isabella [h.s.]

eight

**She's on my mind, she's on my mind
I can't sleep at night
'Cause she ain't by my side**

HARRY

I stroll into the elevator at the precinct early the next morning, pressing the button to go down to the IT department in the basement. I'm feeling strangely rejuvenated today, which is either due to the two cups of coffee I've already consumed, or because one of my cases actually seems to be going in a good direction for once. After some consideration, I decide that it's probably the coffee that's causing my jittery mood, seeing as my hands are practically shaking as I raise my wrist to check the time on my watch.

My relatively good mood must be evident to others too, because as soon as the elevator doors slide open and I begin to approach Niall's desk, he immediately shoots me a baffled look. "What are you all hyped up about?" he asks, his eyes narrowed as he scans me up and down suspiciously.

"Oh I don't know," I shrug casually. "Maybe just the fact that I'm the greatest detective ever."

Niall snorts. "Yeah, whatever helps you get to sleep at night, mate." After receiving a glare from me, he laughs and then leans back in his chair, his feet propped up against the edge of his desk. Always the professional. "Anyway, what brings you to my office today?"

"Your cubicle," I correct him, causing him to roll his eyes. "And what brings me here is that I need you to look more into that phone number that Samantha Gerbner last called before she was found dead."

"But I already traced that number. I told you it belonged to some bloke called Charlie Ramos."

"Yes, I know," I reply in an exasperated tone, crossing my arms over my chest as I lean against his desk. I swear Niall has a habit of making things more difficult than they need to be. "And I found Charlie Ramos, but it turns out he was just some guy that had the same drug dealer as Gerbner."

"Gerbner was on drugs?" Niall asks, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Damn. Little Miss Perfect's not so perfect after all."

Choosing to ignore his rather disrespectful comment, I say, "Gerbner was mad at their drug dealer because he'd sold her some fake gear, and then she discovered he had been doing it to his other customers. He was refusing to reimburse her, so she threatened to tell everyone about what he'd been doing."

"Why did she call Ramos then?"

"Because she was trying to get him to back her up when she eventually exposed what the dealer had been doing. It'd be more believable coming from two people instead of one," I explain. "At least, that's what Ramos said. But aside from Ramos, there are no other frequent numbers that Gerbner caped, so I was hoping you could try to find this dealer through Ramos. He said he stopped contacting him about a month ago, once he found out about him selling fake drugs, but before that, he used to be in contact with him quite a lot."

Niall nods along with my words. "Yeah, I could take another look. See if there's any numbers that he called a lot. Do you have that number on you?" I nod, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out a crumpled post-it note which I had scribbled the phone number onto a few days ago. It's a little hard to read due to my messy handwriting and the smudging of the ink from being in my pocket, but I decide he'll just have to deal with it. I hand it to Niall, who reaches out to take it from me before suddenly gasping and gripping onto my wrist instead. "Oh my god, you went to Ecstasy?!" he exclaims. "You went to see Isabella at work without me? That's not fair!"