by AJ Nuest
Ben raked his hand through his hair. Gripped the stiff tension concreting the nape of his neck. Besides him, the only other person Tanner knew from the precinct was—
His spine wrenched with an audible crack.
Holy shit. That miserable son of a bitch.
Fitting the ends of her jacket together, she yanked the zipper to her chin and stopped near what he could only guess had once been a vintage Valkyrie motorcycle in its previous life. She fished a pair of leather gloves from a side saddle bag and grabbed the silver helmet dangling off the handlebar by the strap. “So, we done here? Or before I take off did you wanna haul me in for industrial espionage or maybe selling yellowcake uranium on the internet?”
All right, fine. He’d probably earned that. Making the wrong assumption on her part was his bad. But that didn’t mean he was wrong about the dangers in taking on Trey’s case, and it sure as shit it didn’t mean he was wrong about Adder. She ignored the warning signs and it could be lights out. Not just for her, but for all of them.
“No? Silent to the last, huh?” She tapped the garage remote clipped to the base of her windshield. The door jerked into motion and a frigid blast of air plastered his jeans against his legs. “Why am I not surprised?”
Frustration burned in his gut as she tugged the helmet past her ears. A muscle spasmed near his temple, but he did whatever he could to keep his jaw locked down tight. He’d been here before. Unable to draw the line between saying too much or too little. He made the wrong move and he knew exactly what kind of soul-shattering events could follow.
A pair of headlights pierced the swirling snow as she swung her leg over the bike, cinching and fastening the chin strap with the same practiced efficiency she straddled the seat.
No matter what else happened, he couldn’t allow himself to repeat that mistake. Until he could find out for sure what they were up against, it was all around safer any contact she had with Adder be genuine. Without her trying to mask a bunch of skepticism or constantly running an end game as if she didn’t have the first clue who the guy really was.
One wrong step, one misplaced slip of her tongue, and all signs pointed to Ben being right back where he was five years ago.
The sole survivor. Left with nothing but the agonizing realization he should’ve kept his big mouth shut.
Kelly’s Dodge Charger eased under the garage overhang and nosed into its spot beside Ben’s Raptor.
But keeping quiet came at a price. And when it came to Tanner, Ben had no doubts the cost would be her viewing his silence as a betrayal.
Hell, if their positions were reversed, so would he.
The Charger’s engine cut out and the doors popped open.
So where, exactly, did that leave him? He had no choice but to work Trey’s case with her? Use it as a diversion, all while sticking close enough to find out everything about Adder that he could?
Jesus, if there was anything that didn’t play into his wheelhouse, that had to be it.
Eden stepped from the car and he ignored the smile she sent over the roof of Kelly’s vehicle as Trey crawled from the back seat. Crossing the garage, Ben stood beside Tanner. She glanced his way and his fingers curled in on themselves against the urge to grab her shoulders so he could study her eyes. “I need you to promise me you’ll be careful.”
She slumped. The reflection of the overhead fluorescents streaked across the helmet as she shook her head. “You know what I wish?” Lifting off the seat, she jacked the starter. The engine roared and blatted a plume of exhaust so thick, Ben winced and canted his face to the side.
Zeroing in on her lips, he blinked through the deafening noise and fumes in an effort to catch whatever ball-busting revelation was about to come next. “Just once, I wish you had enough faith in me, you’d tell me what the hell is going on inside your head.”
Shit. But hey, at least they had one thing in common.
He wasn’t the only one assuming the worst.
“Right.” She juiced the gas and heeled the kickstand. “That’s what I thought.”
Revving the motor, she flicked down the tinted visor and shifted into first, leaned over the seat and peeled from the garage.
Into a blizzard.
He pivoted to follow the single track she left in the snow. On a bike rubber-banded together with so many cannibalized parts, he could’ve easily spent a week trying to locate the gas tank.
And way to make his ulcer go peptic.
The garage door slowly lowered, shutting out the storm, and Ben turned to find Eden standing beside Kelly, the two of them staring down at the sign-up sheet Ben had left on the floor. The pop of a door handle came from his right, and he glanced to the side as Trey climbed behind the wheel of the slick Aston Martin Charlie had given Xander for Christmas.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about this.” Kelly nodded, bottom lip jutting forward. “Good for her. Looks like Tanner’s kicking ass and taking names.”
He forgot? Ben squinted. More like the asshole had set the whole thing up as payback for the help Ben had Eden given on their first case, and then spent the past few weeks enjoying a hearty chuckle over the paperwork on his desk.
Marching forward, Ben snatched the sheet from Kelly’s hand, and Eden’s eyes widened in alarm as he aimed a hard finger at his best friend’s face. “You’re lucky you’re getting married in a couple days or I’d knock your block off.”
“Pffth.” Kelly waved off the threat. “You haven’t met the day you could try.”
They’d just see about that. Crumpling the paper in his fist, Ben crammed it in his back pocket and strode for the exit. As soon as he and Xander had a nice long heart to heart, and the guy spilled everything he could remember about the time he’d spent with Adder as kids.
Tapping his code into the keypad, Ben waited for the bolts to retract and wrenched open the door. Too bad it didn’t slam shut before Eden’s whisper followed him down the hall.
“Dear God, Kelly. That man really needs to get laid.”
Chapter 4
Drumming her nails on the desk in the manor’s first floor office, Tanner chewed her bottom lip. She sat forward and tapped the down arrow, scanning the police report Xander had shared off the manor’s mainframe to her laptop.
Dammit. She fell back in the chair with a sigh. Charlie had been right about the lack of information collected on the murder of Trey’s parents. Based on what Tanner had seen so far, the file contained more holes than a granny square gone wrong.
She sneered, scrolling down then back up. Then again, it didn’t appear as if the cops in charge of the investigation had gone out of their way to dig. From what she could tell, they’d done the minimum. Filled out their forms and followed procedure, shrugging off the entire incident as just another gangland shooting that could easily be shuffled to the bottom of the pile.
Shaking her head, she tapped the cursor to bring up the second page and re-read what few details were given. God, their ineptitude pissed her off. Tossing their hands in the air while the case went cold was a complete disservice to Trey. To the two lives that had been stolen from him and destroyed everything he’d known in the process.
Family, home, the unconditional love that came from having one special place that was safe from the outside world… No. This wasn’t right. For anyone to suffer the same terrified loneliness she’d been through as a kid was completely unacceptable, and as of this morning, the events had taken on a whole new level of personal that made her chest ache.
Regardless of Charlie’s reasons for handing her the case, Tanner was going to make sure whoever was responsible got what they had coming. It didn’t matter in the least whether or not her efforts proved anything to the rest of the team.
The boiler kicked on, blowing a bank of hot air up from the vent beside the desk. Rolling her eyes, Tanner unzipped her skull-and-cross-bones hoodie and peeled the sleeves down her arms. Whoever was in charge of the thermostat in this joint seriously needed to have their core temp adjusted. She resettle
d the straps of her red tank top, tossing the sweatshirt over the grate to block as much heat as she could. As it was, the atmosphere inside the manor already hovered two degrees away from brick oven in hell. Ten more minutes, and she was liable to spontaneously combust right here in Xander’s leather chair.
Toeing off her motorcycle boots, she kicked them aside, then leaned back to prop her crossed ankles on the desk. If her training was anything to go by, the best place to start would be the area surrounding the crime scene. Demographics were lower middle income, typical of Chicago’s rougher southwest side. But if she could find the right disguise, perhaps even dip into the manor’s resources and rent an apartment in Trey’s old building, maybe she could earn the trust of his neighbors.
Charlie had definitely been onto something when she’d said there was a good chance anyone who’d witnessed the shooting had most likely been coerced into keeping their mouths shut…either directly or as a result of some implied level of self-preservation. Ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning meant any number of people would’ve been on the street, and buying into the theory no one had seen what had happened was dumber than believing Elvis had been spotted sunbathing on a nude beach in Guam.
Tanner flexed her ankles and the chair creaked as she rocked back, lacing her fingers on top of her head. Ballistics showed no bullets casings had been found, which meant the shooter had either been savvy enough to clean up after himself or had possibly fired from inside a vehicle. Between the two victims, the medical examiner had dug eight .357 flat-jackets from their bodies. The kind of ammunition that was generally used in conjunction with a variety of SIG semi-automatics and all discharged from the same gun.
Thanks to the manor’s lower level shooting range, Tanner knew the firearms well. But until the striations on the bullets could be matched to the correct firing chamber, heading down that track would only lead to a big, fat dead end.
Hell, even if she did get lucky enough to locate the suspected weapon, she’d be left no choice but to hand it over to Ben. See if the experts at the Chicago PD could confirm she’d found the missing piece. She faked a gag at the sour taste that idea left on her tongue.
If she had any say in the matter, that wasn’t happening. After his selective mutism during yesterday’s conversation, she wasn’t about to ask for his help until all her other options had been exhausted and then some. Knowing him, he wouldn’t share the results anyway. God only knew how dangerous that would be, and she’d be right back where she started, kicking herself for ever confiding in him in the first pla—
“They do it on purpose, you know.”
Her thighs clenched inside her black jeans over the way Casper Addison filled the doorway. The chair squeaked as she released the tension in her feet and gradually came forward.
Good God, the man was so frickin’ lickable it almost hurt to look at him.
One shoulder canted against the jamb, arms crossed over the tight stretch of a fitted white tee, he smiled at her all while doing a bang-up job at filling out a pair of worn, low-slung jeans.
“The heat.” He snuck a glance toward her hoodie, domed over the vent like a half-filled hot air balloon, and she frowned even as those two words sent her thoughts scampering in all sorts of naughty directions.
He brought the heat, all right. Brought it, paid for it and probably had an official hotness card stamped and laminated in his back pocket. “Charlie and Xander have this private joke about bumping up the thermostat until one of them folds. It’s how they used to torture Malcolm when we first moved in.”
And now they were doing it to each other? That made all kinds of no sense whatsoever.
Dropping her feet to the floor, Tanner sat forward and propped her elbows on the desk. “I realize this may sound a tad self-deprecating, but why are the people associated with Dirty Deeds so damn weird?”
Casper’s husky chuckle landed somewhere between an animalistic purr and a hoarse rumble, and made the warm air coasting over her skin seem glacial in comparison. “I have to say, finding you behind that desk is a pleasant change from the last time I was in here. You’re a far sight prettier than Malcolm.”
He made her sweet tooth ache. That was the problem right there. Every time she got an eyeful of all that caramel-latte skin, she wanted to take a bite out of him so she could swirl the guy around on her tongue. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment, considering my competition.”
But, as usual, there was a snag. In the form of one grating, obstinate, she swore to God silent-on-purpose-just-to-drive-her-nuts detective who had somehow perfected the annoying habit of wrecking her fun.
“Oh, it was.” Casper’s eyes met hers and her pulse deepened, slowing to deliberate beat along the side of her neck. Easing a hushed breath from her lips, she took a long, leisurely journey down the front of him as he nodded toward the desk. “That the case you mentioned yesterday morning?”
“Sure is.” Sitting up, she crossed her arms along the edge of her laptop, toe braced on the floor to swing the chair back and forth.
God, it cheesed her off she couldn’t ignore the warnings Ben had given her after he’d followed her down into the garage. Warnings she’d replayed about a billion times while lying awake in bed, only so she could circle back around to how adamant he was she listen to something he hadn’t actually told her at all.
Honestly, the entire thing made her beg for the day she had an excuse to break something heavy over his head. Ben Archer was the number one narcotics detective in the city. The years he’d logged busting criminals had made his instincts as sharp as a tack. For her to take his sixth sense for granted would only confirm she was every bit the inexperienced idiot he believed her to be.
It had been the God’s honest truth when she’d said that she trusted him. She’d known him longer than Casper. Had worked two tough cases with Ben as part of the same team. If the guy had a hunch something wasn’t right, she didn’t have the smallest doubt his radar had picked up a blip that deserved her attention.
But for him to whistle and pat his leg, expecting her jump on his paranoia bandwagon without any explanations as to why that was so damned important, only set him up to be handing out executive orders right off the top.
She wasn’t doing that. Not with him. Charlie had put her in charge of the case and it belonged to Dirty Deeds. If Ben wanted to work with her, then Tanner needed full disclosure of whatever was going on inside his head.
Geez. Welcome to, yet, another edition of the classic Ben Archer double-standard. If he’d purposely tried, he couldn’t have done a better job of boxing her up inside a nice tight Catch-22.
Good thing she’d come prepared with a box cutter to create an escape hatch. “You wanna come inside and take a look?”
Casper stood from the doorway, lips turned down in a shrewd frown. “I’d be happy to if you’re looking for a second opinion.” The sleeve of his t-shirt strained around his bicep as he ran his splayed fingers over his closely shaved head. “But I’m not sure Detective Archer would be so keen on the idea.”
She snorted. “You picked up on that, did ya?”
“All due respect, but I think a team of Martians picked up on his invitation I butt out.”
They shared a laugh and she waved him forward, wheeling the chair aside. “Come on. If Archer throws a fit, I promise to protect you.”
And she would, if she had to. She’d made the decision last night.
Regardless of whether or not Ben’s tongue had decided to go on permanent sabbatical, there was no rule that said she couldn’t try and find out what had him so jammed up on her own. It wasn’t like spending time with Casper would be difficult. So far, he seemed into her and she was most definitely waist-deep into him.
Hidden agenda or no hidden agenda, getting to know him was a win-win in her book. Once she had, she’d be keyed in to his personal habits. Be able to calculate the way he operated with more accuracy than anyone else on the team. And if the proof came out that Ben was right, she would’ve earned C
asper’s trust and, in the process, positioned herself in the ideal spot to strike.
He grabbed the back of a leather chair and dragged it around the side of the desk, parked his bitable ass on the seat and leaned forward to study the screen.
Tanner took in his profile as he reviewed the case, the way the top seam of his tee shirt pulled along the dense muscle sloping away from his neck. Over the ball of his shoulder and down lower to the irregular scar Ben had mentioned peeking past the bottom edge of Casper’s sleeve.
Archer was right, it seemed odd. Even more so if it had once been a tattoo. Considering Casper’s resources, he could’ve easily had it lasered off without leaving such a blotchy mark. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.” He glanced at her before tapping the arrow to scroll farther down the report.
“What’s this from?” She pointed at his arm.
“They did a shit job, didn’t they?” Pushing up his sleeve, he lifted his elbow to the side and eyed the softball-sized defect some butcher had left across the corded tendons of his deltoid.
Damn. Tanner blinked. Whatever had been there, the guy would’ve been better off taking a blowtorch to his skin.
It looked hard. Thick and fibrous. Was darker and reddened in comparison to the perfection covering the rest of him.
Burn marks.
She snapped her gaze to his. She had enough mottling her own body to know.
“Ex-girlfriend.” He settled his sleeve back in place. “Never get drunk and decide to have someone’s name tattooed on your body.” His full lips curled in a dry smirk. “And never get even more drunk and let your mates take a crack at figuring out how to get it off.”
“Wow.” Talk about hopping from the frying pan into the fire. “You must’ve really hated her guts.”
A breath shot from his nose as he pivoted back toward her laptop. “That’s nothing compared to the damage she left on the inside.”