Harsini was on the rampage. Reece was looking studiously at the table while Davis and Christian were fidgeting with their pens. Colette kept her cool though; the bitch was unflappable. I had a free pass because I was nowhere near this shit when it went down. I was on the other side of the city, getting actual results, home free.
"So yeah, you think we do it again, right?" Harsini continued, pointing at Reece then at Colette.
"I was close, chief," Reece began, shrugging his massive shoulders.
It looked odd to see such a big guy look so intimidated, but his boss had really gotten into the flow now and was bristling. Too much testosterone around the table, too many opinions. Colette was playing it smart, keeping quiet and letting the men slog it out. Eventually, she piped up.
"Chief, I'm with Reece on this one," she began, her tone level and quiet, in stark contrast to the diatribe from moments before.
Harsini's hands settled on his hips, fingers digging into the belt. He was carrying more weight than he should have, and the argument had worked him into a sweat. He took a deep breath. That was the thing with all of the guys: they can go hammer and tongs at each other but they pull it back a notch when the females speak. Colette was using it to her advantage now. I'd pulled the same trick in the past too.
I had to though. I'm slightly below average height for a female so some of the guys, like Davis, tower over me. I'm clearly not one of them, so they peg it back a little to compensate. Add to that the fact that I'm first generation born here, daughter of parents who left the oppressive heat of the Indian monsoon season and never went back, so I don't look like them either. It could have all worked against me, but it didn't.
I'm a native, though. I don't speak with an accent. I like the cold: I was born into it, I like the seasons. I like my family, though my Amma keeps asking when I'm going to get married. I tell her I don't know, I have to actually meet someone first. I also like my job, and most of the people I work with. I like the way they call me Eve, though my name is actually Ava; it's like when I go to work I have a secret identity, one that my parents don't know about. If I'm being honest, I even like Harsini: he's a good boss who knows what he's doing, and right now he's in full expectation reset mode.
I listened to Colette explaining the intel they'd managed to obtain on the last surveillance, reiterating that we were focusing on the long game. It was all well and good to bust a few guys, but they needed everyone, which needed another excursion. I watched her work, the same way I'd seen her talk a man literally off a ledge back when we were both in genpop uniforms responding to whatever crazy shit came over the radio. I'd walk through fire if she needed it because I knew that if push came to shove, she wouldn't fuck up.
Harsini seemed to be winding down from defcon one. He looked dead at Reece.
"Okay, two more weeks. Then what you have is what you have."
He ran his fingers over the laptop keyboard and moved on to the next item on the agenda without waiting for a response.
I swivelled slightly in my chair so I could watch Colette. She was pretty, blonde, coming up to forty and a little heavier than when we'd first met, but in a way that gave her curves. She knew how to work the curves too: when to undo the extra button of the blouse, when to flash her little smile, and when to be a stone-cold viper. It made her good at her job, an extra set of tools in the bag that the guys around the table just didn't have. As she wound down from the stress of the conversation, she was playing with her wedding ring, turning it on her finger. It was one of her tells; it told me how worked up she'd been herself, even though she hadn't shown it, had kept her nerve.
Colette rocked her shoulders back, folding her arms behind her, dissipating tension. It had the effect of pushing her ample bosom forward, and viewing side-on as I was, my eyes were drawn to it. I'm not into girls, but I'm not blind either. I mean, I can appreciate what men see in her.
"Item three: the cafe siege. They're asking me to jump on the post-operation review, so that's going to be a shit-show. I'll be out of the office for at least three days next week."
Harsini ran a hand through his hair. The siege has been bad. Lone wolf gunman, unrealistic demands, four hostages. The anti-terror unit had pumped the place full of flashbangs and gone in shooting. They'd got their man but a hostage had taken a bullet in the back as she tried to run. She'd only been in her twenties.
Harsini sucked in a breath.
"Item four. Expense accounts. I'm hoping that you're all up to date with logging your hours, and your travel allowances," Harsini was saying. We all nodded, including Christian even though that was bullshit. He was weeks behind.
Colette stretched again, and the little silver necklace around her neck jiggled. It caught my eye: just a simple silver chain threaded through a set of what looked like charm pendants, resting delicately in her cleavage. They were unusual, and I took a moment to lean a little closer for a better look.
"Okay, that's it. Enjoy the rest of your day," Harsini announced and slapped the laptop closed.
We all got up, but Colette caught me staring at her cleavage and gave me a little smile.
"New necklace?" I asked.
"Nah, same necklace. It's the one Kent gave me before his last deployment."
"Looks different though, like you've added... uh."
I stopped. There was a tiny cross, which had always been there, and a teardrop with a little emerald set into it, but next to it was a tiny key. I realised I was staring at her neckline so shifted my eyes up to her face. Colette's eyes met mine, her expression enigmatic.
"Looks pretty," I managed to blurt out as I followed behind her, back to our desks.
My mind was racing, though. I knew that Kent had just returned from eight months overseas. I also knew their backstory, having found her a couple of weeks back, utterly miserable, in the kitchen. I'd been surprised because Kent had gotten home just a few days before and I had expected her to be over the moon to finally have her husband back, safe and sound. I didn't know him very well, in fact I'd probably only ever met him two or three times even though Colette and I had been buddies at work for years. Maybe it was the job: we could go out for drinks, but we didn't mingle personal lives.
"Coffee?" I asked.
"Sure. Too early for beer."
We made our way down the stairs and out into the fresh air. The coffee shop was right across the road. I guess they knew how to make money; crime never sleeps, and it's location, location, location. We grabbed two coffees and sat down at a table outside.
"How's the home front?" I asked, "Seems like you're happier."
"Yeah. I think we've worked a few things out."
"Kent's good then?"
Colette wrinkled her nose. "Same issue, but we're just trying a different way to deal with it."
I watched the tiny key glinting in the sun.
"So he's still jealous?"
"Mm hmm." She sipped her drink.
I knew what the issue was. It was Reece. There had always been a question mark in Kent's mind about his pretty, buxom wife spending time with Reece, and when it had come time for Kent to head off on deployment it had made it a lot worse for him. He was taking shit overseas every day with the thought of his sexy wife in an office with burly guys, or on assignments, or sitting in hotel rooms for hours on end. The boredom, the monotony, the lack of sexual release. For some reason, Kent had locked onto Reece as his nemesis and had eventually accused Colette straight out of fucking him behind his back. Worse still, she told me, he'd done it over a video link from thousands of miles away.
"When he got home, I really laid it on for him. I bought some new lingerie, picked him up in the car in a new dress that stopped somewhere around my kidneys. I had a hand on his thigh all the way home."
"You made it home though? I'm surprised."
