Whedonist

I watch her fuss with the skirt she’s wearing and resist the urge to laugh. In fact I go the opposite route and put on a very serious face. “Nora, go.” I give her a slight push towards the bar and the man we’ve been watching for the past forty minutes.

She looks back at me and huffs, “Why can’t you do this again?”

“Because,” I say putting my hands on my hips, “I tried and failed. He has been looking at you all night.”

Her face sours and I would almost swear to that being a pout. “What’s not to like?” she asks, clearly annoyed as her hand makes a motion at me.
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It’s cold, rainy and there’s no moonlight which means that I can barely see twenty feet in front of us. The few street lamps that are lit provide only a small pool of light directly under the bulb. Pulling my jacket tighter around me, I slouch further in my seat and wait on our current piece of scum to come out of his apartment.

This is also the main constancy in my career, the one tried and true rule: stakeouts suck!

I sneak a peek at Nikki in the passenger’s seat and see that she’s having as much fun as I am. Well, I could try for conversation. At least we’d have more to do than stare at a door thirty feet away. “So,” I start, knowing full well that I just suck at small talk. “How was your one day off?”
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My hand fumbles towards my bedside table as I groan. Who the hell is calling this early? A few seconds of groping and my hand finally manages to find the annoying, ringing, piece of crap that I should toss through the open window. I hit ‘talk’ instead and grunt, “Eh?”

A light, lilting laugh comes through on the other end and I rub my eyes. “Good morning, gorgeous,” Jill purrs into her phone.

I groan and mumble, “What’d I do?”

She laughs again and says, “My dear, over-worked wife asked me to call and make sure that you were alive.”
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I finally stumble into the precinct. I’m exhausted, it’s nearly noon and the only thing I had to eat since four o’clock yesterday afternoon was half a catfish po-boy from Luizetta’s. I bypass my desk and head straight for the coffee station. Peering in, the only thing that looks back at me is a tar-like ring of something that once resembled coffee.

I bite my lip and resist the urge to cuss the string of expletives that have popped up into my brain. Instead, I turn around, head right back out and dart across the street to a small café. I order a large coffee and a double meat, double cheese sandwich and head back to the precinct.
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I rest against the high, leather back of the booth I’m in. Taking in the smooth jazz that’s being played towards the rear of the club, I think it’s these small moments that I live for. Where everything is perfect; with a nice, smooth bourbon to drink, time with my friends and great music. I feel more at home here than anywhere else sometimes. Even the cigarette smoke adds to the feel of the place as I pick up small bits of conversation mixed with the clink and clatter of glasses and beer bottles.

“Nor,” Ann’s voice sounds to my left, bringing me out of my head and causing me to turn and crack an eye in her direction. “You didn’t fall asleep on me did you?” She smirks at me and I laugh.
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The tip of my finger scratches the corner of my eye trying to rid it of the sleep that’s crusted in the corner. As I remove the grit the rest of my senses kick in and I take stock of where I am, who I am with and what happened last night to give me the mother of all hangovers.

Vaguely, I remember a time when I used to wake up slowly. It was a lazy sort of way to greet the day, but there’s this saying that goes ‘you’ve got it until it’s gone’ or wait…it goes something like that.

Sighing I shake my head and sit up. It’s a bit too early for me to start waxing philosophical. I look over at the bedside table and see my I.D and badge, declaring me Nikki Beaumont, Plain Clothes Officer of the New Orleans Police Department. It took them an extra try but at least my full name isn’t displayed.

Another grin comes over me at the idea of today, February sixteenth, nineteen-ninety-eight, being my first day in my new position. I shake off the sentimentality and sit up to extract myself from the bed, careful not to disturb the body lying next to me.
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Darius followed Nikki into the police station. He watched as she stood tall and ripped into the front desk clerk. “Now, here I am, twenty-four hours later and my lov – my roommate still isn’t home.” Nikki placed her hand on her hip and growled, “I want to file that missing person’s report. And I want to do it now.”

The officer at the front desk meekly shuffled a few papers and placed a small stack in front of Nikki. Darius would’ve laughed if he wasn’t just as pissed off. They had scoured every place either could think of for his baby cousin yet hadn’t turned up anything. As a last ditch effort, 6 hours earlier, they had come to the police station to file a missing person’s report only to be turned away until Erica had officially been missing for twenty-four hours.
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Sliding the suitcase under the bed, Nikki glanced around her dorm room. Her side of the room was finally unpacked. The few pictures that she had rested atop the ancient, school provided desk/bookshelf. It was an industrial piece of furniture meant to be functional not look pretty.

She really wished it looked a little better. The nicks, dents and stains marring the top and sides gave testament to how much it had actually weathered. Her eyes shifted from the desk to the off white walls down to the twin bed. When she and her father had come to visit the university, she had made it a point to visit the dorms. If she was going to go to school here and have the full collegiate experience, living in the dorm was going to be part of said experience.

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