~CrypticSilvers~

The gravel road that Lanny and Javier were bouncing along in the old bronco led a curving path through an increasingly rocky landscape. The bay itself was a fairly large one, with a handful of different buildings scattered about the more accessible areas of its length. Bypassing the first fork in the rutted road, Lanny carried on towards one of two ports nearer to the opening of the bay, where the large, three-story wooden structure was surrounded by a weed-infested parking lot, overlooking a dozen docks that stretched out at varying lengths into the storm-darkened waters.

Lanny was leaning forward and squinting his eyes, scanning a landscape whose details were obscured by the consistent fall of rain, and the thick, rolling clouds overhead that blotted out much of the sun's light. In fact, it was dim enough that the only two functioning street lamps of the parking lot's total of eight had flickered to life. Lanny avoided these bright spots and rolled the bronco into the far corner of the back lot, where the port building shielded it from immediate sight of the road.

"Alright, here we go." He glanced to the watch on his wrist to confirm the time, pulled out his cellphone to check for messages, then unbuckled his belt. "My guests should be down in the boathouse by now, or will be soon. And I didn't see any squad cars along the road, so the coast is clear." Lanny took a moment to look in the rearview to fix his rain-soaked hair as best he could, then finally looked across to Javier, "You just need to make sure no cop gets into this parking lot. There's only this one road they can take to get here, so it should be to hard. Got it? This job shouldn't take long either; maybe twenty, thirty minutes, tops. You got any questions?"

The Bay was probably sort of pretty, if you were into nature and stuff. Javi leaned forward in his seat as the coastline came into view, staring at the endless expanse of water with a slightly slack jaw. The land curved round to almost meet at the entrance to the Bay, and then beyond that was just… water. Black water, its surface muddied by the haze of the rain which was finally starting to ease off, as far as the eye could see. In the distance, beyond the Bay, the ocean glittered under starlight.

Javi had never seen the ocean before. It seemed like a dumb thing to say and he wasn’t gonna say it in front of Lanny, but he hadn’t realised it was so big. He kept staring at it while Lanny rolled his piece of shit car behind a wood-slatted building, flicked the lights off and stilled the engine. Without the chundling and occasional splutter of the engine, a new sound could be heard above the rain: a sort of rushhh-slap, which Javi guessed was the waves cuffing the shoreline.

Lanny started saying something, and Javi regretfully turned his dark eyes away from the ocean to glance at him. Keep the cops away from the parking lot for thirty minutes, right. Anything longer than a five minute distraction, in his experience, usually required a lot more preparation and planning – but it was quickly becoming apparent that Lanny was not a preparation and planning kind of guy. Javi should have asked what the full payment for this job was.

“Got it.” He confirmed, with a bit of a face. He was going to have to get creative for this one. “You wanna meet back here in thirty minutes?”

If only Laurence wasn't so preoccupied with the upcoming meeting, he might have noticed the way that Javier was staring at the darkened waters. Had he spent any amount of time getting to know the kid he'd yanked off the street to make up for his shortcomings, he might have learned where the boy had come from, and that this was his first time seeing a coastline in person. And because he was Lanny, he might have even indulged Javier's quiet wonder by pointing out the seals further down the coast, neatly camouflaged by the rocks.

But none of things happened, because the lieutenant of the CrypticSilvers had come dangerously close to running late for a meeting he hadn't properly prepared for, and was spending that last few moments of time fussing with his rain-soaked hair.

The bronco's chassis creaked and shifted as he stepped out, and the door groaned as the man briefly bore his weight against it. They were noises so familiar to him that he didn't notice it any more than the rhythmic crash of waves on the sand and rocks below that had so captured Javier's attention. Lanny was busy running his hand through his hair one more time, and looking from Javier to the gravel road that lead out from the bay,"Yeah, meet back at my car in thirty; don't go in the building. And kid-" The grin that had graced his sly face so often throughout their brief time together was now gone, adding weight to his next words despite a lack of detectable malice or threat, "-don't make me come looking for you after this."

With the keys stuffed into his pocket, Lanny slammed the door close and started across the lot. But after about seven paces, the man muttered a sharp curse before turning and jogged briskly back to the bronco. The door was yanked back open and a small briefcase was taken from behind the driver's seat, and with that now in hand, Lanny resumed an equally brisk walk back towards the port building.

----

For the next eight minutes, there would be little action to see around the bay. The storm was blowing past at least, leaving the sky dreary but drier than it had been in the city. The thunder had moved on to distant rumblings, and the darkness that was descending about the area seemed all the heavier for the lack of city lights to chase it away.

In the darkness, if Javier were keeping watch as Lanny had asked, he would notice a pair of headlights cutting a path through the shadows as a car turned off the main road and onto the gravel lanes of the bay. The vehicle was moving slowly, and at a distance too far to immediately note the model of, but it was heading in the direction of their port.

Lanny’s piece of shit car groaned and creaked as he opened the door to get out. Javi curled his lip and followed suit, grimly hanging onto the bronco’s frame as the car shifted alarmingly. He lost the expression fast, though, stood on his own two feet with the ocean wind tugging at his dark, damp hair. It turned out, the sea had a smell: salty and fresh, as if the air around it had opened up fully. Javi inhaled deeply, tasting the unfamiliar flavours of an unpolluted atmosphere.

Thirty minutes out here might not be so bad, especially since the rain was easing off. Just as long a she could come up with a plan off the fly in case the feds showed up.

The gravity in Lanny’s voice might have made Javi shuffle an hour ago, but now he wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes in a classic expression of teenage whatever, old man. How much of an idiot would he have to be to run now when he hadn’t been paid yet, was miles out of town, and his home address was known to an evil Russian? And what kind of idiot hired someone who would be enough of an idiot to do that?

Lanny headed up to the main building after collecting his briefcase, and Javier pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. 8.09pm. He just had to hold the fort until 8.39. The digital display also told him that he had 38% battery, which should be more than enough. He wiped the screen dry from rain patter, slipped it back into his pocket and started mooching his way over to the road, keeping his eyes peeled for anything that might serve as a useful distraction. There were a couple of rickety older buildings in addition to the newer one Lanny had gone into, slightly further down the road by an older, clearly abandoned pier. The newer pier was behind him, near the parking lot. A half-baked idea started to form. Javi seized on it before he could chicken out and stopped at the side of the road, making sure he was clearly visible.

8.17pm. At least it had finally stopped raining altogether. Twin beams of light heralded the arrival of a car trundling through the darkness. Javi shielded his eyes against the glare of the headlamps and squinted, waiting until he could make out the panda stripes before he stepped up to the kerb, waving pointedly. It rolled to a stop in front of him and the uniformed driver wound down a window.

“Oh my god, finally,” Javi groaned, shrugging his shoulders and rolling his eyes. “I’ve been here like forever. You see how wet I am? You feel how cold it is? Why can you guys not get here quicker? My mama’s always like, ‘you got a problem, you don’t mess around honey, you call 911.’ Well I call 911, and I could fly around the damn world before you guys show up.” He tugged at his wet hoody and made a point of shivering. “Bruh, how long would it take if I file a complaint? I got time for a quick trip to the moon?”

A splash of burnt-orange and distant pink began to color the horizon, marking the sun's descent as some of the heavy cloud cover to the far west began to break. The splash of color would only last a few short minutes before fading into a deepening blue, and it was this gathering darkness that Ryan's headlights cut through as he turned his cruiser down the lane and along the same path that Laurence had taken a little more than ten minutes before. His vehicle slowed as it crawled across the uneven, rain-saturated road, though he didn't offer the usual grimace for the occasional 'ping' of stones being flung up against the chassis and paneling. Tonight, there was simply no room in his mind to entertain his usual frets. Tonight, he had a chance to finally, maybe, make a small difference in the city.

He saw the distant boathouse. And the rain-darkened piers, half of them nearly camouflaged by equally shadowy waters where so many of the overhead lights were burned out or broken. The man's knuckles grew white against the steering wheel. His lips tightened, and his dark eyes focused as he honed in on the task at hand.

And then something else caught his attention. Zoned in on the mission as he was, Ryan's eye for detail would never have let him miss a citizen in need. Though honestly, he'd have to be pretty blind to miss the boy waving his arms and stepping directly into the puddle-dappled gravel lane. Despite a slight pang of irritation for the opportunity he might be missing, the officer made no hesitation as he slowed his ride and came to a stop before the kid.

Hardly before he'd gotten the window all the way down, the boy was giving him an earful and then some, complete with an exasperated roll of the eyes and a tug at his drenched clothing to emphasize his dismay at waiting so long for help to arrive. "Okay, okay, lets slow down a minute." Ryan's eyes briefly flashed past Javier and up the road, but in the spotty lighting of the newer boathouse, and with the bronco parked on it's far flank, Ryan couldn't tell if anyone was there or not. Javier's shivering brought his focus back to the more pressing matter, or so he thought. "You said you called 911? Are you hurt, or is someone else?" To his credit, Sohmers had already put his cruiser in park and hit the flashing lights, with a hand then going for his seatbelt.

There were two officers in the panda car. Javi mentally flipped through the various options for his plan, feeling his confidence in his plan waver. Why couldn’t the damn Russian have given him time to actually plan and prep something decent? Now he needed to make sure his imaginary problem was big enough hat it required two cops to solve, but not so big that they were going to tie him up all night or call Joe.

At least they seemed to be buying his performance so far. Apparently Lanny had been right to want help warding off the feds, since the guy who had rolled the window down glanced briefly up at the boathouse before giving Javi his full attention. These guys weren’t out here patrolling randomly – they knew something was going down. Javi got the distinct feeling he should have asked for more money.

The officer gave him the opportunity to run his mouth some more, which he seized upon in the hopes of dragging the conversation out.

“Are you serious, bro?” He stared through the window incredulously. Javi was a practiced liar, and it didn’t hurt when he had to fake a facial expression which ran close to his true feelings. “Like, they don’t even tell you what the 911 call is about? What actually is the point of them asking me all them questions? I gotta be interrogated on the phone and now you gotta interrogate me all over again? Nah.” He shook his head. “You lot just love questioning Latinos, huh?”

Javi clicked his tongue against his teeth and exhaled in a way which would have earned him an instant detention from a teacher.

“Bro, I see someone out there,” he gestured towards the old pier, in the opposite direction to the boathouse, “and it’s like real small, like a kid or a midget, and it ain’t movin’, you get me? And you people up here, making me wait out in the rain – ” he shook his sopping hoody again for effect “ – and you’re all, ‘oh we’ll get someone to you as quick as possible’, and I have to wait forever for you to rock up and be all, ‘is someone hurt?’ Nah,” he held his hands up. “Nahhh, sort it out, man. I’m out here being a good citizen and all, and you better be paying me because right now I’m doing your job better than you, is all I’m sayin’.”

Ryan shared a look with the rookie beside him as the seatbelt disengaged with a quiet click, "Reach out to dispatch, see why that didn't go through." The door handle fell under his reach next, as he again turned his attention to the rain-soaked kid and the torrent of words now spilling from his mouth. The fast-paced recital made it difficult for Ryan to get a word in edge-wise. "You're going to have to slow down, alright?-" Ryan himself took a deep breath as Javier went on, watching the kid's expression devolve into the kind of ire that matched his exasperated words. He'd opened his mouth once, ready to interject and dismiss the notion of racial profiling, but the boy continued with his rapid-fire story, leaving Ryan to balance his patience with his need to gather information.

The officer couldn't quite help the way that his own breath came out a bit quickly following the click of Javier's tongue, or how his own expression crinkled just a smidgen at the other's bold words and behavior. This would have been the point where Ryan jumped in to reign in control of the conversation, but what the kid said next quickly shifted his priorities. Javier himself wasn't hurt, but someone else might be. Or worse.

"Scratch that, Janet." He was pushing the door open, just as the young woman was about to speak into the radio. "Get EMT down here, we'll sort out dispatch later. Stay here, and watch the road." He stepped out of the cruiser with a quick string of commands and a solid splash of water as his crisp black shoes met a grimy puddle. He was already following Javier's pointing finger towards the inky waters down by the pier as he closed the door behind him, dark eyes scanning the choppy waters despite the distance and the gathering darkness.

"Can you show me where you last saw them? And what's you're name, kid?" He spared Javier a brief look, but didn't linger by the squad car. The officer was already moving down to the old pier as he asked these questions, while biting back a feeling of cold dread.

Dumb cops be dumb copping, Javi thought to himself, a flicker of relief and satisfaction easing the tension in his stomach somewhat as the guy got out of the car. Not too much – it wouldn’t help to get complacent now. All he had to do now was not do or say anything to make the feds suspicious while he ran the clock down.

Running the clock down was obviously not a shared priority. Officer Shiny Boots was moving as he continued the interrogation, making long strides towards the old pier. Javi had to do a brief jog to catch up before they matched pace. He couldn’t make it seem like he was dawdling (even though that’s exactly what he wanted to do), so he moved with haste while trying to concentrate on the cop’s questions instead of jumping ahead to the next problem. This conversation could very easily turn into a minefield if he wasn’t careful.

“Javi,” he answered, opting for his nickname this time. Javier was audibly Hispanic, but Javi sounded just like Harvey. If he managed a clean getaway later without having to give any more personal details, the cop might get the wrong spelling if he tried to search for him on the system. “What’s your name? And badge number?”

As they approached the sea wall, the sensation of the ocean hit him again. The sea-salt air stung with unprecedented freshness and the rush of the water against the shore ebbed and flowed like stop-start traffic. It would be cool to see all of this in the light of day – although, Javi reflected as he stepped out onto the abandoned pier, some parts probably did better under the veneer of darkness. The old wooden planks were slimy with water and green slippery stuff, forcing them both to slow down, which was fine by Javi. He led the police officer all the way to the end of the pier and stood at the edge with his hands on the railings, peering straight down into the inky water. There was obviously no one there, but Javi did notice that the pier was held up by wooden pillars, and from here – from anywhere on land, really – it was difficult to see what might have drifted underneath.

“Yo, they were right here.” He pointed down over the edge of the pier and proceeded to scan the choppy water in the immediate vicinity. “Man, they did not look like they were gonna swim for the beach.” He lifted his body up against the railings, standing on tiptoe, and leaned as far over the water as he could, trying to see under the pier. Seawater sprayed his face. “Do you think they went under there?”

The officer's shoes clopped audibly against worn, cracked cement stairs considerably older than the newer buildings at this end of the bay. Short lengths of rebar peeked out from some of the busted step corners, threatening to catch any unsuspecting traveler and send them on a painful tumble down the rocky slope. They at least weren't a concern for Ryan, whose step were quick and adept, and bypassed these dangers with old patience to deliver him to the dock. He did have to wonder though, did their potential victim succumb to this hazard?

No, the bulkhead jutted too far out; a person would have to roll quite a distance to actually reach the dock and fall off it. Maybe some late-evening tom-foolery, or underage drinking? These possibilities and more were beginning to run like a slide show through Ryan's thoughts, with him already trying to solve a crises he hadn't yet laid eyes on.

-Havi-

Ryan had slowed just before stepping onto the rain-slicked pier, partly because he needed to switch roles and now follow the kid, and partly because the boy was answering him back with a name that he didn't recognize any more than the teen's youthful face. Javi's next words came with a demand and some lip, something that Ryan wasn't a stranger to on these streets. Maintaining his cool, the officer answered back on the move across the dark, wooden planks, "Officer Sohmers, badge number 1832."

'This kid is street smart. I don't see any colors though.' These were the new details that interrupted his thoughts, if only very briefly. They'd reached the railing now, where Ryan joined the other in scanning the murky ocean that lapped viciously around the algae-covered pilings. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and sent it darting over the waters, scanning it back and forth in a quick, desperate sweep. When Javier leaned up against the railing, Ryan reached a hand out to his shoulder to offer a firm shove back, "Careful kid, we don't need a second victim down there. Step back." Ryan himself leaned out, darting the beam of light as far back as he could beneath them, but he couldn't get a full view blow the planks from their location. His voice rose as he called out, "Is anyone down there?"

Of course, there was nothing but the constant crash of waves rolling back and forth across the rocks and beach, and the occasional whistle of wind as it chased the storm out towards the horizon. Ryan paced quickly to the other side of the pier and leaned over, but again saw nothing. He glanced at his watch, trying to gauge how much time might have passed since Javi's undelivered call to dispatch, and where they stood now. 8:26. If there was a drowning victim, it wasn't looking good.

"Did you see anyone else out here, Havi?" His eyes were for the water still as he asked this, searching in vain for the small body Javi swore he'd seen. What was a kid doing out by the water at this hour, and in this weather that could have ended in such potential tragedy? Wait... why was there a kid out here, all by themselves? Though his priority remained on locating the victim, Ryan did turn a quick look to the living teen, "How old are you? This isn't a safe place for a kid to be, at these hours."

As Javi leaned over the railing, a memory flashed through his mind. He was little – maybe five or six – and leaning over the rails on the bridge over the river. That water had been very different to this water – opaque brown and moving so lazily as to appear still, with debris and a few dead pigeons floating in its waters. A woman had shouted something – Javi couldn’t remember the exact words – but it was some message of concern about the child dangling over the metal bars. Javi’s uncle had shouted back, and those words he remembered: he’ll learn to swim pretty fast if he falls.

In the present day, the inky water looked far more menacing, and Javi was big enough now to hang a lot further over the edge. He briefly wondered – if he had fallen into the river that day, would he now know how to swim?

No uncles or concerned bystanders shouted this time, but a hand did press against his shoulder and shoved him back. Caught off guard, Javi went from tiptoes to the flat of his feet and had to take a step or two back to prevent himself from stumbling. The cop’s words were gruff but held a note of concern that had evaded Javi’s uncle a decade ago, along with most other adults since. Still, Javi had a mission, and this interaction had just given him something he could use.

“Wow,” he said with emphasis, rubbing his shoulder as though hurt (it wasn’t). “So you’re just straight up gonna assault me? Like just some casual police brutality?”

Officer Summer had so far been resistant to Javi’s antagonistic probes. In the teen’s experience, accusations of criminal conduct – especially violent criminal conduct – were like waving a red flag in front of a bull. If Officer Springtime took the bait, they could be back-and-forthing on that all night.

Mostly he was too busy checking the water and his phone. Man, Javi wished he could check his phone, but this didn’t seem like the moment. Officer Winter had turned his attention back to him and was asking the kind of probing questions nosy adults tended to ask right before they got you in trouble.

“I’m sixteen, man.” That was a lie, but a believable one. Javi was fifteen, so he could reasonably look like a young sixteen year-old. And sixteen year-olds could drive. “I see the interrogation is back on,” he added, mostly to poke the bear. “I was just cruisin’ with my boys and we stopped up here because Mac thought he could do handbreak turn but he blew a tyre, and while they was changing the tyre I saw someone in the water, and they all had like curfews so they had to get home and that, and I was like ‘it’s cool I’ll wait for the police’, and I called 911, and then I called my mom, and my friends all left and my mom is sending my uncle to pick me up.” He folded his arms. “If my friends knew you was gonna take like a million years to get here then they would’ve waited with me, they ain’t ditchers. And like I told you before, I’m out here being a good citizen.” He shrugged. “And all you’re doing is questioning me when I feel like you should be looking for this person who like, actually needs your help, but whatever man, you cash that check.”

If only he'd been aware of the memory that had sprung to life in Javi's mind, of two similar scenes with vastly different interactions, Ryan might have gained a sliver of insight into this bold kid and his even bolder words. As it was, twenty years on the force and countless interactions and followups with troublesome juveniles on these streets told him there almost certainly was a story behind Havi's (or was it Harvey...?) attitude. But the kid had been smart, and Ryan's focus remained divided by an imaginary crisis.

Ryan had darted the kid a look at being called out for brutality, his dark brows folded together in an expression of quasi-disbelief, and more than a smidgen of irritation. If only he hadn't had an ear out for the waters below, he might have fallen briefly for the bait and defended his actions. Instead, the officer had moved to the other side of the dock, listening in vain for a cry for help, a whimper, anything to give him direction.

But there was no cry for help, and no signs of a body. He was running out of options.

-I'm sixteen, man.-

The teen had answered his latter quetion, and then dove into spiel that was detailed enough to catch Ryan off guard and make him question that burgeoning doubt he'd been feeling over Javi's story and presence here. He stepped away from the railing as the kid was folding his arms over his chest and the rain soaked hoodie that covered it, having delivered another biting remark that could have turned ugly had a different officer been present. Ryan held it together though, pushing aside his feelings to stay on task, "I'm calling in rescue now, there's not much else we can do until then." Still, he felt his anger bristle a little more, contrasting with the cold dread. This kid really know how to push buttons, and now the officer's focus settled a little more squarely on him as he radioed for Rescue, then pivoted right back to the deviant little storyteller, "How far out does your uncle live?" His shoes thumped loudly as he crossed the wooden planks, moving back towards the youth as he favored a few fervent glances to the waters on either side of the dock, "I'm going to need you to stay here with me until he gets here, and answer some more questions. And no more of the smart-alec routine, I need you to be straight with me. I need to know exactly what you saw; what were they wearing, did you hear or see anything before hand, that kind of stuff. You're not in trouble, Harvi - I just need get the details, so I can figure out what's going on here."

...Some distance away from them, back at the old boathouse, the muffled rumble of a boat engine might be heard above the crash of waves around them.

Ah, shit.

He’d been doing so well, but now it seemed that Javier’s luck was running out. Without planning and prep time to come up with something new and convincing, he’d fallen back on a couple of old routines that had worked a few times back in the day. Inventing a drowning victim was a variation on the old ‘I heard gunfire’ skit, and ‘the boys’ he was ‘cruising’ with used to be his older cousins before he was old enough to look like he could drive himself. This was where leaning on old routines was about to backfire, though, as Officer Fall asked where his uncle lived (how was he supposed to know, when he’d been in this town five minutes??) and then insisted on waiting for said uncle to arrive.

Back when he used to run these kind of scams about as often as he went to school, Javi had an easy fix for this. The people he ran with gave him a couple of useful numbers. He’d hit speed dial on ‘Mom’ in his phone, hand the device to the over, and the woman on the other end would reassure whatever official he was caught up with. It worked every time. Upon hearing an adult woman’s voice speaking in a dialect which was similar enough to Javi’s, police, bouncers, receptionists, security folk and anyone else he needed to get past would back straight off.

Unfortunately, Javi had been out of the game for a little over a year now. He couldn’t call that number now without incurring ire from people he really didn’t want to upset, and that was assuming the number was still connected. Those people went through burner phones like most people went through shower gel.

He needed some answers, and fast. Now was not the time for hesitation.

“He should be here soon.” Javi couldn’t go into any more detail on where his uncle lived when he didn’t know a lick about Atroe City, so he went on another made-up tirade. “I been out here a long ass time waiting for you, in case you ain’t noticed. My abuela in New York could’ve probably picked me up by now.”

He absolutely could not be standing around on the side of the road with a pig waiting for an abuela he’d never met or his incarcerated uncle to rock up. Javi had one trick left to fall back on.

“Listen, man.” He scuffed the wooden planks with a ratty sneaker, his tone markedly different from what it had been a moment before. “I’ll be real with you, but you gotta be chill.” He inhaled, partly to buy himself time to get his thoughts in order and partly to cement the nervous vibe he hoped he was giving off. “My uncle, he like… he’s not got all his papers in order, you get me? So if he sees a cop or a cop car, he ain’t stopping. Like he might even have already swung by and taken off.”

Finally, an excuse to check his phone. Javier pulled it out of his pocket and pressed the power button, seemingly checking for messages but in reality looking at the time. There were no messages, obviously, but the time display read 8.29. Ten more minutes to kill.

“Alright, look.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “How about this, man. I’ll answer all your questions here, right, and I’ll give you, like…” He squinted. “Like, twenty percent less attitude. Then you go off with your girlfriend cop and I’ll text my uncle that it’s good. And if you give me the number to your office, I’ll call it when I’m in the car and ask them to tell you I got picked up okay, okay?”

The sun had dipped far enough below the horizon that color had all but faded from the sky. The rolling clouds had gone from orange to purple, and then a deep, flat black that matched the sky and ocean alike. Waves still crashed with anger against the pier, and a cold tailwind kept them agitated. Down on this neglected stretch of dock, the yellow glow of a single lampost, it's light struggling to pass through a carpet of webbing and bug matter trapped within its glass casing, was all that illuminated the pair now. Well, that and the bright beam of Sohmer's flashlight, which the officer would periodically flash across the choppy waters on either side of them, with decreasing frequency.

Ryan had heard the rumble of an engine. He turned to look in the direction of the other boathouse, but didn't attempt to call out or identify the others; the other boathouse was too far down the coast for his voice to carry, and he couldn't leave an active scene before rescue arrived. Besides, it was likely one of the local fishermen who'd sheltered from the rain earlier. A more pressing matter stood before him, as the only witness to what had happened here. And despite Javi's blustery response, the kid did relent a little.

A bit of patience on his end had paid off. At least, that's what Ryan bought in the moment.

After holding back what wanted to be a cocked brow at Javier's gripe at the officer's response time, Ryan recognized a distinct shift in the boy's behavior. The shuffle of a shoe against the planks that could be a sign of anxiety. The deep breath. A tonal adjustment. Taking what he believed was a genuine breakthrough to heart, Ryan's intensity lessened a little, "No one's here to question you or your uncle, okay? We just want to help whoever you saw in the water. You did the right thing in calling, and sticking around, alright?" Jaiver had lucked out in hitting one of Sohmer's rare blindspots. Wading through the few shots that Javi kept taking at him, Ryan clipped his flashlight to his belt and took at a small notepad and pen, "I can work with that, if you can work on your attitude. Here." A neatly printed number was written down and the paper handed out to Javi. And as patient as Ryan's words were, his expression - when it wasn't hopping towards the waters just in case - remained serious and steadfast, "What details can you give me?"

Beyond them and out of sight, the engine continue to rumble in a distant but audible rumble.

Javi had won. He could sense it. The cop’s suspicion visibly melted away and his words took on a softer tone, like he was actually speaking to a kid and not a potential suspect. With the clock running down on the final ten minutes, this gig was in the bag. At this point, even if the officer cottoned on to what was going on, he’d have to move pretty fast to get to the boathouse in time, assuming the meeting wasn’t already over. There was a faint rumbling noise above the crashing waves which Javi assumed was traffic, and hoped wasn’t Lanny abandoning him now that his services were no longer needed.

He couldn’t think about that now – or about anything else. This was the most dangerous part of any mission, when the rogues relaxed because they thought they were home free. If Javi messed up now and tipped the officer off, he could still be heading back to Joe’s in the back of a police car, which would be awkward to explain.

Staying in the moment, Javi kept his eyes downcast as he sunk his hands into his pockets. This was a fine line to walk. He was getting somewhere with this performative anxiety, but he also couldn’t 180 on his character and start acting all trusting and goody-goody.

“Done nothing but question me,” he muttered, but in a lighter tone than earlier.

He reached out and took the paper, glancing briefly at the neatly written number. Javi wasn’t familiar with the area code for Atroe yet, but this looked like a landline rather than a cell number. He folded it twice and pushed it into his pocket, knowing he’d never call it. If he never saw another police officer for the rest of his life, he could die happy.

“It was real dark, man,” he said as Officer Summer pulled out his notepad. “But they had like… long hair, like dark hair. It was all…” He made a sort of outward pushing motion with his hands, to indicate that the hair had been trailing in the water. “Like dark brown or black or something. I didn’t see no face, like maybe they was face down? But they had like a dark shirt on, like dark green, and the arms was lighter and like…” He held his arms up in a ‘surrender’ position. “And they was small. And not fat or nothing, like – ” he held his hands out to show a width which would put the fictional person at roughly on par with his own body size “ – and pretty like, square body. Like the long square, what d’you call that? Like a rectangle. Like I didn’t see no – ” he gestured to his chest area and raised a meaningful eyebrow at the cop “ – or nothing, you get me? And I didn’t see the bottom half, just like, waist up. And they didn’t move, like not even when I yelled at them.”

Javi wanted to hold his breath as the officer scribbled in his notebook, but he forced himself to breathe normally. How long left now? Five minutes? Could he get away with asking if he could leave yet? Probably best to wait and see if Officer Winter had any follow-up questions.

In a less pressing situation, Ryan and his unshakable attention to detail might not have been derailed so easily by Javier's switch-up. He'd have listened to those flags that had begun to raise in the backdrop of his thoughts, and he would have further questioned the kid's story on why he was out here all alone. He would have prodded for details, and circled back on them to check for incongruities. He would have offered to drive the kid straight to his house, or phoned his guardians.

Fortunately for Javier, triage in this situation demanded his attention be focused on the drowning victim. Regardless of Ryan's earlier suspicions of the boy, or his original reason for even driving out to the boathouse tonight, he couldn't gamble on a potential life. Even if it sounded more and more as if that 'life' was well past saving. It was just dark enough out, and the waters just angry enough, to make his inability to spot a body believable.

"Attitude, Harvi." Ryan admonished without skipping a beat, and without giving it too much bite. He'd penned the number at this point and handed it off, then went straight back to the little pocket notebook to take down whatever details the teen could offer.

The details offered painted a poor prognosis. But he took them down all the same, glancing between Javi and the little sheets of lined paper now filling up with crisp, orderly notation. In the moments where he'd look up, Ryan watched the boy's hands, seeing the way he emphasized various points of his story, rather than remaining tucked into his pockets, or fidgeting anxiously. It helped to sell his tall tale, and had Ryan nodding along.

"You think they were floating on their stomach, maybe?" The pen continued to fly, "What about before you saw the body, what made you notice them in the first place? Did you hear something, see some movement that caught your attention?" He was sparing less and less attention to the ocean itself now, but something did cause the man to turn briefly, his ear catching a noise it had heard a minute before and had written off. The boat engine had revved, and the deep throttle told him it was not some little fishing vessel like he'd first thought. The officer felt his blood rise as he fully turned and looked out across the blackened waters, spotting the vague outline of some high-end sports craft leaving the boathouse, and in a hurry.

If the CrypticSilvers had been there, he'd just missed his opportunity to make a bust.

Ryan clenched the end of the pen, then tapped it in rapid succession against the notebook as the wave of frustration washed over him. Javier was now waiting on him, and it was Ryan's turn to conceal his emotions as he turned back to the kid and stilled the thumping pen between his fingers, "..you said your name was Harvey? What's your last name?"

With his back turned, and the sound of the high-powered engine roaring out into the inky abyss of a nightime ocean, Officer Sohmers didn't hear the thump of the boathouse door closing, or the creak of a rusty bronco door opening. The wailing of a distant ambulance had joined the chorus, with its flashing lights brightening the dark stretch of roadway that led down towards the Bay.

The cop seemed to be buying what Javi was making up on the spot. He was nodding along and scribbling away in his notebook, all traces of suspicion apparently erased. Javi’s confidence notched up with every passing second. He could do this. Just keep running that clock down.

“Yeah, maybe.” Javi watched the pen shoot across the page, unable to make out any of the words from this angle and just hoping that Officer Sohmers wasn’t writing ‘total bullshit’. “I was just like, looking at the ocean, man. It’s cool, you know?” He shrugged. These words had a ring of honesty to them, since Javi could well believe that anyone who was near the ocean would spend a decent amount of time looking at it. Officer Sohmers could barely take his eyes off it. “I was just looking and I saw someone. Didn’t hear nothing.”

From somewhere nearish, an engine revved. Javi assumed it was a car on the road and turned fully to look behind him, hoping to catch sight of a Lambo or a Mustang or something cool. The road was clear. Disappointed, Javi turned back and saw the cop staring out at the sea. He followed his line of sight and caught his breath. It was distant (already) and half-swallowed by the darkness, but a cool ass boat was taking off from the boathouse where Lanny had gone earlier. Even from here, Javi could see it was big and fancy, with an engine which sounded like a sports car. His eyes followed it until it disappeared entirely from sight, not noticing Sohmers’ pause or the way his pen tapped furiously against the paper. He was only jolted back into the present when the officer spoke again.

“Sick boat,” he said in a tone of admiration, forgetting for a moment about the scam. He replayed the cop’s question in his head. It was annoying but not unexpected that Sohmers wanted his full name. There was no point lying, since the whole local police force would have his file before long if they didn’t already. “Escarra,” he answered, with as much of an accent as he could reasonably overlay, hoping the policeman might mishear him.

He heard the ambulance first, and had to turn back to the road to see the flashing lights. This seemed like a perfect time to make his exit. The cool boat probably belonged to whoever Lanny was meeting, which meant Javi was officially off the clock. All he needed to do was extract himself from the police officer’s endless questions.

“So, we good?” He asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

There was a brief moment where Ryan tried to grab what obscure details he could remember from his fleeting view of the departing boat, in the incredibly slim chance it could be located later on. But it was simply too dark, and the bay too poorly lit. Even with his steel-trap perception, the officer had nothing remarkable to note about the vessel other than its relative size and flashy engine. And as Javier had declared, a fairly sick looking design; one that only someone with substantial wealth could afford, and that didn't fit many in Atroe City.

Another nod came and went, and Ryan penned another note to the sound of the motor fading into the rhythmic crash of waves.

"The ocean is quite a sight." This time, Sohmers didn't look to the waters when he murmured this back to Javier, having already concluded that he'd notched two losses this evening. At the very least, he could try to find out what happened to their yet-to-be-found victim, and perhaps prevent a future incident, "But you shouldn't be hanging around here at night, especially in weather like this. These docks can get slick, and you're liable to run into bad company at these hours." An almost pointed look was dropped on the kid, even if he'd already decided that Harvey Oscarra was innocent enough.

The man's face twisted a little, but he didn't look out to the gravel lane where the ambulance was now cruising down, sirens blaring at ever-climbing decibels. He should probably ask for spelling on that last name, just to cover his bases. Of course, that might require scribbling over the letters he'd already laid down, an act that brought a twinge of annoyance to the officer, but getting the details right was crucial. "Not quite yet; spell that out for me, you're last name. You got any other family out.."

Headlights, coming from behind, caught the man off guard. Thanks to the wail of sirens closing in, Ryan hadn't heard the old bronco firing up, but once the vehicle had pulled out of the weedy parking lot and began rolling down the lane, the lights were impossible to miss. As soon as he turned around, he recognized the vehicle and knew precisely who was behind the driver seat. A low curse escaped beneath his breath. For a brief moment, Javier slipped to the back of his thoughts.

The car slowed to a crawl, with Lanny leaning over mid-drive to crank down the passenger-side window. A cheeky grin was waiting for Javier and Ryan as the screen of glass whined and and rattled down into the frame with effort, "Officer Som, you shouldn't be harassing the local kids. You're better than that." With dimples on full, audacious display, Lanny slapped a palm against the door frame. His words were now directed at Javier, "Looks like you could use a lift?"

~CrypticSilvers~ (Orca Bay)

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

Officer Sohmers

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

~Officer Sohmers~

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

~Officer Sohmers~

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

~Officer Sohmers~

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

~Officer Sohmers~

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

~Officer Sohmers~

the burn don't work and the buzz don't help;

-CrypticSilvers-