Micah made sure to give her the middle finger as she sauntered away – not that she had far to go. Her cubicle was across from his.
For the next handful of hours, Micah slogged through the files on his desk. The work mostly involved watching grainy surveillance video and running license plate numbers through their recognition system.
When his bladder felt close to bursting from the coffee he’d inhaled – if one still considered it coffee with five sugar packets and three creamers mixed in – he finally got up to use the restroom. He quickly did his business and washed his hands.
Figuring it was time for a break, he intended to find Tessa and tag along with her to her standing lunch date with her husband at the local sandwich shop. Yes, he was that pathetic.
Tessa wasn’t at her desk when he returned, however. Figuring she’d gone to the lobby to gab with Dolores – the four-foot, ten-inch tall, sixty-something-year-old who ran the front of the building and who had bigger, brassier knobs than three-quarters of the force – Micah headed in that direction.
He immediately spotted her through the huge glass windows that separated the lobby from the back of the building, where their cubicles and the various offices of their superiors were located. (Plus, the precinct’s interrogation rooms and holding cells.) Tessa’s red hair was unmistakable even through the blurred glass, and Micah was about to join her where she stood with Dolores and someone else he couldn’t recognize through the bulletproof glass – probably a civilian, coming in to report something or another – when-
“I don’t give a shit if that information isn’t available to the public. You’re going to tell me the name of the prostitute that fucking scumbag rapist attacked right the fuck now.”
-when a voice, raised and gravelly with obvious upset, but painstakingly familiar – had him freezing in place.
Damon?!
What the-
Panicking, Micah immediately ducked behind one of the oversized plants spaced throughout the hallway. (Pretty stupid considering there was no way Damon could see him through the blurred glass – at least, not well enough to make out his identity – but Micah’s head was spinning, okay? Cut him some slack.)
What was Damon doing here?
It was easy enough to figure out when his whirling thoughts and galloping heart both settled enough for Micah to register the man’s words.
Damon must have heard the news about the Hooker Hunter – not only that he’d been captured, but that he’d been caught in the midst of torturing another victim – a prostitute, like all the rest. In a shady motel in Queens. Not unlike the one Micah had been parked in front of a handful of days ago.
The man was worried about him.
Micah didn’t know whether to melt in a puddle at the thought of the man being so worked up that he’d marched down to the precinct responsible for the serial killer’s arrest or bang his head against the nearest object.