Chapter 22

Watching the man leave, Nick quietly slipped out of his car, not by the door to his side but by the door on the right side and closed the door with as little sound as possible. 

Using the cars in the parking space as cover, Nick followed the man until he reached near a black SUV before fishing out the keys to get in. Nick quickly typed the license plate of the car and sent it to Wu in the police department to run it in the system and asked him to respond via text. 

The man inserted the key to his door and with a click,  the locks in all doors opened. Entering the car, the man was about to start the car when Nick took out his camera, small enough to fit his pocket which he uses in case of shadow and surveillance. He had developed this habit ever since he became a police detective. 

Making sure he had switched the flash mode off, Nick quickly took pictures of the man while hiding beside one of the cars. Just as he was about to withdraw from his position back to his car, he heard sounds of footsteps coming towards him. 

Without any hesitation, Nick ran while crouching his body to avoid being seen by both the suspicious man and the owner of those footsteps. However luck seems to run out for Nick as he ran into another guy who seemed to be puking near the bushes. 

It seemed like he was with the owner of the car and had one drink too many. Both Nick and the man got startled and being a wesen the man immediately woged because of the sudden change of events. 

"Fuck" Nick cursed under his breath and without giving the guy any chance to shout or attack, gave a sharp cut to the man's chin using his palm, knocking him unconscious. 

The other guy who was the owner of the car got shocked seeing his friend getting knocked out and immediately woged only to see a pitch black eye as if void of any emotion on a face and spat the word "Grimm".

Seeing the man from the fables who was responsible for the massacre of the wesens, the man pounced on Nick as if he had come across his arch enemy. 

Not having any time or space to dodge as he was near cars or bushes to jump out of the way, Nick allowed himself to be taken down while locking both arms of the man, and head butted, breaking the man's nose from his position to avoid being bit. 

The man gave a ferral groan due to pain of having his nose broken tried to overpower Nick, only to have Nick slip past from under his body while holding his right arm and twisting it behind his back. The whole process was so smooth that the man felt the pain only after the process was complete. 

A guttural scream slipped past his mouth almost by reflex, getting his mind clear of the drunken state. "Stop, don't kill" he said while changing himself back to human like face. 

"I am not here to kill you, I am a police officer so calm the fuck down" said Nick while handcuffing the man to make sure he stayed down. 

"Hey come on man, don't do this. I am sorry, I was drunk and after seeing you knock my friend out and you being a grimm, I thought you were here to kill me just like your kind used to kill my ancestors. I'm sorry man, don't hurt me. I have a mother to take care of". The man tried everything to gain sympathy from Nick while Nick looked for the SUV only to find it missing. 

'Looks like he had left' Nick sighed. 

"Shut up, don't shout, don't speak a word. If another word come out of your mouth I'll arrest you for assaulting an officer".

The man shut his mouth and stayed silent. 

Nick dialed Wu and asked about the car only to hear that it was in the police database for stolen vehicles. Nick asked whether he could track that car and found that the GPS of the car had been removed. Finding out that he had met a dead end really pissed off Nick and wanted to beat this guy up for screwing things up for him, but soon calmed down and removed the handcuff from the man, helped him get his friend inside the car before leaving for his own. 

Nick waited patiently for almost an hour. During this wait he received three calls. One was from Juliette asking him whether they were still going on the date. In the morning he had planned to swing by to have a chat with her about his upcoming plan on switching career from police detective to FBI special division operative but it was already half past 5 and had to bail out. 

Well let's say Juliette wasn't exactly thrilled by his response, after all she looked forward to this date. Her instincts screamed that today would be the day when Nick proposes to her and Nick didn't know about this as well. To him this was just another date barring the career change he was planning on discussing with Juliette, as for proposing, he would have to think about it after Juliette's response to the new path he has chosen.

The second call was from Hank. Well it was just the usual stuff like what he was doing and whether he had obtained any clues regarding the case. This was just a check up which Hank and Nick followed as a way to know each other's safety, after all they have split up and done investigations separately and this could lead one of them to get caught alone with a murderer. This was a way where in case one of them  were in a pinch they would give the code word which would make the other track his partner to come for rescue.

After giving Hank a sitrep Nick cut the call as he was receiving a third call and this was from the Captain. This was a surprise for Nick as he had rarely received calls from the Captain. It was usually the other way where he would have to give a call to report about the case and even then it was only on office landline and not to his private cell phone.

Nick had a puzzling conversation where the captain had asked him to meet near his apartment building tonight, which was near downtown and had even given his door number. Though Nick was the ace of the police department, he and Sean had only a professional relationship and nothing more. This was mostly due to Nick himself, as he avoided Renard because of his complex background and also because Renard was an untrustworthy person.

But now that Renard had invited him to his house it would be rude if he rejects it as he has no reason not to and rejecting would undoubtedly cause suspicion. 

Cutting the call, Nick was thinking of the reason why Renard would invite him to his house. Him going to the FBI shouldn't be the reason as he had made up his mind only today and had yet to communicate with Garry Barnes. Then what else could it be? 

To be honest Nick already had a clue regarding what it could be. 'Him being a Grimm was found by Renard'. This was the only possible conclusion that Nick could arrive at. Though Nick had covered it up, Renard was a brilliant sociopath, he could have arrived at this conclusion through many of his unknown sources or even deduced from his observation. 

Just as Nick was about to further delve into this matter he saw Monroe come out of the bar and get in his car, breaking Nick's concentration. With Monroe's car driving away, Nick slowly followed behind the car without much worry of being seen.

Unknown to both of them the black SUV which Nick had seen previously in the parking space was parked near one of the side roads which was intersecting with the more deserted part of the highway and the man inside the car was looking at the photograph of himself along with his family. 

The photo had multiple folds in it, from obviously being crumpled into a ball, a number of times. Though his hand was shaking and his eyes were a bit red, his eyes were not wet. Looking at the screen before him, the man threw the picture at the backseat and turned his engine on.