Immaculate Spirit 212 :

Usually they would both ride together to a crime scene but today was special. Charles have been forced to have a meeting with the captain and so had to let his junior female partner go alone to do the groundwork. Looking outside of the bodega at the numbers of officers, witnesses and the three ambulances, he knew it was not going to be an easy case. But after all, if it was, they would never had called him to handle it.

"Hi Charles, follow me, you are going to love this." She said, walking inside the bodega, Charles following after her with an eyebrow raise.

Entering inside the bodega, Charles first saw the blood on the floor and forensic officer busy taking pictures of everything. Turning back to him, his partner start her explanation.

"Okay so an hour ago, four members of newly formed street gang made a hit on the bodega. They were wearing face mask, two of them had glock and the two others had metal baseball bat. There was six customers in the shop plus the clerk on the front desk. They start by firing a gun shot into the ceiling to get everyone attention and then split up. The one in charge and one other start taking the registry, one was looking outside for cops and the last start rounding the customers and strip them of their valuable." She said before starting to move on the first ray of shelves.

"The guy walk here, beat up an old man here and then start to hara.s.s a female customer there, that's when it's starting to get interesting. Among the customer there is an ex colleague of ours."

"An ex cop?" Charles asked surprised.

"Yeah, Seattle Police Department. He sneak on the man, managed to knock the gun out of his hands but it quickly turn into a brawl and they crash here. Mind where you step, the floor is slippery and there is broken gla.s.s everywhere. Care to guess what happen then?" She asked with a glint in her eyes.

Seeing the challenging look that his partner was giving him, Charles start to look around him with attention.

"Okay so they crashed into the shelf, the bottles fall on the ground, the three others must have heard it. Wait something's not right here. Why the blood is over there and there is nothing here? Looking at the damage here, the fight took some time and the ex cop had no way to get the gun before they arrived on top of him. And why the three gang members were this close to each others? That made literally no sense whatsoever. No, something or someone gather their attention away from what was happening here."

"Excellent maybe that's why we are paying you the big bucks." His partner laughed, completely impervious to his scowling expression by now.

Walking to where the blood was on the floor, his partner start to explain again.

"So you see, the ex cop? He wasn't alone shopping for grocery, he had his twenty two years old daughter with him that was hiding over here. When she saw the fight between his father and the other guy, she had the same reasoning than you. So she had an idea, she start running in the direction of the other three guys, fall on her knees and start rambling and crying, spewing some nonsense about their buddies slipping and knocking himself out."

"And they bought that? Are they moron?" Charles shook his head.

"You will understand better when you are going to see the girl. So the three of them start to feel the girl out and that's when she does something that they never expected, she attacked them. She wiped a pocket knife from somewhere and cut the Achilles tendon of the leader right foot. The guy fall on the ground here and drop his gun. The girl made a roll forward, take the gun and take position on one knee, blow the knee of the one that was about to brain her with his baseball bat here. Dodge one attack from the leader, shot him in the shoulder and then she aim at the last one who drop his bat and let's just stay she took him out too."

"What do you mean?" He frowned.

"She kick him so hard in the d*ck that he pa.s.s out." She laughed, enjoying the pained expression pa.s.sing on his partner face.

"So let's remind that shall we. She came out with a plan in seconds, took these three out like it was nothing, made two shots with impressive accuracy and also had a knife on her, is she military or something?"

"That's where it gets even better, she's a computer programmer."

"Yeah, right." He answers sarcastically.

Seeing the smile on his partner face only getting better, Charles start knitting his eyebrow.

"Holy s.h.i.t, you are not kidding are you?"

"Nope, I was waiting for you to start questioning her, let's go."

*****

"You have been silent for a long time now Lina." Michael remark, looking at his daughter worriedly.

"Sorry but I was…" Lina start to say before being silent again.

"The first time you shoot someone is a scary thing, even if you didn't kill them, you still hurt them, it's not a easy thing to do. I know, I had to handle it myself more than once." He said rea.s.suringly, patting her back.

"That's the thing, it wasn't and that is what is scaring me. You already explain what you felt the first time you had to shoot someone but I'm not feeling it. If anything, it seem almost too easy to do."

"It's because you were way more prepared to that kind of thing than we were." Michael start to say before seeing the surprised look on his daughter face. "Come on kiddo, I'm working as security in the same tower that you work and I saw some of your team members in action and they are scary. I know that you do way more than what your job t.i.tle suggest but I don't want to know about it okay?"

"Seriously? You don't want to know anything about what I really do? You are not worried?" She asked, surprised.

"Worried? I worry about you even before you were born." Mickael laughed before continuing more seriously. "This is what parents does, we worry all the time but we managed to live with it. But I saw the change in you in the last three months, you start gaining more confidence in yourself, you were and are still thin but you put some muscles in you. You start to become the kind of person that I always wanted you to become. The reason that it seems so easy to do is because you became so accustom in fighting against the best that you forgot that this type of people is rare and these thugs were nothing but muscles, that's why you so easily overpowered them and they deserve everything you gave them even if the kick in the groin was just foul." He said laughing, Lina laughing along.

"Okay, two cops are coming in our direction, they must be the detectives. A piece of advice, try to be honest as possible, they can smell bulls.h.i.t a mile away. For the rest, let's just say I taught you to shoot and autodefense since you are young and you got lucky, alright?" Michael said, angling his face to talk to her without being seen by the approaching cops.

Seeing his daughter nodding imperceptibly, the both of them got to their feet and face the two detectives.

"Michael and Lina Campbell? I'm Detective Elena Russo and this is my partner, Charles Berthier. We would like to ask you some questions."

"Of course." Michael nodded.

"Wait, so you are the girl who took them out?" The detective Berthier interrupt, looking critically at Lina up and down. "Is this a joke?" He look sideways at his partner.

"Not a joke, all witnesses corroborate their testimony, this is real." Elena answers.

"Come on, the girl look like she could fly away if I were to sneeze too close to her and these guys were at least a feet taller and a hundred a fifty pound heavier than her."

"Detective, you are being rude with my daughter and we are not the perpetrator here, we just defend ourselves and the others civilians in the bodega. You should be more respectful here." Michael said, frowning.

"Stay out of this, I will deal with you later." Charles said coldly before focusing again on Lina. "I don't know why you lie, maybe it's for the attention or something else but you should come clean now girl."

"Detective, I know it's hard to believe but this is the truth, I did what you saw. And my name is lina, not girl. Girl is only my gender, if we were to call ourselves by gender, I would call you dumb old man but I'm not doing that, right?" Lina said, starting to get angry.

Hearing that, Charles start to smile where his partner wrinkle her nose in disgust.

"Well well well, you just fail to respect an officer of the law, add to suspicion of fake testimony, you two are going with us to the precinct. It's your choice if you want to come willingly or we need to cuff you and put you in a squad car." He said, dangling his cuff with delight in front of them.

Looking at each other, the Campbell pair didn't know what to do as they did not expected the situation to go in this direction at all. Lina also realized that the detective goad her on purpose into giving him a reason to take her away. She was mad at herself for falling into such a trap but she knew there was nothing that she could do now. They had to go to the precinct.

"Up to your old tricks I see Charles." An attractive voice said, gathering the attention of everyone around her.

Hearing that voice, the delight in Charles expression quickly turn into a bitter one and he hastily put his handcuff away. Seeing what he did, Elena turn her head away to hide a relieved smile.

"Pro… Prosecutor Lyndon, I a.s.sure you, I have good reason to take them away, they…" Charles start to say before being quickly stopped.

"Spare me the bulls.h.i.t Charles, I watch the whole scene so don't even bother or I'm going to get angry and you don't want that, do you?" She said, directing a dangerous smile his way.

"Of course not." He said, cold sweat appearing on his back. "May I ask why you are here Prosecutor?" He ask, trying to change the subject.

"Well, I was on my way home and I stumble into this so I thought I should come and check things out. Now, you are going to apologize to the girl for hara.s.sing her or I'm going to insist on doing a live reproduction of what happen inside and you are going to play the role of the one who got kick in the nuts, your choice Charles. If you don't choose one of those, we can go back to the last time you decide to cross me."

Gulping visibly, Charles remembers very well the first time and the last time that he try to pull one over the Prosecutor facing him right now. He had pa.s.sed the next three month as a maintenance worker where he was tasked to literally clean the street of garbage. He also knew better than anyone that she wasn't in the business of making idle threat, she was ready to do everything that she just told him. Confront with those three choices, he decide to choose the lesser evil.

"Miss Campbell, I'm sorry for the inconvenience that I caused you and I hope you will forgive me. You are of course, free to go.��

"This is more like it, I love seeing everyone getting along. Charles, Elena I can't wait to read your report in the next two hours about what happened here, I will be really disappointed if they were not ready by that time." Karine said, looking at the two of them for a few seconds before focusing on Lina and Michael. "You two, follow me please." She said, turning around and starting to walk away without waiting for them.

"What the h.e.l.l were you thinking Michael?" Karine snapped at him when they were near her car.

"What do you mean?" He asked, he did not expected to get a tongue lashing too.

"What did you involve yourself? You are not a friggin cop anymore Michael for go sake! You had not business doing what you did! And because of you, Lina had to stepped in and deal with the situation, which put her on the radar of the NYPD! Next time, give your wallet and your phone and be done with it! Your lives are worth way more than anything you have on you. Not mentioning that my son invest heavily on the both of you and your family, don't squander what he did for nothing!"

Seeing the two of them reeling from what she just told them, She calmed herself.

"I will deal with this mess. Hop in, I'm going to drive you home. Just think about what I just told you." Karine finally said, getting in the car.