Chapter 1: The Chief's Ultimatum
The coffee in Frank Mancuso’s mug had gone cold. He stared into the dregs, ignoring the way the neon from the street below painted sickly green stripes across Chief Holloway’s polished floor. He knew what was coming. The summons, the files on her desk, the particular arch of her brow. It was the prelude to an ass-chewing or a shit assignment. Sometimes both.
“You wanted to see me, Chief.”
Harriet Holloway didn’t look up from the report she was scanning. A silver pen tapped once, twice, against the mahogany. “Sit, Detective.”
He sat. The leather chair groaned under his stocky frame. He waited, his calloused hands resting on his knees. The office hummed with silence—the distant keen of a siren, the muffled thrum of the precinct downstairs, the faint, steady tick of the clock behind her desk.
“The Dawson case,” she said finally, sliding the file toward him. “Closed. Nicely done.”
Mancuso gave a single, slow nod. He didn’t reach for the file. Compliments from H.H. were usually throat-clearing for the bad news.
She leaned back, steepling her fingers. Her eyes, the color of flint, held his. “Your clearance rate is still the best in the precinct, Frank. Your instincts are, occasionally, almost pre-historic. But this isn’t the nineteen-eighties. This department is evolving. You are not.”
“I get the job done,” he said, his voice a gravel-road rumble.
“You get the job done while leaving a trail of offended civilians, exasperated colleagues, and enough formal complaints to paper my walls.” She leaned forward, the desk lamp casting sharp shadows under her cheekbones. “Your partner’s been on medical leave for six weeks. You’ve burned through three temporary aides. You treat every female officer under fifty like she’s made of porcelain and has a head full of sawdust.”
“I treat them with respect,” he countered, feeling the familiar heat in his neck.
“You treat them like ‘dames,’ Frank. It’s patronizing. It’s a liability. And it ends today.”
He saw it then, the glint in her eye. The tactical move. He stiffened. “What ends today?”
The door to her office opened before she could answer. The first thing Mancuso registered was the doorway filling, then the subtle strain of fabric. Officer Roxanne Brickhouse had to duck her head to clear the frame. She straightened up inside the office, and for a absurd second, Frank’s brain short-circuited. She was a mountain range in a police uniform. Her shoulders looked capable of holding up the ceiling. Her biceps, even relaxed, pressed against the sleeves with defined, formidable curves. The uniform shirt tapered dramatically at her waist before flaring out over hips that seemed engineered for structural support, and her duty belt looked like a child’s toy slung around her middle.
“Chief Holloway. Detective Mancuso,” she said. Her voice was softer than he expected, a clear alto. She offered a small, tentative smile.
“Officer Brickhouse. Thank you for coming.” Holloway’s tone was all business. “Detective Mancuso, meet your new permanent partner.”
The words hung in the air like smoke. Frank blinked. He looked from the chief’s impassive face to the gigantic rookie, then back again. A laugh, harsh and involuntary, erupted from his throat.
“You’re kidding.”
“I do not kid.”
“Chief. Look at her.” He gestured vaguely in Roxanne’s direction, then immediately felt like a jackass. Roxanne’s smile had frozen, her bright eyes flickering down to the floor.
“I am looking,” Holloway said, ice coating each word. “I see a rookie who graduated top of her class in defensive tactics, forensic psychology, and field operations. I see an officer with a black belt in judo and a calm demeanor that has already de-escalated three potential riot situations on her beat. What do you see, Frank?”
He saw a problem. A massive, walking, talking problem. He saw someone he’d have to constantly look out for, someone whose sheer size made her a target, someone he’d have to explain things to. He saw a babysitting detail wrapped in Kevlar.
“I see someone who’s going to have a hard time with covert ops,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.
Roxanne cleared her throat softly. “I’m very quiet for my size, Detective.”
He ignored her, keeping his eyes locked on Holloway. “This is punishment. For the O’Malley complaint? That was a misunderstanding.”
“This is progress,” Holloway corrected. “You are a dinosaur, Frank. A moderately effective one, but a dinosaur nonetheless. Officer Brickhouse represents the present and the future of this force. You will learn from each other. She will learn investigative nuance from you. And you, God help you, will learn basic, human, interpersonal respect from her.” She stood, ending the discussion. “Your first joint briefing is in twenty minutes. The Spencer lead. Don’t be late.”
Mancuso stood, his chair scraping loudly. He shot a final, incredulous look at the chief, then turned toward the door. Roxanne was still standing there, a monolith of polite anticipation. He had to angle his body sideways to slip past her without contact. He caught a scent of clean cotton and something like vanilla.
“Well, come on then,” he muttered, stomping into the hallway.
He heard the gentle thud of her footsteps behind him, each step a soft earthquake. He didn’t look back. “First rule,” he said over his shoulder. “You listen. You do what I say. This isn’t a democracy. Second rule, you stay behind me in any potential breach situation. I don’t care how many judo trophies you have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And for God’s sake, try to be… inconspicuous.”
They reached the bullpen. The usual din of ringing phones, chattering detectives, and clicking keyboards stuttered, then dipped into a hive of conspicuous silence. Every head turned. Eyes widened. A choked cough came from a nearby desk.
Mancuso felt his face grow hot. He marched toward his own desk, a cluttered island in the sea of stares. Roxanne followed, navigating the maze of desks with a careful grace that was almost jarring. She didn’t bump a single one.
He dropped into his creaky swivel chair, gesturing to the battered metal one beside his desk. “Park it.”
She did, the metal groaning in visceral protest under her weight. She perched on the edge, her knees comically high, her hands folded in her lap. She seemed to be trying to make herself smaller, which was a physical impossibility. The bright scarlet of her bob cut was a shocking slash of color against the drab precinct backdrop.
Frank powered up his ancient desktop, the fan whirring like a tired bee. He could feel her watching him, feel the weight of the entire room’s attention.
“You’re making a scene,” he hissed, not looking at her.
“I’m just sitting here, Detective,” she said, her voice still soft, but a thread of steel in it now.
He grunted, pulling up the Spencer file. A missing person, low priority, probably a dude skipping out on credit card debt. He slid a copy of the basic info toward her. “Read up. We’ll go talk to the girlfriend after the briefing.”
She took the folder, her fingers—surprisingly long and elegant—making it look like a index card. She read in intense, focused silence for a minute. “It says here the last credible sighting was at the Neptune Gym. He was a regular. Should we start there?”
“We start where I say we start,” he said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “The girlfriend first. Always the significant other. They lie seventy percent of the time.”
“Okay,” she said, simply. She didn’t argue. She just kept reading, her brow furrowed in concentration.
The briefing was a special kind of agony. Lieutenant Garcia kept glancing from Mancuso to Brickhouse and back, stumbling over his words. The other detectives stole glances. Mancuso focused on the crime scene photos on the screen, trying to project an aura of grim, professional indifference. Roxanne took notes in a small, precise hand.
Afterward, as they headed for the lot, Mancuso laid out his plan. “We take my car. I’ll drive. You observe. You speak when spoken to.”
“Actually, sir,” Roxanne said, pausing beside a formidable-looking, oversized department SUV. “Chief Holloway assigned us this. It has… more legroom.” She held out the keys, dangling from her finger.
He stared at the keys, then up at her. Her expression was utterly sincere, but he saw the faintest ghost of a challenge in her blue eyes. The old-school chivalry in him, the part that insisted on driving, on opening doors, on walking on the street-side, warred with the practical part that knew his sedan would look like a clown car with her in it.
With a disgusted sigh, he snatched the keys. “Fine. Get in.”
He hauled himself up into the driver’s seat, adjusting everything. The seat went all the way back. The mirror was still wrong. He felt like a kid playing with his dad’s truck. He started the engine, the SUV rumbling to life.
Roxanne fastened her seatbelt with a smooth click. She filled the passenger seat completely, a calm, quiet presence. The vehicle, for the first time, felt appropriately sized.
“Which way?” he barked.
“The girlfriend lives in the Bellwood apartments. Take a left out of the lot.”
He put the SUV in drive, his knuckles white on the wheel. The city streamed past the window—dirty sidewalks, flickering signs, the endless gray sprawl. He was acutely aware of her beside him, of the space she occupied, of the sheer, undeniable thereness of her.
“You don’t have to try so hard, you know,” she said quietly, after ten blocks of heavy silence.
“Try what?”
“The whole… gruff mentor thing. I’m here to learn. I’m here to partner. Not to be a… a fragile dame.” She said the last two words with a subtle, melodic inflection, throwing his own presumed vocabulary back at him.
He glanced over. She was looking straight ahead, her profile stark against the window. A faint blush colored her cheek. She wasn’t smirking. She looked earnest, maybe a little hurt.
Frank Mancuso stared back at the road, the familiar complaints dying in his throat. The city blurred past. The wheel felt solid in his hands. And for the first time in twenty-five years, he had absolutely no idea what to say next. The SUV rolled forward, carrying them both into the gathering dusk.