Cracks in the Facade

Captain Mulligan’s office was a shrine to pragmatism. Bare walls, a desk that looked like it had survived a war, and a single, framed photograph of a younger, less weary Mulligan shaking hands with… well, with me. Twenty years ago, that picture would have been a badge of honor. Now, it was just a reminder of how much time had bled away. He sat behind his desk, a mountain of a man with eyes that missed nothing, watching me and Jack. We were supposed to be debriefing, but mostly we were just breathing the same recycled air, a thick, uncomfortable silence stretching between us like a tripwire.

“Ramirez,” Mulligan’s voice, a low rumble that had a way of cutting through bullshit, finally broke the quiet. “You’ve been on the force long enough to know how to handle a… a situation.” He let the word hang, heavy with unspoken meaning. He meant Jack. He meant the friction that was so palpable it could have been a third person in the room.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, the faux leather sticking to my cheap suit. “I’m handling it, Captain.” My voice was rougher than I intended. I hated sounding defensive, but Jack’s presence in my orbit was like a constant static shock. Every instinct I had screamed at me to rein him in, to force him into the mold of a proper detective, and every instinct he had seemed to be screaming right back, telling him to break free.