On The Run

Chapter Four - "Buble, Sinatra and The Line"

Sarah

Five years ago

We found Amanda Tills exactly where the tip said she’d be. Only, not as we expected. Her hand stuck out through the surface of the ground, and wisps of her hair were visible amidst the red dirt, almost blending in to seem like fallen branches.

I closed my eyes and counted down from five in my head. My heart sunk. How the hell was I going to tell her parents?

I’d only been working with the NYPD about six months, and it never seemed to get any easier.

“Contusions on the hands and legs suggest bondage. Lividity suggests she’s been dead for three to five hours,” the coroner said, examining her now fully revealed corpse.

“Parks, should we release the uncle? We had him in custody all through the night,” Sam asked, his cellphone held away from his ear.

“Um . . . Ask Jake,” I murmured and walked off towards the ever-hopeful Tills’, my heart feeling heavier with each step.

Their house wasn’t too far from where we discovered their only daughter’s body, and as I stood hesitant in front of the door, I wondered if I shouldn’t just run and leave somebody else to do it. I’d never been a cowardly person, though, and as daunting as it seemed, I raised my hand to knock, but I was stopped.

“Sarah!”

The hushed whisper made me turn.

“Jake, what are you doing here?” He’d been suspended for punching a suspect right in the face. The man turned out to be guilty of nothing but being a cocky asshole, but he’d threatened to sue, and Addie had to act fast. Jake was great at his job and firing him would have been stupid, so she’d suspended him indefinitely. We all knew it wouldn’t last more than a week though. Addison’s ever-growing love for Jake seemed evident to everyone but him.

“I heard,” he said, walking up to me. He looked like he’d just got out of bed.

I gave him a half-smile to hide my discomfort, “Yeah.”

“I heard on the radio that you were following a tip, and I . . . well, here I am.”

I nodded, “I have to go break the news,” I said, turning towards the door.

He grabbed my hand, “Hey. You did good, Sarah.”

I frowned, “We must have very different definitions of good. Dead isn’t good.”

He gave me a stern look, “You did good,” he repeated firmly, “You followed every lead, questioned everyone – suspect or not, you focused on finding her and not her kidnapper, and you helped her parents through it. So yes, you did good. And without me, too.”

I felt some of my discomfort ease.

“Now, are we going to do this, or what?” he asked, walking towards the door.

I raised a brow, “What?”

“You didn’t think I’d let you do this alone, did you?” he asked, tucking my hair behind my ear. It still felt unusual to have a friend who was everything I’d ever needed in one, and who repeatedly saved me without knowing it, who I never needed to ask for before he came.

“Thank you,” I simply said, not giving away a hint of the relief, appreciation or joy I felt at having him by my side.

He shrugged, “If the roles were reversed,” he replied and rapped softly on the wooden door.