It was James's first official day at work and when he walked into the station to clock on, he was met with a tall blonde. He was rather impressed, he didn't often find females that almost met his own height. She wasn't taller, but she wasn't as small as most of the women he knew in his life. At first he thought that she was just a receptionist, but he soon saw the credentials and realised that she was an officer of the law also. She walked closer holding out her hand, “James Hanaway I presume? I'm Rachel Evans, Detective Rachel Evans. John will be here shortly I have no doubt. I know that your official job is sheriff of the community, but you will be on cases with me and probably John from time to time.” James gave a smile and shook her hand vigorously. “Pleased to meet you ma'am.” He said doing his best to stay as polite as possible. However this was met with her shaking her head and laughing slightly, “Please, Rachel is fine, we're not into this ma'am and sir shit here.” Basically she was just trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible.
James wasn't sure how to react at first, but he realised he might as well join in, so sort of chuckled, rubbing at his neck, “Yeah, right. I have a feeling you're just trying to make me feel comfortable.” Oh snap, thought Rachel, he had figured it out, “Maybe, but we are definitely not that formal either. Let me show you to your office, where you reside when you're not doing circuits of the community aiming to keep the peace.” James nodded, using his arm to motion a signal and said, “Lead the way please Rachel.” His own office was off to the side of the building with it's own entrance door, and a sheriff car parked outside. Rachel threw him the keys, “This is for your door, and this one is for the car. John told me to welcome you, as he said he was going to be late, bad night apparently.” It wasn't the first time that John was late in getting into work and it was always down to a bad night, at least that was the excuse that he always gave. James added the relevant keys to his keyring, the new one that he had bought specifically for his work keys. “Cheers. Is John likely to be in soon, do I have to wait for him what with him being the Captain or am I free to just go about my job?”
Well John hadn't said anything to her about that either way, all he said was to give him his keys and show him his office. “I think you can just go about your business, but oh wait, there's something else you need. I'll be back in a minute.” Rachel left him and while she was gone, James took the opportunity to have a look around his new office. It was bigger than his last one, in fact, it was like a room from a penthouse suite it was that big. It had a lush leather reclining chair at the desk, and a television. Cupboards and shelves a plenty. Yes, he could definitely get used to working here. A massive house that seemed to go for miles and now this office. Clearly the residents liked to live in comfort, not that he was going to complain about that. He sat down and started messing about with the drawers on the desk.
There were three on each side, with two shallow ones and deeper one at the bottom. The smaller ones on each side opened with ease. They held your basic stationery stuff, pens, notepads that kind of thing. The other two smaller drawers didn't have much of anything other than a solitary small key. When he tried one of the deeper drawers, it wouldn't open, so it must have been locked. Did the key unlock it he wondered, he tried it, and sure enough it opened the locked drawer. Inside was a journal with some terribly bad writing in it. Flicking through it quickly, it was very hard to make out much of anything, but a few pages had been torn out and some were ripped in half or scored out with a marker type pen.
He had no idea who this had belonged to, but as he tried to look through it further, he heard the footsteps coming back, so he shoved the notepad into his pocket to look at it further when he was alone or had the time to do so without interruption. Rachel knocked on the door, and then walked in, “Almost forgot to give you your badge and gun, that would be no good. Welcome to Pandora, James. We suggest that you do three community circuits through the day. One in the morning, one in the early afternoon and one in the evening before you clock off. You can do your first one alone right now, or I or John can come with you.” She was hoping that he would agree to her coming along, as she had nothing better to do with her time and she wanted to talk him about John, away from the office. John didn't seem to like her all that much and maybe he had reason, but with him slowly turning most other people against her, she also had reason to be suspicious of him, and wanted someone on her side. James having not been given any proper details on what to do from John himself, wasn't sure if he should say yes or no, but she worked here, she was a detective, it couldn't be wrong to say yes, could it? He nodded his head, “Sure, why not. How long does the full circuit usually take?” He asked, glancing at his watch, it was nine thirty just now. “It takes around an hour, unless of course we come across something that we shouldn't, then it will take longer.” That made sense, any trouble that required sorting would of course make the trip last longer.
He grabbed his new car keys, and opened the door, and made his way out to his shiny new sheriff car. Once Rachel was in the driver's side, he put his foot down and took off. He wasn't used to the roads in the community, but since it was gated, it also meant that there was no way to get lost, he would or should always find his way back no matter which road he took, besides, there were signs. He turned left and headed towards the school first, Mirador Castle it said. What an unusual name for a school he thought. He pointed to it quickly with his hand still on the wheel, “What's with the rather mystical name of the school?” Rachel laughed a little, waving her hand, “Oh, nothing mystical about it at all. It was given its name because it used to be a castle that belonged to some royal family a long time ago, and Mirador stands for a turret, didn't you know that?” That was as mystical as it got, actually, not strictly true. All the kids of the community went there and there was nothing normal about most of them. James chuckled, “Right, as simple as that then.” After all, the signs for everything else seemed straight forward.
They drove around the rest of the journey pretty much in silence and with no trouble or disturbances until James's radio went off. “James, it's John, are you almost finished your first route, if so, can you make your way back. I need to talk to you about job in a more official capacity.” James pressed the intercom to talk, “Yeah, sure, be back in a few, just finished the first trip.” He let go of the button and the voice returned, “Good, see you in your office.” James glanced at Rachel, she raised her eyebrows, “Better do as he says. I enjoyed our first trip together.” James smiled, “Yeah, me too.” Minutes later, he was back inside his office, with John sat across from him.
Now that James was back in the office with John, he watched as the Captain, his boss, stood up, and locked the door, and shut the windows and blinds. This wasn't curious at all, thought James as he raised his eyebrows. It all seemed very cloak and dagger to him. John sat back down again, he then fiddled with the phone and James realised that he was switching it to voicemail. “Sorry, just don't want to get disturbed is all.” James gave a nod of his head, “Very well, makes sense I suppose.” However, instincts told him that there was something more to it than that, and it wasn't going to take long for him to realise how right he was.
John sat forward, “I don't really need to talk to you about your job some more. I know your credentials from your previous employer are good. I'm sure you are more than capable and I think Rachel already explained about the circuit trips three times a day?” He ended his statement with a question mark, and waited for James to confirm that, which he did, nodding his head. “Yeah, she did.” He needed James to be clued in right from the start about his distrust of Rachel, because he didn't want her snaring him under her spell, and yes, she did have a spell. He could also tell that there was something different about James. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he could sense it. He would work out what it was, but right now there was more pressing matters.
“I don't want you getting too close to Rachel, I don't trust her. I have no proper evidence, or she'd not be here, but things have been going mysteriously wrong since she arrived.” Honestly, that had come as a complete surprise, because she had come across very well to him earlier. Should he dare to question that command? He figured he had to, he was usually a good judge of character. “Can I ask why you don't trust her? She seemed fine with me before.” John expected that to be honest, because if there was one thing about Rachel, she had this inept way of getting into your head and heart. It was damn frustrating, he had fallen for it when she first arrived, but now he was wiser. She had men falling at her feet constantly until they knew better. “I can't really explain it, just a hunch and my hunches are usually good. Everything went to shit with this town ever since her arrival, let's put it that way, so you be careful with her, got it? I mean, if she wants to go on the circuit with her, you can't really say no, or she'll question it, just be careful.” James nodded, but he was still unsure about this, he hated to distrust someone unless he had a good reason to be wary.
“Fair enough, I will be careful, but I don't usually have a distrust of someone that I don't even really know. I usually prefer to build my own judgement on someone. Can you tell me more about this town going to shit since her arrival?” John rubbed at the back of his neck. Looking around the office, wondering if he should tell him, but no, it was too soon for him to get to know exactly what this town was like, what this town was full of, he'd take off. Thinking about it some more, maybe James could be his eyes and ears with Rachel, so maybe getting closer to might not be such a bad thing. “Let's just say that I think she's dangerous for the community. You've heard of bent coppers right? Well, I'm pretty sure she is. Actually, maybe getting a lot more acquainted isn't such a bad thing to be honest with you. How do you fancy being my spy? I'll reward you for your troubles, you'll get extra money in your wages. I just need to keep this town on the straight and narrow and I'm not sure I can do it alone, not if we have a troublemaker in the ranks.”
Well, there was something, there was the Captain sitting across from him on his first day, talking of not fully trusting the female officer that had been with the community for a while, and this was his first day and he was trusting him like this? His previous boss must have really talked him up. Only thing is, was he really comfortable with being a spy? He wanted this job, he wanted to stay here, it was a lovely area and their new house was like something out of a movie, could he really risk losing all of that, by saying no? “Sure, yeah, I'll do it. I'm not going to make her come on the route with me, but if she asks, I won't stop her. I'll stay as close as I can, and I'll report back anything that I find suspicious if that's what you want.” John stood up and slapped James on the back, “Good man, that's exactly what I want. Keep me informed. I need to keep this community safe, and I hired you because I was told you were good at your job.” That did make James feel really good, he couldn't deny it. “So, now what?” James asked, as John was now opening up the blinds, and unlocking the door, “Head back to your office, answer any calls until it's time for your next circuit of the town.” James smiled and stood up, “Very well.” He made his way back to his office, sat down and put his feet up on the foot stool that was underneath, yep, he was definitely enjoying the comforts of this life here in this town.
Now was as good a time as any to go through that book that he had found earlier. He noticed that it had a sticker on the inside front page, that held the credentials of a previous employee of the station. Some of the name was obscured, it had been scored through with a black marker, but it was Detective something with the surname starting Ca, and then the final letter, l, was left. It could be anything. Flicking through the book, from what he could tell, it was random scribblings about missing people and, what did that word say, it was so faded, deaths? Murder? What the fuck, thought James. True, many places had people being killed and murdered, but there was a number going down the pages, it started at one and the last number before some of them had been torn was sitting at forty. That number ran down over the space of a couple of months according to the book.
What place had forty deaths or murders in the space of two months? That was only eight weeks, fuck sake. A chill ran down his spine, maybe he wasn't so comfortable about staying in this town now. However, his interest was definitely piqued. A Captain that didn't trust one of his detectives and a book by a previous one that had some rather worrying information written down in it. He was engrossed in it that he hadn't realised that Rachel had returned to his office, it wasn't until the door clicked closed that he realised, jumped and tossed the book into his back pocket. “Jeez woman, can you not knock first? Scared me half to death.” Rachel giggled behind her hand, “Sorry, I did knock, you couldn't have heard it. I was wondering if we could talk, just the two of us?” James raised his eyebrow, what could this be about, but he had promised John he would keep her close, so he couldn't let him down. He beckoned with his hand for her to sit down. “Thanks, but just a second.” He watched with wonderment as she went and did the same thing that John had done earlier in his own room, locked his door, shut the blinds and closed the windows. It got him thinking that he was about to go through the exact same thing that he had earlier, only reversed. He wasn't wrong.
“James, what did John have to say for himself earlier? I noticed him making sure that nothing could be seen or heard.” Fuck it, he thought. How was he going to get around this one. He couldn't very well tell her that John wanted him to spy on her. He waved his hand, “Nothing, he was just filling me in on my job in greater detail.” He gave her a bit of a smile, but the look on her face told him that it didn't fly with her. “Bullshit, you don't go closing blinds, locking doors if it's something as simple as that. Spill.” What the actual fuck was he going to say, how could he get out of this. He was going to have to think fast on his feet here. Before he could say something, she spoke again. “And what was that you shoved in your pocket before?” Shit, she had seen that too, had she. He chuckled, “That's nothing, just a book that my kid gave me when she was younger, full or ramblings, I look at it every now and then as it makes me feel calmer when I'm in new territory. As for John, he was just telling me to be careful of some of the lads, as I'm new, they're prone to mucking about and I've not to fall for their tricks. That's all. Obviously he didn't want any of them to hear him warning me.” Phew, that was good, surely she would have fallen for it?
Rachel let that sink in, and realised that there could be truth in that and she laughed, shaking her head. “Yeah, some of them are dicks to the new guys. Right, well, I'm here to tell you to be careful of John. Don't trust him. He's trouble. You've heard of bent coppers, well, I can guarantee that he is one. I asked to come with you earlier as I wanted to see what you were like and I feel safe with you, I don't with him. So, can I count on you to help me oust him for the law breaker that he is?” Just great, what a bastard, first I get John wanting me to spy on Rachel, and now I have her wanting me to spy on him. What the actual fuck. Now what does he do? He promised John that he would keep her close, did he now have to agree to be a double agent? Would it do any harm? What if the reason John was so distrustful of Rachel was because she was close to finding out he was the bad one. It didn't matter, if he said no to him, he could be in trouble, and if he said no to her, same thing. “Okay, sure, yeah, I'll help you why not.” With that Rachel got up and left him alone, just in time for him to do his second circuit of the day.
It left him with a plethora of thoughts running through his head, firstly John wants him to spy on her, now she wants him to spy on John, and then there was this book. Now, what did he do? Should he approach John and tell him what Rachel just asked him to do? He wasn't sure right at this moment who he trusted more. Maybe he should just leave it for now, he liked to think he was a good judge of character, so it shouldn't take too long for him to figure out who was the good one and the bad one.
