The Real World (Seven - Arguments)

Nathan's fingers tapped a frantic, useless rhythm against the steering wheel. The sound was hollow, out of sync with his heart, with his breathing. He could not seem to stop.

A buzz from his phone was a welcome shock. Anything to break the cycle.

The screen lit up with a name that cinched his chest. MELISSA (EX)

He stared at it for too long. Let it go to voicemail. Don't be an idiot. He let loose another sigh. He could not run from this. His thumb swiped across the screen before he could regret the choice.

"Yeah."

"Nathan." Her voice was a razor honed by years of their failed marriage. It was the tone that came right before an attack he could not win. "Please tell me you haven't forgotten."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He had. Of course he had. The fact settled in his stomach like a lead weight. He pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to physically push the truth away. Denial was always easier.

"Forgot what?"

"You promised—you promised—you'd pick up Lila from band practice. It's your day off. You said it three times, Nathan."

Each time she said his name, it was an indictment. He hated when she did that, talking down on him like his mother. He stared through the windshield at the rain-slicked street, at the way streetlights bled into amber and white streaks. It all felt like a sick joke. Here he sat, watching the light bend, while his daughter was probably still checking the school doors for a father who was not coming.

"Right. Damn. I..." The words came out, around a throat suddenly too tight. "Something came up. I got called in."

"You always get called in." The sharpness in her voice curdled into contempt. "You think she doesn't notice? That she doesn't hear me making excuses for you? God, you are such an asshole."

He clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding. Alright, breathe. Don't engage. Don't escalate. Don't give her ammo for the visitation hearing.

"Look, the scene's a mess. I didn't ask for the call."

Even to his own ears, the words were worn thin. How many times had he said them?

"I don't care. You never ask for the call, but you always go. I care that you said you'd be here. She needs you to be here, Nathan. Not when it's easy. When it matters."

The truth of that cut deeper than her anger. He could see Lila, standing by the entrance, her trumpet case slung over her shoulder, scanning the lot for his headlights. How long will she wait before she starts hating me? How long?

"I know."

"Then act like a damn grownup!"

He fumbled for the volume button, his other hand strangling the steering wheel. The irony of her lecturing him on responsibility—her, no job and living on his alimony checks—was rich. But irony would not keep his daughter in his life.

"I'll talk to her. I'll make it right."

Melissa let out a long, weary sigh. "She's going to wait. And wonder. And every time this happens, she believes you a little less."

The words were like gravel in his throat. "Just... tell her I'm sorry. I'll call her."

"Don't call. Just show up next time. If there is one."

The line went dead.

Nathan kept the phone to his ear, listening to the dead air. He finally placed it on the passenger seat like it was a piece of evidence. His hands were steady. They had no right to be.

He turned, headlights sweeping across wet asphalt like search beams. Looking for what? A man walks through a door and vanishes. A father lets his daughter's trust do the same. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

The precinct was an almost comforting mix of rustling paper and ringing phones. Down the hall, a copy machine ground out its complaints. Nathan pushed through the entrance, rain still beading on his jacket, and walked past the front desk without a word. The place knew his footsteps.

Behind a glass door with his name in faded gold, Captain Ron Tierney was sunk into his chair, a man who had given up on pride decades ago. His gut strained the buttons of his uniform shirt. A cigar jutted from his mouth, its smoke curling toward a flickering vent in open defiance of regulations.

"Carver." Tierney did not look up from the papers on his desk. "You look like shit. Have a sit."

Nathan hooked the chair with his boot and dropped into it. The chair groaned.

Tierney took a long, satisfying drag from the cigar, letting the smoke ooze out. "That transportation place?"

"Just left. Forensics is sifting. I have got their footage being sent over and a local copy from the assistant manager that runs the building."

Tierney tapped ash into a stained coffee mug. "And?"

Nathan hesitated. How did you explain the impossible to a man who measured reality in arrest reports? "It makes no sense."

Something shifted in Tierney's face. Not skepticism. Interest. The bad kind.

"What doesn't?"

"One man leaves a room. No gear, nothing. The footage glitches, he's just... gone, almost like he disappears. A minute later, a different door blows out—fire, smoke,—and the same man comes flying back through. Pulls the door shut behind him like he was running from hell itself."

The cigar paused halfway to Tierney's lips. "Sounds like my second marriage or your first."

Tierney's idea of a joke. I'm not in the mood. "I need his background if I am going for questioning. We doing it tonight?"

Tierney opened a drawer and pulled out a thick manila folder, dropping it on the desk with a heavy thud. He shook his head. "Let him marinate until tomorrow. Anyway, his name's Ethan Kai. Thirty-seven. Transportation Dispatcher. No priors, no red flags. Divorced, no kids, no meds." He tapped the folder.

"And?"

"And," Tierney said, a strange note in his voice, "ten years, U.S. Army. Five of those in the 75th Ranger Regiment."

Nathan's face hardened. The 75th was not just another unit. It was a place that forged men into weapons for missions that never officially happened.

Tierney raised an eyebrow, reading him. " He's got three tours in Afghanistan. And missions with names I can't pronounce. Sounds like a hard case. Mean something to you? "

Nathan leaned back, trying to put space between himself and the words. "It just means we have got a combat vet in holding for something that makes no sense. That won't make him special."

"Becoming a Ranger ain't easy shit, Carver. I tried, back in the day. Washed out of RASP so fast..." Tierney's voice held the ghost of an old failure. "You got a problem with vets, Detective?"

The question hit too close to home. Ghosts he had tried to bury for years. "Only when they bring the wars back with them."

"Your brother served."

The words hung in the smoky air. His brother's face flashed in his mind—young, eager, before he came back... different, broken.

"That's not your business...sir."

"Isn't it?"

The silence stretched, thick with cigar smoke and damp wool. Tierney broke it, tapping the file again. "Regardless, he didn't resist, but not talking, either. No lawyer. Went into custody meek as a lamb."

Nathan reached for the file. The folder felt heavy in his hand, a life's worth of paper for a man might have had a very unscientific experience. He stood up out of his chair. "I'd like to do this now."

A grin split Tierney's face, all crinkles and yellowed teeth. It did not touch his eyes. "What? My worst detective versus an Army Ranger. I'm kinda' curious to see how that turns out. It's why I called you instead of Perez, but not tonight. Just get to reading that and get ready for tomorrow. We'll cook him up, then."

"You're a bastard," Nathan said, "But this was my day off. I can work him with just what I have now. Then I can pass it off to Perez and he can cook him or whatever…"

He turned to go, the file a dead weight in his hand, and walked. Silence fell, thick and sudden. Then the Captain spoke again and Nathan turned back around. Tierney pointed with the wet end of his cigar. "Whoa, whoa. Where do you think you're going with that?"

"Interview Room 3. I want to get prepped. I can have the sergeant bring him to me in an hour. It'll give me enough time to skim this and set up."

"Not tonight, you're not." Tierney sank deep into his leather chair, a king of paperwork and procedure. "He's not going anywhere. Let him sit in a cell. A night staring at cinderblock gives a man perspective. We'll talk to him in the morning, when he's nice and soft."

Morning. A lifetime away. Morning was a dozen missed calls from Lila, another night for her to fall asleep thinking he had chosen a case over her. Again.

"No," Nathan's voice was quiet. "We do this now."

An eyebrow arched on Tierney's forehead. A clear challenge. "Excuse me? I sign the overtime slips, Carver, not you. You're here to study that and build the case. I figure you'll be out of here maybe by ten if you're lucky."

"You said it yourself. He's not just some punk you can soften up by taking his shoelaces." Nathan stepped back to the desk, leaning his knuckles on its cluttered surface. The air smelled of stale smoke and old paper. "He's a Ranger. You let him sit, you let him build a fortress in his head. He's trained for this. We hit him now. Now, while whatever he did is still fresh in his mind."

"A fine theory." Tierney waved the cigar, ash fluttering onto a stack of files. "Yeah, he's probably gonna be a tough nut to crack, but this is a police precinct, not a black site. My policy is simple. We let them stew. It works. Even on vets."

A brick wall of procedure. Nathan thought of Lila the last time he had forgotten to show up because of a case he was working. Her big sad eyes, blue like the ocean, and shining for him since the day she was born.

"This is bullshit." His voice dropped even lower, shedding the last bit of argument and leaving only cold insistence. He slid the folder back onto the desk. The soft whisper of it sliding across the wood was the only sound. "I'm good at this. You know I am. Ever since I came to this shitty little department, I've towed the line for you. I got the best conviction record of any detective you've had before me or probably will have after me. I want him in an interview room in sixy minutes. If not, find someone else to run point."

They locked eyes. For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were the low hum of the fluorescent lights and the wet sizzle of Tierney's cigar. The captain's gaze searched Nathan's face, digging past the professional reasoning, and what he found there must have been enough. He saw the raw, frayed edge of a man who was not just pushing for a quick action, but was fighting for something else entirely. A man who would not back down.

With a long, theatrical sigh, Tierney broke the stare, slumping in his chair in a gesture of grand surrender. "Fine. Fine! Go play with the Ranger." He jammed the cigar back into his mouth. "Fuck it! It's your ass if you get nothing, so don't come crying to me when he lawyers up after one question."

Without a word of thanks, Nathan snatched the folder from the desk and walked out for good.

He heard Tierney mutter behind him, the words muffled but clear. "My worst detective…might have a spine after all."

Nathan thought he heard some small amusement in the captain's voice, but the door to his office swung closed before he could be sure.