Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." by Bad-Boy Storyteller Page A

give him something to type, raises his round fingers back to the keyboard. Then she releases, allowing the words that have been bottled up in her all night to fly from her lips. “Kimberly…Kimberly Siconolfi is missing!”
    Amberly tenses in preparation for what is next, though nothing happens; all the protective armor she’s built appears to have been unnecessary. It doesn’t seem to get even the slightest reaction out of Officer Renny, who simply types in the name and asks, “And how long has she been missing?”
    His unassuming response eases her reservations, and she begins to let it all out. “Well, she hasn’t been to work. She doesn’t answer her phone, and I just heard last night that there was a situation with her husband killing her on the radio. Her husband is a freak, you know. He abuses her and makes her do things—weird things! And I know he’s done something to her!”
    Officer Renny, now aware of whom Kimberly is, looks to her to confirm. “Is her husband Joshua—the guy on the news?”
    She shakes her head yes, almost shamefully, and then begins to cry. “She’s missing, and it’s my fault. I mean, it’s her husband: Joshua’s done something to her. And there’s something I can only talk to Detective Cools about. I think I may have done something wrong, and I don’t want to be in any trouble, but I did come in on my own. I just need to talk to Detective Cools. I can only talk to him!” She begins to cry harder.
    Renny quickens at her adamant plea for Detective Cools. Pushing down on the arms of his chair, he scoots his round body back to a more upright position to yell across to the adjacent cubicle. “Hey, Lonnell, do you have Detective Cools’s number?”
    “Just a second,” an unseen voice returns. Then a few moments later, Officer Lonnell yells back a seven-digit number over the thin partition separating the two spaces. Officer Renny writes it down on a piece of paper and dials.
    It rings five times before an exhausted voice comes across the line. “Hello.”
    “Detective Brad Cools?”
    “Yes, who’s this?”
    “Detective Cools this is Officer Renny, down here at the station. I met you before at the—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know who you are.” Cools cuts him off in a tone that says get to the point since he’s just gotten out of the shower and is dripping wet.
    “Detective, I have sitting in front of me a young lady named Amberly Carlson. She’s here filling out a missing persons report on a coworker, Mrs. Kimberly Siconolfi.”
    “The same?”
    “Yes.”
    Instantly Cools abandons all plans of sharing a passionate morning with the woman lying in his bed and replies, “Keep her there…And keep a tight lid on this, Renny. I’ll be there in…in fifteen minutes.” Click. There’s no time for boxers, so he snatches his black slacks lying on the bedroom floor and hits speed dial, letting the phone ring while buttoning a shirt over his wet, muscular frame. “Michelle!”
    “What’s going on, Brad?”
    “Michelle, listen, a coworker from the strip club is, right now, down at the station filling out a missing persons report on Kimberly Siconolfi. I need you to meet me at the station; we are going to interview her together. Something’s going on; I can feel it.”
    “Slow down. It could be nothing, Brad,” she replies, wondering how in the hell he got his name, thinking it should be Detective Brad High-Strung-Impatient-Angry-Drama-Queen. Anything but Cools.
    “Michelle, I’m right about this. Something’s going on. He may have killed his wife for real this time, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. I need you to meet me at the station in twenty minutes. So put your shoes on, girl. We got work to do.”
    A submissive sigh comes from Michelle before agreeing to his demands. “I’ll be there, hon.”
    Cools snaps his phone shut, ending the conversation, when another hurdle presents itself.
    “And where do you think you’re going?” asks the pretty woman