My good mood soured as soon as I walked into the police station and a wave of silence spread around me. Everyone turned to stare, giving me the opportunity to feel what suspects must feel when they got dragged in for questioning.

The only time cops get quiet around another cop is when that cop is in trouble for something. That explained why I’d been called in on a day off, but it didn’t answer the other question I had.

What do they think I did?

O’Brian gave me a head nod as I approached his desk, but quickly went back to filling out some paperwork rather than making eye contact.

“Any news on the situation down on The Strip?” I asked, sitting on the edge of his desk and watching Rick and a few other cops whispering to each other at the coffee pot across the room.

“Nope,” he said without even looking up from the form.

My work-family had turned on me. It must have felt pretty similar for Evan when he came out to his parents.

It’s too bad he won’t take me there for his birthday. I’d give them a piece of my mind.

“Maybe you should go wait for the chief,” O’Brian suggested.

“So it’s going to be like that.” I asked, knocking my knuckles on his desk.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

There was no way to maintain any amount of dignity while walking to our office’s little piece of the Siberian wasteland: the chair outside the chief’s office to await punishment.

The only thing cops hated more than criminals was cops who turned bad. Bad cops were the infection that could make the entire police force die unless it was dealt with and chopped off.

Now, I was waiting for the ax.

I’d never been good at waiting. After watching the clock on the far wall announce that five minutes had passed, my foot started tapping rapidly on the floor. My phone provided no distractions since my brain refused to focus on reading any of the words. By the time I pulled my keys from my pack, stuck my finger through the circle on the keychain, and started spinning them, I noticed that I was fidgeting as badly as Evan always did.

He must be rubbing off on me. Man, him rubbing off on me sounds like a much better way to spend the afternoon.

Realizing that Evan would be the perfect distraction, I sent him a text.

Typing the words made it more real. There was almost certainly a punishment heading my way, and not the fun kind like getting spanked by Evan before he fucked me last night.

When I started tossing my keys in the air and catching them, Cindy cleared her throat pointedly at me. I didn’t stop, though. It wasn’t like I’d end up in more trouble because of my fidgeting.

The keys fell to the floor when the front door crashed open.

Marco and Dennis dragged a kicking and screaming Trey into the police station.

“Get your fat, ugly hands off me, pussies. I didn’t do a damn thing.” Trey shouted.

He was dressed in a sheer, baby-blue shirt, tight white jeans, and those crazy pink combat boots.

He was exactly the man I needed to talk to. He had to know something. Five minutes in one of the interrogation rooms, and I’d get to the bottom of it. The rules wouldn’t allow it without reason, of course, but it was nice to pretend that I could just bully him into leaking information like they do in the movies.

Watching the cops struggling to hold onto Trey was amusing. They should have just cuffed him if they had a valid enough reason to force him to come to the station in the first place.

Weird.

The cops had dragged Trey most of the way through the station, but Trey hadn’t given up on his struggles or his shouting. “I didn’t take anything. I didn’t touch anything. And I’m not going to say a goddamn thing without a lawyer. Rick, tell these motherfuckers to let me go.”

I did a double-take at the words. Rick didn’t look up from pouring creamer into his coffee cup, but Trey wasn’t asking Rick for help because they were poker buddies. There was something going on between them.

“Relax, Trey,” Dennis said. “We just want to—”

Trey broke free of their grasp and charged for the front door. I was close enough to stop him from leaving. Without worrying about the consequences, or even what Trey had done this time, I sprung from my seat and launched myself into his path. At the last second, I lowered my shoulder into his, and wrapped my arms around his chest.

The crash as we fell against a wall of file cabinets awoke the other stunned officers.

Trey tried punching me, but couldn’t get a good enough angle to get any force behind it. He reached toward his pants, figuring he might have a gun tucked in his waistband, I slapped at his hands.

Trey screamed loudly and in a high-pitched voice. “What the fuck, fag? Grabbing my dick the first chance you get?”

Rick, O’Brian, Marco, and Dennis swarmed to my aid.

I was getting ready to tell them to handcuff Trey when the chief shouted, “James. Get in here. Now.”

“You guys good?” I asked, checking my hands to see if I’d been cut.

“Yeah, we’ve got this,” O’Brian said. “Nice tackle. Stupid, but good form. You better get in there.” He patted my shoulder and nudged me toward the chief.

As I entered the dreaded office to receive my punishment, I looked back at Trey. He had calmed quite a bit. Marco and Dennis were yelling something at O’Brian and Rick. They seemed to come to an agreement.

Marco and Dennis backed off. O’Brian and Rick escorted Trey out of the building.

Why would they do that? Is O’Brian in on it too? That doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get time to ponder the new mystery any further.

The chief barked my name again and sounded more pissed than normal.

The time had come to hear why I was in trouble. Instead of being afraid, though, I was mostly curious.

Things are getting stranger around here by the hour.