Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance by Charlotte Raine

can tell you that my father won’t come and he’ll convince my mother not to come.”
    “You’ll be married by the time you die,” she says. “You shouldn’t be thinking about that anyway.”
    “I think about it all of the time,” I say. “That’s what happens when you’re chasing violent criminals. You get shot and you die. Or you get stabbed and you die. With this killer, I could even be drowned and I die.”
    The cemetery goes silent as Richardson’s final radio call is broadcast.
    “All units: Officer Lionel Richardson, Badge 3446, is out of service. End of watch, October 19th, 2014. You will be deeply missed.”
    I press my uniform hat against my heart and bow my head. While the cemetery is so quiet that I can hear someone’s shoe slide against the grass, I promise myself that I will avenge their deaths. I will win this game.
     
    ~~~~~
     

Lauren
    FIVE FBI AGENTS, Tobias, and I sit in the break room with all of the advanced technology the government could buy and zero suspects.
    “I’m the least informed on the topic, but I don’t think the last couple of murders were staged like any video game,” Tobias says. “Richardson’s murder was meant as a type of taunt and Jasmine’s was a type of revenge murder. She talked to us and he killed her for it. He’s getting more violent.”
    “He’s losing control,” I agree. “He used to have a kind of code, but this veers from it…and now that he has broken from his own code, he’s more likely to continue to kill without discrimination or any kind of set-up.”
    “Well, from his first present, we know he likes brunettes,” an FBI agent says. “So, why don’t we lure him in with a brunette?”
    “No,” Tobias says. “There’s no way that would work. Besides, Jasmine…I mean, Nina Wayland, was blonde.”
    “I think Jacobs has a point,” another FBI agent says. “If the killer was dating Nina Wayland, he was just using her. He probably set up Nina to sleep with Timothy Wood, so that he could blackmail him. But what if we turned the tables? Maybe we could get someone to write an editorial in the newspaper and convince the killer that he has a fan. He’s going to need someone new to do his dirty work. Why don’t we make him think that this person has just fallen into his lap?”
    “Why don’t you shut up ?” Tobias asks. I touch his arm.
    “That might work,” I say. I turn to the FBI agents. “I can do it.”
    “No, you can’t,” Tobias says, tension thick in his voice. “It’s too risky. Come up with a new plan.”
    “There is no other plan,” Jacobs says. “He is always a step ahead of us because we are always playing defense. We need to switch to offense.”
    “You sound like the killer now,” Tobias says. “You think this is a game now too.”
    “Tobias—” I say.
    “No,” he says. “You’re not going to do it.”
    “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do,” I say.
    “I’m your partner,” he says. “I have your best interests in mind.”
    “Well, the best interest of everyone is to catch the killer,” I say. He folds his arms over his chest.
    “If you do this, our partnership is over,” he says. His voice makes it clear that he means more than our professional partnership.
    “It’s for the greater good,” I say. He slams his fist against the table as he stands up. He grabs his coat off the back of his chair, and his shoulder hits me as he walks by. Jacobs raises an eyebrow as the door to the staircase slams shut.
    “He’s not quite a team player, is he?” he asks. I shake my head.
    “Let’s just do this,” I say. “What should the editorial say?”
     
    THE PVP KILLER IS AN ARTIST
    By Lauren Williams
     
    People read or watch the news about the PVP killer and make assumptions from the very few facts they are given. As one of the investigating detectives in the PVP killer cases I can tell you that the truth is that the PVP killer is a revolutionary and an artist. As some civilians