Kennedy realized just a beat too late that January had zeroed in on her with a calculating stare. “Are you okay?” her friend asked, her dark blond ponytail swinging over one shoulder as she leaned in to squeeze Kennedy’s forearm. “I hate to give that idiot, Chaz McCory, any due, but this fire was pretty scary, and the Korean barbecue place and the coffee shop up the street were both vandalized last month. It looks like the whole thing has you kind of...I don’t know, worn out. I’m worried about you.”
Well, shit. Of course, January would notice that Kennedy was off. Friendship aside, January’s father ran the Remington Police Department’s intelligence unit, which was the most elite group of cops in the city. She was as observant as any of her old man’s detectives, and just as shrewd when it came to protecting her own.
As much as Kennedy appreciated the sentiment, she didn’t need protecting. “I’m fine,” she said, shifting to make triple-sure the bar was stocked before the Saturday night crowd started getting busy.
But January didn’t let go. “Sorry, girlfriend, but I’m not buying it. You’ve been totally distracted all day. Is the cleanup from the fire running you ragged?”
“Not really,” Kennedy said, grateful as hell that she could fork over some pure truth. “Other than waiting for the RFD to be done with their investigation, we’re pretty much right side up on all of that.”
The insurance inspector had come out today to assess any minor damages, and Kennedy had scheduled a smoke cleanup crew to scour the kitchen first thing Monday morning, per his just-in-case recommendation. They’d gotten incredibly lucky. Even though the dumpster had been completely fried, the building itself had ended up essentially unscathed.
Curiosity pushed January’s brows upward, and after a pause, she said, “Sadie mentioned that Gamble was here last night. And again this morning.”
Ah, hell. Kennedy’s heart beat faster without her consent, but she’d be damned if she’d let it show. “Are you asking me a question?”
“Well, that depends,” January said with a smirk, and, ugh, Kennedy should’ve known better than to think she’d back down. “Is there anything to be asking about?”
“All that fantastic sex you’re having is making you see things,” Kennedy said, rolling her eyes enough to poke fun, but not so hard as to be rude. January had reconnected with her former best friend and current boyfriend, Finn Donnelly, a couple of months ago. Kennedy couldn’t begrudge January’s happiness, nor could she deny that the sexy professional hockey player was perfect for her sweet yet feisty friend. The dreamy look that had just crossed January’s face was case in point.
“Mmm. Finn and I are having fantastic sex,” she mused, biting her lip and mouthing sorry a second later at Kennedy’s hi-I’m-in-a-sex-drought frown. “But that doesn’t mean I’m seeing things. Not things that aren’t there, anyway. I mean this as impartially as possible since I’m off the market and I work with the guy at the fire house, but Lieutenant Gamble is pretty hot in a strong, silent, badass kind of way. He doesn’t usually hang around ’til closing. Are you two...?”
January made a swirling motion with her index finger to cap the sentence, but Kennedy shook her head emphatically. Near-kiss or not, she had to nip this in the bud right now. She couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of Gamble’s brooding, black-coffee stare or his statue-sculpted body. Especially since he’d muscled his way into going with her into North Point tonight.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s nothing going on between me and the Jolly Green Giant,” she said evenly. “He was here until closing last night and offered to help me clean up, so he was also here when the fire broke out. He just stopped by this morning to see if I was okay. That’s it.”
Fine, so she’d twisted the truth on that last part. But it did the trick. “Okay,” January said, her smile turning soft. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
“It’s all good.” Kennedy gathered up a smile of her own, hoping it would make the words stick. “I promise, I’m really fine.”
Or, at least, she would be. Once she found her brother and figured out why the hell he’d been in that car, she’d be right as rain.
7
Kennedy leaned against the brick façade of the bakery two doors down from The Crooked Angel and eyeballed her surroundings. The bakery had been closed for nearly two hours, so she had the luxury of taking her sweet time to hone her awareness, watching people window shop while others jogged by, running shorts on and earbuds firmly in place. Occasionally, a couple would pass her, hand-in-hand, bright smiles on their faces as they chattered about where they’d go for dinner, or, hey, let’s go look at that new furniture place to see if we can find end tables that’ll go with the new sofa.
Talk about a far cry from the three weeks she and her mother and Xander had lived in their ancient Oldsmobile because their shifty-ass landlord had decided to double the rent with no warning. Yet, this was Kennedy’s life now, her not-so-new normal, the one she’d craved ever since she could remember.
The one she’d wanted badly enough to leave her brother behind.
Rubbing a hand over the ache that had just dug in behind her sternum, Kennedy scanned the street again. Her sunglasses made it easy to observe the foot traffic on Marshall Avenue without being obvious—only one of several reasons she’d chosen the earlier hour to go looking for Xander. The summer-evening sunlight would hang around for another couple of hours, making her sunglasses seem normal and necessary the whole time she searched. But she hadn’t been to The Hill in ages, and even though she’d made a point of keeping every last one of her street-smarts intact after she’d left the neighborhood, she knew she’d need all the help she could get to stay sharp tonight.
She spotted Gamble from half a block away, and chalk up reason number two for wanting good cover. He looked imposing as hell, striding down Marshall Avenue in the same dark jeans and black T-shirt he’d worn this morning, his muscles and ink and attitude on full display. A pair of aviator sunglasses hid his eyes from view—well played, Lieutenant—and the dark stubble on his wickedly handsome face was in danger of becoming a full-fledged beard at any second.
Kennedy clamped down on the Ode to Joy coming from her highly neglected lady bits, the bricks of the bakery scraping her shoulders just slightly through her black and gray baseball-style T-shirt as she pushed away from the building to greet him.
“You’re early,” she said. She knew it was ten before six, because she’d made it a point to come out here early, herself, along with keeping track of the time as she’d people-watched.
“And yet, here you are,” Gamble replied, cocking his head and giving up just a trace of a smile.
God, she needed to get laid. Preferably soon and extremely well, and definitely not by the man standing in front of her in all his moody, broody, distracting-as-shit glory.
“I like to see everything coming,” she said. Pulling her keys from the back pocket of her jeans, she gestured farther up the block, to the spot where her car was parked. “If you’re ready to go, I’ll drive.”
“Okay.”
A tiny part of her had expected him to balk at her tenacity. An even bigger, definitely darker part of her felt the deep pulse of a thrill when he didn’t, and oh, this was going to be a long-ass trip.
Kennedy led the way up Marshall Avenue. Gamble walked next to her, but remained a half-step behind as if to protect her back, silently taking in every step of their surroundings, and when they finally reached her nine-year-old Nissan, she stopped to plant her boots into the sidewalk.
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“Do what?” he asked, but she met his mostly-hidden stare with one of her own.
“Watch my back. I’m perfectly capable of looking out for myself.”
Gamble said, “I know you are.” When Kennedy lifted her brows in a nonverbal “oh, really?” he let out a breath and added, “Look, I’m not bullshitting you, Kennedy. I really do know you can take care of yourself. I watched y
ou do it last night. But I’m a firefighter, and before that, I was a Marine. Asking me not to keep my head on a swivel is like asking me not to breathe, and when we’re together, especially when we’re headed to a place like North Point, that swivel involves watching your back along with mine. You don’t have to like it, but you are stuck with it.”
Kennedy did her damnedest to keep a neutral expression while she processed the multiple shockers in his statement. His military background made so much sense—God, how had that not occurred to her before now? But she didn’t have time to parse through everything now, so she took a deep breath and dealt with what was in front of her.
“Fine,” she said. “Just don’t go all commando on me once we get to The Hill, okay? Chances are high we’ll see a whole lot of things that aren’t above-board, but unless any of them are an immediate threat, all I want is to find Xander.”
“Understood.”
Again, he didn’t push when she’d expected him to, and again, it sent a shot of something warm and strange right to her belly. “Great.”
She hit the button on her key fob to unlock the Nissan and slid into the driver’s seat. It took Gamble a full minute to get the passenger seat as far back as it would go, and even then, he had to pull a bit of creative maneuvering before he looked even close to comfortable.
“Sorry,” Kennedy said, checking her mirrors before pulling out into the flow of traffic and heading away from the bar. “I guess my car isn’t made for guys your size.”
Gamble lifted a shoulder halfway before letting it drop. “I’m used to it. Anyway, I’ve been in a lot worse places.”
Her curiosity flickered like a dare. “When you were in the Marines, you mean?”
A noise that could’ve passed for agreement rose from the back of his throat. He followed it with a whole lot of two-ton silence before finally settling on, “How long has it been since you’ve seen Xander, anyway?”
“Way to boomerang the subject,” Kennedy said, partly as a deflection and partly because it was true. Gamble looked at her, his expression so unyielding even through his sunglasses that she found herself proceeding with care. “So, what? Your past is off-limits, but mine is fair game?”
“We’re not chasing my past into The Hill because it’s connected to a crime.”
“Allegedly connected,” she said, although, shit, she couldn’t deny he had a point. She sighed. “Fine. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Xander.”
“A while,” Gamble repeated, and guilt peppered Kennedy’s gut with tiny, white-hot pinpricks.
“It’s kind of a long story.”
She hung just enough toughness in her tone to hope he’d get the message and drop the topic. Which, of course, he didn’t.
“We’ve got a solid twenty-minute ride in front of us. Thirty, if there’s traffic,” he said, pointing to the line of brake lights in front of them. “And as it turns out, I’m a great listener.”
Fucking spectacular. Kennedy slowed the Nissan to keep pace with Saturday evening city traffic, cherry-picking the truth for the bare minimum to get the story told. “Not a whole lot of people want to live in North Point, but the reality is, not a lot of people who do live there ever get the chance to leave. I decided early on that I was going to be the exception to the rule.”
“That’s admirable.” The way Gamble’s voice had gone quiet, yet not soft, told her he meant what he’d said. Still, Kennedy lifted a shoulder in reply.
“It was necessity. I watched my mother try to scrape by in crappy jobs with just her GED, and I knew I’d never have any sort of security if I did the same. I wanted better, more, for me and for Xander. For my mom, too. So, I buckled down in high school and got really good grades. I had to wait tables and eat Ramen Noodles for a year after I graduated to save enough money, and apply for a massive amount of financial aid on top of that, but I got a deferred acceptance to Remington University.”
God, she could still remember the day that letter had arrived. She must have read it six thousand times to be sure it hadn’t been a mistake, or, worse yet, a joke. Then she’d panicked at the thought of the logistics—Xander had been just about to start high school, there had been no way she’d be able to afford things like books and gas money and campus parking without keeping her waitressing job, and she’d need to maintain a 3.0 GPA to keep her financial aid. Funny, it had been Xander himself who had talked her off the ledge. Only after he’d promised her he’d be fine, then reminded her how hard she’d already worked to get accepted to the school in the first place, had she allowed herself to think just maybe, they’d make it out of North Point.
Kennedy’s hands began to ache, and she realized—too late—that she’d gripped the steering wheel in front of her tightly enough to make the muscles in her forearms pull taut from the exertion. She could feel Gamble’s eyes on her even through the dark lenses of his sunglasses, but he kept true to his word as a good listener, not pushing her to continue before she was ready or giving her some pep-rally line about how awesome it was that she’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps.
And didn’t that just make it even easier to let more of the story escape. “I focused on getting my degree in business, and started working my way through better restaurant jobs as I studied. The jobs were closer to school than home, but they paid a hell of a lot better. Plus, I was making great connections.”
“Sounds like a win-win,” Gamble finally said as she paused.
“Yes, and no.”
She released a breath from her tightening lungs. But she couldn’t change what had happened, no matter how badly she wanted to now. Might as well get the retelling over-with.
“Halfway through my senior year—Xander’s, too, only he was in high school—our mom met a guy who worked for a snack food distributor. She’d been working the late shift at a Mini-Mart at the time. Larry would come into town every couple of weeks from Tampa to make deliveries, and they hit it off. It wasn’t long before he asked her to move to Florida with him.”
Gamble’s brows arched over the frames of his sunglasses, and despite the gravity of the conversation, Kennedy had to give up at least part of a smile. “I know, right? It surprised the hell out of us, too. But my mom was just so tired of living a hard life. I was about to graduate college, Xander had just turned eighteen and was about to do the same from high school. She’d done her best, but she’d never really parented either of us.”
Gamble flinched visibly against the passenger seat, making Kennedy’s heart speed up. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, necessarily. She did more for us than a lot of other kids in The Hill got, and even though her life was tough, unlike most everyone else in our neighborhood, she lived clean. But Xander and I weren’t close with her like we are”—she swallowed—“were with each other.”
“So, your mother left you and went to Florida,” Gamble said flatly.
“Of course she did.” No sane Northie wouldn’t have. Kennedy couldn’t be angry about her mother’s choice; hell, she’d wanted out of The Hill her whole life, too. That she genuinely cared for Larry and he cared for her in return had made the whole thing even easier to reconcile. “I’d just landed a full-time gig as an assistant manager at a popular place over by the university, and the hours were brutal. Xander got a job doing manual labor down at the pier for some shipping company. I wasn’t crazy about the location or the lack of opportunity for advancement, but at least he was gainfully employed.”
Gamble nodded in slow agreement. “Yeah, I know what you mean about the area. We get called to that part of the city from time to time. Mostly as backup for Quinn and Luke on the ambo, though. Lots of drug overdoses and shootings.”
“That sounds accurate for the pier,” Kennedy said. She reached the split in the main thoroughfare, where most folks branched off to head toward the suburbs, and at least they’d shake this traffic by taking the road no one wanted to travel. “Anyway, I was finally making enough money at that point to move out of The Hill permanently, and my job was downtow
n, so it made sense for me to move there. I asked Xander to come with me.” Begged had been more like it—not that she’d admit that to Gamble. “But he said no.”
“Really?” Gamble asked, and oh, look, here they were at the part of the story Kennedy hated most.
Her chest ached, and she doubled up on her defenses to cover the sensation. Showing weakness now, when she was headed into North Point to look for her brother? No fucking thank you. “He had his reasons, and for the first year or so, everything was fine.”
Gamble looked at her, quietly waiting her out like he had before. Only this time, she refused to budge, and damn it, why had she opened her stupid mouth in the first place?
Of course, Gamble wasn’t about to let her off that easy. “And then?”
“And then, over time, Xander and I started drifting apart.”
It was one hell of a summary for the way she’d worked too many hours to even have the energy to shower on some days, let alone check in with her brother, or how her heart would squeeze every time that—when she finally was able to try to connect—he’d make her work so hard for any kind of meaningful conversation, most of the time she’d just given up. The rift had grown so gradually that she hadn’t really noticed it happening, until one day, she’d realized it had been nearly a year since they’d seen each other face-to-face. But even when Kennedy had made an effort to reach out to Xander after that (okay, fine. Hundreds of efforts), he’d dodged most of her calls and texts.
The same way he had last week. And today, when she’d sent him one simple line that had gone delivered yet unanswered.
Are you okay?
She straightened in her seat, the harsh glare of overhead sunlight showcasing the increasingly shabby city blocks and anchoring her resolve. “But that doesn’t matter. Xander and I might have grown apart recently, but I still know him. He would never try to burn anything down.”
Gamble’s expression broadcast his wariness loud and clear, but thankfully, he didn’t verbalize it. “You said this morning was the first time you’d seen him in a while. Are we talking weeks, a month or two? What?”
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