Page 11 of No Cap

The lieutenant at the desk we were passing next to groaned, slamming his pen down onto the desk and glaring at the rookie.

“What?” the rookie asked, sounding blissfully ignorant.

“What?” the lieutenant crowed. “You just said the Q word. You never say that word out loud.”

That was true.

You didn’t.

It just wasn’t done.

Cops were a superstitious lot.

Especially when it came to someone saying ‘quiet.’

It was never ‘quiet’ at a police station.

In fact, it was always everything but ‘quiet.’

There were some days that were calmer than others—like today had been—but it was never just quiet.

“What are you…” the rookie asked, but the mic at my shoulder sounded, signaling not one, not two, but six calls all coming in at once.

I groaned and walked toward my assigned cruiser.

Not all cops had their own cruisers.

In a department the size of DPD, it was nearly impossible for us to have as many cruisers as would be necessary to equip all of them, but like my brothers, we were special. All of us had our own personal cruisers.

Hell, I practically lived at the damn police station—hence the need for two days off in a row.

“Let’s go,” I grumbled to the rookie.

The rookie fell into step beside me and took the passenger seat with nary a word.

We were driving out of the lot seconds later.

“I would’ve gone…” the rookie said, trying to explain why his way would’ve been faster.

I ignored him and the construction that caused me to go this way in the first place, and kept driving the way I knew was necessary.

“Oh, look at that. They have that road closed down.” The rookie snorted. “This would’ve been the faster way.”

I took a left onto the feeder road and prayed for patience.

A horn honked when I picked up speed and merged over before there was a clear opening. The woman I cut off changed lanes, then passed me with her middle finger up high in the air.

I ignored it.

I deserved it, too.

“Can you pull people over for flipping you off?” the new recruit in the seat next to me asked.

I glanced over at him, momentarily forgetting about the gorgeous brunette with the delicate middle finger, and said, “I don’t know. Can you?”

“Sure?” he guessed.

I shook my head. “No. You can’t just pull them over because they’re flipping you off.”