And he liked it because he wanted his wife back, selfish but he didn’t give a fuck.
And he also wanted unlimited and unencumbered access to his wife’s body back.
The stairs led directly to their room, no door. And seeing as this was the case, Lexie wasn’t comfortable having sex in their bedroom, telling him she was worried they’d hear. This limited them to the shower which meant that Ty decreed she’d have two, every day, just like him.
But after two very fucking long weeks, he’d used up his shower creativity and he was done with limits.
And he knew Lexie loved her family but last night, he’d learned she was done too. He’d learned this when he firmly led her to the shower and she’d firmly pulled her hand out of his and walked to the tub. Then she’d filled it. Then she’d led him to it.
He couldn’t remember if he’d taken a bath since he was a kid.
He would be taking them in the future.
And his gait quickened because tonight he could fuck his wife in their bed, on the couch, on the fucking stairs if he had a mind to.
And he had a mind to do all three.
So it was time to get his ass home.
He walked out the doors to the gym which was in Chantelle. It was a haul but it was also a boxer’s gym, which meant limited use by women and the women who used it were boxers and there to train, not preen, show off their outfits or find a man who cared about his body who would get them off. He’d heard word there was a gym in Carnal with a personal trainer who could kick ass. He had not tried this because the man’s boot camps were co-ed.
This was what he was thinking as he walked out the doors and automatically scanned the parking lot.
And this was what erased from his mind when he saw the pickup. Model a few years old and taken care of. Some upgrades in order to add flash, not too many not because the owner didn’t like flash but because he couldn’t afford it.
And Walker knew this because the owner was leaning against the driver’s side door. He was Hispanic. And the plates were from Texas.
Fuck!
They locked eyes and Walker held his gaze as he moved to the Viper. The man pushed away from his truck when Walker neared the Snake. Walker looked away to bleep the locks, open the driver’s side door and toss his bag across the driver’s seat to the passenger’s. Then he slammed the door, turned and rested back against the car, arms across his chest, legs crossed at his ankles, eyes leveled at the man.
In the past two weeks, they’d had no meeting but Walker had had the chance to get a brief from Tate about Angel Peña though it wasn’t thorough. This was because Peña was liked and Tate couldn’t dig too deep without pinging on radar. He knew he was a respected cop. He knew he’d had commendations. He knew that Peña considered his occupation a calling, not a job. He knew that Peña’s tactics were controversial. And he knew this was overlooked because his close rate on cases was exceptionally high.
Now he saw he was short, Lexie’s height which meant she’d tower over him in her heels. Decent enough looking guy but Walker was no woman so he really had no clue. Liked his mama’s cooking if the slight gut that protruded over his big belt buckle was anything to go by. Knew to take care of himself anyway because the rest of him was made like a bulldog, strong, tough and bulky. Walker also knew he was a proud Texan as well as a proud Mexican just by the pickup but the cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, Western-stitched sports jacket and plaid shirt with those pearl snap buttons told the rest of the story, especially considering his belt buckle had a Mexican flag on it.
He stopped three feet away.
“Tyrell Walker,” he stated.
“Detective Angel Peña,” Walker replied.
There it was. Neither had the upper hand. Not yet.
Peña’s gaze slid to the Viper then back to Walker.
“Nice wheels,” he remarked.
Walker did not reply.
Peña held his eyes, surprisingly not uncomfortable with the height difference that was near to a foot. The world did not fit Walker’s height or size nor did most of the people in it. He had never had a problem with this. He’d duck his head every once in awhile knowing his frame intimidated most men, his bulk made them underestimate his speed and both (for some you could add his color) made most people, men and women, mistake his intelligence. This put him at a near constant advantage.
It occurred to him vaguely at that point that Lexie was one of the few women who fit him. Even in bare feet, she was tall for a woman. But she wore heels almost all the time. He didn’t have to bend or stoop as much with his wife.
He liked this too.
But now, he saw that Peña was not intimidated and he also didn’t underestimate Walker. He found this surprising and disquieting.
This meant Peña had spent some time digging and he’d dug deep. Walker just had no idea what he’d found.
“Figure,” Peña ended their silence, “you know I got an interest in Alexa Berry.”
“Walker.” His correction was a low, swift, deliberate rumble and he was shocked as shit to see his response surprised Peña so much it took two seconds for the man to hide it.
“What?” Peña asked softly.
“Walker,” he repeated. “Lexie’s last name is now Walker.”
Peña, face now closed, studied Walker but even with his face closed off, he did it intently.
Walker let him then he was done letting him.
“Got a wife to get home to, Peña. You gonna stare at me much longer?”
Peña blinked. Then he asked quietly, “How is she?”
“She’s the wife of a man who doesn’t like it much when a man he doesn’t know asks how she is.”
“That’s an interesting response, Tyrell,” Peña noted.
Walker did not reply even though he wanted to tell him not to call him Tyrell. His mother called him Tyrell. When his father was pissed, which was often, he called him Tyrell. Therefore no one called him Tyrell.
But he didn’t tell him this.
Peña carried on. “She’s a friend.”
“Now that’s interesting considering she hasn’t mentioned you.”
Another score. That one hurt. He thought he factored larger in her life.
“Things she’s tryin’ to forget, I reckon,” Peña guessed inaccurately.
And Walker didn’t hesitate to inform him of this fact. “You’d reckon wrong. Lexie doesn’t need to forget. She’s smart enough to learn the lessons life’s got for her, eyes open, no bullshit.”
“That may be so but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things she wants to leave in the past,” Peña returned.
“You got one right,” Walker told him, his point hard to miss and he was done so he decided to move them in that direction. “You come all this way for this shit?”
“She’s worth the drive and the vacation time.”
It was a true answer but it was one he didn’t want to hear.
Therefore Walker moved. Pushing away from the Snake, he shifted to open the door, again making a point that was hard to miss.
Peña didn’t miss it but Peña also wasn’t done.
“Win those wheels at a game?” he asked and Walker slid his eyes to him as he opened the door and started to move around it in order to the fold into the car. Peña knew he didn’t have a lot of time and kept going. “Know you got the talent not to fuck around. Been years but circles in Dallas still talk about you. Wouldn’t sit a game without at least a twenty-five K buy-in.”
Walker kept moving.
Peña kept talking. “Makes a man wonder why, you drive a Snake, you sit only high stakes games, yet over a three day weekend you’d haul your ass in a fuckin’ car across three states to sit a game with four men who, all together, couldn’t offer up five K much less twenty-five each.”
Walker stopped, straightened and turned inside the door.
And he did this because Peña had just shown how deep he’d dug.
Walker gave him his attention but nothing more.
“If just for the fuck of it, why didn’t you fly?” Peña asked. “You had the cake. Here to LA and back again, sit a table and kill a man… that’s a lot to fit in in three days.”
Walker didn’t respond.
Peña wasn’t looking for a response. Peña was happy to deliver a monologue.
“Though you take a flight, they got records. You sit your ass in a car, no one knows.” He paused; Walker gave him nothing so he kept going. “Couldn’t see why it was for the fuck of it either. You don’t care the company you keep at a game, that’s true enough, but they at least have to bring something to the table.”
Walker kept silent.
Peña pressed on. “You sit with men who got tens of thousands of cash and collateral on the line, you walk away a winner, a big winner, every time. Then you sit with men who got shit, who are not known to sit a game of cards, total amateurs, you lose huge? How’s that happen?”
Walker didn’t move or say a word.
Peña kept going. “Lose so huge, it pisses you off. You, a seasoned player, a seasoned player who had to walk away down from some tables somewhere along the line. You knew the score. Never an incident but you lose to some scumbag drug dealer in LA, you get so pissed, you track his ass down, shoot him four times and a part-construction worker, part-mechanic smart enough to get himself a Snake is dumb enough to leave his prints at the scene. How’s that happen?”
Walker turned fully to him and crossed his arms on his chest.
Peña held his gaze.
Then he took a step forward and said quietly, “Got a source says some preliminary witness statements were buried. You know that?”
He didn’t. He had no idea. That would have been big, huge, years ago.
Now it didn’t matter.
Therefore, he still didn’t speak.
“Conflicting accounts on a variety of things. Your description, the amount you lost at the game, time line. Seems the witnesses hadn’t been thoroughly briefed,” Peña dropped that bomb, gave a bit of it away, paused for a reaction then when he didn’t get one, he pressed on. “Got their stories straight in the end, though.”
Fuck him. Fuck him. Under six weeks and Peña got further than Tate. A lot further.
Walker made no reply.
Peña didn’t need it. “Two of those men who sat that table with you were CIs to a Detective Chet Palmer, LAPD.”
Walker said nothing.
Peña continued. “And Detective Chet Palmer works in a different precinct but still, he’s godfather to Gene Fuller’s daughter.” He held Walker’s eyes and kept talking quietly. “You gettin’ the connection I’m givin’ to you?”
Walker finally spoke. “This is not news.”
“Jackson.” This time, Peña guessed correctly that Tate had uncovered the last part years ago.
Walker didn’t confirm. He didn’t need to.
“You want real news?” Peña asked.
“If you got it,” Walker answered.
Peña studied him and he did this awhile.
Then he laid it out.
“Your gun, the murder weapon was never recovered.” He ignored the tightening of Walker’s jaw at the mention of “his gun” something he knew his way around but he’d never owned until Shift gave him one, and Peña kept going. “But it didn’t disappear. Know this because another dealer done in LA had a ballistics match to that gun, took me a bit to uncover that, even my source out there balked ‘cause that information was buried so deep. I’m sure it won’t surprise you that another brother got fingered for that, witnesses, prints at the scene, motive, opportunity, overwhelming evidence even if the murder weapon was never recovered. He was goin’ down but he’d been down before. Gang shit. Small time he didn’t enjoy. Learned his lesson. Got out. Kept clean.” Peña leaned in, lost it for a moment and hissed, “Volunteered at the local Boy’s Club to keep kids outta gangs.” Peña leaned back, sucked in breath to pull it together again before he finished, “Didn’t like his time, knew he was facin’ more, maybe knew why, definitely knew who he was up against. Wasn’t gonna go down and found his way to run away from that forever and he did it hangin’ from a beam in his Momma’s garage.”
Walker sucked in breath and looked away. It wasn’t the only reaction he exposed. He knew his body expanded because he knew most of his muscles had tightened reflexively.
Another brother down. Fuck.
He forcibly released his muscles and looked back.
“Been busy, Peña,” he noted.
“Told you, got an interest in Alexa Berry.” When Walker’s eyes narrowed he corrected swiftly, “Walker.”
Walker made no comment.
Peña still wasn’t done. “You copped a plea. Gave you a lotta time to think, I reckon. About what, I don’t know. I could guess, five years of my life rotted away, I know what I would be thinkin’. And, gotta say, Tyrell, wouldn’t normally give a fuck what you do. Problem is, what you do won’t be what you do. What you do will affect others and not just those who it needs to affect. And that’s where I got a problem.”
“This is not your business,” Walker informed him.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Peña shot back and Walker misread him, partially.
“My garage where she parks her Charger, Peña. My bed she’s sleepin’ in. The bouquet of flowers I bought her before I put my ring on her finger that she tore up and pressed the petals between two squares of glass and she hung that shit in my window in the kitchen so she can see them when she does the dishes. This means I am not wrong.”
He’d scored again, this hurt worse and Peña didn’t hide it.
But he denied it. “You don’t get where I’m comin’ from.”
“I get you want a piece of my wife. What you need to get is every inch of her is mine,” he leaned in, “Every inch. You don’t get a piece of her.” He leaned back. “No one does. No one but me.”
“Like I said, you don’t get where I’m comin’ from.”
Fuck, but he wanted to be home with his fucking wife.
Therefore, to get this done, he invited, “Educate me.”
“I got an interest in Alexa Berry Walker, Tyrell, but I’m also a cop. You are not my brother. I do not know you. I do not give a fuck about you. What I do give a fuck about is what’s goin’ on in your head. And I also give a fuck about brothers goin’ down in two states in two ways neither of them fuckin’ good for shit they did… not… do.”
Now that, that surprised the fuck out of him.
He didn’t give it away. He did nothing but stare.
Peña put his cards on the table. “So, the reason I’m here is for Lexie. The reason I’m here is because, I heard she was hitchin’ herself to you, I got interested and what I found got me more interested and that more interested got me more but in the end led to nothin’ but questions, questions without answers. So now another reason why I’m here is because I’m lookin’ for answers. And last, the reason I’m here, right now in this parking lot with you, is to warn you to remember what you got in your garage and hangin’ in your kitchen window and mostly in your bed. And it’s also to give you a head’s up that I’m in town, why I’m in town and whatever the fuck you’re plannin’, so I don’t screw you, you gotta know I am.”
And again, that surprised the fuck out of him.
“You’re doin’ Lexie a favor,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, it was just for Lexie until you opened, Tyrell. I still don’t give a fuck about you but you made it pretty fuckin’ clear you give a fuck about her and I spent years watchin’ her be with a man who didn’t so, in a roundabout way, I’m also doin’ it for you.”
Jesus.
“Peña,” he felt it necessary to warn, “you do not know what you’re up against.”
“Tyrell,” Peña fired back, “I know exactly the filth I’m up against. You got your color, I got my own so I know. And I figure, with Jackson’s nosin’ around, he’s given you the head’s up so you know I ain’t stupid and, I’ll confirm, I ain’t
. I figure you aren’t either but I’ll still remind you not to be and I’ll do it because of where her Charger is, what bed she sleeps in and those petals she stares at doin’ the dishes. I like my life so I don’t waste it so I won’t waste it tryin’ to talk you out of whatever you’re gonna do. But I’ll remind you to think of those three things you got that other men would kill to have and I’ll advise you that someone like me can get a fuckuva lot further in this mission than someone like you.”
“You’re from Texas,” Walker reminded him.
“A cop’s a cop, Tyrell, in Texas, in California, in Colorado or on the moon,” Peña returned.
Walker stared at him. This wasn’t true. Those boys pissed all over their patches, did it regularly so no one could mistake the smell and, no matter you carried a badge or not, they let in only who they wanted to let in.
Then again, what Tate said about this guy’s tactics, he had balls, who knew what he could do?
Finally, he said, “No one calls me Tyrell.”
Peña stared at him. Then he grinned.
Then his grin died and he asked quietly, “How’s she doin’?”
“Ella, Bess and Honey just left after spendin’ two weeks with us,” Walker answered.
“Jesus,” Peña muttered, “So she’s happy as fuck but you’ve been in hell.”
Yeah, he made it his business to know Lexie.
“Somethin’ like that,” he muttered back.
Peña hesitated. Then he pushed it.
“She make a beautiful bride?”
Fuck.
And fuck him. He gave it to the bastard.
“Magnificent.”
Peña nodded but he’d asked a question the answer he already knew.
Walker was now officially done.
“They burn you, I don’t know you but more importantly, Lex doesn’t.”
“I told you, I ain’t stupid.”
“And I’m tellin’ you, you stick your nose in this, it blows back on my wife, ex-con versus cop or not, you got a problem. Am I understood?”
Peña held his gaze. Then he didn’t grin. He smiled.
Then he whispered, “Waited a long time to see that woman with a man who gave a fuck. I see you haven’t missed I wanted to be that man. What you don’t know is, the kind of interest I have in Alexa Berry Walker, I don’t care who it is just as long as he does.”
Lady Luck Page 28