Living in Sin
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 26: The Great Hoard of Plenty
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 26: The Great Hoard of Plenty - Two single-parent sheriff’s deputies move into a wealthy, uptight neighborhood and accidentally set off a storm of paranoia, lust, and suburban meltdown. As judgmental neighbors spiral, sexually frustrated housewives come calling. Amid threesomes, gossip, and chaos, Scott and Maggie discover their friendship hides something deeper. Darkly funny, raw, and fearless, Living in Sin is a satire of morality, desire, and the lies we live behind picket fences.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Illustrated
The beep-beep-beep of her MDT snapped Maggie out of her doze, sharp enough to jolt her upright behind the wheel of her Tahoe. She blinked at the glowing screen, heart still ticking fast from the rude wake-up.
DISTRICT 1
12A1+16A1 M41+ E25
2456 MAPLE ST, NORTHWOOD
MAP:82B2 TB:319F7 CH:A4
CX MAP: LAT:+39.5301 LON:-122.1983
POISONING, ELDERLY FEMALE
TXT: RP STATES GRANDDAUGHTER GAVE HER UNKNOWN MEDICINE TO HELP HER SLEEP, NOW BELIEVES SHE HAS BEEN POISONED. RP OXYGEN DEPENDENT, SEMI-ALERT. GRANDDAUGHTER NOT ON SCENE.
She frowned at the text and muttered, “What the fuck is this bullshit?”
Her thumb hit the mic. “Twelve-Adam, copy.”
A moment later, dispatch came across the channel, brisk and even:
”Twelve-Adam, Sixteen-Adam, copy call for service. RP is elderly female, states her granddaughter gave her some kind of medicine to help her sleep. RP believes it was poison. EMS staging. Time out oh-four-thirty-two.”
Maggie shook her head and eased the Tahoe out of her hidey hole—a quiet strip-mall corner she’d been using when the unofficial rule kicked in: no proactive policing after 0400. No prowler checks, no stop-and-chats. Calls only.
She glanced at the unit assignment line again—12-A-1, 16-A-1—and felt the smile before she could stop it. Dover was her cover.
The feeling was instant, stupid, and impossible to deny. Just seeing 16-A-1 paired with hers gave her that dumb, giddy little rush—like getting paired with the boy you were crushing on for a high school lab project. It was ridiculous. She knew it. But knowing didn’t stop her from grinning.
Then his voice came over the air, calm and steady as always:
“Sixteen-Adam, copy.”
The grin spread wider, butterflies flicking around in her chest. Backup was backup—but when it was Scott? That hit different. It had even before they started fucking each other like two teenagers who just figured out the logistics of it.
She steered north toward the address, sagging duplexes already filling her mind’s eye. Poisoning call, 0430, North Northwood. What is this shit? she wondered. Fucking Arsenic and Old Lace? Fucking Dorethea Puente rebooted? She’d never been on a poisoning call before. And she’d never been given training on how to handle one. They weren’t very common in this day and age. Why poison someone when everyone has a gun tucked away in a nightstand somewhere?
The streets were nearly empty as she made the five-minute drive up Highlands Avenue toward the north side of the district, not more than a quarter mile from the North County line. A few porch lights burned, a television flickered blue through a curtain, but otherwise it was all dark windows and silent blocks.
This had once been a very nice neighborhood—post-war single-family homes with neat lawns, white paint, and young families (all of them white and Christian, of course) chasing the American dream. More than half a centur later the paint was faded, roofs patched with mismatched shingles, and nearly every house had been carved into a rental. There were still a Caucasian majority living in the hood, but it was also liberally populated with African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians these days. A real diverse sub-ghetto was North Northwood. Chain-link fencing and barred windows ran the length of the street. Still, compared to the rest of the district, it looked almost respectable.
She eased the Tahoe off Highlands and stopped at Willow Brook and Maple, a house length back from the corner. The target address was out of sight down Maple. No sense showing herself until her cover unit arrived. She picked up her mic.
”Twelve-Adam, staging Willow Brook and Maple.”
A beat later Scott came over the air, calm as always.
“Sixteen-Adam, copy. Two minutes out.”
She settled back, eyes on the rearview, listening to the tick of the engine. Two minutes stretched long in the February dark. Then headlights swung off Highlands and another green-and-white Tahoe rolled up. Dover. He pulled in behind her, gave a quick flash of his high beams—ready.
She keyed up again. “Twelve-Adam, cover on scene. Moving in.”
This time she rolled forward, past the corner and onto Maple, parking in front of the house next door. Scott came in right behind her, offset a little so he had an angle down the block.
They stood together at the front of her Tahoe, breath fogging in the February chill. First time they’d seen each other since roll call, and even in the thin wash of a streetlight she could see the corner of his mouth twitch into that half-smile.
“Poisoning call,” Scott said quietly. “That’s a new one.”
Maggie shook her head. “Yep. What’s next? Anthrax in the water cooler? Ricin in the morning oatmeal?”
He chuckled. “Maybe we’re finally working that spy beat we’ve been waiting for. Covert ops, right here in Northwood.”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning despite herself. “This place is straight-up Langley.”
A shared silence, the kind only night cops knew. Then she drew a breath and rolled her shoulders. “Alright. Let’s go see if Vladimir Putin’s been hanging out with Nana’s granddaughter lately.”
That was the signal. They started up the walkway, boots crunching against the cracked concrete. As they reached the porch, they both thumbed their body cams on in the same practiced motion. Twin green lights winked in the darkness. Live and Nationwide.
As they started up the walkway, both of them dropped their hands to the butts of their pistols. SOP. Academy, FTO, muscle memory—it was what you did when approaching any unknown door. Not because they thought an eighty-year-old grandmother was about to start busting nine-mil caps through the siding, but because that was the habit drilled into them since day one.
They reached the top step and split automatically, each taking a side of the frame. For a moment they stood still, listening. The only sound was the low drone of a television somewhere deeper inside.
Maggie caught Scott’s eyes, gave him the nod. She rapped her knuckles against the doorframe.
“Sheriff’s Department.”
A beat of silence. Then a high, quavering voice called out from within:
“Come in! Hurry, please! I think I’m dying!”
Maggie tried the knob. Locked. She raised her voice. “Ma’am, you need to open this door for us.”
From inside came the shaky reply: “I can’t. I’m afraid to leave my chair. The poison—”
Maggie exchanged a look with Scott. “Are your legs disabled?” she called back.
“No. I’m just afraid!”
“Any other doors unlocked?”
“Not in this neighborhood,” the old woman said, voice sharp. “Spics live here! Niggers too!”
Maggie and Scott both shook their heads, the kind of weary, seen-it-all shake that wasn’t for anyone but each other. Body cams rolling, they didn’t add commentary. They just went to work.
They circled the house, checking every exterior door, every window. Locked up tight, blinds drawn. The place was sealed like a bunker.
As they looped back toward the front, they passed the garage. A keypad box was mounted on the siding, worn plastic cover flipped down.
Back at the door, Maggie called out again. “Can you tell us the garage door code?”
“Yes. One-two-three-four. Then Enter.”
Maggie glanced at Scott, lifted her brows. She’s pretty shrewd with her security here. They should put her in charge of Fort Knox. She didn’t say it—just the expression, just enough. Then, with a straight voice that would play fine on review, she called back: “Okay, thank you, ma’am.”
They returned to the garage. Scott punched in the code. The motor groaned, and the door rattled its way upward.
The sight that greeted them made both of them stop.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Maggie said, heedless of the camera. Cussing was allowed as long as it was not derogatory cussing. The writers of the protocols—miracle of miracles—had actually taken into consideration the fact that many people could not be communicated with if profanity was not included.
“Yep,” Scott said. “We ain’t getting in this way.”
The entire garage was full of yellowing newspapers, towers of cardboard boxes, milk crates, broken furniture, old bicycles, heaps of god-knows-what. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, no path of any kind leading to the interior door. Some of the bundles were so old the top sheets were sun-bleached white and flaking at the edges. Maggie stared at the mountains of paper and thought about how many years of headlines were entombed here—layer upon layer of wasted history stacked to the ceiling.
Scott stepped forward and crouched toward one of the bundles near the opening. He brushed dust off the top sheet and squinted at the faded print.
“Here’s one. New virus pops up in China. They’re calling it COVID-19. Says there’s nothing to worry about.” He leaned over to the next stack, eyes scanning another yellowed front page. “Obamacare passes the Senate. Christ.” He shook his head and looked deeper into the mountain. “Yeah ... the paper for 9-12-2001is probably in here somewhere. Maybe closer to that door we can’t reach.”
“Imagine if this place caught on fire,” Maggie said.
“I was on a housefire call once with the fire guys,” Scott told her. “Hoarder’s house. They wouldn’t even go in—too dangerous. They just let the fuckin’ place burn and protected the structures around it. Took eight fuckin’ hours.”
Maggie blew out a breath. “Jesus.”
Scott reached for the switch. “What was that code again?” he asked jokingly.
Maggie giggled, surprised at herself. “Great. I just giggled on my fucking body cam. Thanks, Dover.”
“Anything for you, Winslow.” He gave her that Scott smile—half easy, half intimate—and she felt her chest flutter before she could stop it.
Focus, she told herself. You can fuck him when you both get home. For now, it’s show time.
They circled back to the front door, boots crunching on the frost-bitten walkway. Maggie leaned toward the frame and raised her voice again.
“Ma’am, can you just get up and open this door for us? We’ll carry you back to your chair after, I promise.”
From inside came the shaky reply: “I just can’t. The floor might collapse.”
Maggie blinked. “The floor?”
“Yes! The poison’s making me heavier! It might give way if I get up.”
Scott glanced at Maggie, the corner of his mouth twitching, but he kept his face neutral for the cam.
“Alright then,” Maggie called. “We’re going to have to force a window.”
“That’s fine,” the old woman answered without hesitation. “Just don’t break it or I’ll send the bill to your chief.”
For a moment, silence hung heavy on the porch. Then Maggie and Scott looked at each other, raised their index fingers, tapped their own eyes, and pointed up. The universal sign for an eyeroll—because actually doing one would be caught on camera and some fuckin’ shyster would build his whole defense case around it.
Maggie thumbed her mic. “Sixteen-Adam, we’re unable to secure entry into the house. Have fire and EMS come in.”
Dispatch came back without missing a beat, clipped and professional. ”Copy Sixteen-Adam. Fire dispatch will clear them in from staging.”
Maggie clicked her cam off with a practiced thumb, saw Scott’s little green light wink out a moment later. Porch quiet again, just them and the winter dark.
“So,” she said casually, leaning back against the siding, “can we get a dog?”
Scott gave her a sidelong look. “That’s what you’re bringing up now?”
“You told me months ago we’d talk about it the next time we got drunk,” Maggie reminded him. “Well, we’ve been drunk. And now we’re fucking each other like it’s senior prom all over again. Still no dog conversation.”
Scott huffed a laugh, rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Alright. You want a dog, fine. But answer me this: are you ready to take full care of it, or at least train the kids to do it? I’m talking feeding, watering, picking up shit in the yard, cleaning up piss off the floor—because it’s not all cute wagging tails and loyalty.”
Maggie tilted her head, a grin spreading. “Expressing anal glands?”
Scott didn’t miss a beat. “Mom will handle that—literally. Just don’t let her make dinner afterwards. She apparently believes the only way to do it right is if you can feel the gland and grip it. Gloves, in her mind, are for rookies.”
Maggie slowly licked her upper lip from left to right. It was not a suggestive gesture at all. It was an unconscious habit she displayed when thinking over some distressing news.
“Maybe a cat?” she said sweetly.
Scott groaned. “Christ.”
The conversation broke off as headlights washed across Maple and the rumble of diesel engines filled the block. A moment later Engine 25 rolled up in front of the house, red lights pulsing against the siding, followed by Medic 41 easing to a stop right behind it.
Both of them flipped their cams back on, twin green lights winking alive again. Live and nationwide. Cop faces back in place.
Time to go back to work.
Out at the curb, doors opened, boots hit asphalt, and a handful of half-awake professionals stretched the stiffness out of their backs.
Bryson, Engine 25’s captain, had ten years on the job but only a few months wearing the red helmet. He looked the part—calm, deliberate—but Maggie could see the little edge that came with new rank and Northwood exile. The engineer climbed down from the driver’s seat and started pulling tools from a side compartment. The firefighter followed him out—a kid, barely past twenty, the newest of the new. He had no name yet, not one that anyone would use. Until he finished his eighteen-month probation, he was just Probie, the lowest rung of a very old ladder. Kind of like a Kzin warrior in Ringworld. He had to earn the right to a name.
From the ambulance came the county medics—Reese, who ran the call, and Chen, her EMT partner. They’d been staged with the engine, waiting for the all-clear. Both looked more awake than anyone had a right to at 0430.
Bryson walked up to the deputies. “Hey, Winslow. What’ve we got?”
Maggie gave him the rundown. “Elderly female, lives alone. Called saying her granddaughter poisoned her. Says she can’t stand up because the floor might collapse due to the additional weight the poison she was given had imparted upon her. We’ve made contact through the door—she’s alert and talking—but she won’t come open it. Every door’s locked, every window shut. She also said, and I quote, ‘don’t break anything or I’ll send the bill to your chief.’”
That got the usual low chuckle from the circle.
“Lovely,” Bryson said. “Let’s start with the garage.”
Scott shook his head. “We already tried that. You can’t get there from here.”
Bryson gave a small, condescending smile, as if he thought they hadn’t really tried the garage and were trying not to let him know that. “Let’s confirm it anyway.”
“I’ll get the code from her,” Reese said.
“She already gave it,” Maggie said. “One-two-three-four, Enter.”
Bryson stopped. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
He keyed in the code himself. The motor whined, the door rolled up, and the cold smell of old paper spilled out. The hoard was still there in all its glory—floor to ceiling stacks of boxes, newspapers, and God-knows-what. Bryson stared at it a beat, then pressed the button again. The door rattled back down.
“Okay,” he said. “Windows then.”
The engineer hefted his pry bar. They worked their way around the house, flashlights cutting through overgrown shrubs and peeling siding. A few minutes later they found one window that looked like it might give. The engineer worked the bar into the frame, paint cracking under slow pressure until the old wood surrendered.
Bryson looked at his firefighter. “Probie, climb inside and get that front door open.”
“Yes, Cap.”
The engineer and Chen gave him a boost. He slipped through the opening and landed hard inside. His flashlight beam flickered around the room. It was also full floor to ceiling with junk that had no apparent value, but at least there was a path to the door this time. The probie followed it and went through the door.
They tracked his light for a few seconds. Then it vanished.
A crash followed—something heavy collapsing—and a scream that cut off too fast.
“Probie!” Bryson yelled into the window. “Probie, you okay?”
Nothing.
He tried again on the tactical channel they were all on. “Probie!”
Nothing.
Maggie exhaled. “Fuck this shit.”
She started for the front yard, Scott right beside her, Bryson and the others trailing close. The captain kept keying his mic, voice climbing with every unanswered call.
At the porch, Scott looked over. “You making the call?”
“I’m making the call,” she said. “You want to do it?”
He grinned. “Love this part.”
Two sharp kicks under the deadbolt. The frame split with a crack, the door jumped inward a foot before jamming against something heavy inside.
It was enough.
They shouldered through the foot-wide gap one at a time, the frame creaking against their weight. It was like forcing a way into a cave—every inch of wall space packed from floor to ceiling. The only open ground was a narrow track that wound through the piles toward the center of the house.
The smell hit first: smoke, dust, old paper, and the sour, sweet rot of food long past forgotten.
Maggie led the way, flashlight out even though the lights were on. They were weak, yellow things, casting more shadow than illumination.
The woman in the chair was exactly where Maggie expected her to be: middle of the room, nightgown askew, skin gray under the lamplight. The oxygen cannula draped uselessly over her cheeks while she drew on a cigarette. One heavy breast had slumped out of the gown, the nipple hanging straight down. She didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Her hands were locked around the arms of the recliner, knuckles white, as if letting go would send her spinning off the planet. The look in her eyes stopped Maggie cold. She’d seen that look before—wild, terrified, and somewhere far beyond reason. The kind of look that usually preceded a quick key-up and a request for more units.
But the eyes only flicked toward her once, then back to some point in space no one else could see.
Scott and the others filed in behind, following the narrow path toward the hallway. Reese and Chen paused long enough to take in the room, the oxygen line, the cigarette. Neither said a word.
The corridor ahead was worse. Newspapers, clothes, junk mail—an entire life’s worth of trash packed so tight it formed walls. A shoulder-wide lane ran along one side, just enough to move single file.
At the end of the hall the path stopped cold.
An avalanche had come down—hundreds of pounds of newspapers, magazines, and boxes collapsed into a solid heap that reached halfway up the doorframe. Somewhere behind that wall of debris was the door the probie had gone through.
Maggie’s stomach tightened.
Bryson’s voice snapped them all back to function. “Alright, we’re going to dig him out. Vasquez—call for a second engine, second medic, and get Battalion rolling this way.”
The radio traffic went out while everyone started to move. The narrow hallway turned into a work site.
“Line it out,” Bryson ordered. “Engineer first, then Reese, Chen, Dover, Winslow. Pass it back and keep the path clear.”
The engineer wedged his boots against the pile and started pulling loose the top layers. Reese crouched beside him to grab what he freed, Chen just behind her. Scott took the next handoff, and Maggie, furthest back in the corridor, took whatever they passed and found places to stack it—old couch cushions, broken picture frames, a dented toaster, a warped wooden TV tray, and endless bundles of newspapers tied up with baling twine. Eighty percent of it was paper; the rest was random flotsam from fifty years of hoarding: brittle grocery bags, a cracked lamp, a shoe with no mate, plastic tubs full of nothing but dust.
She had to think about every move. If she piled too high on either side, the walls of junk would shift again. She tried to keep a small pocket open behind her—their path of retreat back to the living room. The air was dry and choking, flecks of paper floating like ash in the beam of her flashlight. It reminded her of the videos she’d seen online—first responders clawing through the wreckage of buildings in Gaza or Ukraine, except they were doing it in someone’s hallway.
Nobody had gloves on. It wasn’t worth the trip back to the rigs. Their hands turned gray with dust, fingers black at the tips. The paper cut quick and shallow, leaving stinging tracks.
“Got him!” Vasquez called.
The digging sped up, the paper flying backward faster now. Maggie caught a glimpse of the kid’s turnout jacket under the debris. They cleared enough for Reese to crawl forward and take over.
The Probie was lying on his side, breathing fast but steady, eyes unfocused in the flashlight glare. Reese knelt next to him, put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, talk to me, bud. What’s your name?”
“Probie!” he barked automatically, the word slurred but loud.
Reese blinked, then tried again. “No, your real name.”
“Probie!”
“Where are you right now?”
“Yes, ma’am! I’ll do better on the ladders! Or it’s my ass, ma’am!”
“He thinks he’s in the academy,” Bryson said.
Reese glanced up at Bryson. “Yep,” she said. “He got his fuckin’ bell rung, that’s for sure. But he’s alive and breathing.” She worked quickly, checking pupils, feeling along his arms and legs, running practiced fingers down his spine. “Otherwise seems intact. No obvious breaks, no bleeding.”
Bryson gave a tight nod, relief showing in the set of his shoulders. “Good. Let’s get him out of here before this shit caves again.”
Reese looked back at the others. “Watch his C-spine as we pull him out. It’s too dangerous to put him on a backboard in here.”
“I feel like we just stepped into Level Three of Tomb Raider,” Maggie said. “One wrong step...”
“Yep,” Reese agreed. “Come on. Let’s do this thing.”
They moved him out the way they’d dug in—slow and methodical, the line reversing itself. Reese kept her hand on the kid’s neck the whole time, keeping his head still while the rest of them passed debris backward and cleared a narrow tunnel for egress. Every shift of weight made the walls groan. Bits of paper rained down on their shoulders.
When they finally reached the living room, Maggie took the lead, shining her light ahead to keep the path clear. The hoard pressed in on both sides, mountains of paper and trash closing in until the room felt smaller with every breath. Scott and Vasquez half-carried, half-dragged the Probie, while Bryson stayed close, one arm steadying his helmetless head. The kid’s boots scraped across the newspaper trail, leaving smeared prints in the dust.
They got him out the door and into the cold air. Reese and Chen went right to work, snapping open a collar, laying out the backboard on the porch. The Probie kept mumbling, voice fogging in the light of their headlamps.
“What’s your name?” Reese asked again, calm and firm.
“Probie!” he shouted, startling everyone.
“Alright, champ, that’s enough yelling.” She slid the collar under his neck.
He grinned up at her, eyes glassy. “Probie!”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
After that it was a jumble of nonsense—random phrases, snatches of sentences, all of it disconnected from the moment. He answered questions that hadn’t been asked, talked about ladders and hose evolutions, promised to do better next time. Every time anyone said “Probie,” he’d bark it back like a reflex, chest heaving with the effort.
Out on Maple, new sirens began to grow in the distance—backup engine, second medic, battalion chief—all still a few blocks away.
Maggie glanced toward the door. She and Scott had planned to let Reese take the patient evaluation, but that was shot to hell now. Reese’s priorities were exactly where they should be—with the only person in real danger.
“Come on,” Maggie said. “We better check on Nana before she dies of neglect.”
Scott gave a short laugh that had no humor in it. “Right. Can’t let her poison wear off.”
They went back inside.
It wasn’t right, leaving an old woman sitting in her chair while everyone else tended to someone younger and stronger. But it was reality. On a night like this, position in life made the rules. Injured firefighter first—crazy grandma second.
They took a few seconds to orient—flashlights cutting across the walls of stacked paper, boots testing the path for another collapse. The living room felt like a nest carved into a landfill, air dry and stale, every breath full of dust and old nicotine.
“Looks stable for now,” Scott said behind her. “But we’re on borrowed time.”
“Yeah.” Maggie felt the grit on her teeth when she spoke. She squared her shoulders and moved toward the recliner, one careful step at a time. “Alright, ma’am. We’re coming over to you now.”
The old woman’s eyes flicked up, gray and fever-bright in the weak lamplight. Her fingers still clenched the armrests like a pilot in turbulence.
Maggie crouched slightly, keeping her voice low but firm. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”
“Gertrude Williams,” she quavered. “But you can call me Gertie.”
“Okay, Gertie. I’m Deputy Winslow and this is Deputy Dover. We’re here to help you.”
Gertie blinked once. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you real cops?”
Maggie exchanged a quick look with Scott. “We’re real cops, ma’am.”
“No—no,” Gertie said, shaking her head. “I don’t mean that. Are you real cops or clone cops? They’re out there, you know. They look just like you. They act just like you. But they’re not real.”
Maggie felt the hair rise on her arms. This wasn’t garden-variety paranoia—Gertie was fully immersed in whatever world she’d built. Telling her clone cops weren’t real would just bounce off.
She shifted tactics. “We’ve been briefed on clone cops,” she said, deadpan. “There’s a way to tell us apart.”
Gertie’s eyes went wide. “What is it?”
Maggie leaned in slightly. “Clone cops can’t do this.” She crossed her eyes inward until they locked on her nose and stuck her tongue in and out like a lizard.
Gertie’s jaw dropped. “Is that true?”
Scott didn’t miss a beat. “Totally true. We had the briefing just a few weeks ago. Studies have shown clone cops can’t do that.” He did the same cross-eyed tongue maneuver, adding a little flourish at the end. “See?”
Gertie let out a long breath, shoulders sagging. “Thank goodness.”
Dust motes drifted in the beam of Maggie’s light. She kept her tone calm, like she was talking to a skittish animal. “Alright, Gertie. You’re safe with us. We’re the real ones.”
“That’s good to know,” Gertie said, nodding slowly, her eyes still flicking between them like she was testing for hidden seams.
Maggie kept her voice even. “You called us because you think you’ve been poisoned. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Gertie said without hesitation. “My granddaughter poisoned me.”
“What’s your granddaughter’s name?”
“Emily. She lives over in Lemon Hill but comes and checks on me every day after work. She’s so sweet. She’s always taken good care of me.” Gertie’s eyes misted a little. “I asked her to move in with me once so she wouldn’t have to pay rent at the duplex she lives in. She’s been there ever since her boyfriend left her last year. But she said no for some reason.”
Maggie let her eyes drift over the mounds of debris stacked to the ceiling, then back to Gertie. “I just can’t imagine why she wouldn’t,” she said, completely deadpan.
Gertie didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. “She’s trying to kill me for my inheritance,” she whispered, voice trembling. Then she clutched at the chair arms and cried out, “Oh lord! Where are those ambulance drivers? The poison is working in me right now! They need to look at me. But not the spic. I want the white girl.”
Maggie kept her eyes on her but didn’t flinch. Her millennial upbringing had taught her to bristle at such slurs. But she said nothing to show it. Her job wasn’t to rewire an eighty-year-old’s worldview at four-thirty in the morning. It was to clear the call. “It’ll be the white girl,” she promised evenly. “I’ll make sure of it.” She would actually be making sure of nothing. Reese would deal with her because she was the paramedic and her Hispanic partner was the EMT. That was just the way things worked. But Gertie, who called all paramedics and EMTs “ambulance drivers” didn’t know that. And it served Maggie’s cause for Gertie to think the non-clone cop was in her corner.
And people wondered why cops drank so much and made lousy spouses. It wasn’t the gunbattles or the danger. It was little shit like this in a constant flood.