I glanced over at Brody. His squint of concentration made it seem like he was willing the screen to produce something important and useful. I could almost believe he could make it appear, the definitive lead we were desperate for. The manager got called to the front to deal with a cash register problem, leaving us alone in the cramped office, our two plastic chairs smashed against each other so close our thighs touched if I didn’t keep my legs tightly together. I relaxed a little, my leg brushing his.
“If I fast forward?” I ventured.
“We can’t. We’re only running it up to 2:30pm, and if the buyer makes an appearance early, leaves and comes back for more supplies or lingers and makes a call or anything, we’d miss it. The video is pretty good quality, so we might even get a zoom-in on his phone screen.”
“He doesn’t have a phone until he gets the burner,” I said.
“Yeah he does. He just doesn’t use it for crimes, kid,” he said wearily. I rolled my eyes, annoyed at myself for assuming the buyer needed a burner phone for anything other than something he wanted to cover up.
“It might not be a guy,” I ventured.
“It’ll be a guy. Even if he made some girl buy the burner phone, there’s a guy behind it.”
“What about the kidnapping in Charleston I told you about?”
“One in a million,” he sighed. “I wish I could say different, but violent abduction is mostly a man’s game.”
“It’s not a game at all, and I’ve only worked about a dozen missing persons cases. How many have you done?”
“About the same. I pitched in here in Overton on four of them though. None of those ended well.”
“Found a body?”
“In three cases, yes. In the fourth, we think the ex-husband used lye to dissolve the remains on his dad’s farm.”
“Why is it always a farm?” I asked, shaking my head.
“That guy has a phone. Just took one off the rack. Can you zoom it in?” he asked, leaning in toward the monitor. We both leaned closer, nearly bumping heads. We ended up with his shoulder slanted behind mine, my face practically right against his. His breath fanned over my cheek as we focused on the surveillance footage.
A young guy in a hoodie—he moved like he was young, with that easy swagger—picked up a soda, some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a burner phone. He went to the counter, paid in cash and left. We couldn’t make out his face. There was no distinctive look to him, no scar or tattoo visible that would make him easy to spot. But he had on a jacket even though South Carolina was ridiculously hot this time of year. There was some kind of design on the hoodie, an emblem on the back. It niggled at the back of my mind like I’d seen it before, but I couldn’t place it.
“Dammit,” Brody said, and I knew he was frustrated that we couldn’t use facial recognition software—one of Max’s specialties—to identify him because the guy had kept his face hidden.
“That’s him though.”
He shoved back from the desk and went to find the manager. I got to my feet and stretched. I felt flushed and a little edgy after being so close to him, studying the footage, bantering back and forth, sitting practically in his lap to watch the video. I had to shake it off. There was nothing intimate about this. After I grabbed a couple of iced coffees, Brody asked the manager to email him that segment of the footage for further evaluation. I handed him a coffee, and he nodded his thanks. In the car, we sat sort of awkwardly in silence for a few minutes. I sipped my coffee, checked my phone, and stared out the window. I pretended to be distracted by those things when really I was preoccupied by the simmer of attraction between us. It wasn’t something I could ever acknowledge openly, but the truth was I felt more womanly, more sensual sitting in the passenger seat of a squad car in a polyester uniform than I ever had dressed up for a date or stripped down to lacy lingerie. The difference was Brody. I felt like myself with him, and he accepted me. Flirting with him, even accidental flirting of the mildest sort was steamy and set my pulse thudding double-time.
“I think someone took her and she’s in danger,” he said finally. “But it’s just a gut instinct. We don’t have anything concrete in the way of evidence.”
“It’s been a week. We both know she’s probably past danger by now,” I admitted grimly.
“You think she’s gone?”
“Nope. I think someone grabbed her, maybe somebody she knew, and she needs us to find her. But we’ve got nothing to go on. Nobody’s going to swear out a warrant based on a gut feeling, and the fact is we don’t even know where to search.”
I let out an aggravated sigh, “I’ll pass the footage on to Max to see if he can do anything, but we both know there’s not a single clean shot of his face on that tape.”
“Yeah,” he said. “As a cop I have experience and I know my instincts are telling me she’s out there, like you said. Fact is, you agreeing with me makes me even more sure.”
“What?” I said incredulously, “Like we couldn’t both be wrong?”
“Sure we could, but it’s not likely. You’ve got stellar instincts. If you were sitting there telling me, Chief, you gotta let it go, everything we’ve got says she’s dead—it wouldn’t change my gut feeling, but I’d rethink the case.”
“You’re telling me after a week, I have that much influence over you?” I said with a light laugh.
“I trust you, Vance. And there’s only a handful of people I do trust.”
‘Thank you,” I said. That felt like an honor somehow, that I’d earned his belief in me so quickly. It felt very personal to me.
“You know what?” he said, turning quickly into a parking lot, “We need a beer.”
He swung the cruiser into a parking place at a nondescript bar on the edge of Rockford Falls. I’d never been in it before, and there were only a few trucks in the lot. It was late afternoon, hardly time for the after-work rush. I looked at him hard, gauging his mood. He just seemed keyed up and frustrated, and I decided a beer wouldn’t do us any harm. One beer, something to eat, then back to the station and I’d go home, maybe even cook dinner. My heart was pounding like this wasn’t that simple. I felt like my whole body started to itch and tingle, expectation flowing through me. How many dozens of times had I gone for a beer with the guys in Charleston? And that had been nothing. This didn’t feel a bit like nothing.
I got a table while he ordered us a couple of beers. The place was quiet, dim and cool, a relief after the bright and hot afternoon. When he sat the bottle in front of me, Brody’s eyes fell to my throat. I swallowed hard, wondering if he could see the flutter of my pulse under my skin as my heart flipped like a hyperactive penny spinning through the air. His gaze felt like a touch.
“Thanks,” I said, and hated myself for sounding a little breathless. Putting my mouth to the bottle felt suggestive in itself. I took a drink, nearly choked from watching the muscles of his throat work as he took a long pull off his own bottle. I wriggled in my seat. I was sitting across from him. We weren’t even close, but I slid back a little anyway. Just so our knees didn’t bump under the table, I told myself. I was just being careful.
His hand found my knee beneath the table and our eyes collided, “Hey, don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
“If you don’t want a drink, it’s fine. I can even radio Clint to come pick you up.”
“I’m just worried about this case, that’s all,” I said, lying through my teeth. I took another drink to cover how flustered I was.
“It’s easy to get fixated, especially when you don’t have a lot of leads to go on. Don’t convince yourself that we’re missing something. You’ll just lay awake nights combing through every last detail.”
“It’s frustrating. I feel like I should be able to figure this out. Like there’s got to be some key piece that I’m overlooking.”
“If we are, we’ll find it. We make a pretty good team.”
“We do. I was meaning to ask you. Do you partner your officers? In Charleston, where we
had patrols and designated sections of the city, we had partners. I know Rockford Falls is no Charleston metro area, but I wondered. Because it seemed like Bobby and Clint were paired up, so that leaves Carl and me. I don’t know him as well as the other two, but I’ll make friends. Don’t think you have to babysit me or anything because I’m Damon’s sister.”
“You think I’m babysitting? Or that I take you along with me in the car like I’m gonna show you the fuckin’ Christmas lights or take you to the county fair? Girl, you’re instrumental on this case, instrumental to me.”
I paused and rolled my lips under, thinking. Or trying to think because it felt so damn good to hear him say that to me.
“We don’t do assigned partners because, like you said, it’s not a metro region with clear divisions to patrol. It’s a little town and a lot of spread out rural areas around us. Bobby and Clint ride together a lot because they’re good buddies. Carl used to work with Ray a lot, but they both rode along with me, too. We go where we’re needed. If riding with me is a problem, or if you’d be more comfortable with a formal partnership, I’ll set you up with Carl.”
“I don’t want to be set up with Carl,” I said, a little too urgently, “riding with you isn’t a problem. I just don’t want the other guys thinking I got preferential treatment because you and Damon are close,” I said. It was partly true.
“Do you like working with me?” he asked. It disarmed me, that he even had to wonder that. There was something boyish in the way he said it, like reassurance wouldn’t be a bad thing. It startled me, a confident and commanding man, a chief, was asking me if I liked being his partner.
“Yeah. I like you,” I said. “I mean, I like working with you.”
“Then I want you to finish out this case with me,” he said. “We match up well on this one. We have the same view of things here. I know you understand my concerns and I know you have my back.”
“I do,” I said, and it felt strange, like making a vow. Like maybe a bigger vow than you’d make at the altar in a white dress. Because I promised to have his back and look out for him, that he could trust me no matter how bad things got.
“You know I got you,” he said, looking at me in some soft way, where his eyes melted me right there in my seat. I nodded because I didn’t know what to say to that. Because answering in words wasn’t perfect for me then.
Brody drained his beer and I pushed mine toward him, “I only took a couple sips. Have mine if you’re not afraid of my germs. I’ll drive you back,” I offered.
He took the bottle and drank from it, eyes on mine. “I’m not afraid of your germs, Laura. I’m not afraid of anything about you.”
I felt blocks fall in my chest, a tower kicked over just like that. I had felt what he said. Right through the heart, like a clean shot from his sidearm, only deadlier if that was possible. My breath sawed in and out as if I were stumbling over the finish after a 5K. I got to my feet.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed for the bathroom.
I had to get myself together. A crush had been bad enough. Lust had been worse. But feelings? I was catching feelings for my boss. After I used the bathroom, I scrubbed my hands and then stared in the mirror. My eyes were bright and my cheeks flushed. As I dried my hands off, I stared at them like they’d betrayed me. My steady hands were shaking. The same hands I used to teach game management guys a marksmanship refresher now trembled like I wasn’t much of a badass at all. I wanted him, plain and not simple at all.
Stalking out of the bathroom, remembering who I was, why I’d moved home and that being a cop was the only important in my life besides my family, I was ready to drive my boss back to the station and head home for the day. So I pulled up short when he was right there in the hall outside the bathroom. Too tall, too big, too close. I nearly rammed right into his wall of a chest. He was leaning against the paneled wall, all hot eyes and broad shoulders.
“Were you waiting on me?” I said.
“I figured I’d go to the bathroom before we leave, and then I came out and waited right here. Might as well have held your purse for you,” he said wryly.
I made to answer, some smartass comment, when before I knew how or when it happened, I was in his arms and we were kissing. Brody Peters had his hot mouth all over me. Our lips met, a clash of teeth and tongues, urgent.
“God, I’ve been dying for this,” he muttered and then slid his tongue along the roof of my mouth. I rose on tiptoe, my heart threatening to beat out of my ribcage. My greedy hands were all over his chest. He swamped me with his size, his muscles, the sheer power of his body. He bent my head back over his arm and plundered my mouth deep and long, that kiss the most sexual thing I’d ever experienced, a hot ripple thrilling in my blood. I was loose in his arms, every inhibition burned away. My arms reached for his neck, my hands in his hair, and I let him know with my body how good this felt. He ate at my lips like a starving man, sending a bolt of searing pleasure coiling low in my belly.
I managed to gasp out, “You don’t know how I’ve wanted this with you.”
“You have?” He drew back an inch, met my eyes with his hot dark ones that felt like a lick along my bare skin. “How long?”
“When you shook my hand,” I said sheepishly.
“You’ve had me so damn hard all week,” he groaned, his mouth going to my jaw.
14
Brody
I woke up sprawled facedown across my bed. It couldn’t have happened. Just another feverish dream about my employee and best friend’s sister. A dirty dream didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t make anyone, say, have to resign their employment because their boss damn near fucked them outside a bar bathroom. But there it was, all the hot shame rushing back as I recalled it.
I’d waited outside the door for her. I’d seized her—seized was the word for it. I had her in my arms, had my tongue in her mouth as she sucked it so sweet and true. I’d gone up in white-hot flames then, spun her around and pinned her to the wall with my mouth. I had her wrist against the wood, my hand circling it, trapping it. The other arm she had thrown around my neck and held on tightly. Her curves, her movements were all driving me higher out of my mind. She rode my knee that I pushed between her warm thighs, cradling her hot core. She rocked into it, getting the pressure she wanted. I had leaned over, my body sheltering her, covering her. I wasn’t going to let anyone see her, would probably have beat the hell out of anyone who approached us. The seething desire stole all my inhibitions. I was riding pure instinct, my tongue tangled with hers and the delicious roll of her hips as she gripped my thigh with her legs. Sweet and hot and making me desperate to be inside her.
Laura said the best things, things about how she’d wanted me from the minute she saw me again and that I felt so good, that I kissed her just right. I knew she fit me, our mouths coming together like it was natural. There was no awkward turning my head the wrong way or bumping noses, just a fiery kiss that went on and on until it stole my ability to think or even to breathe.
“Not here,” she whispered against my lips.
I had reared back. I looked down at her, at how her auburn hair was all around her shoulders and her lips were reddened and bruised from my kiss. She looked debauched, like those girls who crawl sheepishly out of backseats when a cop beat on a fogged-up window out where the teenagers park on Saturday nights. Her throat and chest flushed and her eyes feverish and glassy. Like she’d been drugged, but the drug was me, my touch and my kiss. I’d come way too close to using her, to having her up against the wall, wild and reckless. I stepped back, withdrawing my leg from between hers, letting her out of my arms. It felt terrible to let her out of my arms. It felt wrong, like everything in my body screamed for me to keep going. But my will wouldn’t allow it.
I was supposed to be an honorable man. I did not maul my deputies in back hallways or consider if they’d let me unbutton their uniforms. I recoiled across the width of the hallway from her and straightened my shirt and hair. She started fumbling aro
und with her uniform, seemed helpless to fix it so it looked remotely normal. It would have looked to an outsider like she was the one who had a couple beers, and I was the one dead sober, when the reverse was true. In the end, I helped her. I fixed a button that had come loose, tucked her hair behind her ears since it had tumbled over her shoulders, and straightened her collar. I did all this with my lips pressed tight together and the resignation of a man being marched to his execution.
After I had repaired her appearance which I had been the one to dishevel, I stepped back from her. One touch would be poison, would be a surge of ecstasy that burned up the rest of my shaky resolve. We walked to the squad car and she slid in the driver’s seat. I stared out the window all the way there. Neither of us said a single word until she pulled into the station.
“I apologize,” I said, half mumbling it. She didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken. She just tossed the keys in the seat, got out and took off in her own car. I felt like a heel, like some creep who had groped her in a bar when she had been innocently coming out of the ladies room.
When I woke up and remembered all that, I swore. I couldn’t believe I’d screwed up so badly. I sat on the edge of the bed trying to get my head together so I could talk to her. The only thing that would make this worse and more awkward was pretending it hadn’t happened. I’d take full responsibility. I’d partner her up with Carl immediately and only see her at staff meetings. No more late-night burgers in my office, no more long talks on a patrol drive. I’d give her up, was what it felt like. Although she was hardly mine to let go. My chest hurt, part shame and part regret. Because for the last week or so, I’d been pretty damn happy. I had a puzzling case to challenge me and a new partner to challenge me, one that made me feel more alive than I’d been in years.
My phone rang. I knew Bobby’s number and answered it.
“We got a break, Brody,” he said. “A girl in Overton disappeared too. The same burner phone number was used with her, too. Her phone was in her car, but the last call had come from the same number.”
Hot Cop: A Brother's Best Friend Romance Page 11