Chapter 4

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Captain Lanna waves Karishma into her office once her eyes catch the detective reaches the top of the stairs. Karishma adjusts the badge holder that she has just hung from her neck and approaches the office with thoughts on her mind. Brian repeatedly convinced her that it would be nothing but she hasn't fully believed him yet. If it were nothing, both of them would be here to fill in some reports; not one of them is here to fill in some answers for the captain.

"Detective." Captain Lanna greets formally and gestures Karishma to close the door behind her. "Take a seat."

"Captain." Karishma follows the order as she always does and sits herself down on the leather guest chair that occasionally makes funny noise when she moves. She crosses her legs and tries to appear casual amid the mess she might have caused.

"How is New York city?" Captain Lanna asks with her fingers intertwining on the table and her eyes fixing on her direct subordinate. She didn't expect Karishma to take her order of 'where she goes, you go' too literally when she walked up to Brian for some updates. She expected Karishma to be the matured one and thought with her head than her feeling.

"It was great. I'm not a fan though." Karishma answers honestly and keeps eye contact to maintain the truth of her statement.

Captain Lanna sighs quietly and makes sure that her words are properly arranged before letting them out. She is about to use the tone of someone who cares deeply about this young woman in front of her; not the tone that a boss would use. She leans in and lowers her voice. "Karishma, that was not a wise decision. It will come back and bite you."

"She wanted to go and I... I just did what I was told. I kept her in my sight. That was the only decision I could possibly make in order to accomplish that." Karishma explains although half of her agrees with Captain Lanna. It was a dumb decision. She should have stopped her.

"You know better than that." Captain Lanna raises an argument that is impossible to appeal. It might not have been right away but eventually, Karishma knows that she should have known better than that. "There is a reason that she has a schedule and there is a reason that we have to follow it. So that there wouldn't be a situation where you needed to draw your gun in public."

Karishma doesn't respond. She can't. Everything she says from this point on will only be an excuse that sounds too faulty and too manipulated.

"There are people who are expecting you to fail. There are people who are still thinking that you haven't come to this point on your own. As soon as you make this personal to you -"

"I'm not making this personal." Karishma interrupts as she feels a little offended by the statement. "It's uncomfortable enough having to give up your personal space. I just... I don't want to make these days too miserable for her."

"That's not for you to decide." Captain Lanna argues calmly and the sight she gets back from Karishma lets her know that Karishma agrees with every word she has said. "They are tracking the bugging device you found along with everything. We're getting close. I think they might know who is behind all this in a day or two. In the meantime, don't forget that you're a LAPD detective and your assignment is to prevent any kind of harm that could happen to the subject; not play around with her."

"Yes, ma'am."

Captain Lanna nods and quickly changes her posture back to her captainship. She flips through a few pages of document she has on the table. "Her today's schedule doesn't look too packed-full. So, can I expect your New York trip report first thing tomorrow morning? Consult with Detective Park to make sure that your report matches the footage from the spy cam. There are a few parts of the video that appeared to be... interrupted and unusable."

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