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

answered enough calls to know that if we don’t do something, these civilians will. Also…the killer isn’t going to come around with this many people outside your apartment. Even he isn’t that gutsy.”
    I take a step closer to him. He doesn’t move, but his whole body tenses.
    “Tell me everything is going to be okay,” I say.
    He looks down at his shoes. “I can’t.”
     
    ~~~~~

Tobias
    I SIT AT MY desk, writing up a report on why I brought Lauren into the station in a police car. Lauren sits next to my desk with her head resting on her hand.
    “I’m doing the right thing,” she says. “Why can’t you accept that?”
    “Because I’m selfish,” I tell her.
    “How much longer do I have to stay here?” she asks. “The killer could become spooked if I’m here too long.”
    “I don’t consider that a bad thing,” I say. She crosses her arms.
    “Maybe I should go ask the FBI,” she says.
    “Maybe you should.”
    She frowns. “Tobias…come on. Be reasonable. We need to catch this son-of-a-bitch. He’s interested in me. This is the quickest way, and quick is good because it means he doesn’t get to kill another person.”
    “This is also the quickest way for you to die,” I hiss. “So don’t tell me to be reasonable because this is the least reasonable plan I’ve ever heard of.”
    “Maybe you should trust me,” she says. “You should trust that I can take care of myself.”
    “I do trust that you can take care of yourself,” I say. “I don’t trust that you can fight off a sociopath who kills people for fun.”
    She stands up. “What if I leave right now?”
    “Then you might be in trouble with a very angry mob of people,” I say. “Honestly, I should send you to the psych ward.”
    “Why? So that the public thinks that you’ve taken care of the threat?” she asks.
    “No, because I think you’re crazy,” I say. She scowls.
    “I’m going to go get some coffee,” she says.
    “Don’t write any terrorist threats on your way there,” I mutter. She smacks me on the back of the head as she passes by. The FBI agent Jacobs walks up to my desk and sits down in the chair she left.
    “I found something weird,” he says. I ignore him, continuing to write about Lauren being taken into the police station. He clears his throat. “We were looking through Lauren’s history, so we could clear her name for the public, but…did you know both her parents died?”
    “Yes,” I say. “In a car crash. It’s sad, but not weird.”
    “Well, after they died, when she was thirteen, Lauren went to juvie for stabbing another young girl.”
    I stop writing. I glance over my shoulder to see Lauren in the break room, stirring sugar into her coffee. “She stabbed someone?”
    “With scissors,” Jacobs says.
    “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Lauren Williams?”
    “That’s the other thing,” he says. “Her name wasn’t originally Lauren Williams. She had her name legally changed when she was eighteen. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
    I run my fingers through my hair. “No. I think she had a traumatic childhood, she lashed out, then she felt ashamed for lashing out, so she changed her last name to escape her reputation.”
    “That seems like a lot of compensating you’re doing for her,” he says. “Are you two an item?”
    “No,” I spit out. “I just think you’re reaching for something that’s not there. Plenty of people go to juvie. Drop it.”
    He sees Lauren approaching and stands up. He gestures for her to sit down and she does. He turns to me.
    “I just thought it was something interesting that you should know about,” he says. “You should know as a detective that there are no coincidences.”
    “Well, I already wanted to hit you and, coincidentally, you’re in front of me,” I say. “What’s the chance that you go home with a bruised face?”
    He glowers at me before turning on his heel and walking away. Lauren tilts her head.
    “What was that