by Teagan Kade
It is. Rachel didn’t deserve this no matter how bad her taste in the opposite sex.
I point to the back door of the apartment. “What did you find in there?”
Pauly seems confused. “What do you mean?”
“In her apartment.”
His eyebrows knit together. “You know this girl?”
“Yeah, from school, way back,” I reply.
Pauly checks a clipboard. “I got nothing about that being her address.”
Fuck this. I take out my piece and make to the back door. “Newbie, on my ass.”
“You want backup?” asks Pauly.
I ignore him, go to kick the back door in, but stop. The lock’s already busted.
I try to keep my anger under control, but taking down someone I know? You don’t get away with that on my watch.
Just like last night there is glass and bits of furniture everywhere. Looks like a frat party gone wrong.
The bathroom is clear—no sign of blood or trauma. I have the new guy sweep the kitchen before we both move upstairs.
We come to the bedroom door. I give the new guy the count and go in, and there he is, the boyfriend, Chris, fucking sleeping of all things.
I put my finger up to my lips and slowly approach him. Fucker’s snoring could wake up an entire city block. I nudge him in the ribs with my weapon. His eyes widen, everything coming slowly into focus. For a second, he simply looks at me.
“Morning, asshole,” I smile.
He springs out of bed so fast I don’t have any time to react as I’m thrown hard against the wall.
“Stop!” calls the new guy as Chris dashes past him down the stairs.
I get up wincing, following them down the stairs. Chris is bolting for the door, New Guy on him. Just before he makes it New Guy dives—actually dives through the fucking air—both of them smashing through the door and sliding on what remains of it onto the stairs out front.
CHAPTER FOUR
HUNTER
The two of us surf what remains of the door down to the bottom of the stairs. This guy’s big, but I manage to swing myself on top of him, pin his neck down with my knee while I get the cuffs on. My shoulder smarts, but it’s nothing a beer and bag of frozen peas won’t fix later.
I see Pauly and another cop running over, but Grace puts her hand up. “We’ve got this.”
I get low. “That was no way to treat a lady, was it?”
The perp sees Grace approaching. “You,” he spits.
She crouches in front of him. “Chris, nice to see you again.”
It’s like this girl knows everyone in New York.
She runs her teeth across her top lip. “Can’t say I’m surprised, but murder? If this place wasn’t swarming in Blue I’d take you back inside and carefully feed you your balls.”
Chris tries to get up, his eyes wide. “Murder? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Grace looks to me, but I don’t know what she wants, how to play this. I’m not used to having a partner.
“Rachel,” she continues. “All cut up. I guess you know nothing about that.”
A gash above his right eye is starting to bleed, dripping from his face. “Rachel? What about her?”
“She’s dead, Chris. Stabbed to death in the alley there. You’re honestly going to tell me you know nothing about that?”
I haul him to his feet. “It’s in your best interests to cooperate, son.”
“Shit,” he says. “Do I need a lawyer?”
One look at Grace tells me this was far from the best way to reply to the news someone you know was just murdered.
She gets right into his face just like she did to me last night at the bar, loose strands of hair hanging free. “Your girlfriend was stabbed to death, multiple times, and you’re worried about lawyering up? You fucking piece of shit.”
“It wasn’t me,” he pleads. “I swear to God.”
If there’s one thing I learnt in LA, even on the field back at Abbotsleigh, it was how to read people. It kept me out of a body bag more than once.
“Yeah?” Grace continues. “If you had nothing to do with it, why did we find you inside just now less than ten feet from her body? Why did you run?”
“I thought you were coming to bust my ass again.”
Again? I look to Grace but she’s not giving anything away. She knows a lot more than what she’s letting on here.
“Should I?” asks Grace. “Admit it, admit you killed her and I’ll make sure you at least get to keep one of your limbs.”
“I’m telling you. I didn’t do it.”
Pauly is approaching. Grace sees it, looking to me. “Get him into the car. We’re taking this back to the precinct.”
I shove the perp into the back of the cruiser and shut the door.
“Who’s that?” asks Pauly.
“He just tried to assault an officer. We’re taking him in.”
Pauly shrugs and wanders off. “All yours.”
Grace pulls me aside when we’re alone. “Hunter, right?”
God, she smells amazing—lemongrass mixed with cinnamon and something I can’t quite place, maybe the city itself. “That’s right. “Hunter Beckett.”
“Okay, Beckett. What do you make of it?”
“You know this guy, I presume?”
It occurs to me how striking her russet eyes are, the way her hair shimmers in the dappled sunlight. James warned me to stay away, but what’s the harm window shopping?
“Rachel, the deceased, called me late last night. We were friends in high school. I hadn’t spoken to her in years, but here she is calling me out of the blue. I get here and this prick, Chris, is trying to bust the bathroom door down to get to her. I kicked him out, took his keys and told Rachel to lock the door.”
“You left her here?”
She jumps back in offense. “Hey, I told her to come stay with me, but she was adamant she wanted to stay. Guess her boyfriend was going to get in one way or another.”
“But your friend, Pauly, said she was probably killed somewhere else.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Does it matter? Guy’s guilty. He was wrecked out of his mind last night, probably smack knowing the area, chased her down the street, stabbed her and dragged her back here because it was familiar.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” I don’t want to argue, but it’s true.
Grace puts her hands on her shapely hips. “What doesn’t? The Captain said he wanted this tied up fast, cleanly. I mean, you can’t honestly think this Chris scumbag’s telling the truth.”
“I do.”
“And what makes you think you’re the world’s foremost expert on lying, huh?”
“I know how to read people, that’s all.”
“Like you read me last night? That really worked out for you, didn’t it?”
I put my hands up in defense. “Hey, you were the one who started attacking me.”
She backs away from it, probably doesn’t even remember our encounter she was so blind. She waves her hand dismissively. “Forget it. What are we going to do about this guy? I’m serious. If it’s him, I’m going to go Ramsey Bolton on his ass.”
“Okay.” I nod. “We take him back to the precinct, see what he’s got to say, let these guys look for the murder weapon.”
She takes a step to the side and I swear for a sliver of a moment her eyes give me the once-over. “Lead the way, Human Lie Detector.”
CHAPTER FIVE
GRACE
The interrogation room is a delightful olfactory mix of stale cigarettes and cheap aftershave, even though the former is not allowed and the latter arrives in abundance.
Hunter stands to the side with his arms crossed… and bulging. That surfing-the-door-down-the-stairs thing has my interest heating up, and maybe other things, not that doing anything with someone you work with is a great idea. I tried it once and let’s just say the Hindenburg was less of a disaster.
I approach the table, winking at Hunter on the way, and
place my hands down on it, pushing my ass out a little because yes, it is amazing.
Look all you want, Beckett.
“Okay, Chris,” I start. “Here we are. Start. Fucking. Talking.”
Hunter’s watching me closely, like a parent. I sense my potty mouth’s getting to him, but fuck that. I’m not about to simmer down for his hillbilly sensitivities. He should hear what comes out of my mouth during sex.
“Look,” says Chris, hands outstretched and open. “I got out of there as soon as I heard you guys talking, ran for as long as I could. I found a bar.”
“What bar?” I press.
Chris’s hands flail. “I don’t know. It was green, Irish maybe?”
That really narrows it down. “And?”
“I got drunk.”
“Drunk-er, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“How’d you get home?”
“I walked back. The front door to the apartment was locked, so I went around back.”
“And kicked that door in.”
“Yes,” he replies cautiously, knowing how it sounds. “But she wasn’t there, I swear. I looked for her before I passed out upstairs. It’s not even her place.”
I can’t help a quick glance at Hunter. “Whose place is it?”
A shrug. “She never told me. Some guy, I suppose. She said it was all paid for.”
“That’s a nice story.”
“It’s the truth.”
I lean further over the table, pants audibly stretching around the peachy globes of my backside. “Then why don’t I believe you?”
Chris looks to Hunter, but there’s no boys club to be found here. “You believe me, right?”
To my astonishment, Hunter replies, “I do.”
I throw him a ‘What the fuck?’ look, but he pulls out a chair and sits, scooting forward to the edge of the table. “I believe you, but you’re not telling us everything, are you?”
It’s like he’s performed a Jedi mind trick. The guy opens up like a sorority girl on Saturday night. “Rachel is—was, he corrects—a junkie. We both are. The gear, man… I can’t live without it.”
The raccoon eyes and twitchiness did kind of give it away, but for a junkie, this guy’s almost close to functional.
Hunter comes forward even further. “Is that why you were arguing last night, over drugs?”
Chris begins to flinch, gets real jittery the way these gearheads do.
Hunter leans across the table and puts his hand on the guy’s arms. God. I wanted him to still play Good Cop, not metamorphose into Mother Teresa… with steel-cut shoulders and arms that could pull trees from the bare ground.
“Look,” he says, “you cared for her, I get it, but she’s gone and at the moment you are the only person who can help us understand why.”
Poor bastard starts blubbering, balling like a baby right there in front of us. He pulls in a big, wet sob. “I found out she was doing tricks, on the side, to help pay for the habit and shit. The apartment… one of her Johns paid for it.”
“Her habit?”
“Ours, man,” Chris corrects. “She was good like that, wanted to help, you know.”
“And she didn’t tell you she’d become a prostitute, or who exactly owned the apartment?”
He shakes his head violently. “No way. I mean, how would you react finding out your woman is spending half the day sucking some stranger’s cock? I got mad, I admit it, but I did not kill her. I’d never do that.” He draws a line with his finger on the tabletop as if to drive the point home.
I slam my hand into the table, both of them flinching. “But you liked to hit her, didn’t you?”
He’s too shocked to respond.
“Answer me!” I repeat, thinking of the way Rachel was lying there like a used candy wrapper, angry at the way her life unfurled into this and knowing that maybe I could have stopped if I’d just kept in touch.
This damn job. It consumes you completely, leaves no room for anything else, much less meaningful relationships.
Don’t do it to yourself. It wasn’t your fault.
I push the thoughts away, the clichés and guru bullshit. I like facts, solid evidence, and direct plays. Some like to beat around the bush, shake it out, but me? I go in hard and I go in fast.
I look him dead in the eye. “Where was she doing tricks? Tell us.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
I slam my hand down again. “Fucking tell me!”
“I don’t know!” he repeats, louder now.
I reach forward and take hold of his shirt, dragging him across the table. “You better tell me something, and fast.”
“Doyle,” he sputters.
I let go. “What?”
“Doyle, our dealer. He was always hassling her, man. He’s the one who started her on the shit in the first place. Guy’s a fucking psychopath. Every problem she had, we had, was because of that prick.”
I turn to Hunter, subtlely try to get a read on him. He might seem straighty one-eighty, but I have a feeling there’s more going on. There always is.
I push a notepad across the table. “This Doyle, where do we find him?”
CHAPTER SIX
HUNTER
I let Grace do the driving—again. I actually wouldn’t mind getting behind the wheel, feeling my way around town, but the last thing I want to do is piss off my very first partner. Given the way she’s handled herself so far, she’d probably give me brain damage.
It’s funny, girls would fall at my feet in college. I barely breathed a word before they were sucking my cock, but Grace? She’s no sister looking to bag a Beckett. I can’t picture her playing avalanche with the boys back in the day. No, sir. She’s Bruce Banner in a supermodel’s body, nothing but pure, uncontained energy waiting to explode.
I allow myself to consider what she’d be like in bed—naked, writhing, screaming out my name…
I look across to her, a fierce concentration set upon her face. Slap a smile on there and she’d actually be kind of cute with her slightly pinched nose and laser eyes. I don’t know why, but whenever she watches me it’s like I’m pinned under a microscope. I haven’t even thought about Wrightworth, about my ex and the happy family life she wanted.
That was the idea, wasn’t it? Get back to the city, the action.
NYC is not LA, but they do share some similarities.
I try to imagine myself with this Grace, but it’s impossible. She’s city bred from the get-go, independent, the kind of man-killer I thought only existed in movies and pulp fiction.
Her eyes are on the road when she speaks, the slight grit in her voice causing my cock to rise. “What the fuck are you looking at, Beckett?”
“Nothing, I was just—”
“Why don’t you ‘nothing’ out the window.”
Jesus.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to strip off her panties and find a bear trap there in place of a vagina. “Look, we’re partners. We should get to know one another.”
“Oh, so I should stop in the alley around the corner here and let you have your way with me? That’s what you’re thinking over there with that goofy grin and big erection, right?
How the hell? I shift in the seat. “I wasn’t saying that.”
“But you want to, don’t you?”
Wouldn’t say no. It’s been too long since I’ve seen any action between the sheets—too long. “You’re not my type, sorry.”
Liar.
She laughs. “And you are so definitely not mine. What the hell kind of name is ‘Wrightworth’ for a town anyhow? Did they steal it from an Agatha Christie novel, fucking Clue? What did you even do there? Pick up trash, call in on Miss Daisy for a cup of lemonade after cleaning her gutters and staring up her petticoat?”
“I was a sheriff, actually.”
“Sherriff,” she mocks. “My, my, I guess you are well qualified for the Wild West then.”
“Wrightworth had its share of trouble. And in LA—”
/> She cuts me off. “Cats in trees can be the darnedest things, can’t they?”
“Drugs aren’t exclusive to New York, you know.”
Grace scoffs. “Seen one addict, you’ve seen them all.”
“I beg to differ.”
She’s not used to being challenged, which is precisely why I have to find my balls here and step up to the plate. I’ve got to channel that arrogant asshole who owned Abbotsleigh… and every pair of panties in a square mile. “Is that so?”
“Have you ever been stuck with a needle?” she queries.
“No.”
“Had a junkie literally eat his own shit in the back of your cruiser?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Have you ever been shot?”
“No, and you have?”
She lifts the side of her top, an inch-long scar showing just above her hip.
Shit. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ll get your own badge of honor if you work these streets long enough. Just make sure you don’t get it in the head.”
“You’re right, by the way,” I continue, trying to redeem myself and not really sure why.
“Right about what?”
“Cats in trees were a pain in the ass.”
She smiles, really smiles, for the first time and it’s god damn spectacular. I’d like more of it. I’d like to be the cause of it.
She looks to me. I’ve never seen eyes like hers, so fiery, flecked almost gold-ish in places. “And the lemonade?”
“Freshly squeezed.”
A thinner smile stretches over her lips “Just how I like my perps.”
I twist in my seat, still a little uncomfortable given Miss Pocket Rocket’s eagle eye for boners. “How long have you been with the Force?”
“Six years. My pop was a detective. Fifty years kicking ass. Only stopped when he was diagnosed.”
I don’t ask with what, thankful that at least she’s imparting something.
She fills it in. “Dementia. I’ve got him at a home on Staten Island. I try to get over there when I can, but you know how it is.”