“Care to explain to me what the Hell happened in there, Whittle?” Pike growled at me. His eyeballs were level with mine and inches away.
“She goaded me, challenged me. What else was I supposed to do?” I answered in a guttural rebuttal.
“It would have been nice if you had kept your shit together. Or maybe you have forgotten what is at stake here. You told me I would get a confession, a nice tidy bow tied around this case. Instead I just had to let a witness walk out of here free as a bird.” It was needless to say that Pike was angry. As much as I hated to admit it he had right to be. Hell, I was angry with me.
“Artemis is a drug addict, no one is going to believe what she saw. I mean- shit- Pike, most people wouldn’t believe it if they saw it for themselves. And you’re afraid someone might believe the local junkie?” I said it in a nonchalant manner, forcing myself to calm and feigned submission. But truth is I didn’t half believe what I was saying and certainly didn’t feel calm or submissive around this suit with teeth.
“This is a problem on your turf,” Pike’s tone and cadence were steady as he let the words themselves carry the weight and severity without adding emotion, but he tapped my chest with two fingers to underscore his point. “That makes it your problem,” he tapped my chest a second time with more force. “Get a handle on this shit or someone else will, capisce?” The third poke would have left a bruise on a person, and it was all I could do to not rip his arm off and beat him with it.
“Yeah, I got it,” I said trying to sound as though I wasn’t ready to rip his throat out and blame his death on the problem I had just been assigned to handle.
“Good. Now be a good dog and fetch.”