“You know you could enjoy being right for five minutes.”
Baez didn’t look up.
“I’m enjoying it.”
“That’s your enjoying face?”
“You should recognize it by now.”
Danny smiled.
For a moment, neither said anything.
The squad room moved around them.
Phones rang.
Detectives crossed between desks.
Another case waited somewhere.
There was always another case.
Danny tapped the closed folder lightly.
“He really thought you were my backup.”
Baez finally looked at him.
“You sound offended.”
“I am.”
“For me?”
Danny shook his head.
“For me.
Makes it sound like I can do this job without you.”
Baez held his gaze.
It wasn’t a dramatic speech.
That wasn’t their relationship.
The meaning lived in the pause, in the years behind it, in all the times they had walked into dangerous situations together and come out trusting each other more than before.
Baez closed the folder.
“Don’t get sentimental, Reagan.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She stood and reached for her coat.
Danny moved toward the door with her.
The case had tested everything the suspect thought he understood about strength.
He believed strength announced itself.
Baez knew better.
Strength could listen while someone mocked you.
It could stay calm while someone tried to turn your closest partnership into an insult.
It could notice the glance everyone else missed, remember the sentence that didn’t fit, and wait until the right moment to place a folder on a table.
Danny had always been capable of filling a room with force.
Baez could change the entire room without raising her voice.
That was why their partnership worked.
Not because they were the same.
Because they weren’t.
They protected each other without needing to announce it.
They challenged each other without weakening the trust underneath.
And when one of them saw something the other didn’t, there was no competition over who deserved credit for seeing it first.
There was only the case.
There was only the truth.
And there was the quiet certainty that neither detective stood behind the other.
They stood beside each other.
Baez walked out of the squad room next to Danny, already moving toward whatever came next.
No victory speech.
No demand to be recognized.
She didn’t need one.
The folder had already said enough.
