by Jamie Craig
“Stop dawdling,” Horan barked.
Without making a sound, Duke reached inside his jacket and pulled out his weapon. His other hand dipped into his coat pocket. He was suddenly very glad he still carried one of Scott’s many recorders. He would have preferred holding onto Young’s interrogation, but he suspected recording Horan was far more important.
“I’m not dawdling. They’ve moved things around since I was here last.” Duke heard the sound of a file drawer sliding along its tracks and then slamming closed again. “You need to learn a little patience.”
What’s Scott doing? Ransacking the ballet company? Why?
“If you had any idea how patient I’ve been, you’d give me a medal.”
“How’d Tana end up with it anyway? That’s the only thing I can’t figure.”
Horan snorted. “You figured out she hid it here, and you couldn’t figure out those idiots at Woodson thought they could beat me at my own game? I can’t believe I was actually nervous when you took Young’s case.”
“Nervous enough to hire some thug to shoot at me?”
Duke held his breath while he waited for Horan to answer.
“My problems all along have stemmed from letting other people finish tasks I should have done myself. I think I learned to delegate just a little too well.”
“That’s your problem?” Amazingly, Scott almost sounded like he was laughing. Amusement definitely colored his voice. “I think your problems might stem from the fact that you’re an egomaniacal douche.”
“That’s a matter of perspective. It’s understandable yours would be skewed. After all, you’re going to lose. Again, though I suppose after botching the Jenkins case, you might be used to it.”
“I don’t mind losing when the fight is fair. When everybody is following the same rules. But you wouldn’t know anything about having a fair fight, would you? I don’t understand. Did you just get greedy?”
“I didn’t—”
A door slammed at the far end of the hallway. Duke flattened against the wall next to the open office and squinted into the darkness.
“Shit,” Horan muttered. His voice was closer, like he’d come closer to the doorway. “Well, it looks like your time just ran out, Scott. Let’s go.”
“Wait. Where are we going? We’re not finished here yet.”
“I didn’t tell you to talk, I told you to move. Now.”
Duke tensed at the edge in Horan’s voice. He didn’t sound like a man who expected to be disobeyed. He sounded like a man who could make an order with every expectation that it would be followed.
“Fine. Fine. I’m going.” Scott’s voice was closer now, and he took the first step into the corridor.
Their eyes met. Scott’s widened for a split second, but he didn’t falter, never made a move to indicate he’d seen something he wasn’t expecting. Duke jerked his head behind him, toward the front of the building.
He didn’t have time to hope Scott understood. Horan appeared in the doorway, a .38 aimed at Scott’s back.
Duke lashed out, smashing his heel into Horan’s wrist. The gun went flying deeper down the hall, a bullet ricocheting off a wall from the involuntary shot Horan had made. As Scott dove to the floor, sliding along the smooth tile toward the entrance, Duke grabbed Horan’s shoulder and shoved him fast first into the jamb, pressing the muzzle of his weapon against the back of Horan’s head.
“I suggest you not move, Horan,” he ground out. “I’m just itching for an excuse to hurt you.”
“Make him tell us just what the hell we’re looking for,” Scott said, pushing himself back to his feet.
“What do you mean?” Horan tried to turn to glare at Scott, but Duke shoved him harder against the wood, earning a muffled oomph. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
“Yeah, well, I lied. I’m a liar. What is it? A thumb drive? A CD?”
“Please. Like I’m actually going to help you incriminate me.”
Duke tightened his grip. “That’s okay. We’ve got reasonable cause to search the office now. And if I know Ms. Kunz the way I think I do, she’s going to know fairly quickly which one of the things just doesn’t belong with the others.”
Running footsteps echoed down the hall. From the corner of his eye, Duke saw Finch approach, skidding to a halt when he reached the downed .38.
“Leave it,” Duke ordered, when Finch stooped to pick it up. “Get some uniforms here. Now. James, get a chair from the office.”
He obeyed without questioning why Duke wanted a chair, but as soon as he returned, he addressed Horan again. “Not only do we have reasonable cause for a warrant, it’s not going to look good for the former DA to be charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and anything else I can make stick.”
Horan stumbled when Duke grabbed his arm and shoved him into the chair. “You don’t have anything that’ll make those charges stick.”
Without taking his weapon off Horan, Duke reached into his pocket and pulled out the recorder. “We have enough to start a lot of good people asking a lot of good questions.”
“I don’t have enough to make the charges stick?” Scott snorted. “Except for the eyewitnesses, the weapon, the testimony of an exemplary detective, and the recording of our entire encounter. You’re living in a dream world if you think you’re going to get away with any of this unscathed.”
Horan didn’t utter another word. He just glared at Scott with so much loathing, Duke instinctively edged sideways to protect James.
“It’s over,” he said, reaching for his phone. “No more cover-ups.”
Chapter 19
Former District Attorney Horan was probably the most hated man in the San Francisco criminal justice system, but James Scott was definitely a close second. More than one person had cornered him and demanded to know if it was worth it. If Hector Young was worth it. Was he proud of himself? Did he sleep well at night? Knowing that hundreds of criminals were on the street again—or would be soon—because Horan’s guilt had been enough to raise reasonable doubt and trigger appeals on every case the DA’s office had prosecuted in the previous four years. Was it worth it?
Privately, Scott didn’t know if the answer was yes. He didn’t need to be told that some very nasty customers were now free as birds. When you weighed one man’s life against the greater good, what was the right answer? Scott didn’t know. He couldn’t even begin to know the answer to that question, and he didn’t see why he had to be the man with all the answers, anyway.
Publicly, Scott maintained that it was Horan’s decisions that brought them to that point. Horan, who hired a man to break into Tana’s apartment and “scare her a bit.” It was Horan who tried to cover that murder with the arrest of an innocent man, and then tried to blackmail that man with the murder of another innocent. It was Horan who was willing to sacrifice the careers of not one, not two, but three good cops. And what could anybody say back to that? Nobody wanted to get caught defending Horan in this scandal. Updates still hit the national news on a daily basis, and while Scott didn’t mind being in the national spotlight—being a hero in the national spotlight—the people who were struggling to pick up the pieces wanted to avoid the cameras and the questions at all costs.
Scott was a little annoyed that he still didn’t know what Horan was willing to kill for. As soon as the pen drive had been recovered from the ballet school, it was confiscated as evidence and that was that. It would be revealed at the trial, of course. If there even was a trial. Horan had fucked up big time, but if he had anything that would implicate anybody else in his sphere of influence, he would avoid all that ugliness and probably plea bargain down. Scott fully expected that the state bar would strip Horan of his ability to practice law, but Horan wouldn’t see a single day inside a jail cell.
Tana Mayfield would never dance again. Johnny Fender had probably been terrified and confused in his final moments. But DA Horan wouldn’t spend one second in prison. That was just the way of the world.
James wa
s sincerely starting to hate the world. There was a dark cloud around his head, and no matter what, he couldn’t shake it. He had won. He had been right. From day fucking one, he had been right, and that should have been enough to make his entire year. It certainly made his career. Six weeks to the day that he took Hector Young’s case because of a gut instinct, James Scott became the youngest partner in the history of Chesterson, Chesterson, & Terrell. Even that honor couldn’t lift that cloud, and when he had called Duke to celebrate, Duke had sounded genuinely sorry when he turned him down, claiming he was absolutely buried under an avalanche of work.
Of course he was, because Scott hadn’t been the only one given a promotion. And when Duke had called him to celebrate, what had Scott said? Had he jumped at the chance to go out with the guy he was falling for? No, because he had been up to his ass in briefs, and he had declined without thinking about it, falling into his own habits like Duke had never arrived to shock him out of his workaholic tendencies.
Had Owen been angry with him? Leaving without a note or explanation, potentially fucking everything up. Potentially going down in flames and dragging Owen down with him. Scott supposed he couldn’t blame him for being angry. Everything had worked out in the end, but no thanks to him. The time to ask probably would have been right after Horan’s arrest, but as the days slid into weeks, and the entire Bay Area was plunged into unseasonably cold weather, the question seemed more ridiculous and less important. When he called Duke, if he called Duke, it would be because he had something important to say.
Scott felt like he had fewer and fewer important things to say to anybody, and he didn’t understand why. Or maybe he did understand, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
When Monica buzzed him at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon in the first week of December, he answered it with a curt tone that was growing all too familiar.
“Your next appointment is here,” she said.
He frowned as he flipped over to his calendar. “I don’t have a four-thirty scheduled. Who is it?”
She was stopped from answering by a sharp knock at his closed door. Disconnecting with a silent promise to talk to Monica about just sending people back, he pushed away from the desk to answer it.
His heart ground to a halt when he was greeted by Duke’s dark gaze.
“May I come in?” Duke asked, when Scott didn’t speak for several seconds.
“Yes, please.” He stepped back and allowed Duke to pass inside, shutting the door behind him. “I’m just a little…surprised to see you. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s my fault. I asked Monica to help keep it that way.” He looked good. Damn good. As he took a seat in the chair in front of Scott’s desk, he showed no signs of discomfort from the gunshot wound, and the black eyes that followed Scott were bright and warm. “How are you doing?”
“Good. I’ve got this big new office, a whole staff of people under me, and plenty of work to keep me busy,” Scott said lightly, hoping he looked like he was actually happy about all these facts. “What about you?”
“A lot of the same, though I don’t get the fancy office or staff to do my grunt work for me.” Duke said it with a small smile, one Scott couldn’t help but respond to. “I kept expecting our paths to cross again, but maybe fate only does that once.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Scott perched on the corner of his desk. He didn’t want to sit in his chair. That would make the whole discussion much too formal, and since he didn’t know what Duke was actually doing there, he thought it best to keep things on a friendly, casual level. “I guess we’ve both had too many fires to put out in the past couple of months.”
“And some that are still raging.” He grimaced. “Well, I hope so, anyway.”
“I…what do you mean?” Scott asked carefully.
Duke brushed at something on his pants leg. “I hoped we could go out for dinner tonight. I talked to Monica. She cleared your schedule, so if you’d like to join me, you’re free to. If you’d like to.”
Scott wanted to ask just how Duke had pulled that off, but it didn’t matter. “You…you’re asking me on a date?”
“Yes.” His eyes twinkled. “I still owe you a first one, whether you agree with that or not.”
For what felt like the first time in weeks, Scott smiled. It practically erupted from him. “I would be honored, then. I just need to wrap up this one thing and go home to change.”
Duke’s gaze swept over him. Scott thought it lingered a few seconds longer on his hips, though he fully recognized that might have been his overeager imagination. “Why do you need to change? You look great.”
“Because I want to feel pretty on our first date. And because these are work clothes, not going out to dinner clothes.”
“It’s a suit. And you look fantastic in it.” Duke stood again and stepped closer, though his hands remained regretfully at his sides. “I made reservations for six, for someplace you’ll fit in wearing exactly that, so unless you want to spoil two weeks of finagling by insisting on going home and changing, just finish up whatever you’re working on and let’s get out of here, okay? We are way overdue for this date.”
“You’ve been planning this for two weeks? Why didn’t you call me two weeks ago?” Or even before that. “I won’t insist on going home. The last thing I want to do is ruin your plans. You just sit back down, and I’ll be done in a second.”
Except, when he went back to his laptop and looked at the email he had left unfinished, he couldn’t remember what he’d been writing about. For a moment, he couldn’t even remember who he had been writing to. Duke was there, as gorgeous as he remembered, waiting for him. How could some email matter in the face of that?
Fuck it. He closed his laptop. “Right. Let’s go.”
Duke smiled the whole time they took to leave the office, nodding at Monica when they said good night, and leading him out into the cool wintry air. “Are you okay if we leave your car here? I’ll drive you back to pick it up in the morning.”
Scott didn’t know why Duke thought he could say things like that and still take him to dinner first. Scott wanted to pull him close and get lost in his mouth until all the barriers between them were completely gone. He wanted to kiss away the last several months. He wanted to know if Duke still felt the same way, wanted to know if he still sounded the same when he was completely overwhelmed. If he thought for one second Duke would agree, he would suggest they just go directly to Duke’s place.
“Yeah. My car will be fine here.”
Neither said another word until they were in the car, buckled up, and on the road. The heavy traffic annoyed Scott, but Duke didn’t seem fazed by it, navigating cleanly through the throng. He turned on a jazz station and kept the music low, tapping out the rhythm on the steering wheel.
Scott had never seen him so relaxed. The question of why, though, lingered in the back of his thoughts.
“It’s hard to believe it’s December already,” Duke said. “Would you believe they’ve been playing Christmas music at the precinct since before Halloween?”
Scott grimaced. “Don’t they know the rules on that? It’s not supposed to start until after Thanksgiving.”
“Captain Sager said we needed to start spreading good cheer early this year. Oh, Saucedo’s back. On restricted duty, but he’s still back. We’ve been teaming up on a couple of open cases, trying to get some headway on them.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear he wasn’t down for the count. Did he or Sager get reprimanded at all?”
“They both got notices put in their files, but Horan ordered Sager’s cooperation. He’s the one who’s taking all the steam on this.” They coasted to a stop at the last red light before turning onto the highway. “Would you believe Sager specifically put me on the Mayfield case because he knew I wouldn’t settle for the answers I got? He was counting on me bulldogging it the entire time.”
Scott arched his brow. “I don’t know if I do believe it. It sounds like it could be o
f justification after the fact.”
“It could be,” Duke conceded. “But I don’t think so. The morning we busted Horan, he almost flat-out told me to follow the money at Tana’s job. And the reason he got to the scene so fast was because he’d called me just before I got there, demanding a chat with me somewhere safe. I think he’s on the up and up about this.”
“I hope you’re right about that,” Scott said sincerely. “I know how difficult all of that was for you. I wouldn’t want to see you go through it again.”
“Thanks.” As they eased into the intersection, Duke glanced sideways at him. “I’ve missed this. Talking to you about everything.”
“I’ve…I miss it, too. I’m sorry. I don’t really know what happened, which is weak, I know. But it’s true.”
“We both let it happen. Work. More work. The fact that we’re both married to our careers.” They glided effortlessly onto the highway, heading toward the coast. “I owe you as much of an apology, too.”
“Owen…do you think that’s going to change?”
“Honestly? No. But I wouldn’t want you so badly in my life if you weren’t that dedicated to what you do. I think it means…we need to decide if we miss each other enough to figure out a way to make us as important as the job.”
Scott snorted. “Given the hours we both keep, probably the easiest way to make sure we see each other is if we live together.”
“Then, maybe that’s the choice we end up making.”
Scott had been joking, but that was pretty insignificant when compared to the fact that Duke wasn’t joking. “Really? You’d be willing to consider that?”
“I’ve missed you.” Like that answered everything. “I’m not going to dismiss out of hand a viable option to getting what I want.” He shot him a small smile. “How about we wait and see how this date goes first? You might decide your memory isn’t quite as good as you think it is.”