Lie With Me (Stonewall Investigations Miami Book 2)

by Max Walker

  “Were there any other words exchanged?”

  “No. Mario got in his truck, and Oliver just stood there. His friend came running out, thank goodness for him. I think that kid saved Oliver on multiple occasions.”

  “Derrick?”

  “No, it was his best friend, I think. Don’t really remember his name.”

  “Do you know if Mario ever crossed paths with Oliver again?” I asked. This was good. I felt like I had uncovered a gleaming gem underneath a pile of useless dirt.

  “He worked all up and down the block. He’d come around all the time. He probably knew all of our schedules down to the hour, and he had to have definitely seen him again after the incident. I never witnessed them speaking to each other again, though.”

  The gem was looking bigger and bigger by the second. Why hadn’t Oliver mentioned this guy before? Their paths had to have crossed.

  “I’ll have to have a chat with Mario.”

  “Please do. I can’t believe that whoever’s behind the attack still hasn’t been caught. Poor Oliver. He must be living in such fear.”

  I didn’t offer anything else. Although Greg seemed to be innocent and genuinely cared about Oliver, I still wasn’t here to be friends with him. My job was to get to the bottom of this before it happened again to someone else.

  “All right, I think we’ve covered everything I needed for today.” I got up from the couch, Greg following me. He appeared relieved that this was over.

  “Thank you for allowing me to help in whatever way I could.”

  As I was leaving, Greg reached out and grabbed my hand, letting it go when I turned to him.

  “Please, tell Oliver that I’m so sorry for everything I put him through. I really, really am.”

  He was almost in tears. I nodded and told him that I would pass on the apology. I figured it would not only help Greg, but it would help Oliver, too. He was the kind of guy who took apologies to heart, and I knew that hearing about Greg’s change of heart would lift a weight off Oliver’s shoulders.

  I’d see him tonight, and I already couldn’t wait. It was still early in the day, though, and Mario Reyes was turning into my sole focus.

  Stonewall Investigations was busy when I walked in, finding Holly’s desk swamped with papers while a couple of people sat on the couches in the waiting room. They looked my way with excited glances. Unfortunately, my schedule was booked up. It was one of the worst parts about my job, not that there were many bad parts to begin with. But the fact that I couldn’t help every single soul that walked through our doors bothered me.

  “Hey, Beck,” Holly said as I walked past her desk. She readjusted her red headband, which was starting to fall onto her eyes. She was still wearing a smile even though it seemed like the stress was seeping out of her pores.

  “Holly, anything I can help you out with?”

  “Oh no, just a bunch of paperwork I’ve got to handle and an insane schedule I’ve got to balance. Thank you, though! I really appreciate it.” She flashed an even bigger smile before turning her attention back down to her desk.

  I left her to her work and went through the hall to my office. That’s where I spotted Shiro, looking like he was heading to the beach in short pink shorts and a black tank top. “Working hard, huh, Shiro?” I teased.

  “Working hard on this tan,” he said, stretching out a leg that was as pale as a piece of loose-leaf paper. He started cracking up.

  I covered my eyes and stepped back. “Bloody hell, I can’t see anything. I think a flash grenade just went off in here!”

  “Okay, I’m not that pale, calm down.”

  We both started to laugh. Shiro was one of the detectives I’d gotten closest to over the year or so of working here at Stonewall. He was a great guy and was always quick with a joke. Not to mention, he was a genius detective and never failed to close a case in record time.

  “Hey, you two.”

  The voice surprised me. It was Jonah who popped out of his office behind me, his head peeking out from the open doorway.

  “I want to be part of the fun,” he said.

  Part of me tensed. Damn it. I didn’t want to be awkward, but I could feel myself sliding right into a tar pit of awkwardness.

  Oliver and I had been chatting for a good three weeks now. It was enough time for me to fall pretty hard for him, but it wasn’t nearly enough time to figure out what to do about his older brother/my coworker. It helped that Jonah had been gone for a couple of weeks so I didn’t have to think too much about it.

  “Don’t worry,” Shiro said. “Beckham was just flexing his workplace harassment muscle.”

  My head swiveled to Shiro. “You’re the one harassing me with how short those shorts are.”

  “You call this harassment?” Shiro twirled. “I’ll show you har-ass-ment.” He turned away from us and shook his ass before giving himself a slap.

  He had a booty, there was no denying that. It shook with the aftershocks of his slap.

  “Annnd this is when I get back to work,” Jonah said, laughing as he retreated back into his office.

  “And where are you headed, Shi?”

  “I’m headed to work.”

  I arched a brow.

  “I’m tailing someone at the beach. Have to fit in.” He gave a little twirl.

  “Tailing someone, that’s what the kids are calling it these days, huh?”

  “Mhmm.” Shiro winked. He started walking before he stopped. “Oh! Did Holly tell you?”

  “About what?”

  “We’re getting a new detective. All our schedules have been so crazy packed, Andrew gave the go-ahead to hire one more person. I think he starts next week.”

  That was news to me.

  “Holly’s planning a little dinner for us so we can get to know him. This Friday night if you’re free.”

  “Bollocks. Oliver and I are going to the Jennifer Lopez concert that night.”

  “Jenny from the block? Okay, well, that’s definitely more fun than dinner. I’m sure we’ll have more chances to hang out with the newbie.” Shiro glanced at his watch. “All right, I gotta get going.”

  I said goodbye and went to my office, closing the door behind me. Usually, my first point of business in my office was to open the blinds, crack the window, and turn on some ambient music. Lately, though, my routine had shifted. I no longer focused on making myself comfortable first. Instead, I dropped to my hands and knees and checked for that blasted letter for about the hundredth time.

  It had turned into a ritual. I’d enter my office and do a quick search, as if the letter would magically reappear in a spot I’d already searched about a hundred times. It made me angry, the fact that I cared so much about the damn thing.

  Losing it made me even angrier. Why didn’t I just open it on the spot? I could have been done with it there and then. I could have left the letter behind me like I had his grave.

  Instead, I was on my hands and knees inside my office, looking underneath the chairs and desk and only finding a few candy wrappers and a couple of dusty rubber bands.

  With an exasperated sigh, I got back on my feet and dusted off my knees. I knew it wasn’t in here, but part of me said I still had to try regardless. Maybe that was the part that pushed me into becoming a detective. I’d always been a stubborn bloke, and I rarely took no for an answer, leading me to find plenty of lost toys as a kid.

  At my desk, I got settled and opened up all the notes I had on Greg. First off, I wanted to find the florist he worked at and verify his employment. It seemed like a dumb thing to lie about, but I’d caught bigger and way more stupid lies than that.

  I was on the florist’s website when all of a sudden, the entire building’s power cut out. It was still daylight out, so there was plenty of sun coming in through the window, which also meant this wasn’t caused by a storm.

  “Andrew, did you pay the electricity bill?” I heard Jonah call out in the hallway.

  I stood up and went to the hall, where the rest of the
detectives and a couple of clients were starting to meet. Penny, the normally tough-as-nails detective, was with her client, who looked a little spooked. She was reassuring her that everything was fine and that this happened quite a few times (it didn’t), Penny herself looking a little shaken.

  That’s when I heard it. When we all heard it.

  “Get out!”

  It was Jonah and he was shouting at the top of his lungs. “Everyone! Out of the building, now!”

  No one asked questions. No one waited another second. We all filed out, hurrying through the dark hallway, unsure of what the hell had caused Jonah so much panic, but knowing that whatever it was, it was deadly serious.

  16 Oliver Brightly

  The sun was setting over Miami, throwing a bucket of purple-and-orange paint over the sky, coloring the puffy clouds that lazily pushed in from the ocean. I had my windows open as I cleaned up the apartment, enjoying the intermittent breeze that would drift in, dancing as I dusted off my rainbow bookshelf. I hadn’t talked to Beckham all day, which was odd for us, but I knew he was meeting with my old neighbor today and figured he was busy with detective things.

  I made myself busy with cleaning and the occasional studying in the meantime. It was my last year, so everything I was studying had been more of a tune-up than an info dump, thankfully. The first two years of vet school were brutal, but the last one had been more hands-on instead of us sitting in classrooms, which reminded me of the exact reason why I’d chosen this as my career. I loved helping all kinds of animals, big and small, furry and scaled, and I loved seeing the smiles on their owners’ faces when things turned out all right.

  It was either being a veterinarian or a backup dancer for Mariah Carey. Those had been my only two options growing up as a kid, so thank gawd vet school worked because I could barely control my legs to cross a room, much less dance behind a real-life queen.

  I finished up cleaning and got to preparing dinner. This was the first night Beckham was coming over, and I had decided to cook him a nice steak dinner.

  Thankfully, my cooking wasn’t as bad as my dancing.

  By the time I was wrapping up in the kitchen, I could tell my entire apartment smelled like buttery soft and seasoned steak. I was working on the mashed potatoes and asparagus when I got a text from Beckham telling me that he was on his way.

  Not too long after, there were a couple of hard knocks on my door.

  I lowered the music I’d been listening to and went over to the front door, a small pep in my step that certainly hadn’t been there before as I was vacuuming the layer of cat hair on the floor.

  “Hey there, Beck.”

  Beckham was looking delicious. He wore a black shirt with three buttons down the center of the collar, two of them popped open and revealing a sexy tuft of hair and tantalizing skin. His jeans looked new, crisp. His sneakers were definitely new with how white they were.

  He pulled me in for a kiss, one that surprised me. It lasted for a long moment. It felt like he was relieved to see me, to share this moment.

  When the kiss broke I stood there, looking up into Beckham’s emerald-green eyes. There was turmoil in there. A storm brewing. Something had happened.

  My blood thickened.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, bringing him inside. “What happened?”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Honey, the library is open because I can read you like a book.”

  That got a laugh out of him, but the storm was still swirling inside his gaze. Mason and Jar both hopped off the couch and sauntered over to the new guest, Jar a little more hesitant than Mason, who was already purring like a motor as he neared Beckham.

  “These are the famous Mason and Jar, huh?” Beckham, a smile on his face, crouched down and gave Mason chin scratches, somehow knowing the exact way into that big orange tiger’s heart. Jar, not one to be left behind on chin scratches, bumped into Mason and pushed him out of the way, positioning himself for the same treatment. Beckham gave them both neck scratches, which I thought was about to legit blow both their little cat minds.

  “So what happened?” I asked, still worried even though cat cuddling seemed to be easing some of the tension off Beckham.

  “We got a bomb threat at Stonewall Investigations today.”

  “No.” I covered my mouth, shock washing over me. I could feel myself getting light-headed. “What? Is everyone okay? What happened? Is Jona—”

  “Everyone’s fine. Your brother was the one who got the call and had all of us evacuate.”

  I still felt like I was walking on a tightrope far above the grand canyon. I took a breath, calming myself before things spiraled out of my control.

  “Was there anything? Did anyone find anything?”

  Beckham shook his head. “Nothing. The police were called, and the bomb squad showed up and did a sweep. They couldn’t find a bloody thing.”

  I walked over to the counter where I had poured two glasses of red wine. “Here, you need this.”

  He grabbed the stem of the glass with a grateful smile and took a few gulps.

  “So what did the person say? Is there any idea on who it could be?”

  “No idea.” Beckham took another gulp before continuing, his glass already almost empty. “Holly got the call first and transferred it to Jonah. Whoever called was using a voice distorter. Jonah was able to record the message, and we all heard it.”

  Part of me wanted to stay blissfully ignorant of the details. I had two people I cared a great deal for working at Stonewall; I didn’t want to spend my days obsessing over their safety.

  Buuuut, my inner Anxious Annie couldn’t keep quiet.

  “What did they say?” I asked anyway.

  “That they were the ‘Third Fallen Angel’ and that they were going to drag us all to hell where we belong. They said that the bomb had been planted the night before.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “I can’t… this is crazy. Jesus, Mary, and Joe Jonas.”

  Beckham cocked his head, as though he hadn’t heard me right, before cracking up once he figured that he had heard right.

  “Come here, you bright, shining sun.” He placed the wineglass down on my kitchen counter with a clink before stepping toward me, a smile on his face. He kissed me then. It felt like a reminder of everything we had and how suddenly it could be taken from us.

  “Third Fallen Angel…” I repeated when the kiss broke. “Does this have anything to do with the graffiti someone left a few months back?”

  “We think so.” Beckham nodded. He looked stressed, and all I wanted to do was kiss that stress off him.

  Of course, I didn’t blame him in the slightest. Stonewall Investigations was an incredible group of detectives set on helping an underserved community, but that also meant they were easy targets for other parties who didn’t have as good of a heart as the detectives did. It was proven months ago when they found graffiti painted across the entrance of the building. I remember my brother having told me about it, saying they suspected that maybe the church down the street had some worshippers who may have lashed out.

  “So you suspect the church still?” I asked.

  He chewed his lip in thought. “No, not anymore. I think there’s something else going on here.”

  “Like…?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t come over to speculate on cases. I came over to spend time with you, and judging from the smell, also to stuff my face with incredible food.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t really say incredible.”

  “What would you say?”

  I cocked my head, smiling. “Delectable.”

  “Perfect.” He kissed me again, almost sweeping me off my feet, literally.

  My heart filled with happiness and relief. I felt like I was high as I scurried around the apartment and got the last touches ready, bringing Beckham to the table and having him sit down so I could serve him. I tried getting him to tell me what happened with his interview with Greg, but he was adamant on
keeping the night easy. These four walls turned into a shelter strong enough to withstand a bomb. At least, that’s what it felt like.

  Like nothing on the outside mattered. It was all just about me and Beckham.

  And I wasn’t complaining in the slightest.

  “So you’ve never been to prom?” I asked, a little too surprised.

  “Nope. Well we don’t really have prom in London. Not when I was growing up at least. I think I’ve heard that it’s becoming more of a thing over there.”

  “Wow, so you never had to feel the life-and-death pressure of finding a date?”

  Beckham laughed at that. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, sitting back in his chair. The plate in front of him was empty and gleaming, as if I’d just taken it out of the dishwasher. You’d never guess there was a medium-rare slab of sirloin sitting there minutes before.

  “I have seen them in movies and TV shows, though. Does make me feel a little bad that I missed that experience.”

  “Oh really?” I arched a brow. Ideas started popping up in my head like little meerkats.

  The ideas didn’t involve any meerkats, though.

  Not yet.

  “Yeah, and I don’t know why. I can’t even dance. Isn’t prom all about the dancing…? You know what? On second thought, maybe I could have done without that pressure. Having to find a date and all that bollocks.”

  I waved a hand in the air. “Please, as if you would have had any trouble finding dates. All you have to do is flash that big smile and say a few words with that sexy accent of yours and everyone’s tripping over you.”

  “You think my accent’s sexy, huh?”

  “That’s what you picked out of that?” I laughed and took a drink of the wine, my glass almost empty as I set it back down.