Free Protect and Serve by Kat Jackson

be back in fifteen. Going to grab some breakfast and a few things to cook that aren’t the beans and rice they left us in there.”
     
    The rookie just whispered a quick “okay” as I walked past him. He wasn’t about to question a detective, and that was all the better for me, because Captain Pierce probably wouldn’t appreciate my little store run.
     
    It didn’t take long to reach the ground floor, and although the shitty little Honda wasn’t much to look at, it was comfortable enough on the drive up the street. I flipped on the radio, letting a little R&B fill the cabin. Its familiarity helped me clear my head.
     
    “What are you doing, Chandra?” I asked myself, gripping the steering wheel a little harder. Sure, it was fun to mix a little business and pleasure, but I’d worked damn hard to make detective, to force the men in my precinct to regard me with respect. Was I really going to risk all of that for a ride on this man’s billion dollar dick? What would they say if they found out Detective Williams had slept with a witness?
     
    But my own self-doubt wasn’t stopping me from grabbing the biggest box of Magnum condoms from inside the glass case at the supermarket.
     
    I finished my little shopping trip with a few bags’ worth of groceries. We now had all the fixings for a few days of breakfast, a handful of quick microwaveable dinners, and plenty of bread and lunch meat. I would have loved to do more, but this wasn’t going on the police budget, and first year detectives aren’t exactly rolling in the dough.
     
    I was on my way up the stairs to the room, the heavy bags straining my arms and digging into my fingers, when I realized something was wrong. The rookie wasn’t in the hall where I’d left him, and he didn’t respond when I rapped quietly on his door.
     
    Fuck.
     
    I lay the bags down on the floor, pulling my gun from the ankle holster beneath my jeans. I’d only been gone twenty minutes. Twenty-five, at most. I stepped up to a window along the hall that was streaming light into the cramped space with the row of apartment doors. Out on the grounds, I could still see a few of Nathan’s security team, but that was no guarantee that someone hadn’t slipped by.
     
    I did the only thing I could do. I burst into a run, barreling down the hall toward the farthest door. There was only one job I was supposed to be doing, and I’d went and screwed it all up for some grub and a lousy pack of condoms.
     
    As I came to the door, I saw it was slightly ajar. I kicked it in as I swept the gun across the room, immediately feeling embarrassed as the rookie and Nathan both sat quietly on the little couch, their hands in the air.
     
    “What are you doing in here?” I asked the rookie, about ready to strangle him for scaring me like that.
     
    “Sorry, detective. I had to report to Captain Pierce that you’d stepped out. He said we have a credible threat on Nathaniel Hale’s life and asked me to move rooms until the threat was over.”
     
    “There’s no room in here!” I protested, glancing from the rookie to Nathan.
     
    “Don’t worry, I’ll make do with the floor. Captain says it should be safe to leave you two alone in a few days. Three days, tops.”
     
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As I stepped back into the hall and went back to retrieve my grocery bags, there was a definite feeling of contempt rolling through me. Captain Pierce had it out for me, and he’d been orchestrating this whole thing as a way to embarrass and harass me. I should have seen it coming. I should have seen past the heartfelt speech he’d given me, past the mock attempt he’d made to get me to say “no.” It had all been a lie, every last word of it. I wasn’t held in any higher esteem now than when I’d joined the damn force as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie.
     
    And now, what little enjoyment I was getting out of it was going to be ruined by some stupid kid just out of the academy sharing a