Ask Me to Stay

Ask Me To Stay – Chapter 1

“I don’t even begin to know what happened here…” Jessica Valverde shook her head and almost shrugged in response to the question the lead officer had posed to her.
She stood quietly in the living room of a run-down house that would have smelled bad even without the dead body lying on the floor in the middle of it.
Looking around, she took in all the evidence she could. She’d agreed to help out in robbery-homicide for the day. It was her good deed this week. She needed to get brownie points with the brass as she’d heard the captain was planning to retire next year. When her spot vacated, people would shift up with promotions. Jess expected her boss, Lupe Jones, to promote up, and she wanted Jones’ spot. That meant she needed to play nice now.
She’d expected gunshot wounds and maybe some stabbings—this was Los Angeles, after all. She’d expected the smell of blood and angry killers standing around with smoking guns. She’d known that last part wasn’t how it worked, but this was not what she’d planned for.
She’d been asked to step in because she’d previously been assigned in robbery-homicide. Even then, she’d done much more work on robberies. She’d been newer then. Her one claim to fame had been helping country music star and Wilder bassist, Craig Hibbets, with an old case. But it had never materialized into anything, and she had to keep her mouth shut about cases anyway. As she’d gotten promoted, and gotten to choose, she’d moved into work with juvenile criminals and then into commercial crimes.
It turned out she loved the commercial crimes division. She got to shut down people who were scamming others. She’d met families whose life savings she’d helped recover. She’d processed criminals running fraudulent prisons and she could see the results of her work. Though she hadn’t been part of the drive to reform the laws, she had testified before the city, and sometimes the state, about her cases, and she’d made a difference. She’d passed her Sergeant’s exam about a year ago and was on her way up.
When she could choose, she tried not to work with juveniles; it wore her out and scraped away at her faith in humanity. As did sex crimes. She wasn’t qualified for forensics, so that was out. But homicide investigation at least felt like good, necessary work. Only this guy had been dead for so long she wasn’t sure what could be done for him. He was rotted enough that it was going to take a specialist to even begin to determine how he died, let alone who might be guilty. The death investigator was already on scene—and wholly unperturbed by the smell—and she was ordering an autopsy because she had no idea whether the man had been murdered or not. Jessica saw no evidence one way or another, but she was pretty confident she was going to see her lunch again.
This was not good. She turned away to get a clean breath, but the rest of the place was as bad as the body. To be fair to the dead man, part of it was that the trash hadn’t been taken out in days and the dishes hadn’t been washed. That was probably because he’d been dead. On the other hand, it didn’t look like the little apartment had been pristine when he’d been alive, either.
“Come on, Valverde.” Detective Rimes nudged her with his elbow and laughed a little. He—like the death investigator—was not wearing a mask nor did he seem bothered.
“You must have no sense of smell,” Jessica accused. She was supposed to have dinner with her friends tonight. Oh Lordy, she hoped she made it and she hoped she could stomach the smells of the restaurant by then.
Rimes laughed at her. “I have an excellent sense of smell. In fact, I can tell you this guy was diabetic.”
“Good job!” the death investigator praised him. “I can smell it, too.”
Jessica felt her stomach turn again. Normally, she didn’t react like this, but this guy was too far gone.
She barely held it together until they finished. As soon as possible, she reminded Rimes that she was just his sidekick today and headed back outside for fresh air. She even volunteered to do paperwork. Hopefully that would earn her the brownie points because he took her up on it. So she stood outside for a moment, breathing deeply and trying to determine if the smell clung to her clothes. Damn, she needed a shower.
Later, when they hit the station, Jessica warred between smelling better and getting her work done. Normally, she showered at home. It was hers alone, comfortable, private, but today warranted using the kit she kept in her locker and making use of the station’s facilities.
Ten minutes later, she was dressed, fresh smelling, and drying her hair as best she could.
Good decision, she told herself as she headed back to her desk. She was almost there when that smooth voice came up behind her.
“Rough day?”
What? She was clean! She didn’t smell anymore! Trying to keep her cool, Jessica turned to face Alex Copeland. “Why do you ask?”
“You showered.” He grinned as though that explained everything. When she frowned at him like he was crazy, he added, “That means you had something to shower off.”
Only by the time he got to the end of the sentence, he wasn’t grinning anymore. He’d grown serious, as though worried that she might have needed to wash away her day so far.
“Rotting corpse,” she offered by way of explanation.
That made his face twist into an expression of disgust she had not imagined he could make. When he got it together, he asked, “I thought you were in fraud?”
He wouldn’t know. He was a uniformed cop, out on patrol. Not a detective like her.
“I’m ‘helping’ today.” She made air-quotes.
“Ah.” He nodded then his expression changed a bit. “Do you need someone to take you to dinner tonight? Help forget the day?”
Oh, God. He was such a flirt. “I’m good, Alex. Thank you.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind.” He was hooking his thumbs back into his belt. It would have looked like ‘aw-shucks-ma’am’ on anyone else, but on a cop, it was where your hands went naturally. There was no other comfortable position with all your stuff strapped to your hips. But on Alex, it looked better than it should have. She was pretty sure he knew it, too.
“I have plans with friends,” she assured him. Then she turned back to her desk to give him space to hit on the next female who came by and returned to filling out her forms.
Paperwork was often the bane of her existence. Usually she had to remind herself that it was necessary, that it stopped criminals from continuing. Today, the busywork was a welcome respite from Rimes and his ‘let’s go take care of another dead body’ attitude.
She ate an energy bar—not an unusual lunch for her—reminding herself that she was headed to Rory’s Grill for dinner and she could stuff her face with spinach artichoke dip and sliders. She reminded herself that she didn’t care if it was basic.
She was a girl who’d grown up in the part of Los Angeles that never saw the beach. Her family hadn’t lived in a neighborhood where gangs weren’t inevitable, but they were a worry. Chips and burgers were definitely her speed.
Jessica was settling in when Rimes came by again. “I got another one. Come on, partner.”
The way he said “partner,” it had just a slight edge of jest. Ugh. Maybe she could take two showers today.

# # #

“Oh, my God, I’m so full.” Jessica couldn’t finish her dessert. Leaning back against the padded booth, she would have moaned had she not been in public. She hadn’t eaten much all day with Rimes running her around, so she’d pretty much stuffed her face once she got here.
“I could eat a horse,” Zoe commented, reaching for the remaining chocolate cake Jessica had tapped out of.
Bree raised her eyebrows. “Are you pregnant?”
Zoe’s fork clattered to the plate and for a moment Jessica thought Zoe was going to say “yes.” Instead, her friend looked horrified.
“Oh, God. No. Just No.” Zoe pulled the cake a little closer, though she wasn’t digging in quite as quickly anymore. She looked up at Noah who looked nearly as panicked by the question as she did. He was shaking his head as though Bree had asked if they wanted to jump naked into a slimy lake full of leeches.
Jessica grinned. Zoe and Noah were the youngest of them. Zoe was just starting out in the working world. Where Jessica had gone through school for just an associate’s degree, then gone right into the police academy, Zoe had stayed in school for years, recently graduating with a masters in chemical engineering. Jessica was just a handful of years older than Zoe, but had been in her job for a decade come spring. She’d eventually finished a bachelors and a one year’s masters program to help get promoted, but she’d done it while she worked. She wasn’t a school nerd like Zoe. Not at all.
Zoe shuddered and went back to eating the cake. Jessica was pretty sure she heard the young woman mutter “twins.” It sounded like she was warding off a curse. Since her sister had a pair and Zoe had helped out, it was probably the best birth control there was.
Jessica looked around the table. She wasn’t uncomfortable, these were her friends after all, but she’d become the odd man out. There were seven of them. Always had been. But Cara and Walker had surprised them all by getting pregnant—together. Bree and Kevin had been married the whole time Jess had known them. But Zoe, Noah and Jessica had all been single. Then Zoe and Noah weren’t. So here she was. Seventh wheel. The only solo.
She doubted any of the rest of them even thought about it, but she was starting to. They talked around her as she watched.
Jessica had thought she’d be married by thirty. Instead, here she was, a few years past it and she wasn’t even seeing anyone seriously. Sure, she was a cop—it was part of who she was—but she’d never thought it was all she would be. She dated. Well, she had until she’d gotten frustrated about two years ago when she’d dated a guy she really liked, and he turned out to be a pathological liar. Jessica didn’t use that label lightly, either.
He’d said they were exclusive. It turned out Jessica was the only one of them that was. He was seeing three other women. He flat out denied it, called her paranoid. Jessica had laughed. She was a police officer; she didn’t do much of anything without proof. While he called her names, she’d gotten tested for STDs. Not her finest hour. Eventually, she’d been given a clean bill of health and told the other women. The third had called her a liar, so Jessica wished the other two good luck and walked away.
Looking back, that had been when she quit dating. At the time, she’d still believed that the right guy would come along. That she’d get promoted out of her little apartment. But here she was. It didn’t look like her life was coming for her, she was going to have to go out and find it.
“Jessica?” Cara was looking at her oddly.
“Sorry.” The check had arrived and sat in front of her now, untouched. Yup, the only solo bill in the group. “Just my mind wandering. I had to help in homicide today and I guess I’m not quite back to normal.”
“Ugh,” Cara commented. She was a corporate lawyer. Bree, an EMT, had the opposite reaction.
“What did you see?”
“Bree, we’re at the table,” Kevin put a hand on her arm and she rolled her eyes. It was funny watching the staid married couple.
Jessica laughed at them. She’d be okay. She had these guys, even if they all seemed to have each other. Still, she was going to say yes to the next guy who asked her out.