Conflict of Interest

Chapter Forty Seven

For @traceybee, who had a very shitty day. It can only get better from here, my friend. Enjoy!

Xoxoxo
Railene

***

Carrie

"McVale knows better than to leave prints," Clapp said honestly we walked down the hall of my apartment that afternoon. "She's already been processed."

"She also knows better than to violate a TRO when she's out on bail for a thirteen-count indictment," Kim purported. "So you think we're just being paranoid, right?"

"Well..."

"Well?" I questioned.

"Whoever iced Saenz left your door open just a crack," he reminded Kim. "Looks like MO. You check for signs of forced entry?"

"The usual, but on my door it just looked like a couple scratches in the steel around the keyhole. I don't know that this would be any different."

"And don't you find it just a little bit suspect that absoluetly nothing else is out of place?" I added. "I mean, if she got into my apartment last night, she could have killed us both, but she didn't."

"Us both?" he repeated with a dumb smile.

"Shut up."

Clapp exhaled, inspecting the door and shaking his head. "Definitely forced entry. Amateur forced entry, for that matter. Look at the keyhole. Widened, like the perp used a screwdriver or something." He rose back up to face me. "Carrie, Carrie, Carrie. What is it with you that attracts weirdos?"

"I'd ask what it is about you that attracts no one, but I don't have all day."

"Well, Carrie, while we're being snippy," he said. "I hear you haven't been cleared for work yet, so looks like you do have all day, now doesn't it?"

"You didn't get cleared?" Kim asked, this being the first she'd heard of it. "Why?"

"Search me," I said, equally blindsided. "He's concerned because he thinks I'm incapable of feeling emotion."

Kim and her partner both laughed and simultaneously repeated, "Thinks."

"Anyway, it's only been one meeting. That's normal, right?"

"I'm not one to speak to what is and isn't normal," was all she said.

"I'll get the CSRU down here to dust for prints," Clapp decided at once. "Hayden, get into contact with McVale's bail enforcement agent. And Carrie, if your prints aren't already on file you're going to have to get down to the precinct and get them rolled so we can weed them out of the lot. I'll be back in five."

He disappeared down the hallway then, already having begun to dial.

Kim collapsed against a wall. "This sucks."

"Really? I thought it was kind of fun."

She gave one of those half-hearted sarcasm laughs before sticking her tongue out at me like we were kids.

"Mature."

"Yeah? Nice scarf."

I looked down at her through narrowed eyes. "Shut up."

"Seriously, that's what I did in high school when I came home with mysterious marks on my neck. You know you don't live with your mother anymore, right?"

"That's not what it's about," I argued. "I just...don't like looking at it."

"Aw," she said with false sympathy. "An imperfection."