Page 9 of Justice for Samara

“Be advised, got a fifty-six thirty-two in the six hundred block of BloomAvenue. Individual is standing in the middle of the street, waving it around.”

“Roger that. Do you know who it is?”

“I think it’s BlakeEverett. Show me code six.”

“Roger that, unit one forty-eight.”

“Drunk this early in the morning?” Samara asked.

“What else are they going to do? They’re drunk or doing meth. I’ll take the former over the latter, but the gun is not good.”

In just a couple of minutes he heard Michael’s voice. “TCSD base, unit one forty-eight, one in custody and I’m fifteen to the jail. Repeat, fifteen to the jail. Copy?”

Carter sighed. “Roger that, unit one forty-eight.”

“Was that Chief DeputyEdwards?” Samara asked.

“Yeah. That’s on his route to work. Seems like every morning on his way to work he runs into some idiot and has to stop.”

“How far away is the jail?”

Carter pointed down the street. “Just across the way there, at the back of the courthouse.”

She grinned. “At least it’s on his way.”

“Yep. He’ll be here in a minute. Get the paperwork filled out and we’ll take it from there.”

“Yes, sir.” Samara retrieved her coffee from the counter and took off down the hallway.

“Hey!” Carter called after her. “Aren’t you going to take a cupcake with you?”

“No, sir. I bought a baker’s dozen.”

“Oh, food tester to make sure nobody’s going to poison us, huh?” he asked, laughing.

“Yes, sir! If that’s what you want to believe, go right ahead.” Samara was laughing too.

She could hear Carter out front. “Oh, god, they’re cream-filled,” he was mumbling with a full mouth, and she smiled. She really liked her new boss. He was a fun guy.

There was still paperwork to be finished when she heard the door open again. “Edwards, that you?”

“Yes, sir. It’s me.”

“You get that idiot straightened out?”

“Yes, sir. Fucking gun didn’t even have bullets in it.”

“The fucking gun didn’t even have bullets in it?” Samara shouted back to ward off Carter’s dress-down of Edwards.

“Futrell, is that you?” she heard Edwards ask.

“Yeah, unless you’ve got a couple of other female cops around here who I haven’t met yet.”

“Nope. You’re the only one. Sorry for the language.” The guy showed up in the doorway of the conference room, and for the first time, she took a really good look at him. He looked to be mid to late twenties with dark, wavy hair cropped into a high and tight. His smile was pleasant, and when he smiled, his eyes had very shallow lines that wrinkled the outer corners. And those eyes. They were a deep hazel, almost like toffee. She didn’t know why, but when she looked into them, she felt a calmness. He just had an air of… What was it? Innocence? No. Not that. Wholesomeness. That was the best way to describe it. Of course, she could be wrong, but she was pretty sure if Edwards told you something and it wasn’t true, it was because he actually thought it was, not because he was lying.

“Don’t apologize. I drop my share of F-bombs. Y’all won’t bother me.”

“Edwards? You got a tape measure out there?” his boss called out.