The Girl and the Black Christmas by A.J. Rivers

Author:A.J. Rivers [Rivers, A.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Now

Everything seems so quiet in the house now that Dean, Xavier, Eric, and Bellamy have gone home. It’s back to being just Sam and me. Not a bad consolation prize for missing the others. If there’s one thing in this world I can never really get enough of, it’s time with Sam. We spent the last few evenings curled up on the couch in the dark, just watching the lights on the tree dance.

I love my time with him, and especially when he’s at the station or on a call, the silence can overstay its welcome. After all the noise and energy of having the other four in the house with us for almost a week, being completely alone feels like a reset. It’s an odd change of pace when I know I’m just going back to my regular daily life, but it’s almost disorienting.

Today, I just don’t feel like dealing with it. I want to be out in the world, maybe do a little bit of Christmas shopping. A message from Creagan this morning makes me suspect I’ll be assigned to another case soon, so I want to soak up these blissfully empty hours as much as possible.

Taking my purse, my keys, and my gun, I lock the door to the house and head to my car. I glance across the street towards Janet and Paul’s house like I always do anytime I’m leaving my house or coming home. I go over there at least once every other day to take in their mail, water their plants, and just in general make it look as if the house is being occupied rather than just sitting empty.

I brought Xavier along while he was at our house. He took his responsibility of making it look as if somebody was home across the street very seriously. If anyone was paying attention while we were inside, they would think a large family was using the bathroom in rapid sequence and possibly communicating with others through light-based Morse code.

Afterwards, I explained to Xavier that the point wasn’t just to run up and down to all the bathrooms in the house to flush the toilets and flicker all the lights in all the rooms. The house needed to look as if somebody was staying in it to deter criminals.

He promptly informed me visits like mine were all but useless in terms of deterrence. Of course, I know that. My security briefings from the Bureau might not always be the most applicable and effective when brought into the real world, but I’ve got the basics down.

Including the fact that criminals tend to pay close attention when they want to. They can be extremely careless once a crime has started and after it’s done, running around the crime scene spreading DNA willy-nilly, then posting pictures of their stolen goods or showing off their suddenly acquired wealth with elaborate displays of consumerism. Their attention span is all but lost in many situations as soon as the crime starts.

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