“I don’t know,” Mitch said more firmly.
“What the fuck was he doing tonight?” Beggs pointed to Caine’s body. “Why weren’t you with him.” He tried to step toward Mitch, but Hernandez blocked his path and Bronte moved over to lend assistance.
“Why weren’t you with him?” Beggs shouted at Mitch, over the shoulders of Hernandez and Bronte. “Huh? You’re supposed to be watching his back! He’s just a kid!”
“I’m not his father!” Mitch snapped back.
“You’re his partner!” Beggs yelled. “Why weren’t you with him?”
“Whatever he was doing, it had nothing to do with our cases!” Mitch shouted back.
“Alright, cut this shit out!” Ford shouted. “Take him out of here!” She motioned for Hernandez and Bronte to move Beggs away from the crime scene. Beggs tried to resist, but the two men overpowered him and moved him outside.
Ford turned to look at Salvi, then at Mitch. “Get out of here. I’ll see you at the hub in a few hours.” Mitch went to say something, but Ford cut him off. “You’ll be questioned in a few hours, Grenville! Go clear your head before then!” Ford’s words sounded more like a warning than an order.
Mitch stared back at Ford.
“Mitch,” Salvi said calmly. He glanced at her, then turned for the door.
Salvi followed and as they stepped outside, Hernandez, Bronte and Beggs looked over at them.
“I’ll get an autocab,” Salvi told Mitch quietly.
“What was going on with him?” Beggs asked Mitch, storming past Bronte and Hernandez. “Huh?”
“I told you, I don’t know!” Mitch said.
“How can he get himself butchered like that and you not know what the fuck’s going on?”
“Caine was doing his own thing!”
“He was your partner!”
“So? I told you, whatever he was doing, it had nothing to do with our cases.”
Hernandez and Bronte caught up to Beggs again and grabbed at his arms. Beggs pulled one free and pointed at Mitch. “This wouldn’t have happened if I was still his partner.”
“Get him out of my face!” Mitch warned Hernandez, who pulled at Beggs again.
“I would’ve known what the kid was up to,” Beggs said. “You even bother to ask him? Huh? Or were you too busy interrogating Salv there?”
“Hey!” Salvi said, as Mitch glared at Beggs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s that mean? They told me you turned up with Grenville, Brentt. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes. Doesn’t take a genius to work that out. You think we don’t know why we had to swap partners?” He looked back at Mitch. “’Cause you couldn’t keep it in your pants.” Then he looked at her, “and you couldn’t keep your legs together! And now Caine is dead!”
Before Salvi realized what was happening, her fist had connected with Beggs’ face.
“Whoa!” Hernandez and Bronte pulled Beggs away and Mitch stepped in to keep Salvi back. She glared at Mitch, as he took her arm, turned her around and moved her toward the Raider. She yanked her arm from his grip.
“Don’t grab me like that!” she spat.
“Just get in,” he said, then walked around to the driver’s side.
She did so, slamming the door. Mitch started the Raider and took off with speed, as they both watched Beggs, Hernandez and Bronte in the rearview mirror, staring after them.
Salvi arrived at the hub a few hours later. She’d returned to her apartment alone as both her and Mitch needed some time to process what had happened. In the shock of learning that Caine was dead, they hadn’t stopped to think about taking separate vehicles. Or that Salvi was still in last night’s clothes. All they’d thought about was getting to the crime scene, not quite believing it was true.
As soon as Salvi had returned to her apartment, she’d felt bad she’d left Mitch alone. He was Caine’s partner and the emotion he must have been going through would be a lot to handle. But the truth was, Mitch didn’t seem to want to talk about it. After they’d pulled up out front of his molecular apartment, he’d headed straight for his building entry and Salvi had walked right over to her white Zenith. As she got into the car, she’d glanced back at Mitch, but he hadn’t glanced back at her.
At her apartment, she hadn’t slept. The image of Caine’s body had been burned onto her retinas, her hand hurt, and Beggs’ words circled endlessly in her mind. He’d been close to Caine, she knew it. They’d worked together for a few years and their partnership was dubbed ‘the Mobster and the Movie Star’ for a reason. She understood that Beggs was hurting, but she wouldn’t stand for him directing his pain at her. Or Mitch.
When she walked into the homicide bullpen, she saw Hernandez there. He was sitting as his desk, just staring off at nothing.
“Looks like you couldn’t sleep either,” she said, announcing her arrival.
He looked at her and shook his head softly. “Nah. The kids were just waking up. I couldn’t look at them with this shit on my mind.” He gave a weak smile. “I didn’t want to ruin their day.”
Salvi nodded and took her seat.
“How’s the hand?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, averting her eyes as she logged into her portal. After a moment’s silence she looked back up at him. He stared at her blankly. She could tell the news of her and Mitch wasn’t a surprise to him either. Hernandez had given Mitch a hard time during the Bountiful case, but when it was all over, Hernandez had admitted that he’d been wrong about him. He seemed to have accepted Mitch and didn’t worry about what she was doing with him. All Hernandez appeared to care about now, what consumed him, was Caine’s death. It was written all over his face.
“We’ll find them,” Salvi said.
Hernandez’s eyes focused on hers. “We better.”
Ford entered then, looking like she’d just come back from the scene. She studied the two of them. “You go home like I asked?”
“For a bit,” Salvi said.
Ford continued on to her office and closed
