by Tessa Bailey
What am I thinking even doing this ride along? Every second I spend close to her, the harder it is to stay away.
If you can’t offer her anything, leave her alone.
And I don’t have anything. Right? Besides sex, my protection, the respectability of my career and a few candy bars, what would I offer? The occasional booklet of stamps? She deserves more than that. No, I can’t be anything more than her instructor. Her friend’s brother.
Before I climb out of the car, my gaze strays back to Griffin. When I met him, I didn’t know how to have a friend. I didn’t want a friend. My youth was all about preparing for the job, and I’d already seen firsthand how easily someone who claimed to love you could leave you in the dust. What it was like to eat breakfast with a parent—the person who should be the most committed to you in the world—and find their closet empty that same afternoon. If a mother wouldn’t stick around for me, what hope did I have making friends? Someone who had other options? But Griffin had been relentless, hammering away at my shell bit by bit.
I will not allow myself to forget the days, months, years following Griffin’s death. How much I regret letting my guard down around him, only to be left with no exterior and a shitload of guilt and pain. That’s why I leave the photo taped up. It’ll be a good reminder while Danika—a cowgirl in the making if I ever met one—is in the car with me. Maybe I should include a picture of my mother beside it for good measure.
I’m the fucking picture of resolute walking into the building. One ride along. A couple of hours, then I’m dropping her off and going about my night. No mooning over the light brown shade of her eyes or complimenting her on the impressive effort she put into drills today. Nothing that might give her the impression that I’m interested in a repeat of Saturday.
My chafed dick mocks me from inside my briefs.
Someone has left the building door propped open with a phone book, but I kick it back into the foyer, making a mental note to speak with Danika about the safety of her parents’ building. I check the buzzers for the name Silva and head to the second floor. Outside the apartment door, I pause, my hand poised to knock.
Danika is laughing on the other side, these great big, gulping laughs.
I’ve never heard her let loose with that kind of sound before. It hits my chest like a brick. She’s usually smirking or concentrating. Never this happy. What’s making her that way? There are other people in the apartment . . . men yelling at a televised game, it sounds like. The smell of meat sails through the door and reminds me I haven’t eaten dinner. It’s a home inside that apartment, and I suddenly feel like a mannequin compared to the life happening over the threshold.
I’m turning to leave when the door opens.
“You crazy people are making me late for my meeting with the—”
Danika cuts herself off when she sees me standing in the hallway.
“Devil?” I supply. “Grim Reaper.”
To her credit, she recovers fast. “I was going to say lieutenant.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Thank you.”
Already, the resolve I walked into the building with is losing steam. She’s still dressed in those tight pants she had on at the academy, but she’s wearing a fresh white T-shirt that lets me see the outline of her bra. It’s not a sports one, either. It pushes her tits up into a V, which might as well be a fucking arrow pointing right at her rack.
An older woman’s voice comes through the doorway. “Danika, who’s there?”
We must have been quietly staring for a while, because we both seem to shake ourselves. “Uh, it’s Lieutenant Burns, Ma.”
“The devil?”
Danika winces, making a laugh build in my belly. But I don’t let it out. “Are you ready to go? I’ve been waiting outside since six-thirty. You’re late.”
“Now who’s the bad liar? I can see the curb from the kitchen window.”
Shit. If that slip isn’t proof this girl throws me off my game, nothing is. “Then why didn’t you come down when I pulled up?”
“I was fixing the leaky faucet, then my mother made me eat—”
“Made you eat?” A woman comes up behind Danika and pokes her in the rib with a manicured finger. “You had two helpings.”
While Danika groans and shrugs on a light denim jacket, I greet the woman with a nod. “Mrs. Silva. Is the door of your building always propped open with a phone book?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She smiles up at me. “Because I put it there, so I don’t have to dig for my keys.”
“That’s why your bike got stolen,” calls a man from the living room.
“Just watch your damn game,” she shouts back before grabbing me by the elbow. “Come inside and have something to eat. We have plenty.”
“That won’t be necessary—”
“Don’t fight it,” Danika says, taking her jacket back off. “It’s hopeless, even for you.”
I’ve been inside plenty of New York City apartments. Being that we’re in a pre-war in Hell’s Kitchen, I think I know what to expect. Worn, wooden floors. Basic white Sheetrock and maybe one or two exposed brick walls. Lots of belongings crammed into limited space, which is the hallmark of the city. But it’s . . . amazing. Every wall seems to be a different color and theme. Family pictures cover one wall, while a bookshelf takes up another. The furniture is dark-colored and plush, but the kitchen is the reverse. It’s bright, open. Dried flowers hang down from strings, held there by clothespins. Some sort of raspberry smell drifts in the air, like maybe there’s a cheesecake in the oven.
“Nice, right?” Danika catches my attention beside me. “Makes you wonder why I choose to live with two smelly boys.”
“Danika is the one who makes it nice,” calls her mother from the kitchen. “Always coming to fix things or paint. Bringing me stuff she finds at stoop sales.”
“There’s a lot of stoops on my weekend walks crosstown.” She seems self-conscious, shoulders up around her ears. “Makes it easy.”
“Hear that?” She winks at her daughter. “So humble, my Danika.”
I can’t help but choke a little at that. “Are we talking about the same girl?”
“How would you describe her?”
That question comes from a man who has just joined us from the living room. I know with one glance he’s Danika’s father. They have the same stubborn chin. A handshake is in order here—I think—but he doesn’t seem inclined. And it doesn’t surprise me one bit that it only took me thirty seconds to fuck up this introduction with her parents. When they see me again at graduation, Danika’s mother will lean in and whisper to her husband, That’s the asshole that came to our apartment once. Remember?
My stomach lines itself with lead thinking about it.
“Yes,” the mother chimes in with a sniff, the skillet in her hand suddenly taking on the dimensions of a weapon. “How would you describe our girl?”
Danika might have looked self-conscious before, but she now appears to be enjoying herself quite a bit. She takes her time sitting down and crossing her legs. “Be careful how you answer, Grim Reaper.” Her voice drops to a dramatic whisper that makes me think things I shouldn’t be thinking in front of her mommy and daddy. “The best fried chicken of your life hangs in the balance.”
If I’m being honest, I want that goddamn fried chicken. Charlie brought me leftovers a week ago; some concoction from Ever. But apart from that, I haven’t eaten a home-cooked meal in years. Unless you count the slop I throw together in fifteen seconds and label dinner. Even more than the chicken, though, I want to be better than some asshole that spent a few uncomfortable minutes in their apartment. When they see me at graduation presenting their daughter with her diploma, I want them to know she isn’t just a face in the sea of uniforms.
“She stands out.” The compliment emerges rusty, so I clear my throat. Danika’s head comes up, too, her brown eyes flashing up at me from beneath dark las
hes. “When I implied she wasn’t humble, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. Someday when she makes detective, she’ll be one people want assigned to their case, because she’ll annoy everyone until it gets solved. If she can learn to be cautious and trust her fellow officers, she’ll be important to the department.” Silence. “She’s important.”
No one says anything. Are they waiting for me to say more? That’s the most I’ve spoken without a break outside of a lecture in a long damn while. That’s all they’re going to get. I’m seconds from excusing myself and going back down to wait in the car, but Danika’s parents converge on her so fast, I’m forced to step back. They throw their arms around her in a hug, one that is brief, but fierce. Danika is frowning at me over her father’s shoulder, but there’s a smile playing around her lips. It starts my pulse thrumming heavy in my ears.
Her mother steps back, swiping at her eyes. “He gets dessert, too.”
Chapter 15
Danika
Dude. This is intense.
I’m in the passenger side of Greer’s unmarked car. He’s a lieutenant, so he doesn’t use one of the standard NYPD Ford Fusion Hybrids, although most people would recognize the killer black sedan with tinted windows as a law enforcement ride. I feel like we’re phantoms, bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic, bypassing gridlock in the bus lanes, flying down the avenues surrounded by the rumbling purr of the engine.
His air-conditioning is set to a reasonable level. No music is playing. When he started the car, he even adjusted his mirrors for optimum visibility. He drives with two hands, because of course he does. Ten and two. That’s the rule and he’s a by-the-book man.
Never mind that he turned to an unfamiliar page in my parents’ apartment. Lieutenant Greer Burns thinks I’m important. He wouldn’t say it unless it was true. Unless he really believes it. And there must have been a little part of me that hadn’t believed in myself before he’d said those words, because my first reaction was relief.
Some days, walking into my parents’ apartment in a navy blue uniform feels like nothing more than a dream. As if I’m a little girl who wants to be an astronaut. Everyone tells her she can do anything if she simply tries hard, but they don’t really believe she’ll make it to space. Right now, I think I could strap into a rocket and make it to the moon.
Am I a tiny bit resentful that it takes so little from this man to reaffirm my commitment to being a good cop? My confidence in myself should be enough, right? However, I’m starting to think this probation is actually teaching me a lesson. Two people being confident in me is better than one. Being accountable to someone other than myself is a good thing, because I can’t save the world alone, like I tried to do at the yogurt shop. Argh. I landed myself in Central Booking for ignoring what I’ve been taught. So I’m not going to do that again. If some positive reinforcement can have such a profound effect on me, there’s my proof that I can’t become a good police officer on my own. I need other people. I need to trust.
Needing and doing are two different things, but admitting I’m not strongest alone is the first step, isn’t it?
“So . . .” I trail off, but Greer grunts for me to continue, never taking his focus off the road. “Most lieutenants act as the coordinator at a crime scene or direct arrest processing, but they spend a lot of their day at the precinct doing paperwork, right? Like more of a delegator. You don’t like doing that?”
“No.” I swear he’s going to leave it at that, but he keeps going once we’re stopped at a red light. “I have no choice but to delegate and complete a lot of forms, but I have to get out. Seeing the city. If I’m not familiar with what’s happening and changing on the ground, I can’t do my job from inside four walls.”
I cast a glance outside my window at the familiar sidewalks, bodegas, diners and nail salons of the East Side. It looks exactly the same as it always appears to me. “What are you seeing now?”
“For one,” he says, tipping his head forward and to the right. “That van has out-of-state plates, and it has been there since the last time I drove past, this morning. No tickets. So someone has been feeding the meter every two hours all day. On a weekday. That’s unusual. In Manhattan, a van usually means deliveries or somebody is moving. Neither of which would take this long.”
While he picks up his radio and calls in the plate number, I try not to watch him and marvel. That was some impressive observation though. A lot of recruits bitch about the lieutenant, claiming he probably made it to such a high rank so quickly because his father is a legendary bureau chief. I never believed that, mostly because Charlie tells us stories about Greer’s brilliance and dedication. Seeing it firsthand makes me glad I never bought into that nonsense. He might be an unholy jerk on occasion, but he’s great at his job. Isn’t that what matters?
When he hangs up the radio, my eyes are drawn to the picture taped up beside it. I don’t recognize the person in the photo. “Who is that?”
He’s quiet a moment. “Griffin Bates. My ex-partner.”
Way to step in it. It’s common knowledge that Greer’s partner died a few years ago, although I don’t know the details. I should probably back away from the subject slowly with my hands up, but . . . some intuition stops me. If he still has the picture taped up, maybe he wants to talk about Griffin. Maybe he doesn’t want to avoid talking about him. “I can’t imagine you with a partner,” I say, wading in slowly. “What was that like?”
His right hand slips to three o’clock, then shoots back to two. “We hated each other when they assigned us. He knew the department wanted me to babysit him. I just wanted him to stop talking.”
“What did he talk about?”
“His girlfriend. Video games. The Yankees.” He’s shaking his head. “Whatever new Apple product was being released. Cattle.”
“Cattle?”
“If he ever won the lottery, he was going to buy a ranch.”
“Huh.” I should stop there, but I’m too busy imagining him in a Starsky and Hutch–type situation, him and his polar opposite partner hunting down bad guys while wearing cool shades and uttering catch phrases. “Did you talk back?”
“Not at first.” He shifts a little and looks over at me. “I had to drive out to his place in Queens to get paperwork signed one weekend, and he was having a barbeque. I was only going to stay five minutes, but . . .”
“But you saw him in a different environment, and you realized he wasn’t just the annoying guy who takes up space in your car?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” His voice is rough. “His girlfriend pretty much chained me to a seat and kept feeding me.”
I laugh and the car jolts, as if he hit the brake by accident. “You have a habit of showing up and getting fed, don’t you?” Is it my imagination or does the right corner of his mouth lift? “Anyway, after what you said, you probably have a standing invitation from my mother.”
“She could achieve world peace with that fried chicken.”
This time, when I laugh, he doesn’t almost crash the car. But slowly, he grows more and more tense, his easy demeanor being replaced by the hard one I associate with him. When I replay the conversation in my head, flames lick up the sides of my face. “Relax, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean anything by saying my mother would feed you. I’m not actually expecting . . . or hoping . . . for you to show up or anything.”
This is now the second time I’ve accidentally hinted at wanting to spend more time with him. Pizza with the roommates and now my mother’s house. What is wrong with me? Is it something I want without realizing it? He’s clearly opposed to any association with me that isn’t directly related to work and my future career. Unless you count the time he went down on me. Jesus, men are confusing. This man is confusing.
I feel Greer looking over at me, but I pretend I don’t. “Danika—”
“So how did you manage to snag those stamps?” A muscle in his cheek jumps over the interruption, but I press on, really not wanting another rejection. “You have to be th
ere first thing in the morning, or they sell out. Did you pull some strings?”
He shifts in his seat. “You could say that.”
“Ooh. Cryptic.” No response. “Well, come on. Don’t leave me in suspense. I want some pointers for next time.”
“Wear rubber gloves and invest in nose plugs.”
“What?”
The radio crackles. “Five fifty-one Second Avenue. Ten-thirty in progress. Suspect is armed . . .”
There’s a robbery taking place very close to where we are. Right now. I barely have a chance to process that before Greer whips a U-turn at breakneck pace, squealing the tires. And then we’re going seventy miles an hour down the avenue—facing the wrong direction. I watch in awe as Greer very calmly presses the button to turn on his siren and flashing lights. Seriously, his expression doesn’t even change, except a slight hardening on his jaw. My jaw? It’s on my lap.
“You’re not to get out of the car, Silva.” We’re back to my last name, which is his way of telling me he means business. “Repeat the order.”
“You’re not to get out of the car, Silva.”
Greer looks over at me and . . . okay, he definitely smiled this time. He’s smiling right at me, while driving to a robbery. Leave it to my vagina to clench at this totally inappropriate moment, right? There isn’t a woman alive that could blame me, though, because he’s such a badass, threading traffic needles while responding to the dispatcher in an even, confident voice. He’s not my instructor right now, he’s this heroic being that can sometimes be the devil and other times, a seemingly tortured man who makes me cancel dates.
We screech to a halt outside what looks to be a Subway shop. “Ten-eighty-four,” Greer speaks into the radio, letting the dispatcher know we’ve arrived at the scene. An NYPD vehicle shows up at the same time, blocking traffic from entering the scene. One officer climbs out and starts to direct civilians out of the area, barking commands and herding them toward the side streets. Some attempt to take cell phone pictures, but most of them run like hell. Greer once again picks up the radio, hits a few buttons and his voice comes over the loudspeaker.