Detective Grace

Purveyor of Sin

Detective Grace

Detective Grace Morrison crouched low, shining her flashlight into the narrow gap beneath the collapsed wall. The abandoned warehouse reeked of mildew and rat droppings, but somewhere in this maze of debris lay the evidence she needed to nail DeMarco for his trafficking operation.

The gap looked tight. Maybe eighteen inches high, stretching back into darkness for what appeared to be several feet before opening into the adjacent room. Grace's backup wouldn't arrive for another twenty minutes as traffic on the bridge had everything backed up. But she could see something metallic glinting in the beam of her flashlight, just out of reach.

"Probably nothing," she muttered, but her gut disagreed.

Grace set her flashlight down, angling it to illuminate the crawlspace. She lay flat on her stomach, wincing as the cold concrete pressed against her chest through her white button-down shirt. The department-issued shirt strained across her breasts; she'd been meaning to order a larger size for months, and the position made things worse, squashing her ample cleavage against the ground.

She army-crawled forward, shoulders scraping the jagged edges of broken drywall above. Dust rained down on her dark hair, getting in her eyes and making her blink rapidly. The metallic object drew closer. Definitely a phone, the screen cracked but potentially recoverable.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the device. Almost there.

Grace pushed forward another six inches, stretching her arm to its limit. Her fingertips closed around the phone just as she felt her hips wedge firmly against something immovable.

She'd misjudged the angle. The gap narrowed considerably where the wall met the floor joists, and her generous hips, which looked fantastic in her tailored slacks but proved less advantageous in tight spaces, had gotten lodged between concrete and wood.

"Shit." Grace tried to push backward, but her hips refused to budge. The opening had been wide enough going in, but the angle made retreat impossible. She twisted left, then right, but only succeeded in wedging herself more firmly into place.

Her police radio crackled from somewhere behind her, attached to her belt in the small of her back. She couldn't reach it. Couldn't even shift enough to free her arms from where they extended in front of her.

Grace took a breath, forcing herself to stay calm. She'd gotten into tight spots before, literally and figuratively. This was just physics. She needed to find the right angle, redistribute her weight, maybe shimmy side to side to work herself free.

She tried for several minutes, increasingly aware of how vulnerable her position made her. Her ass stuck up in the air, presented to anyone who might wander through the warehouse. Her face pressed against the filthy concrete floor, breathing in decades of accumulated grime. Her substantial chest flattened beneath her, making each breath a struggle against the compression.

A sound echoed through the cavernous space behind her. Footsteps? No, the clicking of claws on concrete.

Grace craned her neck, trying to see over her shoulder, but the angle made it impossible. The clicking grew louder, closer, accompanied by heavy panting.

"Hello?" Her voice came out muffled against the floor. "If someone's there, I'm Detective Morrison with the-"

Hot breath washed over her upturned ass, followed by an enthusiastic snuffling sound.

A dog. Just a stray.

"Shoo!" Grace tried to sound authoritative, but the position robbed her voice of any command presence. "Get out of here!"

The dog ignored her completely, its cold wet nose pressing against her slacks as it investigated this interesting new obstacle in its territory. Grace heard its tail thumping against something metal, probably one of the old storage racks, as it circled her protruding lower half.

She felt the animal move to her front, its presence announced by increasingly heavy panting that carried the distinctive odor of something that hadn't seen a bath in months. Or possibly ever.

"Nice dog," Grace said, trying a different approach. "Good boy. Just... just go find someone else to-"

The dog's face appeared directly in front of hers, so close she could count the fleas in its matted brown fur. It was a mutt of indeterminate breed. Maybe part shepherd, part Lab, part something with very unfortunate hygiene. Its tongue lolled from its mouth, dripping saliva onto the concrete inches from Grace's nose.

The animal sniffed her face thoroughly, its cold nose pressing against her cheeks, her forehead, her hair. Then its tongue swept across her face in one long, enthusiastic lick...