When the paramedics showed up for the kid, so did a few other officers, including lieutenant Samantha Codler and her “friend” Detective Holmes. Yeah, “Holmes”. I always had to laugh that she was one of the worst detectives I'd ever seen but had the same name as the world's greatest!
“Alright, Officer.... Carnegie?” Holmes shrill voice rose over the muted cries of the kid I'd shot.
“The very same, Detective!” I replied snarkily.
I seriously hated the bitch. Not because she was 'close' to the lieutenant, no that'd just be cliché and stupid. Wasted hate, really. No, I hated her because she had this holier than thou attitude towards guys like me. It came from her not being a native of this city, I think. She came from some podunk little town in Colorado – or at least she claimed to – where people 'treated people like people'. Why she ever moved to this city was beyond me.
“Don't get snide with me, Carnegie. I wanna know why you shot that kid in the back, right the hell now!”
She sounded like she was constipated, the way she forced that anger, I had to chuckle. Dex was off to the side, covering his mouth while watching, trying not to laugh himself. The lieutenant placed a hand on Holmes' shoulder, ushering her to the side. Of course, it shut Holmes up, but also made her young-ish face scrunch up, wrinkling the skin at her brow and her nose. She looked like a God damn pig!
“It's simple, really,” I said with a stupid grin on my face.
I really needed to learn how to keep a straight face while talking with Holmes.
“The kid took a few potshots at me and I returned fire! Don't believe me, just take a look at my shoulder!”
I pointed out the singed hole in my uniform. Holmes face immediately changed from one of constipated pig anger to confusion and curiosity. Like she'd never seen a bullet hole in a piece of fabric before. I could see her working things out in her head, forcing all of those too-small-to-work cogs to clunk together in something that might resemble thought.
“Here's this,” I said, handing over the riddle I'd found to the lieutenant. “It fell out of the kid's pocket. Figure it might be important.”
The lieutenant took a quick look at the paper, mumbling what I could only guess was the riddle. She held it for a few more moments before passing it on to Holmes who did roughly the same. Only she chuckled and read the name signed at the bottom aloud.
“A. F. Reinde? The hell kind of name is Reinde?”
“I think,” I started. “It's meant to be an anagram or alias of some kind for 'a friend'.”
Holmes smiled and handed the paper back to the lieutenant.
“Very good, Carnegie! Y'know, you'd make a good detective yourself!”
'Yeah, over my dead body', I wanted to say. But hey, I'd thought about it before. Detectives got more pay than I did. They got more time off than I did. And they did less dirty work than I did. Sounds like a decent job, right? Not to me. I liked the chance to dress in plain clothes and still carry the badge, sure, but I just thought I did more good out on the streets than not. People tend to not do things when a uniform's close by.
Instead of being sarcastic or rude with her, I shrugged and popped out my cigarettes. Getting shot at has a way of fraying your nerves and I seriously needed a stress reliever right now. Ms. Bitch wasn't helping matters, either.
“So what's it mean?” I asked after taking a long drag of the cigarette.
The lieutenant spoke up after having spent the last few moments wandering back and forth, her hand on her chin.
“Well, I'd say it's the delusional ramblings of a madman, myself, but the answer is plain as day; a human.”
“A human, huh? Well, that narrows things down a bit.” I mumbled. The lieutenant glared at me. Hey, I respected her, but I knew in my gut that there was something to the riddle and “A human” just didn't cut it for an answer. It didn't.... fit somehow!
“Sorry, Lieutenant.” I apologized. “Still a bit woozy from the whole deal.”
“Yeah, alright Carnegie. We'll finish this later. Did the EMTs check out that shoulder?”
“No ma'am. Shoulder's fine, don't worry about it. I've had worse!”
“Even so, I don't need to explain to the higher-ups why there's a cop running around with a broken shoulder blade on my watch.”
***
I kept running over the riddle the kid had on him for a while after that. The kid had said in a statement that he'd been sent after me, specifically. To “get my attention”. That, of course, made me too close to the issue, which meant me and Dex were pushed back onto street duty quicker than you could say “Freeze”.
Before I knew it, It'd been an entire week since the whole deal. While Dex sat in the driver's seat of our patrol car, I relaxed next to him, looking out into the skies. They were cloudy, and looked like the sky was confused. All of these different shades of gray and white and black. Perfect day for how I was feeling about that damn Riddle. Everything I thought about came back to that blasted thing! For the life of me, I couldn't think of an answer. Everyone else said it might've just been some delusional rambling that the kid had scrawled down, but the kid said he didn't remember any kind of riddle or piece of paper! So what did that mean? To me, it meant that someone out there wasn't just out to get me, it meant they wanted to test my patience and make sure that I knew who they were.
If I passed this 'test'.
“Hey, Dex,” I asked. “What do you think about that riddle from last week?”
Dex sighed and shook his head. It might've been the fifth time I'd asked him that question in the past three days. I knew his answer, already, but I was just asking for the sake of asking at this point.
“It's nothin', Jack! Just a buncha bullshit that crackpot kid wrote down!”
“But what about that whole deal that he was sent to 'get my attention' or whatever?”
“You honestly believe the jackass who tried to kill you?”
“And you wouldn't?”
Dex was quiet for a while. I could see that he was thinking about what I'd said. I'd never thought to bring up that logic previously, and now it just seemed like it was obvious to bring up at the beginning of the whole ordeal!
“Wouldn't it?”
“I gotta admit, Jack; you've got a point.”
“I know! That's what I've been sayin'! It doesn't. Make. Sense!”
“Hey, calm down, Jack! Now, look, it doesn't matter what that kid said. Is it weird? Yeah, I'll give ya that much, and it does sound freaky! But you gotta remember that he's... kinda wrong in the head, too!”
This time, it was my turn to get quiet. It was clear that Dex wasn't going to listen to my 'delusional ramblings' anymore. I figured it was best to let it go for now, or else I might start to get annoying; Dex's job, not mine.
Thank God for phones. Mine started going off, rescuing me from the conversation me and Dex had just had. While I fumbled to find it in my pockets, Dex laughed and Crazy On You filled our car. I felt blood rush to my head, knowing that Dex would find some way to make fun of it later. I was more pissed than anything, really, since that was me and Dianne's song.
I found the phone in my left coat pocket; how I'd forgotten it was there was beyond me. Just as the ringtone started to loop around for the third time, I pressed the green button on the screen before pulling the phone out of my pocket. As I brought the speaker up to my ear, I could hear her crying and I immediately got worried. Dianne never cried unless it was important. Even Dex shut up when he heard her voice cracking.
“J-Jack... You need to be home. Right now!” I was silent for a few moments.
“Jack! Jack Carnegie, you say something right now or so help me-!”
“Just calm down, okay? Calm down and tell me what happened! What's wrong?”
“I-I n-need you here, Jack... Someone broke in, and there's blood, and and and -”
I was more than thankful that my phone was loud when Dex immediately popped the car into Drive and floored it, Sirens blaring. I looked over to my friend and nodded thanks before turning my full attention back to Dianne.
“Shh,” I comforted as best as I could over a phone. “It's gonna be okay, okay? Where're the Kids?”
“They're-they're fine. Ally's still at School and Parker's at practice.”
“Oh thank God,” I sighed. “Just don't touch anything. We're on our way right now!”
“Hurry Jack... Please!”
“Don't hang up the phone, stay on the line, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can!”
“Dex, you get me back home as soon as you can, you got it?”
Any other time, Dex would've chuckled and made some kinda joke. This time, though? This time, he didn't answer me. He didn't even blink. Dex just kept turning the wheel as hard and as fast as he could when he needed to. Our car flew between signs, parked cars, and through red lights. All the while I continued to make sure she was okay. I kept running through everything she was saying in the back of my head, trying to make sense of it all. When I saw our street sign, I was relieved.
“Di, we're coming down the road now! Where are you?”
“I'm right in front of the house! I-I don't wanna be in there right now, Jack...”
“It's okay, I see you!” I couldn't help but smile as I felt my heart soar.
She looked okay from here, and that was all that mattered right now. Dex parked the car behind Dianne's Avalanche. The large truck made our patrol car look like a toy most days, but today, with the lights on, our patrol car looked more intimidating than the biggest truck you could imagine. Though that might've been because I jumped out before the car even stopped and rushed to see my wife. Or possibly because I swear I heard Dex jump over the hood of our car.
I was surprised to see no other cops around, investigating the scene. Had she not called 911? Just because I was a cop didn't mean I could take care of everything!
Dianne threw her arms around my neck, sobbing. I held her as close as I could, feeling myself grow warmer. I winced as a burning sensation started on my chest and started to spread. Dianne pulled away from me, looking worried. I looked at her, sweating and clutching my chest. Everything turned shades of orange and red with tinges of black on the edges of everything. Like an outline of ashes.
She started screaming, but I couldn't hear her. The pain in my chest spread throughout my body. I could feel every part of me erupt in pain, and I tried to scream. All I heard was an unearthly roar come from everywhere. Dex stepped in front of me, smiling. I reached out to him, begging for his help, and I noticed my hand. It was.... on fire? My whole body was on fire! What the hell?!
Dex started laughing at me, but that roar wouldn't let up! I saw Dianne behind him keep screaming, and Dex turned to her and fired his pistol without even a second's hesitation. I saw her fall to the ground. I could feel myself crying, screaming at God to fix whatever he'd done. And then everything exploded into flames. And I felt myself crumble away into nothing.
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