Without a Net
WITHOUT A NET
Lyn Gala
www.loose-id.com
Without a Net
Copyright © August 2015 by Lyn Gala
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Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
eISBN 9781623009694
Editor: Kierstin Cherry
Cover Artist: Syneca Featherstone
Published in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
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Dedication
This is dedicated to the readers who are willing to follow me when my writing goes to wildly divergent places. My writing expresses my feelings at the time, and I wrote parts of this sitting in the hospital as I waited to see if a family member could survive a series of strokes. I put a lot of my pain into this story, and watching Ollie survive made me feel better.
Chapter One
“Captain,” Ollie said as he stopped at the office door.
Captain Greyson ran his fingers over the display, searching for something Ollie couldn’t see. However, from the thunderous expression on Greyson’s face, the report wasn’t good. Oliver hoped the captain wasn’t looking up his arrest statistics. He didn’t have the worst stats in the unit, but he didn’t have great numbers either. That came up in every review.
After a second, Captain Greyson wiped his hand over the surface of his desk, erasing the display. “Detective Robertson, come in.” He gave Ollie a dark frown.
“Yes, sir.” Ollie went to parade rest in front of the captain’s desk and did a little praying. Ollie might not be religious, but when a situation looked bad, he believed in covering his bases.
God, if you’re out there, I could use some help.
“I read your 5-60s from the last undercover op.” The captain leaned back in his chair.
And that was the sound of prayer failing. Ollie had hoped the paperwork would go into the system without anyone noticing and then sit there. That way, when Ollie had something big enough that he could make a formal complaint about, the 5-60s describing questionable behavior would be there to show a pattern. He kept his face neutral, though. “Yes, sir?”
Greyson rested his elbows on the desk. Some of the higher-ups got their positions by keeping their heads down and kissing political butt. Greyson was a different sort. He’d been a beat cop and then a vice detective and a lieutenant over in narcotics. He’d earned respect, and Ollie had no idea what the man would do with the information Ollie had dropped in his lap.
After a second, Greyson’s expression softened. “How bad is it, really?”
Ollie took several deep breaths. Greyson was a captain, so he probably had bioreaders around here somewhere, all tracking Ollie’s respiration and sweat and calculating probabilities about whether Ollie was lying. So the best bet was to say as little as possible. “You have my reports, sir.”
“Drop the
sir
and give me some truth here, Detective. Your report seems to suggest that Lieutenant Huda has a problem with members of my department. Would you like to elaborate on that?”
Ollie lifted his chin. “No, sir.”
An uncomfortable silence stained the air, and Greyson stared at Ollie. “No, sir? That’s what you’re going with?”
Ollie had no idea if the captain wanted him to rewrite the 5-60s to take out the implications of impropriety or if he wanted more details on what Lieutenant Huda had done. No matter what Ollie said, he ran the risk of being wrong—career-endingly wrong.
With a sigh, the captain stood and went over to the windows, and with a swipe of his hand, he turned the glass dark. “Time for some honesty,” he said before he dropped the thick, rolled curtains. They would stop anyone from using the vibrations of the glass to try to tell what was being said in the room. “I think Lieutenant Huda is a first-class asshole, and other than his ability to choose the right wine to go with some politician’s dinner, I have no idea how he got into my department, much less as one of my lieutenants.”
“Captain?” Shock flowed through Ollie. Higher-ups simply didn’t talk about each other like this. Ever.
“Give me the honest truth. Those 5-60s imply he was slow to react to changing circumstances and that he didn’t give you the backup you requested. Tell me the whole story from the beginning.” The captain returned to his seat.
Ollie still suspected this was a trap, but the captain had a solid reputation, not like Lieutenant Huda. “We were down on the docks investigating a series of rapes when I saw suspicious activity. I reported it to my backup, and Detective Kemboi told me to hold position. I followed a short distance, but then I risked leaving my assigned area. I called again for support to follow what appeared to be criminal activity, and my backup refused. I told them I might be seeing a kidnapping, and my backup ordered me to hold position. After my suspects turned the corner, I went running after them.”
“So you abandoned your assigned backup, and your part of the dragnet for the rapist was left with a hole,” Captain Greyson said.
All the blood left Ollie’s face.
“Detective, that is Lieutenant Huda’s interpretation, not mine. I read your report, and you could have been looking at a friend helping a drunk buddy home, you could have been looking at a control game, or you could have been seeing a kidnapping. I would have done exactly what you did, only I would have done it quicker so I caught up with the guys before they disappeared.”
“Yes, sir,” Ollie agreed unhappily. He had waited too long. But his partner on backup had more experience, and he had been ordering Ollie to stand down.
“Now, explain why you think the lieutenant shares any blame for that.”
“Detective Kemboi said the order to stand down came directly from the lieutenant, who was not even on scene.”
The captain smiled. “Police work is not like it was in my day. You can sit at a screen and see what you need without going into the field. Hell, give me the name of an officer, and I can look through his eyes right here and right now.” He tapped the glass display screen on his desk.
“But I wasn’t wired,” Ollie pointed out. That sort of equipment would have been obvious down on the docks.
“But you weren’t wired,” Greyson agreed. “Is there bad blood between you and the lieutenant?”
Ollie rubbed his hand over his face. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. “I don’t know, sir.”
“That answer will require explaining.” The captain gestured toward one of the chairs. “Sit, make yourself comfortable, and tell me what the hell is going on in my squad room.”
Still not happy, Ollie sat and used a finger to trace the edge of the desk. “The lieutenant hasn’t liked me from day one.”
“What did ya do to piss him off?”
“Nothing,” Ollie said. “The first time he noticed me, we were going over a case I was working with Kemboi’s team. Detective Kemboi called me
cover boy
, and one of the others pointed out that I’d been on the cover of the Children’s Charity gay calendar. Huda looked at me like I disgusted him.” Ollie found the calendar a bit embarrassing, and if he’d known the charity wanted him for the cover, he never would have agreed to do it. Ollie was firmly planted in his late thirties, so he’d figured one of the twenty-something hot bodies would pull that honor. Instead, his striking combination of blue eyes and black hair had won the day. The photographer had airbrushed in the six-pack. But the lieutenant’s disgust… That was uncalled for.
The captain sucked air through his front teeth. “Are you suggesting that one of my lieutenants is a hetero-pride asshole?”
Ollie shook his head. “I don’t have any evidence to suggest that, sir.”
“Does he treat you different from the others?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We have to have other gays in the department. Has he given them any shit?”
“Patrics is on leave after breaking his arm. Cooper and Dory are both bi, and they play up their interest in females around this guy.”
The captain narrowed his eyes. “We must have more gays and bis than that. We have close to twenty detectives assigned to the sex-crime unit.”
“They’re all cisgendered,” Ollie said. He was shocked at how cis-heavy the department was, but Clemens had transferred to major crimes, D’Bargi had retired, Flemings took a private job, and that had left Ollie and Patrics as the only gay detectives in the unit. Worse, most of those transfers had taken place shortly after the new lieutenant showed up. Ollie wondered if he was the next gay on the man’s agenda. Hetero haters were like that—targeting gays only when they thought they could get away with it. They were cowards, no different from white hate groups.
Of course, that was not how they explained things. To hear them talk, they were the poor abused souls who weren’t allowed by society to wallow in their hatred. When the Supreme Court had recognized the right to self-identify gender and sexual orientation, the bigots had wailed like banshees and accused the government of passing laws to snatch the children right out of cisgendered folks’ hands and give them to perverts. They never figured out that most gay and bi and gender-fluid and asexual kids had cisgendered parents. One man and one woman was not only the statistical norm, but it was also the easiest way to have a kid.
“Well, crap on a cracker.” The captain activated his desk, and a holographic keyboard appeared. He started typing, but from the guest chair, Ollie could only see blurred colors. “So, you filed an objection to the new mission. Give me details.” The captain kept his gaze on the desk, and he pulled out a manual keyboard.