The Price of Cash

by Ashley Bartlett

  Reyes watched Laurel’s face until he passed out.

  Chapter Thirty

  Duarte told me the waiting room had been packed all night. I hadn’t come because I wasn’t sure of my place. I had no claim on Laurel. No matter how much I disagreed with her blue brotherhood, I knew that space wasn’t mine to intrude on. So I had settled for texts from Duarte. It wasn’t until long after midnight that I decided that was fucking stupid. Despite our strange circumstances, Reyes was my friend.

  I drove to the Med Center and followed Duarte’s instructions to the right waiting room. The waiting bodies had dwindled to two guys and Laurel. I stood in the doorway and watched her. She was still wearing her blood-soaked shirt. It looked stiff. White lines across the shoulders showed where her holster had been. She slouched with her elbows on her knees, her head close to the other two officers. Their conversation seemed to float, to fill the space with muttering.

  “Kallen?” I said.

  Laurel and one of the guys turned. It was Lance.

  “Hi.” Laurel stood slowly, like she’d forgotten how.

  Lance and the other guy stood as well.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to see how he’s doing,” I said.

  “Why don’t we see if they will let you in?” Lance clapped his hand on the other officer’s shoulder and pulled him toward the door.

  I stepped inside. “Isn’t it way after visiting hours?”

  Lance grinned cockily. “We’re cops. They never keep us from visiting each other.”

  “Right.” I didn’t even bother getting irritated. I was over cops.

  Lance and his buddy left. I took another step toward Laurel. She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my neck.

  “I was so fucking scared,” she mumbled.

  “I know. I was too.”

  We stood there. I could feel the cadence of her heart pressing into my chest. She radiated heat through the thin, stiff cotton of her shirt. I dug my hands into her shoulders, tightened my grip. She took deep, shuddering breaths. Her exhalations were warm against my skin. She still smelled like cedar and salt.

  I heard footsteps approaching. Laurel stiffened when she heard them too, but she didn’t let go.

  “All right, Cash, we got you two minutes with the man himself. He’s asleep, but you can stare at his dumb face.”

  I let go of Laurel with one arm, but kept the other firmly around her shoulders. Lance was leaning in the doorway with half a smile on his face.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Anytime. Well, not anytime. I try to avoid situations like this.” Lance waved us forward. “Come on.”

  Laurel tightened her grip on my waist and took a step toward her brother. “Let’s go.”

  “Oh, introductions,” Lance said as he led us down the hallway. “This is my brother, Seth.” He nudged Seth with his shoulder.

  Seth reached over Lance. “It’s good to meet you, Cash.”

  “You too.” I shook his hand. “I thought your brother was Logan?”

  “That dickwad?” Lance laughed. “Sure, if blood counts. Seth is my bro, though. We were in diapers together.”

  Laurel squeezed my waist. “He means that literally. They once found a package of Grandma’s diapers, stripped off their underwear, and climbed into one big diaper together. It was disgusting and weird.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head. “That’s way more information than I ever needed.”

  Lance leaned closer to me. “There are pictures.”

  “Is there any way to get him to stop talking?” I asked Laurel.

  “Not that I’ve found,” she said.

  I looked over at Lance, but he had rapidly sobered. He stopped outside a door. “We will be out here.”

  Laurel and I went in. Laurel twisted her fist in my shirt. Reyes was asleep like Lance had said. Other than being astonishingly pale, he looked normal. White bandages peeked out at the neckline of his hospital gown.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  Laurel hesitated like she didn’t know what I was asking. “Michelson’s guys got Tyler. He’s in custody somewhere in the hospital. Two gunshot wounds. One major, one minor. They expect a full recovery.”

  “Okay. That’s good, right?” I knew all of that, but there was no point in telling her. Nate and I had tricked Duarte into giving us information. He was very confused about what we should be privy to. We also learned that Alyssa had disappeared. The Hirsch house was currently being ransacked and catalogued. It was probably good that our tracker had fallen off her undercarriage on the freeway. Its presence in the garage would have raised some uncomfortable questions.

  “Yep.”

  “What about Reyes?” Which was the question I really wanted an answer to.

  She took a deep breath. “The bullet didn’t hit any important structures in his chest. It clipped an artery or vein…I don’t know. One of the big ones.”

  “That’s why he bled so much.” And why he was so pale.

  She nodded a few times. “Yeah. Michelson helped me slow the bleeding.”

  “He going to be okay?”

  More nodding. “Assuming he doesn’t get an infection or anything, they said he will recover just fine.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  Laurel leaned her head on my shoulder. Reyes slept on. The gentle rise and fall of his torso was a reliable comfort.

  “Can you take me home now?” Laurel asked.

  “Yes.”

  We left the room. Lance and Seth were leaning against the opposite wall. They pushed up and came toward us.

  “Everyone good?” Lance asked.

  “Yeah,” Laurel said.

  “I’m going to take her home,” I said.

  Lance clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Cool. See if you can get her to eat or shower. I’m not holding out for a miracle so either one would be pretty chill.”

  I laughed. Laurel shook her head. We got to the elevator. Lance hit the button because he was clearly the guy who liked to hit elevator buttons. Lance and Seth kept up a running commentary the whole way to the first floor. We walked out to the parking lot together. When we got to my SUV, Laurel let go of me for the first time. She hugged Seth and called him little bro. Then she hugged Lance and called him idiot bro.

  In the car, she pulled one foot up on the seat and stared out the window. When I parked outside her apartment, she looked mildly surprised. She turned toward me and rested her cheek on her knee.

  “Will you come up?”

  “I did promise your brother I would try to get you to shower.”

  Laurel smiled, but there was a hint of disappointment in it. “You don’t need to feel obligated.”

  “I’m not.” I reached over and squeezed her leg. “I want to be here with you.”

  “Because my partner got shot and I’m broken?”

  “Because your partner got shot and you’re still not broken.”

  Some of the disappointment slipped away. We went upstairs. Laurel unlocked the door and led me through the apartment, flipping on lights at random as she went.

  “Go take a shower. I’m making you food.”

  She sighed and went down the hallway on the right toward the bedroom and the bathroom. The shower turned on. I went through the doorway on the left into the kitchen. I hated that I knew my way around Laurel’s apartment because I had broken into it before. Then again, if we were analyzing our past behavior, neither of us would fare well.

  I opened the fridge. She had more food than I did, which wasn’t saying much. I opened cabinets and drawers at random until I found enough supplies to make scrambled eggs. The shower turned off. I stuck my head around the corner in time to see Laurel walking away from me, buck naked, running a towel over her hair. I groaned. She turned and grinned sleepily.

  “Got a problem?” she asked.

  “No, Detective. Put something on and come eat.”

  She shrugged.

  I went back in the kitchen and washe
d the pan out. Laurel leaned against the doorframe. She was wearing short boxer briefs and a threadbare T-shirt with a bear on it. Dangerous. I handed her the plate of scrambled eggs and pointed at the kitchen table where there was a glass of juice. She ignored my instructions and ate standing at the counter.

  “These are crazy good. Why are they so good?”

  “Partially because I put a fuckload of cheese in them. But mostly because you probably haven’t eaten all day.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Laurel drained the glass of juice, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cabinet behind her.

  I took the empty plate out of her hands. She would have dropped it in about three seconds.

  “I got this.” I washed the plate and put it on the dish rack. “Go get in bed.” She didn’t move. “Hey.” I squeezed her hand. Her eyes flickered open. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep not standing up?”

  Laurel grinned sleepily. “I think I’d prefer if you came to bed with me.”

  “Yeah?” I was full of great lines.

  She leaned forward and kissed me slowly. It reminded me of the first day we had kissed. There was something chaste, yet vulnerable in it. She grabbed the tail of my T-shirt and dragged me around the corner, down the hallway to her bedroom. I kicked off my shoes. She unbuttoned my pants and shoved them down. We crawled in bed. Laurel was asleep before I even hit the light. She curled up against my side. Her damp hair smelled clean

  and sweet.

  *****

  It was just after dawn when I woke up. Laurel was pressed back against my stomach. My hand was under her shirt, splayed across her rib cage, which might have been invasive if not for her fingers intertwined with mine. My face was pressed between her shoulders. She smelled like skin and heat and sleep.

  I tightened my hold on her. She made a contented noise. I dozed. When I woke up again, her foot was curled around my ankle. The movement forced my thigh between hers. I traced my fingertips over the ridges of her ribs, dug into her smooth flesh. She woke up when I kissed the back of her neck. She arched into me and sighed. I continued my line of kisses up her neck to her ear, back down to the juncture of her shoulder.

  Her shoulder blades were outlined perfectly under her thin T-shirt. They arced and swooped like wings. I kissed the rough cotton covering them. Laurel reached back and buried her fingers in my hair, yanked me closer to her body. I shifted my weight until I was half on top of her. She pressed her ass back into my crotch. My hand was halfway down her body before I realized what I was doing. I wanted to go, to move, to feel her thrum beneath me, but we had done that. It had demolished us. I stopped with my fingertips against the elastic of her underwear.

  “Do you want me to stop?” I asked.

  “Do you?” She tugged on my hair until my lips were against her cheek.

  “No.” I kissed her cheek, the corner of her mouth.

  She kissed me back. “I can’t make you any promises.”

  “Neither of us can.”

  “But you want this?” she asked.

  “Badly.” I pressed my hips against her ass.

  She groaned. I drew lines against her skin until she grabbed my hand and shoved it into her underwear. I dragged my fingertips between her lips. Her breathing went ragged. She reached back again and cupped my neck, pulled me tight against her. I traced around her clit, dipped a fingertip into her cunt. She rolled her hips into the bed, tried to trap me against her.

  I licked and sucked at her neck, bit the soft skin. She rubbed herself against my hand. Her cunt was warm and slick. I forced myself to keep still, to make her work for it. When her movements became erratic, I pressed lower. She lifted her hips to give me room. I slid inside her. She gasped at the invasion. I moved slowly at first, then built a rhythm.

  Laurel let go of my neck and reached for my ass instead. She held me tight against her. I pressed down with my hips, braced her against the bed. She ground her clit into my palm. Her body felt solid, real against mine. I groaned. She pushed her hand inside my underwear. I tried to focus on my fingers buried inside her, the wet press of her clit, but she cupped me and squeezed and everything refocused. I angled my hips into her harder.

  She was mumbling nonsense now. Gasping and groaning at each movement of my hand. When she came, everything was perfectly still for a moment. She arched back, pressed her fingers into my clit with bruising accuracy, held on that edge, then fell. Her breathing came in a rush. She exhaled, went limp. I started to move off her, afraid I was crushing her, but she twitched her fingers just right.

  “Stay. I like you here,” she said.

  “Okay.” I forced myself to keep still, waited for the final press that would let me come.

  She turned her face toward me. Kissed, licked my jawline. I knew she was taunting me. Hell, I was enjoying it thoroughly. When she had lulled me into a soft, sweet expectation, she began to move against my clit with deep purpose. The trembling pressure made me jerk, beg, come.

  Laurel shifted under me, flipped. She pulled my head down to her chest. My breathing finally evened out.

  “If that’s bad at decision-making, then maybe we’ve been making decisions wrong for a long time,” she said.

  I laughed. “I blame you and your cop morals.”

  She groaned and started laughing too. “Same.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Andy was a shitty driver. She had no concept of the subtleties of steering a vehicle. As a result, she was all over the place. She ran into walls and other drivers and basically every banana peel she could. It was uncanny, her ability to hit every single banana peel, but completely miss the road itself.

  “Did you just fucking shrink me?” Andy shouted.

  “No. You just shrank me,” Laurel said.

  “It was Peach, guys.” I was shooting for innocence, but fell short of the mark.

  “You’re Princess Peach, asshole.” Laurel nudged me with her shoulder.

  “Oh, right. I guess I am.” I sailed across the finish line. “First place, bitches.”

  “Third, dammit.” Laurel dropped her controller in her lap.

  Andy grunted and scowled and tried real hard. “Seventh is better than eighth, right?”

  Laurel laughed at her. “Sure, bud.”

  My phone lit up on the table again. I’d ignored it the first time because winning was important. I grabbed it. Unknown number. Super.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, umm is Cash there? I’m looking for Cash.”

  “This is her.”

  “Cash! It’s Raleigh.”

  “And Brando,” a voice in the distance shouted.

  “You know, Dawson’s friends?”

  “Yeah, hi guys. How’s it going?” I resisted the need to shout to match their volume.

  “We are high as fuck right now so that’s pretty dope.” There was a heavy EDM track playing so I felt pretty confident in assuming they were at a rave or club.

  “It sounds real dope.”

  “It’s so dope,” Raleigh said.

  “Hey, where you at right now?” This was either a misguided we’ve been roofied call or an even more misguided come party with us call.

  “Kadi Parti,” he shouted.

  “Huh?”

  “Kadi Parti,” they both shouted the second time.

  “Where is Kadi Parti?”

  “Club Plastics,” Raleigh, Brando, and Andy all answered.

  I shot Andy a look. She shrugged and mouthed, “What?”

  “Listen, Cash. Cash, listen. Listen,” Raleigh said.

  “What’s up, man?”

  “Cash, there’s a chick here selling fentanyl.”

  I tapped Laurel’s shoulder. She gave me a look, then went back to ignoring me. “No way. Tell me about this woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The one selling fentanyl,” I said. Laurel’s head shot up.

  “She’s a scary lady,” Raleigh said.

  “How do you know it’s fentanyl?”

  “We
don’t!” he said triumphantly.

  “Why do you think it’s fentanyl?”

  “Because Becca said this chick was selling fentanyl.” As if I knew who the hell Becca was.

  “You didn’t take any though, right?”

  “Cash, we took a lot of pills. I don’t know what they were,” Raleigh said very matter-of-factly.

  “Were any of the pills black?”

  Laurel began repeating a litany of curse words. She grabbed her phone and started making calls.

  “Yo, how did you know?” Raleigh started singing along with the music. It was EDM so there weren’t any lyrics, but that didn’t stop Raleigh.

  “Because the fentanyl pills are black.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Laurel tossed my Converse at me. I sat on the couch and pulled them on.

  “Are you sure the fentanyl is bad?”

  “Yes. Fentanyl is bad.”

  “Uh-oh,” Raleigh said.

  “What’s uh-oh?”

  “Maybe it’s bad to take pills when people give them to you?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Come on,” Laurel whispered. “Backup is meeting us at the club.”

  Andy waved as we left. I gave her a head nod and followed Laurel to her truck.

  “They took fentanyl?” Laurel asked.

  “Of course they did.”

  “I’ll assign someone to get them out and bring them to a hospital. You want me to text Nate too?”

  I nodded at her before going back to my inane phone call. “Hey, Raleigh, man. I need you to focus. Laurel and I are going to come get you. Can you point out the chick selling fentanyl?”

  “I can try, but like we didn’t buy it. Becca did. She said the chick was so mean. You know those girls in high school who are like really, really mean?”

  “Mean girls?” I asked.

  “Yes! She was just like that,” Raleigh said.

  “Got it. She was mean.”

  “Hey, Cash? Did we just take the same kinda drugs that killed Pedro? I don’t want to die,” Raleigh said.