𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑, 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧

Chapter Five

"Is he coming?" Tarra approached Joe.

"I think he'll be here sooner than you think," Tarra was curious about the way Joe said that. But she knew he wouldn't explain further.

"Hey, Captain. How are you this morning?" Tarra greeted Captain Singh as he entered the store.

"I'm good," he looked around and realized Barry wasn't there. He sighed, "Where's Allen?"

"He's on his way," was all Tarra said, before turning to Joe and Eddie. "So, what've we got?"

Joe opened the notepad in his hand and skimmed the writing. "Perp made off with a bunch of handguns. At least six Glock-18s fitted with extra ammunition magazines."

Tarra let out a short breath, "Wow. Somebody's looking to do a lot of bad."

At that moment, Barry walked into the store from the door behind them, apologizing.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late," Tarra looked up at him and noticed the tag on his jacket.

So he stood me up to shop? Tarra thought.

She grabbed the tag, and looked at him, "You paid over two hundred dollars for a jacket?" He looked confused when she said that, until he looked where her hand was, and she pulled the tag off the jacket.

"Oh," he laughed nervously," I was going so fast this morning, I didn't even notice," Tarra responded with an eye roll, and one else was amused either.

Joe gave him his gloves, and Barry went away to look around at the scene, and Eddie showed the detectives and Captain a tablet.

"I downloaded the surveillance footage of the video camera," Eddie explained showing them the video.

The guilty party of one is shown—face covered, shooting the victim, and then coming towards the camera and shooting it, the screen goes black. "Looks like one perp."

Tarra looked at Barry, who was looking at the ground and walking on steps like he was practicing a dance technique. He looked up from the ground and said, "Footage may only show one, but it was six guys. Look at the tracks. They're all crossing each other." Barry explained.

"Six sets of footprints. Six guns were stolen. That means we're looking for a crew, right?" Tarra understood Barry's reasoning.

"Huh. Weird. The shoes; look like they're all the same size. Men's 10s, I'd guess," Barry was redeeming himself today for being such a good CSI, until he said, "Just like you, captain," when he realized how weird that sounded he added quickly, "Not that you're a suspect, sir."

Both Eddie and Captain Singh weren't amused, they left to do other tasks. Joe looked embarrassed while Tarra was amused; she only got second-hand embarrassment.

"Well, I have to go. Hope it was worth it ditching me to go shopping, Barry," when she said that, Barry looked shocked as he finally remembered that he was supposed to hang out with his best friend today. Before he could say anything—or even react, Tarra was out the door. On her way to visit her sister and get ready for the gala that Iris invited her to.

Tarra went to Jitters to see her sister and Iris, who at the moment was just hanging out there, already in her pink dress for the gala.

After talking to Arden for a while, the two best friends went to the precinct, where Tarra put her dress in her locker. On the way to the precinct, Iris talked about how she invited Barry along because translate the Science language so she can write about it in for her class. Iris also mentioned she blamed both Tarra and Barry for going to Journalism school, which she loves to bring up.