Conflict of Interest

Chapter Fourteen

Jenn

I'd made it known from the get that if they wanted to send someone in after Kim Hayden's girlfriend, that I was not only willing but eager to do it. I wanted to close that double rape homicide, not only for justice, but to get on the map. Was that self-involved? Yeah, probably. But any career you enter is about the politics, and getting some attention from a case that on the outside appeared merely forgotten by law enforcement was bound to get me somewhere. The newspapers would boom, and maybe my name would be in them, and back at the PD they'd say, "Hey, Carver. Good work. Here's a promotion."

Or maybe nobody would care at all, but hey, for justice, right?

And I knew that Kim was perfectly willing to go herself, up until she randomly made the decision that it would be better not to. Hell, we'd all been strongly advising her to stay out, and she'd been strongly ignoring us, but then one day, she said we were all right. I didn't fully grasp the change of heart, but I didn't denounce it either. The last thing I wanted was internal affairs looking at the Green Falls police under a magnifying glass.

I asked Carrie how she would feel about it before volunteering to go, and to be completely honest, I kind of wished she'd protested more adamantly. But what she'd said made sense.

"We agreed from the beginning that this relationship would only function if it didn't interfere with work," she'd reminded me. "I can't be on your mind when you make decisions about the job."

And of course that was hard. I knew that she was right, but she was always on my mind. I couldn't put her out of it if I tried. The best I could do was pretending she wasn't on my mind, and volunteering the next morning to go out on a mission with no solid leads because that's what an overly ambitious detective does.

"Do you have a plan of action?" Carrie asked, sitting on the side of my bed and watching me pack away a very few things. 

"Oh, Caroline," I smiled, waving her idea away. "You and your plans."

"So what, you're just going to get in your car and see what happens?"

"No," I said simply. "I'm going to get into a department car and see what happens. Can't use a private vehicle for investigation."

"Jenn, you know what I mean."

"I know. But you're getting so serious it's making me nervous."

"You should be nervous. Maybe it'll scare you into using your head."

"When have I ever not used my head?" 

She opened her mouth to speak, always having a repartee, but I cut her off.

"Don't answer that."

"Can you please show a little bit of concern, for my sake?"

"Carrie, it's not a big deal," I assured her. "It's going to be like a little vacation."

"Really? Do you take a Glock 22 and a bulletproof vest with you on vacation?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes."

"Jennifer," she continued to nag. "If we're looking at who we think we're looking at, we're talking hardened criminals, professional hardened criminals. One of them shot Kim, and one of them shot her partner."

"Then if we're looking at who you think we're looking at, they have terrible aim."

"Jenn."

"Baby," I said seriously, turning around to earnestly look her in the eye. "I am going to be fine. I'm in homicide, okay? This is what I do."

"These aren't straight homicides. There's other crime involved, rapes, and drug trafficking..."