EMPIRE: Imperial Detective

“I met her when she was a rookie beat cop, and I’d just finished my rookie status, myself. She came on to me, and I liked what I saw of her, so we started seeing each other. It never got as far as sleeping together, because my roommate at the time, Pete Stone, told me who she was, first. And you can go ask him about that, ‘cause he’s right out there.” He gestured at the door. “I didn’t believe him at first, but I dug up the reports on her work, and I had to admit, she was shaping up to be as crooked as her uncle, and fast. So I ditched her before the morning briefing the next day, and by the time I could figure out what to do – ‘cause if she was the baby girl Kershaw doted on, it wouldn’t do me any favors to just dump her – so anyway, while I was trying to figure all that out, Lee had me sent over to the ICPD before Gorecki could rip my head off. Trust me, that was one more damn bad day. And that was the end of the relationship. I haven’t seen her since… I thought she’d died in the Headquarters strike, I honestly did, and by that time, it was kind of a relief… then she suddenly appeared less than an hour ago, and seems to think that not only am I crooked too, but she can just pick up where we left off. And she thinks where we left off was a helluva lot farther along than I remember.” He met his wife’s eyes. “Cal, I swear to you, I never lied to you, I had no idea she was back, and I’ve been looking for a stick to beat her off with. Well, more like a baton, ‘cause I don’t think a stick woulda been enough.”

“Oh,” Cally said then, easing into the chair, leaning back, and relaxing slightly. “So she sorta ambushed you.”

“There wasn’t any ‘sorta’ about it,” Nick said, putting his face in his hands for a moment, as he rested his elbows on the desk. “She ran into me so hard she nearly knocked me down. If I hadn’t already shifted my weight to my front foot, I’d have been plastered on the sidewalk.”

“With her trying to hump you there, by the sound,” Cally snorted.

“Ugh,” Ashton responded to that mental image.

“I understand that you didn’t know she was related to Kershaw,” Peabody said then. “But if you had to clear out to keep Gorecki off your back, then they already knew you were strait-laced. Why did she come on to you in the first place?”

Ashton threw up his hands, and Ames answered for him.

“We talked about that when he first told me about her, Win. We think that Kershaw sicced her onto him,” she said then. “That they figured that, if he was sleeping with her, she’d have influence on him, and be able to sway him to do what they wanted.”

“They were wrong,” Ashton said then, with a shrug. “It wouldn’t have convinced me to do things their way. I’d just have ended up disappointed in her and I’d break it off, and that’d be the end of it.”

“That’s what you did, it sounds like, I guess,” Peabody decided. “Pretty much as soon as you found out.”

“Yeah,” Ashton said, morose. “It hurt, though. I cared about her. Well, about the person I thought she was. But evidently she never did give a rat’s ass about me. And that… hurt.”

“Which makes me wonder,” Peabody thought. “I knew her too, because of Kershaw. And if she’s back after you, it’s for a reason.”

“Yeah. I sorta think she’s looking to use me to get back in good with the department,” Ashton said. “Because she thinks I’m as crooked as she and her uncle were. I guess when you get used to a certain way of seeing the world, you see it like that, whether it’s really like that or not. Not that that’ll work, ‘cause I’m not.” He looked at Cally. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” Cally said, softening her demeanor. “I’m starting to understand, now. As soon as I got back to the office, I received a bunch of messages from several of the beat cops over here, about some floozy hanging all over you – one even saw that kiss, apparently – and came straight over. I guess the operative phrase is ‘hanging all over you,’ rather than the inverse, huh?”

“Yeah. The term ‘octopus’ comes to mind.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah.”

“Cally showed up just as I went to get Director Carter for you, Nick,” Peabody explained. “And I told him what I saw and heard, and we all came storming over.”

“I’m glad you did, even if you all were mad at me to begin with,” Ashton admitted. “I thought I was gonna have to use my stun gun on her to get rid of her. And yes, I was seriously considering it.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Cally said then. “It was a bad situation, and one you had no reason to expect.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t help my reputation any.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Peabody noted. “Along with Stone’s help. Don’t worry about it.”

“That… would be good. Thanks.” Ashton sat up straight. “Cal, do you need to ping Maia about where you are?”

“I did that on my way out the door,” Ames responded, “and she kind of cussed, but then told me to go, and let her know what the hell was going on. Which I already did, in VR, just now. It’s all cool.”

“At least something is,” Ashton sighed.

“What are you doing here, Koch?” Carter demanded, as soon as the pair were in Carter’s office with a closed door. “And why are you harassing Nick Ashton?”

“I’m not harassing anyone, sir,” she said, adopting an air of