Chapter 4

Detective Abigail Rains got out of her sky blue mustang, locked it and headed up the stairs to the 49th Precinct where she’d been working this past year.

As soon as she walked through the doors, she was met with a low whistle.

“My aren’t you looking lovely today, detective.” The short guy at the counter stated, giving her his full attention.

“My, my Lou. What would Lindsey say if she heard you?” she asked, referring to his wife of twelve years.

Lou laughed.

“Let’s not go there.” He said putting up his hands.

Abigail smiled at him before getting to her desk. She was fully aware of eyes following her on her way there. Sergeant Kincaid had warned her that she’d be a distraction to his team, but she couldn’t exactly help that. Sure she was a bit more than merely attractive with her dark brown curls that fell just below her shoulders and those honey-coloured eyes and pouty lips that men found absolutely irresistible. The jeans she wore hugged her hips and the white turtle-neck top and denim jacket clung to her body in all the right places.

She arrived at her desk and sat down leaning back in her chair. From tomorrow she’d be going on a two-week vacation. The first real vacation she’d be having since joining the precinct. She’d joined the 49th precinct after coming straight out of the Academy and found out that she was pretty good at solving cases and earned her role as a detective shortly afterwards.

Today she would be working on the final paperwork of her last case. She picked up her pen and opened the file in front of her just as she heard her phone ring. She sighed loudly, dropped the pen and picked up the receiver.

“Detective Rains.” She said mechanically, she listened for a moment before replying, “I’ll be right in.” she hung up the receiver, closed the file and headed to Sergeant Kincaid’s office.

She had the same reaction as Rick when she knocked on the door, she laughed. When she heard him answer, she walked in.

“You called, sergeant?” she asked, walking up to his desk.

Jason leaned back in his chair and smiled.

“Come on, Abby. It’s just us.” He said, “You can drop the sergeant bit.”

“What if I don’t want to?” she countered, “And that’s Detective Rains to you, Jason.” She teased.

Jason leaned forward, folded his arms on his desk and gave her a disappointed look, “But Abby, we used to date.” He said, his lower lip pouted slightly.

“We went out once, Jason. I don’t think that qualifies as us dating.” She told him folding her arms across her chest, “Now I know you didn’t call me in here to talk about what would have been with us right?” she asked.

“As interesting as that conversation might have been, no.” Jason said, “You want to sit down?” he asked motioning to a chair.

“Nah, I’m fine.” She replied.

He shrugged.

“Well, you see the thing is, I’ve got this friend of mine. You might have heard of him, uh, Rick Camden?” Jason asked.

Abigail lifted her shoulders and shook her head.

“From the Bayside Boys?” he added.

Abigail’s eyebrows rose.

“Really? My niece is obsessed with them.” She stated dryly, “Especially the cute, blond one.”

“Uh, that would be Rick.” Jason replied with a smile.

“Oh.” She said feeling her cheeks flush slightly.

“I can see that your niece isn’t the only one with a little crush on him.” He teased.

“Shut up Jason” she said rolling her eyes, “You, of all people should know that I’m not into pretty boys!” she said, looking directly at him.

“Ouch! That hurts.” He said clutching his heart dramatically, “Anyway,” he said, his voice taking on a more serious note, “He’s been having some trouble. The Bayside Boys Black and White tour has only been on the road for the past few weeks and Rick’s hotel room has been broken into twice. Once in New York and Florida and a note left behind.” He handed her the note.

Abigail read the note and screwed up her face.

“Nice.” She said sarcastically.

“Yeah so this morning he said he woke up to this sound and saw someone all dressed in black run onto the balcony from his room with a knife. Basically,” Jason said spreading his hands on the desk, “He thinks someone’s after him.” He deliberately left out the fact that most of what he’d just told her was part of a joke just in case it turned out that it was something more serious than that. If it was, he knew Abigail would find out. If, instead, he’d told her about the joke, then she wouldn’t take the last part seriously. He wanted to go about this as any other case she might have been working on.

“So what do you want me to do?” she asked, “You know I’m going on vacation from tomorrow, you can’t be giving me this case!” she stated, her voice rising.

“Abby, calm down.” Jason said soothingly as he stood up and walked over to her, “I’m not giving you this case. It’s just that I promised Rick I’d come by the show tonight to keep an eye on things but I just got a lead on the O’Conner case and I have to work tonight so I was wondering-“

”If I could go to the show instead to keep an eye on things for you.” She finished, putting her hands on her hips.

“It would really help me out a lot.” Jason told him, “He’s one of my best friends, Abby.”

Abby sighed.

“Come on, you get to start off your vacation with a Bayside Boys concert!” he told her, putting his hands on her shoulders, “Do you know how many girls would kill for a chance like that?!”

“Yeah but I’ll be working. It’s not like I’ll be having fun.” She stated.

“Oh by the way, this is totally hush-hush. We don’t want the press to get a hold of this okay?” he told her, “That’s the main reason I chose you to do this for me. I know you’ll be able to fit in easily in the crowd. No one would ever suspect you’re a COP.” He added, “But if anyone asks, you’re Rick Camden’s girlfriend!”