a thought accrued to me. Liz didn’t seem to notice.

“Liz,” I called out to her.

“What is it? We have to go,” she replied angrily.

I just looked at her and smiled. “I said you were gorgeous.”

The look of confusion playing across her face told me that she obviously had no idea what I was talking about.

“You said that I haven’t said a single nice thing to you since we’ve met. That’s not true. Before, at the station.” I started to walk towards her. “I believe my exact words were ‘Damn you’re gorgeous.’ That’s a compliment.” Actually my exact words were ‘Damn you’re gorgeous when you’re angry,’ but I thought it would be better to leave that out.

I couldn’t read Liz’s reaction, but I hoped that it wasn’t anger. There had already been enough of that between the two of us. More so, on her end of the spectrum than on mine, but that might have been due to my own…uh let’s say, orchestration.

Liz turned back around and continued to walk down the hallway, not giving me a hint as to what her mood was. Happy, sad, mad, glad, I was just going to have to grin and bear it. This was going to be the longest three hours of my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The car ride was relatively quiet at first. I should have known that it wasn’t going to stay that way. The ride was only supposed to be three hours. Frankly, I could have made it there in a couple of hours on my own, but I hadn’t suggested this to Kyle. He always had some ulterior motive. He was just sneaky that way. But he tended to get real particular if someone questioned said motives, so I tried to avoid doing that. Although, sometimes he was as easy to read as a Japanese instruction manual, and I sure as hell didn’t read Japanese. I could only hope that his motives were related to my…I mean our case, and didn’t have anything to do with my relationship with my new partner. Knowing Kyle, it was most likely the latter.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

I mourned the death of the sweet silence between the two of us. Liz had the power to make me say things that were argument worthy. Actually, it seemed that with Liz, every word that came out of my mouth was argument worthy. I would have much preferred the strained silence.

“Is there a problem, Ms. Parker?”

“Well it’s just that this is supposed to be a three to four hour drive.”

I sighed. “We’ve only been driving for two.”

“Yeah, but shouldn’t we be closer to Albuquerque by now?”

“We’re taking the road less traveled,” I explained, hoping that she would leave it at that.

“Why?”

Of course she wouldn’t leave it at that.

“I want to avoid high traffic.” I didn’t take my eyes off of the road, but out of the corner of them I could see her glance down at the clock. Great, now she was going to make a point.

“It’s eleven o’clock at night and we’re in the desert. What high traffic?”

I shrugged my shoulders causally. “I have road rage, and other cars make me edgy.”

I could see Liz’s mouth gape open in horrified shock in my peripherals vision. So much for having a sense of humor. “It was just a joke.” I turned to her and quirked my lip up in a half smile. Maybe it would lighten her mood as well.

Her mouth eased and she relaxed against the back of her seat. “Well, it wasn’t funny.”

No, she just didn’t have a sense of humor.

“Excuse me!”

Damn, I’d said that out loud.

“Nothing.”

“I do too have a sense of humor.” Her voice didn’t come out angry as I thought it would. Actually, she sounded rather…pouty. I glanced over at her for a second. Her arms were folded under her breast, making her look…breastful…but I tried not to pay attention to that. Even though she was frowning at me, she looked…cute. I decided to test the waters.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said teasingly.

“You know, you’re not exactly Mr. Crack-A-Joke either,” she said.

“Maybe not, but I know how to laugh at a good joke when I hear it,” I answered back.

She laughed. “You think that was a good joke?”

“You thought it wasn’t?” I countered.

“No!” she said giving my ego a real boost. “It wasn’t even a joke. It was stupid, and the delivery was just terrible.”

“Terrible?” Now wait a minute.

“You didn’t smile or laugh, or even change your tone a little bit. How was I supposed to know you were joking?”

“That’s the beauty of the joke,” I explained. “It’s called sarcasm.”

She smiled, but didn’t respond. The two of us continued to drive in silence for a minute. That hadn’t been too bad. Cordial, not belligerent…well…belligerent, but in a good way. I looked back over at Liz and she was looking at me. Her hand was placed over her mouth and her eyes were bright. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn that she was laughing.

“What?” I asked.

“It was a terrible joke,” she said. And yes, she was definitely laughing.

I didn’t know whether or not to be offended that she was ridiculing my noble attempt to make this as pleasant as possible, or be relieved that my attempt had worked, however inadvertently.

I decided to be relieved.

“You can tell a better joke, Madame Humorless? I’d like to hear it.” Again, she didn’t reply. But I could tell that she was thinking. I rolled my eyes.

“I do have a joke actually. I think you’ll find it extremely funny.”

“Will I?” I challenged. I didn’t believe it for a moment but I decided to humor her. “Fine then, let’s hear it.”

”Okay,” she said. She turned in her seat so that she was facing me. I couldn’t wait to hear this.

“So, one night a police officer was staking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible DUI violations.”

“A cop joke?” I asked. “How original.”

“Excuse, me, I was telling a joke and someone interrupted me. Maybe I should start again.” Her tone was light but I didn’t want to risk pissing her off again, so I motioned for her to continue.

“As I was saying, a cop was staking out this rowdy bar for DUIs. At closing time, he sees this guy stumble out of the bar. The guy trips on the curb and tries his keys on five different cars before he can find his. When he finally finds his car, he sits in the front seat fumbling around with his keys for several minutes.”

“So while the cop is watching this idiot, all the other patrons are leaving the bar and driving off. Then, finally the guy starts his engine and begins to pull away. The cop was waiting for him, so as soon as he pulls onto the street, he pulls him over, reads him his rights and administers the breathalyzer.”

“Right…and?”

“And…the results show a reading of 0.0.”

I lifted my brow in question.

Liz smiled

“The cop gives the guy a puzzled look. Much like that,” she adds as she points to me. “Then he asks the driver what the hell is going on. And the driver replies: ‘Tonight I'm the designated decoy.’”

I laughed…but only on the inside. The joke was funny, but I was a sore loser. On the outside I just looked at Liz and frowned. “What’s a designated decoy?” I made sure to keep a baffled look on my face so that Liz would think I truly didn’t understand the joke.

“Shut up, that was funny,” she said as she lightly tapped my arm.

“It was alright,” I relented.

“I know,” she answers smugly.

Well this was an unexpected change. And here I thought that this trip was going to be a living hell. It was actually surpassing my expectation.

“So who told you that joke?” I asked, trying to keep the air between us light.

“Alex,” she answered offhandedly. “He got me a calendar with a cop joke of the day on it. He loves that kind of stuff.”

“Oh, so you and he are pretty close, huh?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, when I came on last year he showed me the ropes. He’s a really great guy.”

When she came on last year.

It was funny. Liz and I had been working in the same building for a year, and I had only been vaguely aware of her existence. Now she was my partner, and it was as if she had just come to life. I’d been working with Alex for several years and I barely knew him. Honestly, aside from Kyle, there was no one that I worked with that I could really say I knew. I didn’t believe in being all buddy-buddy with all of my coworkers, but there was a fine line between a private person and a recluse. I was coming to discover that I was balancing on the edge of that line.

“So, you and him are just friends?”

Liz gave me an investigative look. “Yeah, we’re just friends,” she answered.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just continued to drive, paying attention only to the road in front of me. Liz didn’t say anything either. It seemed that our moment was over.

“So what about you?”

Or not. “What about me, what?”

She shrugged. “You known, do you have any close friends like that? You know, people that send you those annoying chain emails, or tell you silly jokes. Stuff like that?”

I shrugged. “I have normal friends.” Well, Maria wasn’t exactly normal. “Kind of,” I added.

“And they don’t do things like that? Tell you jokes that you don’t think are really all that funny, or leave stupid messages on your voicemail?”

I shrugged again. “I don’t have voicemail. I’m either there or I’m not. And I only have a work email address, and I use that for work.” Wow, that sounded pathetic, even to my own ears.

Liz made a face at me. “Oh, well never mind then.” If I didn’t know better I would have sworn that I could almost hear a bit of pity in her voice.

Once again the two of us sat in silence. Me driving, and Liz just in the passenger’s seat doing her thing. There were several times when I could feel her looking at me, and I almost thought that she was going to say something, but the silence would resume.

We continued on in this fashion for another hour and a half before we reached Albuquerque. By that time, Liz had fallen asleep in the seat beside me. I couldn’t blame her. After all, it was well past midnight and it had been my fault that we had gotten a late start. I glanced over at her quickly. Her right arm was leaning against the window and her head was resting against it. Her left arm was placed firmly across her lap. I could see her chest rise and fall as she breathed heavily in her sleep. She looked peaceful to say the least. It was kind of funny. This had been the most civil the two of us had been towards each other since meeting and half of the time Liz had been sleep. I guess we worked better as a team when one of us was unconscious.

When we arrived at the place we were staying at I leaned over the seat and tapped Liz on her shoulder to wake her up. She moved around a little and repositioned herself so that she was leaning on her other arm. She then mumbled something in her sleep that sounded a lot like ‘What’.

“Liz, we’re here, you have to wake up,” I said, giving her another slight nudge. She lifted off the seat and gave me a groggy stare.

“Come on Liz. The sooner you get up the sooner you can go to bed,” I reminded her as I urged her to pick up the pace.

“Well, you know,” she rubbed her eyes as she spoke. “If you had come to get me on time I would already be in bed.” It looked like the Liz that remained in a constant state of anger towards me had returned. Too bad. I was really starting to appreciate not having been yelled at in the past two hours.

I sighed; I guess our temporary truce was over.

“How about I just take this stuff in while you wait here and try to wake yourself up?” I suggested.

“That’s fine,” she said.

I opened my door and got out of the car, then walked around it to the trunk. I opened it and fished my bag out then retrieved the folder that had the keys to this place. After finding the folder I opened it up and pulled out the key and headed for the front door.

As I walked inside the place I couldn’t help but notice how small it was. I mean it was smaller than my god damn apartment. I walked around the room, getting a better view of the place. There was a kitchen. There was a bathroom. Well that’s good. At least we could piss and eat. Then I walked into the bedroom and sat my bad down on the bed…

The one bed.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

There was only one bed. Of course there was only one bed. A fact I bet my good buddy Kyle was more than well aware of. Kyle also knew that Liz and I were supposed to live in this place together for who knows how long with only one bed. That sneaky son-of-a-bitch.

I couldn’t wait to tell Liz.

destinyc
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DaleStateShorty

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I’m glad we’re all having fun. So as some of you know, today is my birthday, and since I’ll be receiving a lot today, I thought it was only fitting that I do a little giving too. So here is the next part.

N + JOY!

~Chad~
There’s nothing like sleeping with your head propped up by a duffle bag to get your blood really flowing in the wrong direction. It was almost as uncomfortable as sleeping on a lumpy couch with nothing but a thin sheet that your partner had so graciously handed to you, and a hope and prayer that you didn’t end up falling off.

As I sat up from my makeshift bed I got the same sensation that I used to get in grade school whenever I had gotten into a little scuffle with one of my classmates. Only this time—since my opponent was an uncomfortable couch, and not an actual person, I didn’t have the added bonus of knowing that I had given just as good as I had gotten. My arms and legs felt like four heavy appendage sticking out of my body, and my mid back ached like someone had just smashed a chair across it. My shoulders were stiff as a board, and my ass was so numb I wasn’t even sure if it was still there.

I sat up carefully and stretched my arms and legs out wide, praying that I didn’t get a cramp in them. I twisted my back from side to side in an effort to release some of the tension and worked my shoulders back and forth, trying to work out the stiffness. I waited until I was sure that there was enough blood in my veins to sustain the rest of my body, and then stood up. My ass still felt nonexistent, but there was nothing I could do about it, save for wait for the numbness to abate.

“Sleep well?”

The bedroom door swung open and Liz walked out into the main room looking like she had just slept on a heavenly cloud. The contrast in our sleeping arrangements was more than palpable. She was already fully dressed and slipping a dark gray blazer on over the white shirt she wore. I couldn’t help but notice that the shirt in question had a neckline that scooped down very teasingly. Accompanied with her teasingly low cut shirt she wore a pair of black jeans that made her ass look particularly grabble.

I’m not sure that Liz would have gotten a big kick out of the fact that I was quite shamelessly ogling her posterior, but hell, I’d slept on a lumpy couch last night; I deserved something for my troubles. Actually, Liz had taken the one bed thing rather well. Well, that wasn’t completely true. I guess it would be more apt to say she’d taken it better than I’d thought she would.

My first thoughts had been that she would immediately object to sharing anything with me, and make a huge fuss about it…and she had…but, after she’d calmed down and realized that there was nothing that she could do to change our situation—unless she planned on springing for a new bed—she’d accepted her fate. Too bad it was a fate that had wound up with me sleeping on the couch. It was definitely something I never would have agreed to had it not been for my damn sense of guilt over that stupid move I had made earlier. Of course, I’d told Liz that it was my chivalric nature that prevented me from denying her the bed. She’d immediately burst into a fit of laughter, and I’d spent the night getting cozy with the couch. Or as cozy as I could get anyway.

I rolled my shoulders one last time as I watched Liz cross the room to come sit on the couch with me. “So how’d you sleep?” she repeated her question. “Nice and comfy?”

“Oh yeah, like a baby in its mother’s womb,” I said, answering her question. I fluffed my bag for emphases. “You know, you could have told me that you were up. At least I could have got a little bit of time on the bed.”

Liz shrugged as she reached down and slipped her shoes on her feet. “Yeah, I could have,” she answered in a snide tone that told me her lack of informing was not in the least accidental. She gave me a look that I couldn’t quite determine and then tied the straps on her little shoes in a fashion that was full of innocent and dainty femininity.

Seeing that my plight was lost on her I turned around and started to head for the bathroom. It was all I could do to hope a hot shower would help with my mood.

“Oh Max.” I turned around as Liz called out to me, drawing my attention back to her. “I may have used up all of the hot water.” The words slipped from her mouth as if the matter were a minor thing that I need not really be angry with her about, and as I watched her expression she appeared to be contrite, but there was something in her tone that just screamed ‘ha-ha’ in a way that put Nelson Muntz to shame.

I looked at her sitting there on the couch. I could tell she was trying to look innocent, but she was way too pleased with herself to pull it off. Reviewing the occurrences of the last few minutes of my life, I determined, after considerable deliberation, that the devil was sitting inside of that small body, wearing that little white shirt, those little black shoes, and those tight little black jeans.

“You’re a harsh woman, Liz Parker,” I said, dreading the cold shower that was awaiting me. When I reached to door to the bathroom I turned around to face her once again. “A really harsh women,” I repeated.

And as I closed the door to the bathroom I could have sworn I heard the sound of laughter coming from the other side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dana Wilcox lived in a large suburban cul-de-sac located off of Main Street. The place looked inviting enough on the outside. The houses were big and they seemed to gleam from the reflection the sun cast against their crisp white paint. All of the houses contained nice little family cars situated nicely in their driveways awaiting one errand or another. There were children’s toys outside in front of some of the houses, as was normal for any other suburban residential area. But as Max and I pulled into the driveway of the Wilcox residence, I was suddenly overcome by a sense that was unfamiliar to me.

In a few short moments the two of us would be standing face to face with the only eye whiteness to come forth in the entire case thus far. We would sit down in Ms. Wilcox’s living room and ask her to relive the horrible events of witnessing her own brother’s murder. Then we would take whatever information we could gather from her and see where it took us. As horrible as it sounded, it gave me a somewhat cathartic feeling.

This was the first real lead that had risen in the entire case. Even though there was no real assurance that it would pan out, or that Dana would be able to tell us anything helpful, I still felt a since of relief that we would finally be closer, if only a little bit, to figuring this all out. Suddenly I felt giddy and nervous at the same time.

When Max stopped the car I felt as he turned in the driver’s seat and cast a look in my direction. I wasn’t sure if he could read my feelings, but if I had to make a guess on it I would say that he most likely could. He opened his mouth, prepared to say something, but I stopped him, already having a pretty good idea of what he was going to say.

“Max, I’m not going to freak out. I know this case backwards and forwards. I know what questions to ask, and what not to ask. You and I both know that I wouldn’t be here if Kyle didn’t believe that I could handle this just as efficiently as you could on your own, so just do me a favor and try not to treat me like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Max looked at me, not saying a word, and again I wondered what was going through that mind of his. I hoped that Max had not had any thoughts of undermining me while we questioned Ms. Wilcox. If those were his intentions I hoped that my little speech put the thought out of his mind.

“I was just going to tell you to wipe the lipstick off of your teeth before we went in.” His lips turned up in an amused grin as he reached in front of me and let down the mirror.

As I stared horrified into the mirror at the stain of lipstick that was mocking me from my own teeth I didn’t think I could have possibly been more embarrassed than I was at that moment.

Here I was thinking that Max was going to think that I was an incompetent louse and giving him some stupid speech, practically selling myself to prove to him that I’m not, and that hadn’t even been what he was thinking of me to begin with. Even more mortifying was that now Max probably thought that I was nervous. Now more than ever, I wished that I’d just kept my mouth closed.

I heard Max chuckle under his breath and watched as he leaned forward and reached inside of the glove box to pull out a pack of tissues. I could feel my skin turning all sorts of shades of red as I took the pack from him and wiped the ignominy from my teeth. When I was finished I balled the napkin up and stuffed it in my pocket. I didn’t dare look up at Max.

“Come on, let’s go.” I still didn’t look up, but I could tell from the sound of Max’s voice that he was most definitely smiling, if not laughing.

Max got out of the car and closed the door, and I hurriedly followed him, wanting to focus on something else as quickly as possible. The two of us walked up the few steps that led to Dana Wilcox’s front porch. I pushed in the little white button, and waited for the door to be answered.

As the door swung opened I prepared myself to greet Ms. Wilcox, but stopped short when no one stood in the doorway.

“Hi,” a soft voice said from below us. I looked down to see that there was a small boy standing at the door. Both of his fists were clamped around the doorknob, indicating that it had taken all of the strength in his little body to pull the heavy thing open.

“Hello,” I immediately answered back, changing my expression from the professional one that I had worn in expectation of dealing with Dana Wilcox, to a friendlier one suited for dealing with this child.

The little boy smiled up at me, and started to twist back and forth on the doorknob. “I’m Charlie, are you Jehovah’s Witnesses?” his voice seemed to rise with excitement at the thought of it.

Charlie! Max and I looked at one another and I could tell that he was thinking the same thing that I was. This must have been Charlie Wilcox’s son.

Before I could answer I watched as Max smiled fondly at the little boy and knelt down until he was on the same level as the boy. “Sorry Charlie, we’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Max said to the little boy, sounding like he was just as disappointed by the fact as Charlie appeared to be.

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” Charlie said, going from disappointment too not really caring so much in that way that only little children could change emotions so quickly.

“Charlie!” A scared shout came from the direction of inside of the house. I looked up just in time to see a woman approaching the door, her face lined with fear.

“What did I tell you about opening the door to strangers without me?” The woman, who I now recognized as Dana Wilcox, placed her arms around Charlie’s shoulders and drew him close to her.

“But, Auntie Dana, I wanted to see if they were Jehovah’s Witnesses,” he said as if that explained all. I watched as Dana’s expression softened and she ruffled the little boy’s hair. I didn’t blame her for her fear. After having witnessed her brother’s death, it was no wonder she was protective towards his son.

“I’m sorry, can I help you?” Dana asked, turning her attention to Max and myself.

Before I could answer Max had already pulled out his badge and was showing it to the woman. “I’m Detective Evans, and this is Detective Parker. We were sent over to ask you a few questions regarding your brother.”

Dana’s face immediately hardened again and she clutched the boy a little bit closer to herself. “Oh, yes, they said they would be sending someone over. I didn’t realize it would be so quickly, please come in.” Dana backed away from the door and motioned for us to enter. The little boy she had been holding tightly to her leg squirmed to be free of her and I watched as she hesitantly released him.

“Auntie, can I go play outside?” he asked seeming to have already forgotten that Max and I were even there. Dana shook her head at the little boy. “No sweetheart, lunch will be ready soon.” She looked up at us and I could see the sense of worry play across her face. Then, Dana looked down back at Charlie. “Why don’t you go and play in your room until then.”

He seemed to disagree with that idea at first, but then a look of excitement crossed his face as if he had suddenly remembered something in his room he could do that was more interesting than going outside to play. He turned around and ran off in the direction that I could only assume was his room and ran away.

Once the boy was gone Dana looked at us and gave us a smile that I could only describe as sad. I felt a sorrowful feeling in the pit of my stomach, knowing that what she was about to tell us was not going to be easy for her to tell, or pretty for us to hear, but I strengthened my resolve by holding strongly to the thought that because of Ms. Wilcox’s cooperation, we would be closer to finally solving this case.

“I’m truly sorry about that, he’s terribly interested in meeting real life Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Dana said. I just smiled at her and shook my head, letting her know that no explanation was necessary.

Max on the other hand jumped straight to business. “Is there somewhere that we could go and talk?”

I wanted to reprehend Max for his rudeness, but I kept silent. I had already given him my speech on how I didn’t want to be undermined by him; it was definitely not my place to do so to him. Aside from that, it would not be good if the two of us were to be in disagreement in front of our, thus far, only witness.

“Yes, please follow me.”

I cast a quick glance over to Max, and he looked over at me. It was only for a brief moment, but in that small amount of time I could see in his eyes that he was assessing me, making sure that I was ready. I gave him a brief nod, indicating that I understood what he was silently communicating to me, and that I was more than ready. He turned away from me and started to follow Ms. Wilcox as she led us into the next room.

I followed him.

Hey Guys,

Regrettably I don’t have a new chapter for you all today and I’m not sure when I will be able to get one out. I won’t have my computer for a while and right now I’m borrowing one until I can get mine back. As sucky as that is, I wanted to let everyone know that I’m still doing an author’s chat on Monday the 29th so if you’re particularly upset at my lack of updating, feel free to yell at me then.

Time and place are in my sig, and I hope you all can be there. I look forward to chatting with you then.

~Chad~