ROBBING WOMAN (W.I.P.)

I had to organize their info somehow. Mostly copied from a long and messy Google Doc, but I tried to make it as digestible as possible. Still, it's a lot of words!

Detective Valerie Lin

A butch in her mid-thirties. Her late parents worked in the field and made her join. She's miserable on the job but continues because she feels like she has no other skills. She is a closeted asexual lesbian.

Cassady Scott ("Scotty")

Scotty is a wisecracking thief in her mid-twenties. She lives in the back room of Cedric's convenience store. She steals to provide for her gang but sometimes does it for fun. She is an aromantic lesbian.

Cedric Waters

Cedric is Scotty's best friend in his 50s. He has an interesting history with her parents. He's a good liar and helps the gang when cops come poking around, but is otherwise uninvolved with crime. He is gay.

Dallas Oldest at 18. Getaway driver. Not very emotive and kind of withdrawn. Thinks of Scotty as a failed older sibling.

Soren Second oldest at 14. Has a temper. Cedric adopted him but he is far more attached to Scotty. Mona's reluctant best friend.

Mona 10 year old lockpick. Nonspeaking autistic. Lives with her grandparents, but goes to Cedric's to be with Soren.

Scotty treats all three of them like they're own her kids, even if not all of them see her as a parental figure. Although she means well, she isn't a very responsible parent (often roping them into participating in her schemes) so Cedric has to pick up most of the slack. Not that he minds it.

Disclaimer...

The parts of this story that relate to police procedures are completely made up because I don't know much about cops outside of TV detectives, who are hardly meant to be realistic in the first place. Who cares though!! I'm playing with my toys!!

It's all work-related, she says!

Detective Lin gets assigned to Scotty's case because she's all over the local news for armed burglaries at a local shopping center. Lin works hard on the case because her superiors have been disappointed with her work lately and she feels that it's her last chance to prove her worth to them (and her late parents, who were both cops). She does some stakeouts at nearby shops and gets close to catching Scotty a few times, but Scotty always outruns her.Lin develops an intense obsession with finding Scotty's whereabouts and it leads to the discovery of her hideout at the nearby convenience store where Lin always goes to buy cigarettes. Scotty greets the owner, who Lin knows as Cedric, and leaves a bag of stolen goods behind the counter "for the kids to pick from." Upon seeing this, Lin feels a bit of sympathy... though at the same time, she also overhears citizens' reactions to Scotty’s activities every time she goes outside, which makes her unsure of what to think. Eventually, after going out for a drink on her own one night, she decides to take a visit to the store on her personal time to ask Scotty about some things privately. Lin is not a normal person, so she goes about this by lurking on the street corner until she notices and hesitantly invites her inside for a chat. Scotty is initially on edge, but as they talk, it dawns on her that Lin walked to the store and didn't bring anything she could use for an arrest, so she's at an advantage. It's then that she loosens up a little and asks Lin a few questions herself.

Uhh... is this still work-related?

After their first conversation in the store, Lin furthers the distance between herself and her coworkers, because she knows she isn't supposed to meeting with Scotty so casually. She stops by at the convenience store more often and gets to know the rest of Scotty's gang, who she learns were the kids Scotty was talking about before. She quits smoking.Lin becomes genuinely close with Scotty to the point where the store is the first place she goes to for help when sorting through personal issues. They sneak around at night to fool around with each other. They almost sleep together at one point while Lin is drunk again, but they both pass out before anything happens. Scotty puts together that the way their relationship has been proceeding must be stressing Lin out, so she asks her to dinner instead.

CRAP!

Eventually, the other police officers catch on to Detective Lin’s absence ("Has anyone seen Lin around lately?" "Nah, she said she went to the store to buy cigarettes again." "She doesn't smoke anymore, you moron!") and they work out a plan to corner her. Scotty overhears them discussing this while out running errands and confronts them, which leads to a brief shootout that she runs out of unwounded. News of this is reported to the chief and he tells his men not to hesitate if given the chance to shoot.Lin finds out about all this on her radio and drives back to the station to speak with the chief. After a heated argument, she ends up quitting her job abruptly, leaving him suspicious after she leaves to go home. He secretly stakes out Lin’s apartment building himself and follows her to the date with Scotty.Dinner goes smoothly. Scotty abandons her usual attire for a dress so people won't recognize her at first glance. They enjoy a nice meal.At the end of the date, Scotty gets up to use the restroom and the chief takes this opportunity to get out of his seat and ask Lin to step outside with him. She goes with him, denying her relationship with Scotty, saying that she was just on a date with a woman she met at a bar (WHO THE HELL WOULD BELIEVE THIS?) but he doesn't answer. He pulls her into an alley by the restaurant and asks her what her relationship to Scotty really is. She gives up and tells him that if he feels the need to ask, he probably already knows the answer. Scotty frantically runs out of the restaurant in search of Lin, stumbles upon the scene in the alley, and the chief attempts to pull a gun on her.In a panic, Lin yanks the gun from his hands, and the chief yells that she is under arrest for stealing an officer's firearm, and for being an accessory to Scotty's crimes. He tells her he'd be willing to let it go if she shoots Scotty and puts an end to the chase. For a brief moment she aims her gun at Scotty before turning and shooting the chief instead. When he falls, she stands still for a few seconds as her brain catches up to her actions. She panics, as she's never landed a fatal shot on anyone before, and because civilians in the area definitely heard the gunshot, so it wouldn't be long before the rest of the police arrived on the scene.

GET US OUT OF HERE!

Scotty takes charge and the two of them run back to the convenience store to get their shit together. The kids are asleep in the apartment upstairs, but Cedric is awake. He helps them come up with ideas on how to cover up the murder, but they were both spotted fleeing the scene of the crime in their haste to get home. They realize their only option is to keep running and take measures to prevent people from recognizing them.Cedric is upset by this plan, but agrees to lend them his car and to look after the kids when they leave. He tells her that since he won’t be able to support her while she’s on the run, she needs to get a job to look after herself. Scotty hesitates before leaving, regretful of the fact that she doesn't have time to say goodbye to Dallas and Soren, but she swallows it down. She loads her belongings into the car and drives away with Lin.