Fiction: Title to Be Determined

Alright friends... this has been long in the making. I've been thinking about this particular story for a while, but have recently changed some of the plot details to be a little more realistic to my scope of knowledge and experience, in as much as writing fiction ever fits within your scope of knowledge and experience. I don't normally let people read my fiction, so why I'm posting it on my blog, I don't know. But here goes...

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Alistair tossed the keys to the young woman, opening the door to the passenger seat. "You drive." he barked, settling into the car as he tugged at his collar. The June heat was oppressive and his heated exchange with the chief didn't exactly help with his attitude.

"Sir?" she grabbed the door before he closed it, ducking her head down to look at his face in the door frame. "Sir, I'm not your driver."

"You are now."

Jules could tell by Stirling's body language that he wasn't going to back down, just as readily as she could tell that he was trying to goad her into insubordination. "Fine." she growled, slamming the door into Alistair's side.

"That hurt." he said as she came to the driver's side of the car.

"It was supposed to hurt." she calmly replied, turning the ignition over. Alistair noticed the lack of sweat on the woman's face, whereas he felt like a faucet in his jacket. She could at least have the decency to suffer the heat, same as everyone else.

"You know where we're headed?"

"I do, sir - Huntsville and Sixth." Jules answered, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

Alistair nodded as she moved the car into the stream of morning traffic that was coming off the Square. Resting his head against the seat he replayed the events of the previous hour over in his head. He hadn't intended to be saddled with a new partner so soon, in fact he found that he had enjoyed working solo such that the idea of training someone to follow his own methods was noxious - least of all at a time like this. The concept of a new partner had been so pushed aside in his own mind that Alistair had been caught off guard by his summons to the Chief's office that morning. He had assumed it had to do with the ongoing case - the city was buzzing with fear and the terror of the past two months was certainly beginning to take it's toll on the community. In all honesty, it would have been far more comforting to have been dressed down by the mayor himself than to have to deal with what he met in the Chief's office.

"Alistair." It was the sound of the chief's voice that had initially alerted Stirling that something was wrong. After twelve years of working together, Frank Preston took far too much delight in delivering bad news to Alistair.

"Preston." he had replied, catching a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. A young woman had stood and moved toward him. Though he knew now how to identify the sinking feeling in his stomach, at the time he had pushed it aside, presuming that she had to do with the investigation, that she had responded to their repeated appeals for information. Alistair snorted - in the end, she had a lot to do with the investigation.

"Stirling, let me introduce you to Elizabeth Julian, your new partner."

The young woman smiled kindly and extend her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Detective."

Alistair had made no attempt to return her compliments, rather he focused his eye on Preston. "What do you mean partner?"

Preston flashed an amused grin. "It came to the Mayor's attention that you've been without a partner the past six months, and he felt that your situation ought to be... altered." In retrospect, Alistair should have seen this coming. He'd been the subject of several scathing pieces in the papers of late, and had brought the city under scrutiny by failing to bring someone - anyone, what did they care? - to justice. Though he'd debriefed the mayor with each additional murder, though he had been meticulous in combing every crime scene and addressing every conceivable angle, though he'd spent night after sleepless night staring at evidence, trying to connect dots that didn't seem to exist, it wasn't enough. No - no, they were going to strap a dead weight to his ankle and watch him drown under her weight, let him take the fall while a killer was on the loose.

"And so you put someone straight out of training on the street with me? This is the biggest case we've seen in decades, Frank. She's a baby."

"I'm thirty-three."

Alistair looked at the woman straight in the eyes for the first time. "And how long have you been on the force? I've never seen you around."

"That's because Dr. Julian has been finishing her doctorate in behavioral psychology in Texas." Preston crowed.

"Well isn't that fantastic? What does it have to do with me? I've got no time for games right now."

"As much as I'd love to take the credit, Stirling, this is the mayor's idea... but I think you'll warm to it eventually, don't you?"

Alistair had seen the glint in Preston's eyes and was about to rip into him when the woman stepped into his line of sight again, her face set and ready to do battle. "Look, I get that you're not thrilled about this. I can deal with that. But if you think I'm a naive intellectual looking for a thrill, that I'm just flouting my degree, then you've got it wrong."

Alistair looked around for a moment as the woman parked the car at the scene, his mind still analyzing the look in her eye when she had berated him earlier. He had to admit that he hadn't expected her to be quite so bold as that. Not when she'd barely met him. But then, he'd barely given her a moment's notice. He had been pleased to see some determination in her eye, that was a good start at the very least. She was still young - young, compared to what? He'd only just hit forty, and though he'd started to grey a few years ago, and had even accepted, if only for the sake of the job, that he was perceived as being older than he actually was, it hadn't struck him until now that he'd even let himself believe that he was older. "You ever been on the field before?"

"I've seen my fair share of bodies." she replied, holding his keys out to him.

"They're your responsibility." he grumbled, opening the car door.

"Detective, I spent five years working with the Austin police department, I have extensive training in both criminal psychology and the judicial system... and I've been shooting guns since I was six. You can't treat me like a child... and I'm certainly not your personal driver." Jules pressed the keys into his hand and turned to walk away, but Alistair gripped her hand, surprised to notice the calluses on her fingers.

"I don't care if you worked for the FBI or the CIA, if you went to Harvard, to Oxford, if you run the whole miserable world... this is my case, this is my city, and in case you haven't had the time to figure it out since you landed in town, but we're in the middle of a crisis that I would like to see end very soon before all hell breaks loose. So you can take your degrees, and your training and what you can do with them I'll leave to your imagination. But while you are on the street with me, you will do what I ask you to do, and you will keep your gun in your holster until it is needed. Now hold the keys and don't make any noise." Alistair nodded towards the small crowd of uniforms and medical examiners. "Let me show you what's been happening around town."

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Well... it's a start.