Chapter Text
The first note comes the day after Lucy is promoted to P2.
It seems simple enough, a plain white envelope with her name written on the front. She throws it in her bag in her rush, sure it’s just a 'congratulations' card from a friend, and resolves to look at it later. She’d snoozed her alarm too many times and as a result is running late, and she doesn’t want to give anyone a bad impression on her first day of being a fully fledged cop.
She forgets all about it during what turns out to be a less than spectacular day.
Her first day as a P2 is filled with chaos.
It starts with her and Jackson being tricked during roll call, to having to babysit a candy bar at the scene of a crime, to responding to a disturbance call that turns out to be at the store where Tim is helping Angela pick her wedding dress (which is too cute for words, and Lucy will definitely have to tease him about it later). Her day is then topped off with the spectacular shit show that is her ‘celebration dinner’ with her mother, and by the time she sits down on her couch, a glass of wine in hand and the lotus root soup put away in the fridge, she’s forgotten all about it.
There’s a second note the next morning.
Lucy grabs it from the floor outside her apartment, stuffs it in her bag, and heads to work.
She runs into Tim on the way to the women’s locker room, because of course she does. He hasn’t stopped grinning since the incident at the wedding dress store, and she’s not in the mood.
Plus, he can always tell when something’s wrong with her.
“What’s wrong, Chen?” he asks, and she winces.
“Nothing.”
“Bull.”
Lucy sighs, and turns to him. He’s crossed his arms over his chest, and he has a little frown on her face.
“My mother was … herself last night. Ruined my celebration dinner. It’s nothing, I’m fine.”
Tim shakes his head. “Listen Chen, I know something about shit parents. It was a shitty thing for your mom to do, whatever it is that she did. She should have supported you no matter what. She didn’t. It’s OK to feel bad about that.”
Lucy just shrugs. She knows a little about what Tim went through with his own father, and knows that her mother is nothing in comparison.
“It’s fine,” she says again, and then the edge of the first note she’d received catches her eyes where it’s sticking out of her bag. She frowns, and then reaches for them. They’re obviously from the same person; the handwriting is identical, and it’s the same type of envelope.
“What are those?” Tim asks, motioning toward the cards, and Lucy shrugs.
“Not sure. One was outside my apartment yesterday morning, and another one this morning.”
“Secret admirer?” Tim asks, clearly intrigued, and inches closer to her as another officer passes through the hallway, already dressed for the day in uniform. Lucy knows she needs to go get changed, too, but she’s curious. She’d forgotten about the first one in the chaos of the previous day, but now she wants to know who they’re from.
Lucy rolls her eyes. “Probably just a congratulations note.”
“Open it,” Tim says. Lucy gives him a look, but grabs for one of the cards.
“You know you can’t tell me what to do anymore,” she says, and he gives her a Tim look.
“Whatever. Who is it from?” he asks.
“Doesn’t say,” Lucy responds, but her voice begins to trail off as she reads. She stuffs the first one back in her bag and grabs the second, and each line she reads causes her face to fall further.
“What’s wrong, Lucy?” Tim asks, and he wants very much to reach out for the first note she’d put back in her bag, but doesn’t want to overstep. He doesn’t have to — she grabs it and shoves it into his chest without looking, her eyes still roaming the second one. Tim tears it open and scans it quickly. There’s no name or greeting, just three simple lines on the paper, handwriting impeccably neat, letters curled on the ends.
I’ve been watching you since you first smiled at me.
You’re so beautiful.
I’ll see you soon.
Tim’s frowning, and doesn’t pause before reaching out and taking the second note out of her hands. She makes a noise of complaint, but he ignores her, eyes scanning the words. It’s the same — the same perfect handwriting, the same tone. It would be sweet, but the writer doesn’t identify themselves, and that fact sets off alarms in Tim’s head.
Congratulations on the promotion, Officer.
I’m sorry your mother wasn’t more supportive.
I wanted to come inside and comfort you, but I know you’re not ready.
You will be soon.
“What the hell?” he says, and when he looks up he can see the wariness in Lucy’s eyes. She’s a good cop, and he knows she must be feeling as uneasy as he is. “Who wrote these?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy says, biting her lip. “But they know where I live. They know about what happened last night. Jackson wasn’t home, Tamara wasn’t there. No one should know what happened. I didn’t tell anyone. You’re the first person I’ve seen this morning, the first person I’ve talked to.”
Tim takes both notes carefully, trying to touch them as little as possible (they’d both already contaminated the evidence, but he’s hopeful they can get a fingerprint match anyway).
“Go get changed for roll call, Lucy,” he says, and his voice is softer than she’s used to it being, which makes her even more worried. If Tim is being gentle with her, he thinks something is wrong. “I’ll take care of these.”
Lucy bites her lip but nods. She doesn’t want to be late, after all.
“All right. But, Tim?”
He turns back to her. He’d already started walking down the hallway, wanting to talk to Lopez and get the notes turned over to someone who can go over them with a fine tooth comb.
“Yeah?”
“Let me know what you find out?”
He nods, and watches as she glances between his eyes and the notes held carefully in his hands.
“I will. It’ll be OK, Lucy,” he says. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just want to be careful.”
Lucy nods, and wishes she believed him. But she has a bad feeling. An uneasy, uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.
There’s another note when she gets home that night.