by Rhys Ford
“I am the damned chain of command.” Book slapped at his desk, nearly upending a wire basket of pens. He caught it before it spilled, righting it with a scowl on his face. “If the DA wants a fight, I’ll be more than happy to give it to that bastard. He’s not going to take one of my cops off the streets because he needs to show he’s tough on anyone wearing a badge. Just explain to me, Kane, what you were doing there, and make sure that none of it includes an undercover operation I knew nothing about.”
“It wasn’t a sting or anything undercover,” Kane replied. “Do you think I would take St. John with me on something like that? His manager was meeting with a woman, one who said she had information about St. John’s mother. She’d been in contact with his management company, and they’d arranged to meet at the gardens. St. John wanted to be there, but his manager cautioned him to remain behind until she had more information.”
“So why didn’t he stay home? If she told him she didn’t want him there, why was he there?” Casey asked. “He was setting himself up for a confrontation, or worse, her attacking him.”
“Because the surefire way to get Miki St. John to do something is to tell him he shouldn’t,” he informed his superior officers, unable to keep a grin off his face, but he sobered up quickly when Book shot him a hard look. “It was supposed to be a simple meet. She was coming with the packet that was recovered on the scene and anecdotal evidence of her connection to St. John’s mother. At the most, we expected her to shake down the manager for money, precisely the reason St. John shouldn’t have been there.”
“Stop calling him St. John. We all know who he is. It’s one thing to be formal when you’re giving a report, but it’s another thing entirely when you’re talking about the guy you go home to every night,” his captain interjected. “The manager? That’s the survivor, right?”
“Yes, sir. She took a shot to the ribs, which deflected into her abdomen. She’s in surgery right now, but I was assured by the hospital she will be okay. I’m hoping that once she regains consciousness, I’ll be able to question her about—”
“You’re not going anywhere near her, Morgan,” Casey cut him off. “One, you’re too close to the case. Two, we still haven’t decided if you are going to be placed on administrative leave.”
“I’ve decided.” Book leaned back in his chair, nestling his shoulders into its padded leather cushion. “Morgan isn’t going to ride a desk, not if I have anything to say about it. We are already overloaded and down three inspectors this week. There’s a dead woman in the morgue with sketchy identification and nothing on her but a manila envelope of photos and a couple of letters. You were on the scene, tell me what happened. Was the shooter random and they were caught in the cross-fire spray, or was the manager targeted? Did it look like the woman signaled to someone?”
“No, she was fully engaged with Edie, the manager. The victim wasn’t looking at the road; her left side was facing the street and I could see her face.” Kane distanced himself from the turbulent emotions he’d been suppressing since he first heard the gunfire and shoved Miki to the ground, praying nothing struck the man he loved. Thinking back on what he saw, he parsed out the woman’s expressions and body language. “She was aggressive, a little pushy, and if I had to guess, she was trying to get something out of Edie, either money or maybe she wanted to talk to Miki. I didn’t get a chance to talk to either of them and, well, listening in on the conversation could have potentially been sticky. The meet happened quickly. I only got notification about it about half an hour before it happened.”
“Did St. John know?” Book asked. “Does he know the woman’s name?”
“He might. I don’t know if Edie shared it with him. Up until she knocked on our front door, he was adamant about not having a damned thing to do with getting into contact with the woman. I think Edie pressed it because she said she had things to give to him, things from his mother.” Kane looked down at his hands, surprised to see speckles of blood along his knuckles. “They might’ve talked before, but he didn’t want—no, he refused—to even consider meeting with her.”
“Then why did he?” Casey straightened, getting up from his perch on the credenza against the office’s long wall. “Why did he change his mind? And why did you go with him?”
“Because Edie said please. And after everything he’s been through with her, Miki will do anything if it is something she feels strongly about. He was found in the middle of the street—on St. John—covered in bruises, wearing a dirty diaper, and some asshole had put a tattoo on his arm. He wasn’t even three years old and someone tossed him out like he was trash.” Kane squared his shoulders, looked his lieutenant straight in the eye. “To answer your question, I went because I love him, and I’m never going to send him out to face his monsters without me standing right next to him. As long as I have breath in my body, I’m going to be there.”
Chapter Two
Quinn: Rafe, ever consider marriage?
Rafe: Like to each other?
Quinn: Sort of. I mean, everyone seems to be getting married, but I don’t know if it’s for me. Or for you. It seems… weird.
Rafe: Works for your mom and dad. Works for a lot of people. Guess it comes down to if you need to be married.
Quinn: Do you?
Rafe: I wouldn’t say no if you were asking. I happen to like doing weird with you. It’s kind of our thing.
—Lazy Afternoon on the Couch, Harley on Rafe’s Feet
THE BAYSIDE warehouse was still standing when Kane rolled up. A single light was on, a sliver of gold peeking through the slit in the curtains hung across the front windows. It was hard to believe it had only been a few years since Miki’s godforsaken terrier broke into his woodworking studio, stole a valuable piece of koa, and brought the irascible, sexy singer into Kane’s life. Climbing down from his Hummer, Kane wondered what lay in wait for him behind the warehouse’s front door. He was tired, fatigued to his marrow, but he knew he was probably going into one of the few times he and Miki would fight.
“Maybe Mick will be rational,” Kane muttered, willing his hand to turn the doorknob. He never thought of his brain as sarcastic, but the echoing laughter bouncing off the inside of his skull somehow didn’t surprise him. “Might as well get this over with.”
The living room was empty.
And so was the kitchen at the far end of the warehouse.
It was an open sight line, the long space only divided by a kitchen peninsula the interior designer enthusiastically saw doubling as a casual eating area. The long dining room table set between the nest of sectionals in the living space rarely saw a meal on it. Instead it was home to a collection of guitar parts, sheet music, and a couple of ratty tennis balls Kane occasionally found in his sneakers.
He wasn’t sure what the warehouse originally had been other than a brick structure with cement floors and sweeping arches, but now it was home. With half its space on the lower floor dedicated to the main living areas and the formal dining room now converted to the master bedroom he shared with Miki, it was comfortable, a retreat from the day-to-day business of dealing with mankind’s casual evil.
At least it was comfortable when Miki was around.
“Well, he’s probably upstairs on the roof.” Kane put away his weapon, locking up the gun he carried on his hip. Dude, Miki’s dog, was nowhere to be found on the main floor, but since the front door hadn’t been locked—something he talked to Miki about until he was blue in the face—he didn’t think his lover had gone roaming through the city. “Question is, do I take a beer with me? Or a bottle of whiskey for both of us to share?”
Kane took a bottle of Hibiki 21 with him.
The rooftop deck with its open wooden pergola and thick canopy covered the mounds of pillows forming Miki’s sanctuary. It had started off small, like most things in Miki’s life, then grew to form a shelter away from the bustle of living going on downstairs. Kane put the covering up so San Francisco’s unpredictable weather was kept off his lover’s spa
ce, and another large deck had been built by the access door, a home for a grill, wet bar, and enough seating for two baseball teams—or one Irish cop family. He’d been able to talk Miki into letting him install an outhouse of sorts, just a toilet and a sink, so no one had to go downstairs to use the bathroom, but when it was all said and done, the rooftop with its incredible view of San Francisco Bay and Chinatown was Miki’s domain.
In the couple of years Kane had called the warehouse home, he still hadn’t gotten used to its opulent view of the city. Tucked into a steep drop-off with Russian Hill on one side and a vibrant Asian community on the other, the structure’s roof was the perfect perch for an evening of night gazing. Behind them and to the right, Chinatown rarely slept. It murmured even late at night, its flashes of neon and savory aromas creeping over the rooftop’s short protective wall, but it was the view of the water and its embellishments of light that took Kane’s breath away.
He loved the city he was raised in as much as he loved the green-hilled countryside owned by the Morgans and Finnegans back in Ireland. Coming up to the roof was like seeing an old family friend his parents told him to take with a grain of salt, a familiar but intriguing personality he would never get tired of.
Much like his Mick.
But also like his Mick, the city held threads of darkness he could never seem to heal, and where in Miki he could encourage the exploration of his pain in the hopes of the singer finding some peace, San Francisco demanded he abrade its evil from its streets, taking the worst of its shadows and hopefully leaving room for its brightest lights.
The woman with Edie—a dead woman with another woman’s name on her lips—shouldn’t have died today. He’d been prepared for all sorts of things where she was concerned: extortion, blackmail, even catfishing, not death. Not murder. Even as he mentally girded himself for battle, he knew he was carrying that woman with him and would continue to shoulder her until he found out who extinguished her light.
“Let’s just hope the love of my life and the scourge of my existence feels the same way,” Kane muttered, hefting the whiskey. “Not like he didn’t know I was a cop before he signed up for this ride.”
Dude let out a halfhearted woof when Kane opened the rooftop door, but other than a bit of a thump of a tail against a paisley pillow, the small sand-colored terrier didn’t move. Miki, however, was a different story.
The fairy lights strung under the pergola’s beams sparkled a soft firefly-like glow over Miki’s tall, sprawled body. His hazel eyes were nearly obsidian under the shadow of his shaggy brown mane, but Kane could see the suspicion and anger lingering in their depths. He expected a snarl, or at least a sarcastic rejoinder, but Miki remained silent, watching Kane as he approached.
It was always difficult to reconcile himself with the fact he was in love with—was the love of—the magnificent, complicated feral creature that was Miki St. John. The lead singer of a tragic and now resurrected band had been a constant and ignored presence in the Morgan household, especially since his youngest sister wallpapered her room with Sinner’s Gin posters, so Kane knew he’d seen the man’s beautiful face more than a few times before their first meeting. It’d taken him a bit to connect the man who couldn’t control his thieving dog with the rock star plastered on his sibling’s walls, but by the time he had, Kane was pretty certain he’d already gotten hung up on the guy.
He’d never known that rock star. Instead, he knew the musician and the man with a haunting past and sad eyes. Kane was there to catch Miki when his childhood abusers were found murdered and held him up when Damien, the man he called brother, returned from the dead. They’d been through a lot in the short time they’d been together, and now it looked as if they needed to go through a little bit more.
“I brought the whiskey.” Kane held up the Hibiki’s distinctive bottle. “I’m ready for my ass chewing. But just to warn you, I might chew back.”
Moving the dog proved to be more problematic than Kane expected, and he had to get around Miki’s acoustic guitar. The singer wasn’t doing much to help him, just watching with his hooded eyes and feline-flat expression. Kane wasn’t sure what was worse, Miki’s hot anger or his cold rage. The cushions let out a puff of air as he settled into them. Then Dude decided Kane’s legs were his personal heater, and he snuggled his slightly grimy furry body against Kane’s thigh.
“So on a scale of one to volcano, how pissed off are you?” Kane asked, unstoppering the whiskey. He took a sip of it, enjoying the sting in his throat and the numbness of the back of his tongue, then swallowed. Holding the bottle out, he suppressed a relieved smile when Miki took it from him. “Are we arguing tonight or are we talking? And before we get started, where’s your brother and my cousin?”
“D and Sionn took a drive over to Half Moon Bay. Something about a grunion run, which is bullshit because it’s not time for that. Pretty sure they just want to fuck on the beach.” The swig Miki took was longer than Kane’s, and when his tongue darted out to lick the drops on his lower lip, Kane longed to chase it back into Miki’s mouth. He would’ve if he didn’t fear getting bitten. “We’re not going to argue. Not going to lie to you, I was planning on coming home and tossing your shit out onto the driveway ’cause I was that pissed, but Dad—Donal—talked me down.
“I guess I forget you’re a cop sometimes. Don’t know how ’cause you might as well tattoo a badge on top of your forehead, but I do,” he remarked in a voice so soft Kane nearly couldn’t hear him. “I think I was more scared and hurt. Because it was Edie lying there and there wasn’t anything I could do. I fucking hate being helpless. And I just guess… I needed you to do something, I don’t know what, but something. That’s not like me. I don’t need people to do things for me, but today I did. And you couldn’t. So I’ve got to get over that. Something like that happens and you’ve got to be a cop first, and Kane second. I forgot that, but Dad helped me see that.”
“So we’re okay, then?” There was a bit of satisfaction at hearing Miki call Donal Dad. Kane wasn’t going to mention it because he knew discussing some things was best done in the middle of the night while it was dark and they were in bed next to each other. Miki needed the dark to talk, an odd quirk Kane hadn’t quite figured out but was willing to accept. “If I had a choice, I would have stayed there with you, but I had faith you would take care of Edie while I saw to everyone else. I came back as soon as I could.”
“I know.” The tiny sparkles above them played with the sensual angles of Miki’s face. “When are they going to give me back the package? The cop that took my statement said they might not hand it over because there’s no proof that it’s mine.”
“It was in Edie’s possession and, well, in this case that nine tenths of the law rule makes it hers. Book said that if they can’t get it released from evidence, they will document what’s inside and share with us. Providing everyone involved isn’t an asshole and lets us. I checked in on her before I came home, and the nurse in charge said she was sleeping peacefully. She might be a bit groggy tomorrow.” He moved Miki’s guitar, sitting it gently into a stand near a post. “Did Edie tell you the woman’s name? I haven’t caught up on the reports to see if it’s in there. Planned on doing it tomorrow morning.”
His lover was a bit tense, his shoulders taut and challenging, but Kane could read the expression on Miki’s face. He needed to be held, and despite the low-grade grumbling, Miki fit into the curve of Kane’s arm, then settled against his side. Laying his head on Kane’s shoulder, Miki stared into the sky, his long lashes throwing shadows over his cheeks, and not for the first time, Kane wondered about the secrets Edie’d had in her hand when she’d been shot.
“She said it was Sandy Chai-something. Um, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention.” Miki’s mouth twisted, then he bit his lower lip. Reaching over, he scratched at Dude’s upturned belly and the dog stretched, burying his nose into the pillows. “I really didn’t want to know—about her—my mother. The only reason I went was because I didn’t want
Edie to go alone. And she wasn’t going to let this go. I guess it would help if they knew who I really was, legally, you know? The lawyers made me. The state of California gave me an ID number, but I didn’t exist, not really. I didn’t have a birth certificate or anything that proved I even existed. They don’t know if I was born here or where I came from. I mean, look at me. There’s a pretty good chance I’m not even American.
“I’ve just fought so fucking hard to survive, and I can’t look at someone erasing who I am. If they take away me being Miki St. John, then what do I have left?” Miki’s voice hitched, and he swallowed. “My mother wasn’t real until today, and now a woman who says she’d been friends with her is dead and I still don’t know anything more about her than I did when I woke up this morning. All I’ve got is more questions, and a woman who I like a lot and who’s gone to bat for me more times than I can count is in a hospital because she felt like I needed to know who gave me up.”
“You have a birth certificate and a passport,” Kane pointed out, stroking Miki’s side. Hitching up Miki’s shirt, Kane found the skin beneath warm to his touch. Miki shivered a bit at the touch of cold but let Kane continue his caress. “I don’t think they can take away who you are, and if anyone tries, you know we’ll fight them.”
“Thing is, K,” Miki whispered, “I’m sick to death of fighting them. I’m sick to death of fighting me. I’m tired inside. Some days I just want to stay in bed and never go back outside. The only thing keeping me from doing that is that you wouldn’t be there with me.”
DOCTOR HORAN was a familiar, friendly face Kane usually saw over a dead body. Today was no exception. He just wished there weren’t so many dead bodies and they would catch up every once in a while at the biannual cops’ picnic. The slender, stalwart blonde was one of the best medical examiners he’d ever worked with, and over the years he’d learned exactly how to get on her good side at nine o’clock in the morning.