Excerpt: Skeptical Latitude (Working Title)

“Hey, Blake,” Rogers in homicide called out as she passed. “Come here and touch this jacket for me. Maybe you can tell me where my perp is and save me the trouble of having to track him down.”

Aware that all eyes were on her, she waved him off and kept going, but not before she noticed Theresa Fallon, one of the two other female detectives, watching her like she’d grown two heads.

“What?” Rogers said, standing up and placing a hand on his hip. “You too good to talk to us now?”

Laura paused, slowly turned on her heels and glared at him. “No, Rogers, I was always too good to talk to you.”

With arms folded across her chest, she smirked at the scowling man as the other detectives laughed and ribbed him. It felt good to get one over on him. When she’d first made detective two years ago, the tall, skinny man had been standoffish with her, until the day he asked her out on date and she’d turned him down. Then, he had been downright hostile towards her and when the position in cold case had come up, she’d jumped at the chance to take it.

Rogers ignored the others and came towards her, staring at her as if she had something stuck in her teeth. “Seriously. You can talk to ghosts?”

Shaking her head she started to explain, but Mike stepped in front of her and said, “Back off, Rogers. Of course she can’t talk to ghosts. I was being sarcastic with the journalist and the idiot ran with it.”

“Hey!” They all jumped at Sikes' shout.

He stood in front of his office and glared at the group of detectives. Smith, from vice, eased off the edge of his desk where he’d been sitting and took a seat in the chair, and Theresa causally walked by Laura and into the copy room. Rogers took a step back and glanced at his own desk.

Sikes said, “Let’s get back to work, people. There are murders to be solved, drug lords to arrest and, “he turned and winked at Laura, “cold cases that are getting colder by the minute. I’d like to speak to you and Hoover in my office. Now.”