Dobson smirked at Xavier, whose hands clenched into tight fists, as if he was thinking about punching the captain. I definitely knew that feeling.
But Bria stepped up and put her hand on her partner’s shoulder, silently warning him against it. “It’s okay, Xavier. Let them search. We both know they won’t find anything.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Dobson crooned.
Bria and Xavier looked at each other, their faces tight, both of them realizing they were being set up. But the worst part was that they both knew there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it since Dobson outranked them. So they had no choice but to reluctantly move away from their desks.
The captain made a big show of opening the top few drawers in Bria’s desk and rifling through the pens and papers inside. He kept making faces the whole time, as if he were disappointed that he hadn’t found anything incriminating yet. The tension in the air built and built, and a few of the cops started muttering with worry, probably hoping that he wouldn’t start searching their desks and find all the illicit items hidden inside.
Finally, Dobson had gone through all the drawers except one. He paused a moment, that smirk flitting across his face again. He already knew exactly what was in that last drawer because he’d planted it in there earlier, while Bria and Xavier were up on Bone Mountain.
“Well, well, well,” Dobson crowed, bending down and sticking his beefy hand into the drawer, as if he’d discovered something completely unexpected. “What do we have here?”
He pulled a plastic bag filled with red and green Burn pills out of the drawer.
He held up the pills and let out a low whistle. “Forget about your own bad habit. Looks like you’ve decided to go into business for yourself. What do you say, Coolidge? How much were you planning on selling these babies for out on the street?”
Dobson tossed the Burn pills on top of Bria’s desk and gave me another arrogant smirk. “Like sister, like sister, I suppose. Either way, Detective Coolidge, you are officially relieved of duty—effective immediately.”
9
This time, Bria’s hands were the ones that clenched into fists. “I don’t know where those pills came from, but I didn’t put them there.”
“Right,” Dobson drawled. “And I’m the tooth fairy.”
He looked at the crowd of cops who had gathered around, but everyone’s faces were cold and shuttered. Yep, everyone was waiting to see how the cookie would crumble in this situation. Bria knew as well as I did that Dobson had already won, this round at least, but she didn’t want to believe it. She kept glancing from one detective, one officer, to another, hoping that someone would speak up and tell Dobson that he was full of shit, that she was a good, honest cop and that there was no way she would ever steal evidence, much less sell drugs.
But no one did.
Instead, silence descended over the crowd, spreading out to the folks in booking and beyond. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the drama unfold.
“As of this moment, you are suspended without pay, Detective Coolidge,” Dobson sneered, his loud, gravelly voice echoing through the entire station. “Of course, there will be a thorough investigation into your many crimes, but if I were you, I’d go ahead and clear out your desk. We both know that you won’t be coming back—ever.”
Bria’s fists clenched tighter, her eyes burned brighter, and the set of her jaw hardened with every lie Dobson spouted. Being a cop was just as important to her as running the Pork Pit was to me, a way to honor and follow in her foster father’s footsteps, and so much a part of who she was that she could never be or do anything else that would make her nearly as happy. For Dobson to take all of that away from her, especially on such an obvious, ridiculous, phony charge, well, it made her as angry as I had been at the restaurant earlier—and Bria’s reaction was just as cold as mine had been.
She approached Dobson, and the two officers who’d been flanking the giant sidled away from him. So did all the other cops who’d gathered around. They all knew that Bria was a powerful Ice elemental, and they could all see the mix of magic and rage flashing in her frosty blue eyes. They didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire should she decide to unleash her magic on Dobson. Even the good captain himself swallowed and took a step back.
Bria noticed them backing away, and she let out a loud, derisive snort. Like sister, like sister, after all.
“Cowards,” she called out, her light, lilting voice booming even louder than Dobson’s had. “The whole sorry lot of you.”
Once again, she looked from one face to another, even as her own features tightened with disgust. A few of the cops had enough guilt and shame to lower their heads, rather than meet her angry gaze.
Finally, Bria focused her attention on Dobson again. “You’re not going to get away with this.” She spat out the words as if each and every one were an icicle shooting out of her lips and stabbing into his smug smile.
“It seems to me like I already have, Coolidge,” he sneered.
Bria stepped forward and tilted her head back so that she was staring directly into his face. “This is bullshit, and we all know it, Dobson. You’ve never liked me because I actually try to do my job, because I actually try to help people, protect them. Not hurt them like you do. You’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of me for a long time now.”
He bent down and smiled right in her face. “Well, it looks like I finally have one, doesn’t it?”
Xavier stepped up beside my sister. “Bria’s a good cop. Everybody knows that. And everybody knows that you’re just a thug who likes to hide behind his badge and the power you think it gives you.”
Dobson straightened up and gave Xavier a hostile look. “And you should be grateful that I’m going to let you keep working here. But, for the record, as of this moment, you’re being busted back down to patrol, Xavier. The graveyard shift over in Southtown. Good luck with that.”
A muscle twitched in Xavier’s jaw as he ground his teeth together. That was the worst possible shift in the worst possible part of town. Xavier would be lucky if he made it a week without getting shot at—or worse. But even more than that, it was a proverbial slap in the face after all his years of working his way up through the ranks, especially when all he was guilty of was doing the right thing and standing up for his partner.
But Bria wasn’t afraid of Dobson and his threats. She moved even closer to him, her eyes colder than I’d ever seen them before, even when she was fully embracing her magic.