Springfield, Illinois

Durango Master’s Residence

It was late on a Sunday night, a full week after Kyle’s murder. Durango lay on his couch, his arm thrown over his eyes, the bottle of tequila finally consumed and lying empty on its side on the floor in front of him. He was sick to his stomach, but more because of his thoughts rather than the booze. He’d learned at a young age how to handle his booze. His father saw to that. What a disgrace it would be if he suddenly failed to keep it in now.

A week. He’d survived an entire week without his partner. But it didn’t feel like survival. It felt more like stumbling and managing not to fall flat on his damn face.

He missed her more than he ever imagined he could miss anyone other than Sarah. Tears burned in his chest, in his throat, but they wouldn’t find an outlet, or couldn’t. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sob and scream and rant, wanted to yell at the gods and choke the life out of the person who’d done this. And he wanted to flog himself for his role in the whole damn thing. But all he could do was lie there on the couch and feel damn sorry for himself.

It was all bullshit!

He wasn’t surprised when the doorbell rang. A part of him was expecting more trouble, for a cop with a warrant to show up at any moment. He got up and wrenched the door opened, surprised to realize he was half right.

There was a cop standing there.

“What can I do for you, Detective Hyde?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said softly. “I was driving by and saw the light on and thought . . . I was going to say I had questions, but I can’t think of any right now.”

“This is harassment,” he told her, aware that she knew it.

“I can leave.”

But when she turned, he realized how desperately he didn’t want to be alone. Durango grabbed her arm and tugged her back into the apartment, anger and hatred and frustration overcoming him as he shoved her up against the door, slamming it with the weight of her body. And then he was kissing her, tearing at her clothes with almost the same determination with which she tore at his.

It wasn’t planned and wasn’t something he would have done under other circumstances. But he was grieving and what better affirmation of life than a good fuck?

He lifted her up, brought her hips to his, and thrust inside of her, loving that she was a silent lover, that she didn’t make a single sound even as he plowed inside of her, as he callously worked out his needs, not caring about hers. But he knew she wasn’t hating it. Her hips moved against his, her hands stroked his neck, his jaw, even as she sought his mouth for more of his touch. He turned, kicking his pants away, probably looking quite comical walking around the condo with his hairy ass sticking out in the wind. He carried her to the couch, falling on top of her to the sound of air rushing from her lungs.

They rolled around there for a long time, the last of their clothing finding its way to the floor as exhaustion finally took their stamina. She reached for the bottle of tequila on the floor and held it up to the light.

“You got one with some still in it?”

He tripped over her blouse on the way to the kitchen. He snatched it off the floor and tossed it to her, disappearing only long enough to grab the bottle. She was sitting up when he returned, her blouse lying on the back of the couch and his shirt over her perky little breasts.

“What’d you do that for? I like looking at them.”

“Do you? I’ve always thought they were too small.”

“Small is in the eye of the beholder. I personally think breasts of any size are beautiful.”

“Yeah? Tell that to my ex-husband. He married a woman half my age with a rack that’s big enough to require special order bras.”

“His loss.”

Detective Hyde—Donna—smiled. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

He took a swig from the tequila bottle and handed it to her, impressed with the long swallow she took. Then she studied him, her eyes moving slowly over the length of his body.

“I kind of thought you and that human resources lady had a thing going.”

“Who? Gracie?”

“The way she kept looking at you the other day in your office. It sort of looked like it.”

“No. Not on my part, anyway.”

She smiled, lifting the bottle to her lips for another slug. “I circled the block four times trying to tell if you had anyone in here with you. Glad you didn’t.”

“Me too.”

She handed the bottle back and sighed. “I could get fired for this, you know.”

“Sleeping with a suspect? That is pretty dangerous stuff.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you did it. But Fedor . . . he’s fucking determined.” She brushed the hair from her face. “I went back and read your file. The investigation into your fiancée’s case. You’re right about the coroner.”

“Yeah?”

“How come it went to trial?”

“Because the detective on the case was like Fedor. He decided I was guilty before her body was even cold.”

“Sucks. Not a good way to do this job.”

“No. But it’s the way too many do it these days.”

She nodded. “The only thing that’s kept you out of jail is the testimony of that girl who was here that morning. The one from the bar? And the bartender at that place downtown.”

“Thank God for drinking problems.” He lifted the bottle to his mouth and drank as much as he could take before the gag reflex kicked in. “Thanks to my father.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

Durango smiled. “He’s a famous alcoholic. Don’t you know?”

“Who is he? Someone local?”

“Nope. My father is Jackson Chamberlain.”

“As in the famous Hollywood producer? The guy who made that whole series of action films with that actor, Bodhi Archer?”

“That’s him.”

She sat up a little straighter. “You’re fucking shitting me! Why didn’t that come out in the trial?”

“Because he killed my mother, so I’d rather he keep his distance.”

“How’d he do that?”

Durango shrugged. It was a story he didn’t tell often, but he might just be drunk enough to do it now.

“She was an actress, one of those who comes to Hollywood and ends up working as a waitress until her big break. My dad was her big break. He married her after putting her in one of his movies, turned her into the next Audrey Hepburn. But then she got pregnant with me and wanted the real deal family life thing, the husband and the perfect wife and mother. My dad was never really into that sort of thing. He wanted to party, wanted to be the life of Hollywood. He got a vasectomy and started sleeping around with any chick who’d look twice his way. And the drinking . . . my mom tried to keep up with him, tried to be the good wife despite everything, but she couldn’t do it.”

“She left him?”

“In a way, I suppose. They were fighting one night. She threatened to kill herself and he mocked her, told her she wasn’t strong enough to do something like that. She took the pills right in front of him and he just encouraged her, berated her, laughed at her when she threw them up. So, she took more. Then he woke the next morning and she didn’t.”

Donna’s face registered the same horror that always washed through Durango whenever he thought about it.

“That sucks!”

He nodded. “You think I’m an ass, you should meet my father.”

“It doesn’t seem like I’d want to.”

Durango drank more of the tequila. “He married half a dozen times more after that, even took in one of his wives’ kid after she abandoned him. The world thinks he’s this great guy, this cinematic genius. But he’s just an alcoholic who destroyed the best thing to ever happen to him.”

Donna moved into his lap and took the tequila from him, chugging down a huge swallow before leaning back to set it on the coffee table. Then she reached between their bodies and began to stroke him back to life.

“Fuck the world. Fuck guilt and shame and everything else that exists outside these walls.”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing matters right now but this.”

She drew him to her, guiding him inside. He closed his eyes and sighed as her body clenched around him, holding him tightly in place. When he opened them, she was watching him closely, curiosity and compassion in her pretty eyes.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I set eyes on you,” she said.

He wanted to say he had to, but he hadn’t.

But a warm body is a warm body, isn’t it?