Los Angeles greeted Victoria Hale with the smell of ozone and other people's problems. The July sun was melting the asphalt, making the air feel like warm syrup and the city itself like a dump of movie sets for a film someone forgot to turn off. She stepped out of her rented Ford with a look that suggested the car owed her a significant sum and slammed the door with unjustified violence. Her black sunglasses hid her eyes but didn't hide the expression on her face: "I'm too cool for this shit, but I don't have a choice."
"Welcome to Los Angeles," barked the officer at the entrance, adjusting his belt with a taser. He was young but had already managed to grow a mustache that made him look like a retired sea lion. "All the usual suspects are here. You're federal, I take it?"
"Former." Victoria didn't slow down. "CIA. Analyst and operative. But you can call me 'the savior of this crappy precinct' if that's easier for you."
The officer choked on air and silently pointed to the door.
Inside it was cooler, but it smelled of coffee, sweat, and disappointment. Victoria followed her escort through a maze of hallways, casually noting the stains on the tiles and the "Wanted" poster with rusty staples. She'd seen worse departments. In Kabul, their temporary base was in a building that had been shelled with mortars twice—and even that had been cozier.
"In here," the officer said, pushing open the door to the briefing room.
Inside, people in uniform and plainclothes were already crowded around. Victoria counted eight police officers, including the captain—a woman around forty with a determined stare and a flawlessly pressed shirt—and one grim-faced guy standing by the window with his arms crossed, clearly less happy to see her than she was to be here. That last fact instantly boosted her mood by a solid three percent: finally, someone was honest about the situation.
The captain stepped forward, gave Victoria a head-to-toe once-over, and nodded.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she began in a crisp, commanding voice. "This is Agent Victoria Hale. She'll be assisting us in the serial murder investigation. Agent Hale comes from Langley, from the Special Investigations Division. She has an impressive track record. I'm Captain Zoe Andersen. Here, I set the tone, and you work for results."
"Former agent," Victoria corrected, taking off her glasses and hanging them on the collar of her black jacket. "And I'm not here out of love for the craft. I've been exiled. But since I'm here, let's pretend we're one team, and I don't want to shoot myself out of boredom in the first week."
A murmur rippled through the room. Captain Andersen clenched her jaw but said nothing. Some officers looked at Victoria with interest, some with mild offense. And the grim-faced guy by the window snorted. Loudly and entirely unself-consciously.
"Great," he said in a low voice. "Another shining example of the feds cleaning house and dumping their trash on us. Welcome to Los Angeles, 'former' agent. Here we don't wear three-thousand-dollar suits and we don't say 'crappy precinct' to the faces of people who risk their asses every day."
Victoria slowly turned to face him. She sized him up: shoulders broader than her own combat experience, a square jaw, eyes—color irrelevant—burning with such pure, unadulterated contempt it was almost heartwarming.
"You must be the sergeant who failed the psychological stability test three times," she said flatly. "Or just the local quartermaster in charge of bad moods."
"Sergeant Tim Bradford," he introduced himself in a tone that left no doubt: his name was to be remembered only for cursing. "And this is me in a good mood. If you last a week, you'll see me in a bad one."
"I'm looking forward to it so much I could start the countdown."
Captain Andersen cleared her throat, calling for order. The other officers exchanged glances that said, "And the show begins." The woman with detective insignia, sharp-eyed and watchful, smiled at the corner of her mouth—she seemed more amused than alarmed by the exchange. Next to her stood a young woman in uniform—a rookie, judging by her bewildered but eager gaze. And another guy, also a rookie, with a face that said, "I just wanted to be a firefighter, but life had other plans."
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FanfictionA former CIA agent is sent to a Los Angeles police station to help investigate a series of murders. Her partner is Sergeant Tim Bradford. From the very first moment, they hate each other. Sarcasm, barbs, and arguments until they're hoarse. But the m...
