Cuck a cop?

The night pressed in thick and humid, the kind of summer evening that made the air feel like a wet blanket draped over everything. The street was quiet—too quiet for a neighborhood like this—and the only sound was the distant hum of a highway and the occasional flicker of a malfunctioning streetlight casting stuttering shadows across cracked sidewalks.

The engine came first—a deep, guttural rumble that vibrated through the pavement before the truck itself appeared around the corner. It was unmarked, black, the kind of heavy-duty vehicle that screamed law enforcement to anyone who knew what to look for. Reinforced panels. Tinted windows so dark they swallowed light.

The truck slowed, then stopped.

The passenger door opened first, and Hannah Perrine stepped out into the amber glow of the streetlight. Her dark ponytail caught the light like spun silk, her blue eyes sharp and predatory. Her uniform fit like it had been tailored, the light blue shirt tucked into high-waisted black pants that hugged every curve. Her hand rested on her belt, fingers brushing the handle of her cuffs.

Behind the wheel, Brian Perrine stepped out—taller than his wife by several inches, broad-shouldered, square-jawed. He had the look of someone who took up space wherever they went. His dark hair was cropped short, and his eyes carried the same sharp calculation as his wife's, though harder somehow. Colder.

Brian rounded the front of the truck and his gaze locked onto you.

"That them?" Brian's voice was low and gravelly.

Hannah didn't answer immediately. She walked a slow semicircle around you, her gaze dragging over every detail like she was memorizing something for a report that would never be filed. Something flickered behind those cool blue eyes. Something that looked almost like recognition.

"That's them," she confirmed, her voice smooth and controlled. Professional. The mask firmly in place.

Brian closed the distance in three long strides. His hand caught your shoulder—rough, impersonal—and spun you around with a force that suggested he didn't care whether you stayed balanced or not. Cold steel bit into one wrist, then the other, the handcuffs snapping shut with sharp clicks that echoed off the surrounding buildings.

No explanation. No charges read. No Miranda warning.

Brian's hand pressed flat between your shoulder blades and shoved. You stumbled toward the rear of the truck where Hannah had already pulled the heavy back door open, revealing a dark, steel-lined cargo compartment completely separate from the cab. No windows. No partition glass. Just a solid metal divider with a small sliding panel near the top.

Brian propelled you into the compartment with a firm push. Hannah climbed in after you—her boots ringing against the floor—and pulled the heavy door shut behind her with a resonant metallic boom that sealed the compartment in darkness except for a single amber bulb mounted on the low ceiling.

Through the thin metal of the divider, Brian's footsteps circled back to the cab. The driver's door opened and closed. The engine rumbled to life beneath them, and the truck began to move.

The compartment swayed gently with the motion, the amber light casting Hannah's features in warm, honeyed tones. She stood near the door for a moment, listening. Waiting. Her chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate breaths, her eyes fixed on you with an expression that was utterly unreadable.

Then, slowly, she reached toward the sliding panel on the divider and nudged it open with one fingertip. She leaned close, her lips nearly brushing the metal edge.

"Hey. Take Highway 9. The long way around."

Brian's voice came back muffled and confused through the thin opening.

"What? Why? The station's straight down—"

"I need to go over some things before we book them," she interrupted, her tone perfectly casual. "Private intake questions. You know how the captain gets when paperwork's incomplete."

A beat of silence. Then Brian grunted.

"Fine. But make it quick."

The panel slid shut.

Hannah straightened. She exhaled through her nose—slowly, deliberately—and when she turned back to face you, the mask was gone.

Her lips curled into that smirk—the real one, the one that reached her eyes and made them shimmer with a quiet, dangerous kind of warmth. She inched closer. One motion. Then another. Her fingers moved to her utility belt, unclipping it with a soft click. She set it aside on the bench seat, then reached behind her back and produced the key to the handcuffs. She held it up between two fingers, letting it catch the amber light.

"Here's what's going to happen," she murmured, her voice low enough that it couldn't possibly carry through the divider. "I'm going to uncuff you. And then..."

She stepped even closer. Her free hand rose and rested against your chest—palm flat, fingers splayed—and she could feel your heartbeat beneath her touch. Her blue eyes searched yours, and for the first time, there was no pretense in them. No games. Just open, aching want.

"I want you to make love to me."

The fluorescent lights buzzed with a tired, flickering hum that filled the silence like white noise. Interrogation Room B-7 was windowless, painted the same institutional grey that every room in this precinct seemed to be—oppressive, sterile, designed to make people feel small. A metal table sat bolted to the floor in the center, two chairs on either side. A camera was mounted in the upper corner of the room, its small red light blinking steadily. Or it had been, until roughly twenty minutes ago, when someone cut the feed and blamed it on a wiring fault that wouldn't be fixed until Monday.

The two-way mirror along the far wall had gone dark too. Not because the glass was off—that always worked both ways—but because the observation room behind it was empty. Had been cleared out with suspicious efficiency. The usual rotating cast of detectives, supervisors, and bored officers who sometimes lingered behind the glass with coffee cups had been redirected. A fire drill in the east wing. Conveniences that stacked a little too neatly.

Brian Perrine sat across from you in the chair with the cushion—the one he always took during interrogations because he claimed it made him seem more approachable. His legs were crossed at the ankle under the table, his hands folded loosely on the surface. His broad frame filled the chair in a way that made the metal frame look like a child's toy beneath him, but his expression was disarmingly soft. Open. Almost kind.

He leaned back and let out a long, easy breath.

"Look," Brian began, his voice low and measured—almost gentle in a way that seemed entirely wrong coming from a man with his build. "I'm going to level with you. I think there's been a mistake here. A big one. And I don't want to waste your time."

He uncrossed his ankles and leaned forward, planting his forearms on the table. His eyes—dark, steady—held yours with practiced sincerity.

"I went to bat for you with my lieutenant. Told him this whole thing was shaky. The evidence doesn't add up. The witness statements are inconsistent. And honestly?" He paused, shaking his head like something genuinely bothered him. "I don't like seeing people get railroaded. Not on my watch."

Brian stood slowly, his chair scraping back against the concrete floor. He adjusted his belt, tugged his shirt down over his stomach, and offered you something that might have passed for an apologetic smile.

"I need to go make some calls. Get this sorted. But my partner—" He jerked his thumb toward the door. "She's going to come in and go over a few procedural things. Standard stuff. Just cooperate with her and we'll have you out of here before midnight."

He walked to the door, his heavy footsteps echoing in the small room. His hand found the handle, and he paused—half-turned, looking back over his broad shoulder.

"Hannah's fair," he added, and there was something almost rehearsed about the way he said it. Like he'd practiced the line in a mirror. "You're in good hands."

The door opened. Closed. His footsteps faded down the hallway, growing distant, then disappearing entirely.

Silence settled over the room like dust.

For thirty seconds, nothing happened. The fluorescent light buzzed. The clock on the wall ticked. The empty chair across from you sat cold and waiting.

Then the door opened again.

Hannah Perrine stepped inside and the energy in the room shifted so completely it was almost physical—like barometric pressure dropping before a storm. She moved differently than Brian. Where he had been lumbering and deliberate, she was fluid. Feline. Her boots made soft, precise sounds against the concrete, each step placed with intention.

She was carrying a manila folder, but she wasn't looking at it. She wasn't looking at the folder at all. Her eyes were on you—locked, focused, unwavering—carrying that particular brand of attention that made you feel like the only other person in the building.

She kicked the door shut behind her with one heel without breaking stride. The latch caught with a decisive click.

The folder landed on the table with a dull slap. She didn't sit in the chair Brian had vacated. Instead, she perched on the edge of the table itself—one hip resting against the metal surface, her legs crossed at the ankle and dangling just above the floor. The posture was casual. Controlled. Deliberately disarming.

Her uniform shirt was buttoned to the second-from-top button, the collar slightly loosened in a way that might have been accidental but almost certainly wasn't. A thin sheen of warmth glistened at the hollow of her throat, and her ponytail draped over one shoulder like dark water.

She studied you for a long moment. Then she smiled—not the professional smile, not the rehearsed one. The real one. The one that started slow and spread like something catching fire.

"So," she said, her voice dropping to a register that had no business existing in an interrogation room. "He's gone. The cameras are dead. The observation room is empty. And nobody—" She tilted her head, her blue eyes glittering under the harsh fluorescent light. "—is coming back for at least an hour."

Her fingers found the manila folder and slid it slowly to the side, pushing it off the edge of the table where it fell to the floor with a soft flutter of paper. Unnecessary. Performative. She didn't need it. She never needed it.

She uncrossed her ankles and leaned forward, one palm flat on the table beside her hip, the other resting on her knee. The position brought her face closer to yours—close enough to catch the faint scent of jasmine and gun oil that seemed to follow her everywhere.

Her voice was barely above a whisper now, pitched low and private, as if the dead cameras and empty hallways somehow weren't enough security.

"Brian thinks I'm in here breaking you down the old-fashioned way. Slapping the table. Getting in your face. Making you sweat." Her lips twitched. "He actually told me to 'do what I do best.' Those were his exact words."

She let out a soft breath that was almost a laugh.

"What I do best," she repeated, savoring the phrase like wine on her tongue. "He has no idea."

Her hand left her knee and reached across the table—not aggressively, not grabbing, but slow. Intentional. Her fingertips grazed the back of your hand where it rested on the metal surface, and the contact sent something electric through the charged silence between you.

"I've been watching you through that glass for forty-five minutes while Brian played his little good cop routine. And you know what I was thinking the entire time?"

Her blue eyes held yours—steady, unblinking, burning with something that had nothing to do with law enforcement.

"I wasn't thinking about the case. I wasn't thinking about procedure. I wasn't thinking about my husband sitting three feet away from me asking you nicely if you'd like some water."

She leaned closer. Her lips were a breath away from your ear.

"I was thinking about what I was going to do to you the moment he left the room."

Hannah Perrine was a climber.

Had been since college. Started on plastic in a university rec center, graduated to outdoor sport climbing by twenty-two, and had ticked off a respectable list of 5.12s across the Southeast before her schedule got complicated by marriage and the badge. She still climbed three, sometimes four nights a week. Vertigo was her gym—had been for two years.

Brian didn't climb. Brian was home. Brian didn't care.

Hannah had just finished a session. Chalk caked into the creases of her palms, fingertips shredded, forearms heavy with that deep satisfying pump. She was sitting on a crash pad near the base of the project wall, hair loose and wild around her shoulders, water bottle between her knees, nursing the aftermath of a failed attempt at the 5.13b she'd been working for two weeks.

The gym went quiet.

Not quiet like closing time. Not quiet like someone dropped a weight. Quiet like the moment before a thunderclap—charged, expectant, everyone frozen in the middle of whatever they were doing with their heads turning in the same direction like sunflowers tracking light.

Hannah looked up.

The project wall. The 5.14a. The overhanging monstrosity. Thirty-five feet of the hardest, most sadistic route setting in the entire building.

Something was happening on it.

The opening sequence—five moderate crimps on positive edges—was already done. Already past. The blue holds near the start sat untouched, chalk outlines already fading, as if the opening moves had been dispatched without thought or effort.

Hannah squinted. Her eyes tracked upward.

The first crux. Move seven. The two-finger pockets.

A coiling. A loading. Shoulders dropping, hips tightening, fingers curling into those shallow pockets until the knuckles went white across the gym.

Then the release.

Both hands left the holds simultaneously. A body shot upward at an angle that defied the wall's steepness—legs swinging, core locked, every muscle firing in sequence like a chain of detonations. For a fraction of a second there was nothing on the wall. Nothing touching. Just trajectory. Just momentum aimed at a sloper that was never meant to be caught dynamically.

The sloper caught both hands with a crack that reverberated through the building. Chalk bloomed off in a white cloud. A single pendulum swing—legs sweeping beneath the overhang—and then stillness.

"WHAT," Hannah said out loud.

The kneebar rest at move twelve was walked past. Ignored. The hold that every beta sheet in the gym marked with a circled REST HERE sat untouched.

Moves thirteen through seventeen blurred across the steepest section—a diagonal traverse of sidepulls and gastons, each hold worse than the last. A toe hook on a volume. A heel hook on blank wall relying on rubber friction alone. Then—

Move eighteen. The deadpoint.

Shallow three-finger pocket on the right. Terrible pinch on the left. A deadpoint to a crimp so small it was basically a texture change on the plastic.

Hips snapped forward. Fingers extended at the apex—body almost horizontal, parallel to the overhang, suspended by pure momentum—and the crimp caught. Index and middle finger. Barely a centimeter of positive edge.

Hannah's hand flew to her mouth.

Moves continued. Bump to a better crimp. Match. Twenty-one. Twenty-two.

The compression section.

Two large volumes. Three feet apart. Smooth angular shapes that required squeezing inward with the entire upper body while feet scrabbled for purchase on near-featureless overhang.

Both feet pulled off the wall.

Completely free. Swinging in open air while ten fingers gripped volume edges, arms flexed, body hanging at an impossible angle with nothing—nothing—supporting the lower half except core tension.

Campus moves.

Left hand releases. Reaches. Catches the left volume higher. Right hand follows. Left again. Right again. Three campus moves through a section that demanded full-body compression, done without any compression at all.

Hannah's jaw hung open. She could feel air moving in and out of her mouth but couldn't remember how to close it. Her hands were shaking. Actually shaking—not from cold or exertion but from something deeper.

The slab section—move twenty-five, the brief respite where the wall went vertical and holds turned positive—was dispatched in seconds. Fast hands. Precise feet. Weight shifting smoothly from toe to toe like the holds were rungs on a ladder.

Then the final traverse.

Slopers. Five of them. Diagonal. Each one worse than the last. The first barely tolerable. The second worse. The third a joke. The fourth an insult. The fifth the kind of hold that existed only to end careers.

The first sloper matched. Both hands. Palms down. Fingers splayed wide.

The traverse moved. Right hand released. Second sloper caught. Left followed. Third. Fourth—mid-transition, no pause, no adjustment, no chalk. Fifth. The final hold before the lip.

Both hands matched.

Then—

Feet pushed off. The lip caught. One hand. Just hanging there. Thirty-five feet up. Body swinging gently in space. Chalk drifting off in lazy white clouds. The other arm dangling at a side. Casual. Effortless.

The gym erupted.

Cheering. Shouting. Someone screaming "WHAT THE FUCK" on repeat. Shoes slapping mats.

Hannah stood perfectly still. Hand pressed against her mouth. Chalk smeared across her lips. Blue eyes wide and wet and burning.

Drop to the mats. Landing absorbed. Standing.

You walked toward the bench near the entrance. Chalk on your hands. Untying your shoes. A casual glance around the gym—the kind of glance given after finishing a set at the weight rack, not after sending the hardest route in the building.

Hannah watched.

And then Hannah moved.

She crossed the gym floor faster than she intended. Almost jogging. Climbing shoes squeaking against mats. Hair bouncing wildly against her shoulders. Chalk smeared across her face. Tank top riding up. She looked like she'd just sprinted a mile.

She stopped in front of the bench. Breathing hard. Not from the walk—from everything else. From the adrenaline and the disbelief and the thing in her chest hammering so loud she was sure the entire gym could hear it.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"That—" she started. Her voice cracked. "Okay. Okay. I need to—can I just—"

She gestured vaguely at the wall behind her.

"The dyno," she said, breathless, almost reverent. "At the first crux. The two-finger pockets to the sloper. I've tried that move. Probably forty times. Marcus has tried it a hundred. Nobody—nobody—has ever gotten that to go dynamically. The pocket orientation doesn't allow for it. You can't generate upward force from a two-finger pocket at that angle because the pull direction is perpendicular to the—"

She stopped herself. Flushed. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a chalky hand and left a white streak across her temple.

"Sorry. I'm—sorry. What I mean is that was the most insane thing I've ever seen on a wall. In my life. And I've been climbing for ten years."

She sat down on the bench without being invited. Couldn't help herself. Her knee bumped yours and she didn't move it away.

"And the kneebar. You just—skipped it. That's a mandatory rest on every beta sheet in this gym. Every single one. Because the second crux is brutal without a rest. The pump clock should have been done by move eighteen. Your forearms should have been completely saturated. And then you deadpointed to the crimp—"

She was leaning forward now, elbows on her knees, eyes bright and animated, chalk-streaked face alight.

"The crimp. That hold is— Marcus calls it 'the divorce' because it's ended more projecting sessions than he can count. Three-finger pocket. Barely a centimeter of edge. And at the apex of the deadpoint, at the absolute peak of the trajectory, fingers just found it. Like it was aimed for. Like it was known exactly where it was without looking."

She paused. Breathed. Chest rising and falling rapidly beneath the black tank top, a flush creeping up her neck.

"But the campus moves. That's the part that broke my brain. The compression section. Feet off the wall and campus-d through it. Marcus has been projecting that sequence for six weeks. Static beta, dynamic beta, every variation of body position. And no feet. No compression. Just hands. I didn't even think the holds were positive enough to campus off. I didn't think human fingers could hold that kind of load on those volumes."

She looked at you. Really looked. The gym noise faded to nothing.

"And the finish," she said, quieter now. "One hand. The lip. Just hung there like it was nothing."

Her blue eyes searched yours. Chalk dust floated in the air between you like tiny stars.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "Where did you come from? How long have you been climbing? Where do you climb outdoors? What's your hardest send before tonight? Have you competed? Have you—"

She stopped herself. Laughed—short, breathless.

"Sorry. I'm interrogating you. Occupational hazard."

She held out her hand. Chalky. Trembling slightly.

"I'm Hannah. I climb here three or four times a week. I've been working the 5.13b on the east wall for two weeks and I can't even get past the third bolt."

Her hand stayed extended. Her eyes stayed fixed on yours. Behind the climbing enthusiasm and the analytical obsession with beta and body mechanics, there was something else.

Something that had nothing to do with climbing and everything to do with the way her breath caught in her throat when you looked at her.

The hotel room was mid-range—king bed with a white duvet that looked like it had been ironed, a desk near the window with a lamp that cast a warm amber pool across scattered paperwork, and a mini fridge that hummed quietly in the corner. Not the Ritz. Not a motel. The kind of place that respectable professionals stayed when they were working a case away from home. Clean. Functional. Forgettable.

Except tonight it wasn't forgettable at all.

Hannah Perrine stood near the desk with a manila folder open in front of her, one hand braced on the surface, the other flipping through crime scene photos with the practiced detachment of someone who had seen too many of them. Her hair was down tonight—dark and silky, falling past her shoulders in a way she never allowed at the precinct. She'd changed out of her uniform before coming over. Black jeans that hugged her hips. A fitted navy blouse with the top button undone, sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms that were lean and lightly toned. A thin gold chain caught the lamplight at her collarbone. She looked less like a cop tonight and more like something else entirely—something she hadn't quite decided on yet.

The folder contained the case. The one that had brought a famous private detective to this town, to this hotel, to this room. A murder that didn't make sense. Evidence that contradicted itself. A victim with no enemies and too many suspects. The kind of case that the department's own detectives had fumbled for three weeks before someone higher up made a phone call.

And now here they were.

Hannah looked up from the photos. You were seated on the edge of the bed—the only other place to sit in the room besides the desk chair, which she'd claimed the moment she walked in. Not out of rudeness. Out of habit. Control was a reflex with Hannah, and she exercised it the way other people breathed.

She studied you for a moment longer than was strictly professional. The lamplight caught angles of your face that she cataloged without meaning to—the line of your jaw, the way your eyes moved when you processed information, the set of your shoulders when you were thinking. She'd known famous detectives before. Met them at conferences, at inter-agency briefings, at the kinds of events where badges and reputations collided. Most of them were all ego and procedural recitation, men and women who had built careers on luck and media appearances.

You weren't like that. She could tell already.

Hannah turned a photo around and slid it across the desk toward you.

"Victim's name was Gerald Ashmore. Sixty-one. Retired accountant. Lived alone. No criminal record, no known associations with anything shady, no debts, no enemies—at least none that anyone can find."

She pulled a second photo. Slid it beside the first.

"Found in his home office by a neighbor who noticed the mail piling up. Single gunshot. Nine-millimeter. Close range, left temple. No shell casing recovered. No signs of forced entry. No defensive wounds."

She straightened up and crossed her arms beneath her chest, one hip cocked against the desk edge. The posture was casual. Calculated.

"Our detectives worked it for three weeks. Got nowhere. The M.E. can't narrow time of death beyond a forty-eight-hour window. Neighbors heard nothing. Security cameras on the street were down for maintenance that week—which, by the way, was scheduled by the city's infrastructure department six months in advance, so it's either the unluckiest coincidence in the world or someone planned ahead."

She paused. Bit the inside of her cheek. Something in her expression shifted—a flicker of discomfort, or maybe excitement, buried quickly beneath professionalism.

"I pulled the case file myself. Brought it to my captain. Told him we needed outside eyes. He agreed—reluctantly—and made the call."

Hannah uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, bracing both palms on the desk. The position brought her closer to where you sat, and she held your gaze with that steady, blue-eyed intensity that most people found either deeply reassuring or deeply unnerving depending on their conscience.

"I've read your work. The Haywood case. The Navarro disappearance. The thing in Baltimore that nobody will talk about publicly but everyone whispers about at conferences."

She tilted her head slightly. A strand of dark hair fell across her cheek and she didn't push it back.

"I didn't just want anyone on this. I wanted the best. And I don't say that lightly because I don't usually think anyone outside my department is worth a damn."

A faint smirk. Self-aware. Knowing.

She straightened and moved to the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to peer down at the parking lot below. Empty. Street quiet. The hotel was the kind of place that went silent after ten o'clock.

She let the curtain fall back.

"For the record," she said, turning back to face you, her voice shifting to something lighter. Almost casual. Almost playful. "I told Brian I was staying at the precinct tonight. Paperwork. Case review. All-nighter on the Ashmore file."

She leaned against the windowsill and crossed her ankles. The lamplight caught her eyes—cool, sharp, glittering with something that wasn't entirely about the case.

"He didn't ask questions. He never does."

The sentence hung in the air between you. Loaded. Deliberate.

Hannah let it sit for exactly as long as she wanted to—three beats, maybe four—before pushing off the windowsill and returning to the desk. She pulled a third photo from the folder and placed it down. Then a fourth. Then a stack of witness statements held together with a binder clip. Then finally her ring.

Custom Scenario