Chapter 8

Sinead was distracted, and Jules knew it.

“Get your head out of your ass, girl,” her partner said. “That or take the day off. You are seriously bugging out.”

“Fuck, sorry,” Sinead grumbled, shaking her head. They were supposed to be investigating a strong-arm robbery but had run out of leads fairly quickly since it had happened the night before in a dark area, and the mugger had been wearing a mask and gloves. Their only useful piece of information was that it was a he, and he was white. They were down to canvassing the area for witnesses and Jules had been taking the lead as usual since Sinead was known to be the abrasive one. She was still supposed to be paying attention though.

“Is it what the Captain said this morning?” Jules asked as they walked down the sidewalk towards the next house in the neighbourhood. The hope was that even if someone hadn’t seen something, there would be a security or doorbell camera that someone could give them access to.

“Well, obviously,” Sinead sighed. “Apparently I’m a fucking failure if I can’t pull magic out of my ass on this. ‘Come on Connors, every CI on the street says something is about to happen. Shit or get off the pot.’” She mimicked the gruff voice of their Captain pretty well.

“Well, maybe you should take a step back from it. Let someone else take a crack,” Jules said. “That or work that tight little ass.”

“What?” Sinead said, glancing at her partner in shock and a bit of panic. How did she know about Marc!?

“And pull magic out of it,” Jules said, stopping before they headed up to the next house. “Seriously, Sinead. What is going on with you?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Sinead said. “Let’s just do this work, OK? My head is scrambled with all the numbers and I need to focus on something other than the pressure.”

“Alright. Think you can handle this one without tearing someone’s head off?”

“Probably,” Sinead said, thinking more of tearing Marc a new one than anything else. She couldn’t believe what he’d proposed.

The problem was the Captain’s voice was still ringing in her ears, and she could taste how close she was to cracking the case and figuring out how the money was being moved around.

‘Shit or get off the pot.’ Right. She needed to do ... something.

She flashed her badge at the front desk, which got her to the elevators. It helped that she knew her way already. The last time she’d been in the building she’d been on a mission and hadn’t noticed the little things. The elevator was spotless, even the stainless steel around the buttons was completely smudge-free. It was also tastefully decorated without being garish like some conference hotel; it screamed real money.

Up on the 35th floor there was another secretary, but Sinead didn’t stop to check in and strutted past with a purpose.

“Excuse me?” the woman, a sleek blonde thing that probably flirted with the clients, said. “Miss? Miss!”

Sinead stuck out like a sore thumb here, even wearing her decent sports jacket and slacks. Everyone here was in suits or immaculate, business-appropriate dresses and she had a t-shirt on under her blazer and her shoes were lacking about 3 inches of heels. She ignored the click-clacking of the secretary rushing after her as she made a bee-line to the back of the offices.

Marc, of course, saw her coming through the glass wall of his office. He was speaking to a couple of people sitting in the chairs in front of his desk.