Trick Roller

by Cordelia Kingsbridge

“Sorry about that. I was in the area and thought I’d stop by.” While he spoke, he unzipped his duffel bag and withdrew his notebook, in which he’d written a similar message to the one he’d shown Carlos.

  Unlike Carlos, Silvia reacted with equanimity, seeming neither surprised nor much concerned. She read the message, nodded, and eyed him critically before saying, “You’re hungry.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I could eat.”

  “I’ve been preparing arancini for dinner—I’ll fry some up for you now.” She nudged him, indicating he should get on with his business, and headed back to the kitchen. Rebel gazed after her longingly but stuck by Dominic’s side.

  While not large, his family’s house was bigger than his and Carlos’s apartments, and it took him much longer to sweep it thoroughly. He broke halfway through to indulge in his grandmother’s arancini—stuffed, deep-fried risotto balls—and finished a few hours later.

  The house was clean. He hadn’t really expected the Seven of Spades to go so far as to bug his mother’s house, but he wouldn’t have been able to rest easy until he knew for sure.

  Returning to the kitchen, where Silvia was still puttering around, he said, “Everything’s fine. We can speak freely now.”

  “Are you in Trouble?” she asked, the capital letter coming through in her tone.

  He knew what she meant. “Not that kind,” he said. “I haven’t been gambling, though there is something you and Ma should know. But before that, I was wondering if I could get your caponata recipe? I’m making dinner for Levi tonight and I think he’d really like it.”

  With a broad smile, she fetched her antique carved wooden recipe box from a cabinet and rifled through it. Withdrawing the recipe in question, she pulled a blank card from the back of the box as well and settled down at the table with a pen.

  “Nonna, I can just take a picture of it with my phone—”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “An authentic recipe should be handwritten. Sit down.”

  He obeyed immediately and without argument.

  “Now,” she said, uncapping her pen, “there was something you wanted to tell me?”

  While she copied the recipe out in her elegant, old-school handwriting, he detailed his and Levi’s history with the Seven of Spades from beginning to end. Rebel sat beside his chair with her head on his knee, her eyes half-closed in bliss as he scratched her ears and the scruff of her neck.

  Once he’d told the full story, Silvia asked, “Are you sure this killer wouldn’t hurt you?”

  He opened his mouth to give an unqualified yes, hesitated, and instead said, “Not physically, at least. I know they like to play mind games, though, and I can’t guarantee they wouldn’t do something to mess with my mind or sabotage me in some way.”

  “But that isn’t going to stop you, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Nor Levi, I’m assuming.”

  He laughed. “Definitely not. He’s even more stubborn than I am.”

  “That’s hard to imagine.” She gave him a measuring look. “And why haven’t we seen Levi since that one day in April he came to the house? You could bring him to Sunday lunch, you know.”

  “I don’t think we’re ready for that,” Dominic said, flustered by the sudden change of topic.

  “Why not?”

  He was stuck for a response. If he was being honest, the idea freaked him out a little. Bringing Levi to a friend’s big family party was one thing; bringing him to his own intimate family meal was another. He’d never done that with any other guy before, and he couldn’t take that step until he was sure it meant as much to Levi as it would to him.

  “I’ll ask him about it,” he said. “Anyway, I should get going—I still have stuff to do today, and I have to stop by the grocery store too.” He tucked the card she handed him into his pocket, got up from the table, and kissed her goodbye. “Thanks for everything, Nonna.”

  She smacked his cheek affectionately. “Make sure you use good olive oil for the caponata,” she said. “None of that cheap stuff.”

  Levi knocked on the half-open door to Wen’s office and poked his head inside. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “Yes, Abrams, come in and have a seat. Shut the door behind you.” Wen looked tired and stressed-out, the lines around his eyes and mouth more pronounced than usual.

  Levi did as he was told, curious as to what this was all about. He’d mentally run through all his cases, but he couldn’t think of any reason Wen would need to speak with him privately.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Wen said, meeting Levi’s gaze across his desk. “Are you still investigating the Seven of Spades?”

  On the list of subjects Levi had guessed Wen might broach, that hadn’t even cracked the top twenty. His eyes widened, and he stared at Wen, at a damning loss for words.

  “Goddammit, Abrams, that case is closed. You were specifically ordered not to pursue it!”

  “Why are you even asking me about this?” Levi said, though he knew he’d already given himself away.

  “Dominic Russo was seen at Dr. Angela Tran’s office.”

  That knocked Levi even further off-balance. “He’s seeing a psychiatrist, so what?”

  Scowling, Wen said, “Don’t insult me. You want me to believe it’s a coincidence that your boyfriend just happened to choose the same shrink who treated Keith Chapman?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Levi said faintly.

  “So you were kissing somebody else in the bullpen this morning, then?”

  “I . . .” Levi shook his head, bewildered by how everything had fallen apart so quickly.

  “You’ve always been honest, Abrams—sometimes too honest. So be straight with me now.” Wen leveled him with a somber look. “Did you send Russo to see Dr. Tran as part of an independent investigation into the Seven of Spades?”

  “Yes,” Levi said.

  “Christ.” Wen leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face. “You’re suspended for a week without pay for gross insubordination. Check in your service weapon before you leave the building.”

  Levi clenched his jaw, breathing through his reflexive anger. He had disobeyed a direct and very firm order from his superior officer, and he’d done that with full awareness of what the consequences would be if he were found out. He wouldn’t try to weasel his way out of them now.

  “Out of curiosity,” he said as he rose to his feet, “how did you know about Dominic going to see Dr. Tran?”

  A hint of discomfort crossed Wen’s face. “I received an anonymous tip.”

  “An anonymous tip?” Levi huffed out a humorless laugh. “You realize that was from the Seven of Spades themself, right? They want me to back off. I must have gotten too close for comfort.”

  “For God’s sake—”

  “Did you know Tina Chapman has received five thousand dollars in cash from an unidentified source every month since Keith died? Who do you think is giving her that money?”

  “Don’t start this shit again unless you want your suspension doubled,” Wen snapped.

  Levi shook his head and headed for the door. As he was leaving, however, he couldn’t resist having the last word. “The Seven of Spades won’t be content lurking in the background forever,” he said. “And if we’re not prepared when they return, we’ll all be screwed.”

  Levi knocked on the door when Dominic was almost finished with dinner. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and moved to answer it, feeling awkward about having to let Levi into his own apartment.

  Levi kissed his cheek, pet Rebel’s head in greeting, and walked inside to toss his messenger bag on the dining table. “That smells amazing,” he said as he stripped off his suit jacket. “What are you making?”

  “Baked tilapia with a lemon-garlic sauce and my grandmother’s Sicilian caponata.” Dominic returned to the kitchen and peeked into the oven.

  “What’s that?”

  “Kind of like an eggplant-based vegetable stew.”


  “Sounds great. Thanks for doing this.”

  Dominic cast him a sideways glance. Levi’s body language was tense, his shoulders tight and his back ramrod-straight, his face drawn with unhappiness.

  “You okay?” Dominic asked. Levi had sent him a terse text earlier about his suspension, but he hadn’t answered any of Dominic’s follow-up texts afterward.

  Levi shrugged, unknotting his tie and draping it over his jacket on the back of a chair. “It is what it is,” he said. “I could use a drink, though.”

  He came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator before Dominic could do more than say, “Wait—”

  Levi went still, stared into the fridge, and then closed the door and turned to Dominic. “Why is there a shoebox in my refrigerator?”

  Putting a finger to his lips, Dominic fetched the box and removed the top. Levi surveyed the mess of electronic equipment inside, though he didn’t try to touch anything, before looking up at Dominic with a confused expression. Dominic stowed the box back in the fridge and shut the door.

  “I spent the whole day sweeping for surveillance equipment,” he said. “I found GPS trackers in my truck and Carlos’s car. There were bugs inside the power strip in my apartment and the smoke detector in Carlos and Jasmine’s. The one here was wired into your thermostat—that was a bitch to get out, let me tell you. I was going to destroy everything, but it’s evidence, so I thought you might want to bring it to the lab. Either way, we should be good now. Your place is clean, and the bugs won’t be able to pick anything up from inside the fridge.”

  “You spent the day . . .” Levi frowned, and Dominic could see him putting everything together. “Oh my God. You manipulated me into giving you the key to my apartment. You didn’t even have to ask; I just offered. I never suspected a thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said. “I didn’t want to alarm you until I confirmed that I was right. You would have obsessed about it all day, and it would have interfered with your job.”

  Levi wrenched the fridge door open, retrieved a bottle of white wine, and slammed it shut. “You’re the most talented liar I’ve ever met.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  “Both.”

  Dominic was standing in front of the cabinet Levi needed, so he got the wine glasses out himself and handed them over. “Technically, I didn’t lie. I just postponed telling you the full truth.”

  Levi paused with the corkscrew halfway into the bottle. “Wow,” he said.

  “I know what I did was manipulative,” Dominic said, “but I do believe I made the right call. I understand if you’re annoyed, but if you’re genuinely angry with me, then we need to talk about that.”

  Levi took his sweet time thinking it over while he poured two extremely generous glasses of wine, put a stopper in the bottle, and returned it to the fridge. As he picked up his glass, he said, “I’m not angry. You’re right—I would have been distracted worrying about it all day, I wouldn’t have been able to focus on my job, and in the end, it wouldn’t have done any good anyway.”

  “But you’re still upset.”

  “I’ll be over it by the time I finish this glass,” Levi said.

  Laughing, Dominic guided him out of the kitchen. “Sit down. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  Rebel sidled up to Levi, butting her head against his thigh. He stroked her fur with an absentminded air and sipped his wine while he watched Dominic put the finishing touches on their meal.

  “So the Seven of Spades has been spying on us,” he said. “For how long, do you think?”

  “There’s no way of knowing.” Dominic gave the caponata a final stir and turned off the burner. “I’ll need to check your car for a GPS tracker tomorrow morning. And I should probably sweep Martine’s house too, if you think she’d agree to that.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine that conversation going well.” Levi knocked back half his glass in one go. “You know, even when I bring all that stuff into the substation, Wen will find another explanation for it. He doesn’t want to believe. None of them do.”

  Dominic set up two plates with tilapia, large helpings of caponata, and chunks of fresh crusty bread. He carried them over to the dining table, where he’d already laid out napkins and silverware. “At least being suspended means you know nothing will interrupt our plans tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be a dick,” Levi said, but he was smiling, just like Dominic had known he would.

  Levi placed his fork and knife on his empty plate and sighed in satisfaction. He’d been irritated with Dominic earlier, but a bottle of wine and an excellent meal had gone a long way toward appeasing him.

  He couldn’t shake his bad mood entirely, though. The news of his suspension had ripped through the substation like wildfire before he’d been able to leave. Between Gibbs’s smart-ass comments, the others’ pitying looks, and a whispered argument with Martine in which he could see her physically restraining herself from saying I told you so, it was a wonder he’d gotten out of the building without throwing a chair through a window.

  There was no relief to be found at home, either, because now he knew that the Seven of Spades had been in his apartment, his privacy violated in one of the worst ways imaginable. Tomorrow he’d be spending the day at a party full of strangers, and on Monday he’d have to tell a courtroom full of people about how creepy little Drew Barton had gotten the drop on him and assaulted him at gunpoint.

  There was only one reliable way to purge this much stress. Levi finished his wine, stood up, and moved to stand beside Dominic’s chair. Getting the hint, Dominic scooted back far enough for Levi to straddle his lap. Rebel was gnawing on a rawhide bone under the table, content to ignore them for the time being.

  “Hey,” Dominic said, his arms encircling Levi’s waist.

  “Hey.” Levi brushed the backs of his fingers over Dominic’s cheek. “Thanks for dinner.”

  He leaned in for a kiss, unbothered by the taste of garlic. As their embrace intensified, however, pain lanced through his busted lip, and he jerked back with a grunt. Shrugging it off, he dove back into the kiss—only to pull away again a few seconds later when the throbbing refused to be ignored.

  “Fuck, I can’t,” he said. “My lip hurts too much.”

  Dominic smoothed a hand up his back. “Do you want to stop?”

  “No, I just don’t want you to kiss me,” Levi said, and then winced at how that sounded.

  Dominic only looked intrigued. “No-kiss sex, huh?” he said. “That’s a little kinky.”

  Levi’s hands tightened on Dominic’s shoulders as he was momentarily overwhelmed by sheer want. Dominic made everything feel easy; he never seemed bothered by Levi’s sharp corners or rough edges. It still astonished Levi every time.

  “You could kiss me other places,” he suggested.

  Lust flared in Dominic’s eyes. “Is that right?” he said, his voice husky. He grabbed Levi’s ass with both hands and yanked him even closer, then nuzzled the underside of his jaw and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his skin. “Like here?”

  “Mmm.”

  Dominic’s mouth traveled down the side of Levi’s neck, strong hands kneading Levi’s ass. “How about here? Or maybe here?” He sucked lightly at the hollow of Levi’s throat.

  Levi rolled his hips, rubbing his swelling cock against Dominic’s stomach and enjoying the sensation of Dominic stirring beneath him. “A little lower.”

  “Oh, you mean here?” Dominic asked, as he unbuttoned Levi’s shirt. He bent his head and mouthed at one of Levi’s nipples.

  Moaning, Levi arched his spine. One of Dominic’s arms came around to support his back, and he trusted his weight to Dominic’s strength while Dominic sucked both of his nipples in turn, flicking them with his clever tongue until Levi was writhing in his lap. Then Dominic surged back up, burying his face in the side of Levi’s neck and biting hard.

  “Ah!” Between the two of them, Levi was usually more of a biter, but it looked like Dominic was planning to
make up for the fact that Levi couldn’t use his mouth for much tonight.

  “You drive me crazy,” Dominic growled into his ear. “The sounds you make, the way you move against me—”

  He reached around Levi and swiped his plate to the side, then lifted Levi up and sat him on the edge of the table without ever getting out of his own chair. He stripped out of his T-shirt and Levi followed suit, throwing his own shirt off to the side.

  Sliding his chair closer to the table, Dominic braced himself on Levi’s spread thighs and leaned forward to place a trail of hungry kisses down Levi’s chest and abdomen. When he reached Levi’s waistband, he let go to wrench Levi’s belt open and lower the zip on his trousers, and Levi groaned as that hot mouth descended on his cock through the thin layer of his boxer briefs.

  Dominic inched Levi’s underwear further down, but just as Levi was sure he was going to get his cock sucked, Dominic abruptly veered off course and suckled on his sensitive hip bone instead.

  “Fuck!” Levi’s hips bucked off the table, but Dominic shoved him back down and held him there, his teeth scraping the hollow of his hip.

  Panting, Levi fell back on one hand. He had to push the other one into his underwear to free his erection and give it a few strokes.

  “God, Dominic, please—”

  Dominic turned his head to rub his cheek against Levi’s shaft. “So if you can’t kiss, I’m guessing there’s no chance of getting my cock in your mouth?”

  “Not tonight. Sorry.”

  “That’s too bad.” Pushing Levi’s busy hand away, Dominic kissed the head of his cock. “I’ve never been with anyone so eager to learn how to deep-throat me.”

  “I’ll get there eventually,” Levi said. It was a point of pride for him, because Dominic could deep-throat him like a porn star. Granted, there was a significant size difference to consider, but he was still determined to return the favor someday.

  “That’s okay,” said Dominic. “I like watching you struggle with it.”

  Levi was still processing his shocked arousal when Dominic pulled him off the table, spun him around, and shoved him back onto it face-first. He gasped as Dominic yanked his trousers and underwear down to mid thigh and sank his teeth into one ass cheek.