Quintic Read online

  Quintic

  Copyright 2016 Vega P. Trick

  Published by Vega P. Trick at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  More than a pastime, a passion,

  more than a passion, a life. Thanks, girls.

  Table of Contents

  Patricia

  Chris

  Her cold case

  MacLaren’s newest employee

  His unfinished business

  Her night watch

  What MacLaren doesn’t know

  She wants Italian

  Breakfast with the guy

  Patricia in the ladies’ room

  Getting ready

  MacLaren goes car-shining

  Sheltering Patricia

  A new dawn for Patricia

  Back to a teenage boy

  Chris, teamwork and other things

  Patricia’s new job

  Guy time

  Her dinner craving

  She goes down memory lane

  His new lead

  Charles

  MacLaren’s twosome

  Conference

  MacLaren’s

  Her afternoon

  Get set, or MacLaren’s longest hour

  Go, girl!

  Case closed by MacLaren

  Her epilogue

  His ever after

  About the author

  Excerpt from Six

  Patricia

  The weekend was going well so far. Really well. A weekend spent at Christopher’s place, a weekend of mere teasing, without one heated discussion, fight or argument. Her place was roomy enough for a twosome once in a while, but since they had not planned on staying in bed all weekend, his place was better.

  First of all, it was easier for him to cook breakfast in his kitchen. She smiled at the thought. She liked his breakfasts. She ate cereals at her hotel, but a plate of specialty bacon, sausages and eggs at his place was grand, especially with those thick slices of baguette bread he had bought. The leftover bread had made delicious pain doré this morning; the French recipe was her contribution to the breakfast.

  Patricia’s contented smile grew wider. If it wasn’t for their personalities, or temper, mostly his she thought; their work, his and hers; her peculiar past which she was trying very hard to keep in the past (with less and less success); if it wasn’t for all of that, but mostly for his wanting to take charge, solve everything and protect her, their relationship would be perfect. If it weren’t for the rest of the world and well, the two of them, their relationship would be perfect.

  She sighed lightly, her smile fading a little. She felt Christopher’s eyes on her as if he was trying to follow her silent trail of thoughts. He had the interrogative eyebrow raised and a small smirk lingered on his lips. She kept on staring at the scenery as they drove on.

  She liked small art galleries like the one they had visited north of the city. They were heading back to the city, and the drive through the suburbs was pleasant. How a guy she found at times so infuriating she could find so charming was still a mystery and as always, she forced herself not to think about it. Now was not a good time. It never was, but especially now since he was sitting right next to her.

  His forearm brushed against her knee when he shifted gear. Good thing she was wearing that short skirt, she enjoyed his feather touch. The scent of his cologne drifted to her. She sighed again as she realised he was trying (successfully so) to arouse her. With the late afternoon traffic, they had an hour at least before her hotel, more if they went back to his place.

  “Want to stop some place for coffee?” He asked. “I know a cosy coffee shop a couple of streets out the next exit.”

  If she turned her head and looked at him, she would find him smiling at her with that sexy crooked grin of his. The grin either meant he was about to trick her, pick a fight, talk as he called it, or touch her. She sighed again. Mixed feelings.

  “It’s right next to this little park, your kind of place, Angel.” The man was so sure of himself.

  Still, she felt something close to contentment. He could always tell, of course; it was one of the things they had learned about each other. Their bodies never failed to react to one another, his often a few paces ahead of hers. She took a deep breath and was about to reply when the phone rang.

  His mobile phone had three ringtones. One for official police business, he rarely answered that one. The second for the important-but-not-life-threatening business, only the team, close friends and she had that number. The third ringtone was for life-or-death. This time, it was an important but not deadly type of call. His turn to sigh. He smiled at her softly.

  “Once again saved by the bell, Darling of mine. I still intend to take you to that park.” He picked up his phone. “MacLaren.” He grew serious as he listened, his contribution to the conversation minimal as usual. “Where?” “When?” and “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  It appeared the detour by the park was not going to happen and the weekend was now over.

  The shabby motel was a short drive from the exit. It looked old and out-of-place, an out-of-date leftover from the fifties. The long, low building was way at the back of an unnecessarily broad parking lot sprawling between the building and the street. On each side, a useless fence protected the lot and the buildings, the fence seemingly continuing in the back. Included in the gated area, on the left of the parking lot, sat a small one-storey cube of a house bearing the name Office.

  An old diner long since closed down bracketed the right side of the lot. Sitting at the dead end of a low-income family neighbourhood, rows of small greying houses surrounded the motel and its companion buildings. The motel’s backyard was a vast land of emptiness except for the freeway overpass made blurry by the distance. The few cars parked on the street were old and rusty. Among them, an old black Impala stood out on the opposite side of the street, the wide vehicle a boat run aground, a souvenir from way back that fitted right in with the motel’s décor.

  The motel parking lot was empty except for a red Corvette and six police blue and white cruisers, one parked next to the office, one next to the diner and the four other side by side next to the rooms and the Corvette. Christopher turned into the parking lot, drove straight up to the rooms in the back and parked next to the Corvette.

  He smiled as he turned to her. “This shouldn’t take long.” Right, like it never does, she thought. “You can wait in the car if you like. Or I can have someone drive you back to my place.” Either way, I will be waiting for you, Big guy. Not good. “I think you should wait in the car.” Right again, she thought, like I always do. Not.

  “I’d rather walk around outside,” she answered back with an innocent smile.

  He frowned then shrugged. She sat as he got out and walked to her door. Hand extended, he opened the car door and leaned in to help her out. How she so liked those old-fashioned courtesies!

  When she was up next to him, he smiled again. “Try not to get into trouble, Angel of mine.” Like all previous troubles were her fault. Really. Who went out of their ways to find trouble? Certainly not her.

  “Not to worry, I won’t even go near whatever you came to see.”

  While they were studying at each other, a young cop standing watch had gone in the first room at the le
ft end of the motel. He was now coming out with an older cop. They both walked over to introduce themselves.

  “Chief Officer Floyd.” The older man extended his hand. “You must be MacLaren?”

  “Chief Officer Chris James MacLaren.”

  She figured the old Chief Officer Floyd to be the Corvette man. He was not too discreetly wearing a toupee. Someone should tell him he’d look sexier without it.

  “Thanks for coming, MacLaren. Appreciate it. This is Officer Charles.”

  The men shook hands before turning to her. “Pleased to meet you, Floyd. Charles.” She shook their hands. “I’m Patricia.” Prudence told her to leave out her job title. Not their business anyway.

  Since Christopher failed to provide the missing information such as her rank or her role, both officers looked her over with annoyed curiosity. It didn’t improve the men’s disposition when Christopher ordered junior Officer Charles to stay with her and keep her away from the rooms. The Big guy was infuriating!

  “Chief Officer MacLaren, this is absolutely unnecessary,” she snapped back. “I can assure you I have no intention whatsoever of going anywhere near that room.” She was angry, and she wanted to make sure he knew it. Childish. So what if he did not want her to go inside, she had no intention to snoop around, so he didn’t need to have her babysit by some cop. Again.

  He went inside with a lazy shrug and Corvette Floyd while she stayed outside in the sun with Charles the rookie.

  Patricia at the Motel

  Junior Officer Charles did not look happy. He also looked brand-new. Patricia didn’t give him more than two years on the job. He had probably left his countryside with dreams of making it to the big city. Had he worked with the local police in the hopes of, one day, he would become a detective like his childhood heroes? Didn’t they all? Probably this was his first dead body, and he had to babysit some− She didn’t complete Charles’s imaginary thoughts. Since Christopher had left her standing in the middle of a dried-out parking lot with some kiddie cop, Patricia decided she was going to make a new friend, perhaps even flirt a little.

  She took off her sunglasses, looked up and smiled at Charles. “How about we take a walk in the shades along the motel building?” She took his arm as she talked and started walking, a well-practised move, without waiting for his assent.

  “Is it a gruesome crime scene?” Silly question, all crime scenes were horrible. “Six police cruisers seem excessive for the neighbourhood, is it not? Although I don’t know much about securing a crime scene. And what are your responsibilities here, Charles? Can I call you Charles?”

  Charles’s mind seemed to have frozen upon her taking his arm; he looked both silly and very in charge but barely managed to walk along with her without stepping on his own feet.

  Hence, they slowly walked as Patricia talked, teased and smiled. Charles gave back monosyllabic answers as if he did not know what to do with her but felt flattered to have her undivided attention. Cops were so easily manipulated, weren’t they? Well, all except one, most infuriating.

  She tried her best to have Charles forget about his first murder case. It took them a good ten minutes to walk all the way down to the decrepit diner and back. She was walking excruciatingly slowly as she enjoyed the embarrassment she was causing, yet she knew Charles was paying for someone else. Would their stroll make Christopher jealous? Absolutely not.

  She crossed the dusty parking lot with her new friend, all the way to the street. The black Impala across the street intrigued her. They circled around it, Patricia looking at the car, Charles unsure what to do.

  She observed the rookie’s reflection in the tinted windows of the car as he hopped from one foot to the other, his baby face betraying what he was thinking. Was he supposed to keep her close to Chief Officer MacLaren’s car or just follow her around? Technically they were off the crime scene ground, way off, all the way across the street and kiddie was uncomfortable.

  ‘And what was she looking for exactly?’ Charles might have been asking himself. Yes, ma jolie, what are you looking for, she asked herself. Why so intrigued? Just an old car, considered a classic by some perhaps, but she wouldn’t know about that. Charles wouldn’t either, chances were he liked trucks better, more useful in his hometown. Yet, she was now peering into the car’s every window, a frown on her face.

  Oblivious to the fact that she could see him in the darken glass, Charles was now openly staring at her. It was easy to imagine what he was thinking, easy for her at least, she had a heck of an imagination.

  Charles’s thoughts she wrote in her mind as she would for a character in one of her books. ‘Strange women,’ he was thinking. Of course. Half the people she met find her strange. Almost all of the other half ignored her.

  ‘She smells nice.’ She did, didn’t she? She had dabbed Italian perfume on her skin today; the scent was as light and flowery as her mood, well, her mood until fifteen minutes ago. Italian perfume with a hint of aftershave perhaps, Christopher’s, from this morning.

  ‘Perhaps I can ask her out. At the station, some of the guys say older women were better in bed.’ She did not consider herself old, but, compared to Kiddie here, she was in the older women category. Charles was right, though. Sex was indeed incredible, but she had to give Christopher most of the credit; the Big guy sure knew what he was doing, damn him. So did she when it came to him. She smiled although she shouldn’t. She didn’t do cops. Well, except for one, of course, most infuriating.

  ‘I can feel the warmth of her hand through my sleeve. Except for the few lighter strands, she does not look old, in her early thirties, I’d say. Chief MacLaren looks older. Is their age difference proper? Is MacLaren taking advantage of her?’ She smiled again. Based from the small hopping dance Charlie-boy was doing, she doubted he had the capacity for such thoughts.

  The rookie’s thoughts would be more in the line of, ‘She seems to like me.’ She did like him. Cute and wholesome, what was not to like? And he seemed sincere about being a cop. That was rare.

  She brought her focus back to the car, interrupting her circling around to stare at it, unsure as to what she should do next. That car felt strange, so out of place in the afternoon sun. Maybe she could use the scene in a book? She wished she had her mobile phone with her. She always carried her cell in the old days.

  As they turned around to head back, Christopher came walking toward them, his face a blank mask. His usual cop face. When the kid’s arm stiffened under her hand, she gave it a light squeeze that made him blush. Christopher’s jaws clamped at the sight of them. A little reaction was always nice, wasn’t it?

  They marched back to him.

  “I’m going to talk to the manager in the front office. Interesting car?”

  She answered with her usual, “Research purposes.” Why did he bother asking? He knew anything was research to her. He often said he loved to see her get worked up about her daydreaming, as he called it. Her writing process was as mysterious to him as it was to her, but contrary to the Big guy, she just followed her fancies without questioning herself. “Charles is helping me.”

  Judging from Charles’s empty look, helping her with what he didn’t have a clue. Neither did she. Perhaps Charles was her way of getting even with the Big guy for cutting the weekend short and thus forcing her to wait for him? She was not good at waiting.

  A Woman in the Rooms

  “Can Charles show me some of the rooms or is that also forbidden?”

  “For research purposes, I take it? Why not? The motel’s empty. I take it all the other rooms were searched and proved to be empty?” Christopher asked turning to Charles.

  “Chief Officer Floyd had four officers go through all the rooms,” Charles confirmed.

  Once the Big guy had commandeered the master key from the manager, she walked back holding Charles’s arm, leaving Christopher behind by the office to watch them go.

  Christopher had said this was not going to be one of his cases.

  “Just some worthles
s hooker murdered by her john.” Chief Floyd’s words, the jerk.

  She doubted Corvette-Floyd was going to put a lot of efforts in finding said john. Normally, Dispatch would not have called the Big guy. He worked the South District, not the East, and if she had the geography right, they were North-East of Central, and way off in the suburbs so way, way off Christopher’s territory. But apparently, Chief Floyd’s local unit only had two detectives, and one was on vacation, the other out because of pneumonia.

  She felt the call probably had something to do with Central sucking up, overcompensating the quartet fiasco by making Christopher feel important. She wasn’t sure it was working. Christopher wasn’t all that big on flattery; she should know, she used it often enough. She never could get what she wanted out of him although it did turn him on. Then again, most of what she did turn him on. All of what she did. The man was impossible.

  The good news was, with the case off Christopher’s regular playground and Chief Floyd visibly eager to handle this one himself, Christopher would want to leave as soon as possible. Just a few questions to the manager so the Big guy, thorough as usual, convinced himself no other possibilities but the john and the hooker scenario existed, and they’d be on their way. There might have enough time to make it to the park after all.

  “For a quick one,” he had whispered in her ear. Infuriating. She made as if she had not heard him. Not that it wouldn’t be nice.

  Before walking back to the long building, she watched him take control of the office. Nice. She liked the in control him.

  Skipping the crime scene room, she entered the adjacent motel room, leaving the door open to hear the officers working in the next door. Research. The room she had dragged Charles in was very simple. Next to the door, yellowish curtains failed to brighten the single window; time had rendered the fabric so thin she could see the cars parked outside through them.

  The décor, if she could use such a word for her surroundings, was minimalist. Worn out grey wall-to-wall carpeting, a double bed with a washed-out yellow cover, one chair parked on one side, same dull fabric, a small fake-wood table on the other end, grey lamp with a faded grey fabric lampshade on it. The bed rested against the wall adjoining the victim’s room, effectively blocking the communicating door between the rooms. Against the opposite wall sat a three-drawer desk with an old television set on top. Obstructed by the desk, partly hidden by the blocky television was another communicating door. Out of habit, she tried the handle. Locked.