The Scene (OFF #3)

It’s sort of sad how this doesn’t make her sad anymore.

She steps blithely through the crime scene and catches the familiar sound of glass crunching beneath her boots. It should disturb her that she associates the taste of coffee with gruesome scenes of homicide. It should make her never want to drink the bitter brew. But here she is, downing her second cup this morning.

Her mind goes into auto mode, sorting and cataloguing the details before her. She takes stock of the body, the wounds, the shell casings littering the area, the direction of the glass from the broken window. It isn’t hard for her to piece together what happened here, to imagine what sort of evidence the M.E. will find. She’s already mentally formed a crude sketch of the killer; not an actual face yet, but a profile. His habits, his history, his methods, even his motives. Nothing ever surprises her anymore.

Well, almost nothing.

“I see you’ve already got one.”

She turns to see her partner smiling behind her, clutching two cups of steaming coffee. She pretends not to notice the flutter in her stomach at his presence and gives him an apologetic smile.

He clicks his tongue and gives her a teasing smirk, simultaneously taking in the scene around them. She knows his brain isn’t cataloguing like hers does. He won’t remember precisely where the casings lie or that the position of the entry wound suggests a right handed killer. Rather, his mind will instinctively know what hers has been trained to record.

He’s so different from her. So foreign. So…surprising.

“When are you going to learn that I’ve got you covered?” He chastens.

She feels an emotional tug and quickly stifles the rising desire for him. Not here, she chastens herself. Not now.

Never.