The CEO's Rose

Detective Rogers’ POV

Given the heaviness that came with the Vivian Rose case. Mel had not been too happy about being saddled with it at all. If she failed to resolve it, the higher ups would no doubt use that to end her career. Either they would force her to resign or she would be banished to purgatory, sent to the middle of nowhere. A place so remote that the worst crimes involved people being attacked by goats and pigs breaking into gardens and eating all of the vegetables. Places were generational feuds over stolen chicken eggs were a real thing. Given how she was a city girl through and through, Mel Rogers had not been looking forward to such an outcome at all.

But as she once again went through the case file with a fine tooth comb, trying to figure out if she had missed anything during her initial sweep. She found herself glad to be on the case.

Not only had she discovered that Ryan Terrell was decent and that his girlfriend was a sweetheart who had not even reported Mel for not being professional, (something that the detective was highly grateful for). The case had also saved her from having to go to a call that all of the officers in the department feared-having to deal with...a badly decomposed body that had been found in the woods. While all of the other detectives had been drawing straws hoping not to get the short end of the stick, Mel had been at her cubicle, her head down as she went through her notes. She had not even wanted to look at the poor soul who had finally lost and been forced to go. Unsurprisingly, it had been the new kid.

Even less surprising, two hours later when he had come back, the nauseating stench of decomposition had still been clinging to him despite the multitude of showers that he’d had.

"When forensics was finally done gathering what little evidence they could given how old the scene was, they poked at the guy with a stick. Some of it got on my shoes..."The kid had recounted the whole thing while staring off into the distance, clearly shaken. Taking a sip of her coffee, Mel had felt a little bit bad for the kid. But then she’d remembered that during her first decomp, she’d gotten bits of human goop stuck in her hair and had actually head to shave in order to feel like she’d fully gotten rid of the smell. Clinging to that memory had helped her get over her pity real fast,( giving the kid a chocolate bar had simply been her being a good colleague and nothing else). Ignoring the stupidly grateful look on his face as he’d taken his first bite of the chocolate, Mel had gone back to her report.

***

Hours since her random act of kindness for the day, Mel was still stuck on the case. After going through the report one more time and still not finding anything, she decided that the only other thing for her to do was to go back to the scene of the crime. Perhaps there were some clues that had been missed at Vivian Rose’s apartment.

Gathering her things, she was just about to head for the door when the same newbie who had been complaining about the corpse stench came over to her space.

The young man, still smelling faintly of dead body despite the very strong lemon scent, glared at her like she was the reason for all of the wrongs in the world.

"What?" She finally sniped at the kid and he shrugged.

"Doc called and asked me to tell you to head down to the morgue as soon as possible," Mel raised a brow at that.

"And the doc could not call and tell me this why," A frown on his face, the kid pointed at her phone and Mel could not help a little chuckle as she realized that it was unplugged.

"Why didn’t he use my cell phone then? Did you remember to charge it?" The kid asked, taking it out of her pocket, Mel tried to power it on but it wouldn’t. Oh great, looking up, she was met by the sight of the kid’s retreating back. Even while retreating it was easy to tell from his stiff shoulders that he was fuming.

Why was he so mad at her? She was not the one responsible for him getting a bad case and besides, why was he also acting as though she was difficult to reach? Sure, her landline often got unplugged or put on mute and she had a tendency to forget to charge her phone until the battery died. But that did not mean she was hard to reach. Everyone had problems with electronics every now and then, but in the end things worked out. The doc had managed to get a message to her after all.

Taking that as a sign that she did not have a problem with electronic devices, Mel began making her way towards the morgue.

As luck would have it. The moment that she reached the elevator, it immediately shut down, the doors refusing to open up and let her in.

After taking a moment to wave a fist at the doors she threw two middle fingers at the elevator, Mel began walking down the stairs, the logical side of her glad that the contraption had at least chosen to malfunction without her being stuck inside.

Glad that she was not one of those detectives who insisted on dress shoes all the time, her boots made the grueling journey down to the morgue, very bearable. By the time that she got there, Mel already had several excuses lined up for whatever it was that the doc was going to chew her up over.

As far as she could tell, she had not messed up anything for the forensics unit. Hopefully there was not some huge slight that she had forgotten. The doc would never forgive her if that was the case.

"Morning doc," She greeted in her most cheerful voice as she walked in. The older woman did not look up from the body that she was studying. "Stop faking happiness Rogers, we both know you are too grumpy for such a thing," Instantly dropping her fake cheer, Mel moved closer to the examination table.

From the smell it was very clearly the decomp guy that the newbie had gone to get. Thank goodness that was not her case.

"By the way it is afternoon," The doctor said, shrugging Mel moved in closer still.

"So, why do you require my presence in your lovely kingdom of the dead?" Not saying anymore the doc just straightened and gestured towards her latest client.

"You are looking for Vivian Rose’s attacker right?"

Not liking that question at all, the detective nodded, hoping that what she was suspecting was not true. But the doc proved her right in the next second.

"Well, this is him," Mel blinked, then she looked down at the corpse on the table. Despite the discoloration, now that she was looking closer, she realized that she recognized the man.

It really was Bryce. Oh no, it seemed her case had gotten a whole lot harder. And to add to her problems, it looked like she would be sticking around in the morgue a while longer. She’d have to submerge herself in an entire tab of lemon juice just to begin getting rid of the stench. This was probably the universe paying her back for being nice to the rookie.

What horrid luck she had.