Safe Place to Hide || Chenford / The Rookie

Chapter 2

When Lucy emerges from her room 20 minutes later, showered, dressed, and as ready to take on the world as she can be given how her day started, she finds Tim again leaning back against the kitchen island, this time with a cup of coffee resting on the counter at his side.

He holds it out to her, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. "The place on the corner didn't have a Chai tea latte, but I told them not to be shy with the cream and sugar."

The sweetness of the unexpected gesture is enough to give new life to the well of emotion she'd worked so hard to tamp down under the spray of the shower. Kindness from Tim is always something that manages to unbalance her, such a stark contrast to the tough love TO approach that's defined so much of their dynamic in the past that she often doesn't know what to do with it, isn't sure of how to even begin to process how it makes her feel. She swallows before forcing a smile and reaching to take the cup from him, pausing at the moment their fingers brush in the handoff and looking directly into his eyes to make sure he knows she's referring to more than just the coffee, "Thanks."

She half expects his customary dismissal of any gratitude from her, as if whatever he's done is nothing, that anyone would do the same, but he instead simply acknowledges her with a slight nod.

***

At the station, Angela envelops Lucy in a warm hug, and Lucy is again brought to the brink of tears in response to the kindness. But she quickly swallows the emotion back, knowing she owes it to Tamara to keep it together and to do whatever she can to help find whoever it is that did this to her.

Lucy vaguely recognizes the other detective in the room with them, Rita Calderon, as the detective that had given Angela a hard time, before ultimately coming around and putting in a good word for her to get the hard-earned promotion.

"I hate to say it, Lucy, but we don't have very much to go on at this point. So anything you can tell us about Tamara — any trouble she could be in, anyone that may have wanted to hurt her, could really help us."

Lucy shakes her head. "I don't know. I just — I still can't believe this. She's a good kid. She's really turning her life around."

Angela pins Lucy with her gaze. "Didn't she steal your car, Lucy? Is it possible she could have done something like that to someone else who may have been less forgiving than you were?"

Lucy sighs and nods; Angela's tone is gentle, but the message is loud and clear: looking at this situation through rose-colored glasses isn't going to do Tamara any favors.

"She called me about two months ago; she was pretty upset and scared. Her cousin Scott had kicked her out of his apartment. He didn't get violent, but he was pretty angry with her. She said it was because his girlfriend didn't want her in the apartment, but honestly, it seemed like there was more to it. I don't know — I just got a really bad vibe from him, and Tamara was pretty close-lipped about the whole thing. She did seem to think she was relatively safe at his place up to that point, but of course, relatively is the key word. She didn't exactly have many options."

Rita nods. "Yeah — we actually brought her cousin in for initial questioning a bit earlier. He's got a record — petty misdemeanors, mostly — but it was enough for us to bring him in. His girlfriend is vouching for him; she says they were together all night at his apartment up until mid-morning."

Lucy frowns, knowing that a confirmed alibi will likely send them looking for other suspects before allocating more resources to investigate Scott. "So is that it, then? You believe them?"

She catches Rita shooting Angela a look and knows she isn't ingratiating herself by questioning their ability to investigate the case. Her emotions are clouding her judgment, and she knows she needs to keep them in check if she wants to be kept in the loop. "Look, I know I'm not giving you anything concrete to go on, but I do think something was going on at that apartment between the three of them that's worth digging into."