Jacinda tugged at the short white skirt, trying not to bare too much of her ass as she tucked herself low between an outside wall of this golf and tennis club and a hedge that lined the chain-link fence around the tennis courts. The club was more or less open to the public—they charged a membership fee but had no application process—but they had a dress code like they thought they were a country club. Tennis whites only in the tennis section. Her getup of white skirt, polo, socks, Tretorns, and oh-so-fetching visor had made it easy to blend in around the club, but not so much in the shrubs.

Mickey Anderhal, currently suing his former employer for a disabling injury on the job, stood in the corner of the middle court, bouncing a tennis ball, preparing to serve. Ignoring the pokes and prickles of the boxwood hedge, Jacinda pushed her zoom through the greenery and focused. She had the auto-shutter engaged, and she captured his entire serve on film, as well as the return and the volley that ensued, filling most of a roll with damning evidence of his fitness.

Finally. She’d been on this guy for almost a week, and she hadn’t gotten anything more compromising than a few photos showing him getting in and out of a car without his back brace. Those could be easily explained away; the guy was careful. But he’d shown up at this club twice before, walking in and back out with his back brace on, and Jacinda had had an idea.

So she was here in tennis whites, having paid for the shortest membership of six months, and she’d caught him out cold on a hot mid-August morning.

Anderhal was a heavy guy, over six feet and probably over two-fifty, but he played a mean game of tennis. His back was quite obviously in good shape.

Satisfied with her work, and eager to get out of there before she was seen lurking in the bushes in her stupid Barbie clothes, she packed up her camera in her tennis bag and eased her way out of the boxwoods.

When she came around the corner of the building, a security guard, dressed in khakis and a white polo with the club logo, was six feet away. He hadn’t been expecting to find a woman crawling out of the bushes, that was obvious—and fortunate. He wasn’t looking for her; he’d just happened upon her.

But there was nothing but the fence, the shrubs, and the corner of the building here. No gate, no door, no sidewalk beyond his own feet. No reason for her to be here.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a tone that suggested that she should help herself with an excellent explanation.

Jacinda flipped her ponytail and giggled, trying to make herself blush. “I’m such a klutz. I sent a ball over the fence, and I lose so many of ‘em that John—that’s my husband—gets mad. I thought I’d try to find it, but the bushes are too thick to get into.”

The guard smiled, his eyes wandering up her legs and over her breasts. She took a deep breath, pushing those girls up as much as she could. “Don’t worry about it, doll. Happens all the time. The groundskeepers pull a couple dozen balls out of those bushes every week. They got a special thing that sucks ‘em up. I hate for you to get in trouble with the boss, though. You want me to have a look?”

She made a grateful smile and put her hand on his arm, making sure to lean close enough that her chest grazed his skin. “Oh, don’t go to any trouble. I’ll just distract him, and all will be well.”

“I bet you’re a great distraction,” he muttered, practically slurring his words.

Again, she made sure to looked pleased at his ‘compliment.’ “Thank you for the offer. It’s real sweet.”

When she walked off, she swayed her hips. He’d remember her, but he wouldn’t think of her as anything but a bimbo.

She felt a little gross, frankly, but in this business, you used the tools you had.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

Before she left the club, she got some establishing shots of the building, the entrances, the lobby and front desk, and the patio overlooking the courts and the course. About twenty minutes later, content that she had the evidence their client needed to fight Anderhal’s claim, she left.

As she was almost to her Pathfinder, headed back to the office—and a change into real clothes—Jacinda heard, almost felt, the thunder of heavy footfalls, running toward her. She spun, making a fist, just as a beefy hand grabbed her, yanked her away from her truck, and slammed her against another parked car.

“Gimme that camera, you nasty bitch!” Mickey Anderhal spat in her face. “Where is it! In here?” He tried to grab the flimsy tennis bag.

How he’d seen her was irrelevant at the moment, though when she had time, she was going to think about the way she went about surveillance, because obviously she needed to improve. Right now, though, that camera and the two lenses in there with it were worth almost three thousand dollars, and there was no way she was giving them up. She yanked back, making sure to pull with his lean, taking him off balance. When he stepped wide, trying to steady himself, she kicked up as hard as she could, catching the toe of her stupid tennis shoe right in his goods.

With boots on, she’d have laid him out with that kick, but he only shouted and doubled over, still fighting for her bag. Another yank, and she had it out of his grip, but she’d pulled him toward her, and he managed to connect with a lucky blow to her face. Just a glancing hit, but with his knuckles, and pain burst in her jaw and mouth.

Before he could get his feet under him again, she spun off the car and dealt him an eye strike, feeling her fingers meet soft, wet meat. He bellowed and forgot all about her or her camera, slapping his hands to his face and dropping to the hot asphalt.

“You blinded me, you bitch!”

“So sue me, you fucking Neanderthal!” She spat blood. “And good luck with that. There are security cameras all over this lot. Cameras are going to do your ass in and good.”

Guards and bystanders were running up now. Jacinda put her camera in her car and closed the door. Leaning on the fender, she called her dad. She was going to be late to the office.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“Let me look.” Her father reached for her chin.

Jacinda pushed him off. “It’s find, Dad. Just a bruise.”

“Your mother is going to have a fit. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. God, you’ve been hurt more in the past six weeks than I have in the past six years!”

It occurred to her to point out to him that in neither case had she been hurt because of Apollo or the Brazen Bulls, but she’d almost gotten her parents to agree to have him over for Sunday dinner and give him a chance, and she didn’t want to ruin their progress by making him feel defensive.

“I’m okay. The lens, though...” The camera had survived the attack without damage, and the film was uncorrupted, too. But her 400mm lens had taken a hit somehow, maybe banged up against the car in the scuffle, and had cracked. That baby was not cheap.

“That’s the last thing I’m worried about. You want to take the afternoon off?”

Apollo was off on a club ‘run’ somewhere and wouldn’t be back until late that night. She didn’t want to sit in her apartment alone, where her brain would spin ceaselessly around the events of the day. Besides, there was work to do.

“No, I’m good, Dad. Really. I need to develop these prints, and we have that new client this afternoon.”

“Right, right. Domestic situation, right?”

“I think so. A problem with her adult daughter. She was a little cagey on the phone, but it’s something to do with wanting to know what happened to her. She’s missing, I think. Michelle Thompson, three o’clock.”

“Okay. Until then, you’ve got darkroom, and I’ve got paperwork. And lunch. I’ll fly and buy—what’re you in the mood for?”

“Cheeseburger. And a chocolate shake.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” He frowned at her face. “Put some ice on that, okay? Your mother is going to make me sleep in the den for a month.”

Her mother had most definitely never wanted Jacinda to be a private investigator. When her father had encouraged her, they’d had what was probably the worst spell of their marriage. Still to this day, when her mother deemed that Jacinda had been in danger because of the work, she took it out on her father.

“I’ll ice it, Dad. And put makeup on it before she sees.”

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~oOo~

––––––––

About five minutes before three, the door to the agency opened, and a heavy woman stepped in. The afternoon sun streamed in behind her, so all Jacinda could tell at first was that she was heavy, and of average height.

Then she closed the door. She was about fifty years old, with long, medium-brown hair styled in an outdated spiral perm. She wore a flouncy, fit-and-flare dress that hugged her thick body and nearly skimmed her ankles. The cream color of the dress washed her out her pale complexion a little, and she seemed to have tried to counter that with a lot of makeup; her foundation was about two shades too dark. She wore stretched-out black ballet flats and carried a slouchy black handbag. She had the air and affect of a woman who’d grown too tired to care about life but was doing what she could to make an effort today.

They didn’t get many walk-ins, so Jacinda assumed that this was Michelle Thompson, their three o’clock appointment. She stood and came around the desk. “Ms. Thompson? Hi, I’m Jacinda Durham. We spoke on the phone.”

Ms. Thompson smiled. “Hi, yes. Michelle. Go ahead and call me Michelle.” They shook hands.

“And you can call me Jacinda. My dad is on the phone, but as soon as he’s done, we’ll go in and talk. Can I get you a cup of coffee, or a bottled water?”

“Your dad?” Michelle asked, sitting in one of the chairs they had in the front room. There was also a sofa; she and her father ate lunch in this room often and sometimes spread out and worked out here after hours.

“Yep. We’re a family business. He’s Durham, and I’m Associates.”

A wan smile was all she got for that. “And you’re a detective, too?”

“Yes ma’am. Had my license about nine years. Can I get you a drink?”

She brushed her hair from her brow like she was overheated. “Water would be fine, thanks.”

As Jacinda brought a bottled water from their little kitchenette, her father was making his introduction.

“Why don’t we go into my office, and you can explain what help you need.” He held out his hand, guiding the woman across the main room.

Jacinda grabbed her notepad and pen from her desk and followed them in.

People felt more comfortable when they weren’t speaking to someone at a desk, but they also took someone sitting at a desk more seriously. So Jacinda and her father managed that conundrum with a process for first appointments: her father sat behind his desk, always. But if it was a single client, then Jacinda sat in the other of the two chairs before the desk and took her notes from there. If it was a couple, then she sat behind them, on the loveseat against the wall, and they canted the client chairs so they didn’t have to look backward to see her if she asked a question.

This was just one client, so Jacinda gave her the bottle of water, then sat beside her and opened her pad.

Her father leaned on his green blotter. “Okay, Michelle. What help are you looking for?”

“My daughter...” She stopped and stared down at her hands. Her unpolished nails were cracked and uneven. “My daughter died last year. She was killed.”

“Oh,” Jacinda’s father said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Police say her boyfriend did it. But he’s dead, too. Police say she’s dead because her boyfriend thought she was a ho, and he’s dead because...I don’t know. It don’t make sense to me. And her uncle, he’s dead, too. He’s the one that died in that school fire last year, ‘bout the same time Patrice died. Bodies everywhere, all of ‘em connected to my baby, and the police say it’s all a big coincidence. I held out hope that they’d get to the truth when they figured out who set that fire, when they knew that, I was sure they’d see how everythin’ was connected, but now they’re not even lookin’ anymore. They say the case is cold, and it’s ‘person or persons unknown’ who did it. But I think that’s crap, if you’ll pardon my language.”

Michelle seemed to have expended most of her energy with that monologue, and she sagged back into the chair. Jacinda had listened with a growing sense of sick dread. This woman had come in to ask them to investigate the Brazen Bulls. She hadn’t said it, and she might not even know that was what she was asking. But Jacinda knew, and so did her father.

Jacinda had known about the man in the school, but she hadn’t known about this girl and her boyfriend. Still, she was sure that they were all somehow related, just as Michelle Thompson suggested.

She didn’t want to meet her father’s eyes right now, but the pull was too strong, as if he willed her to look. She did, and his eyes were steady and intent, right on her. Only for a second or two, but it was enough.

He turned to their prospective client. “Okay, I know this is hard to talk about, Michelle, but if it’s okay, I’m going to ask some questions about your daughter and her boyfriend and her uncle.”

There was no way they could take this case. No way. She’d throw herself bodily into the works to keep it from happening. Still, they couldn’t have that argument now, so Jacinda made herself focus and take notes.

Patrice Thompson had been twenty-seven when she’d died. Her mother produced a picture of a pretty black woman with bright green eyes and long dark hair in tidy dreadlocks. Her father hadn’t been around since Patrice was a toddler, but she’d had a solid relationship with his family, seeing them occasionally. Michelle didn’t know much about that; she herself did not have a solid relationship with Patrice’s father’s family, though they’d been more cordial since her death.

“Grief makes friends, sometimes, I guess,” she mused.

“Yes, it does,” Jacinda’s father agreed. “And what about her boyfriend? The police say he killed her? And he’s dead as well?”

Michelle nodded and dug a tissue from her handbag. “Griffin. He was a good boy, more than not. More than any man I ever had. He had a temper, but what man don’t?” She turned to Jacinda and let her eyes fall on her new bruise. “You know what I mean. Patrice had a mouth on her, like me, so they got into it sometimes. Only once real bad, though.”

Heart pounding in her ears, Jacinda jotted her notes and cast a look her father’s way. She could tell that he was inclined to believe the police. They’d both heard, time and again, women making excuses for the abuses of men. If Griffin was violent with Patrice, then maybe he had killed her. Jacinda hoped it was true.

“What else can you tell me about Griffin. Last name? Age? Place of employment? Residence?”

“Hayes. Griffin Hayes. About the same age or so as Patrice, I don’t know for sure. He worked over at Delaney’s Sinclair, on the south side? I don’t know his address, but he lived not far from there, I think.”

“And the case of their deaths is closed?” Michelle nodded, and he went on, “What was the detective’s determination?”

“They say that Griff killed her ‘cuz she was steppin’ out on him, and when his brothers tried to stop him, he went crazy and killed one of them, and went for another, and they killed him in self-defense. But that don’t make no sense. Griff wasn’t like that, and neither was my girl. And Patrice’s uncle, dying right before like he did? How’s it all fit? Nothin’ makes sense.”

Jacinda’s father held up a hand. “Wait. Brothers?”

She felt sick. She might actually puke.

“Griffin said that’s what they call each other. He was a Brazen Bull.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

After the meeting was over, Jacinda had to go and wash her face and hands. She felt inexplicably unclean. When she came out of the bathroom, her father had pulled the shades down on all the windows and turned on the sconces over the sofa. The room settled into a dusty, sleepy glow. They were closing early, apparently.

“Dad, we can’t take that case.”

“Sit, sweetheart.” He sat on the sofa and patted the cushion at his side.

She sat beside him. “She’s trying to make connections that aren’t there. You heard what she said about the boyfriend—he was obviously an asshole with a rage problem. It sounds like the cops got it right. Which means the Bulls tried to defend her. Her uncle dying not long before, that’s coincidence, nothing more.”

“We know who set that fire, though, don’t we? We know who killed that man.”

“No we do not. It’s officially unsolved. Rumors aren’t truths.” She knew that argument wasn’t going to get her anywhere, but her head was still spinning, and she hadn’t worked out a better one yet.

“Jaci, you need to look at this with clear eyes. Maybe we should look into the arson. Give Ms. Thompson some closure. Even if we find out they’re unrelated, we might at least ease her mind a little. Maybe you’ll be right, and we’ll prove it wasn’t your boyfriend’s club that killed an assistant principal when they burned down a school for kids. Or we’ll find out for sure it was them. However it plays out, Michelle Thompson isn’t the only one who needs that information. You do, too.” He laid his hand over hers.

Jacinda stared down at her father’s hand, trying to know what to say, how to convince him. The heavy tock tock tock of the big wood-cased wall clock filled the room like a timer on a game show. Find the right answer or the game would be over.

Her father wanted to protect her, of course she understood that. Her parents always wanted to protect her. But that benevolent desire had a dark edge. When they looked at her, with all their love and devotion, they still saw the Jaci who’d been curled in a ball on an ER gurney, violated in body and soul. They didn’t see who she had become—a grown, capable woman. Not unmarked, not infallible, but able to deal with her shit and fix her mistakes.

The altercation at the tennis club was evidence to that. She’d slipped up somewhere and let Anderhal see her, or maybe a friend of his had seen her. Either way, she’d been seen, and she’d missed that. Mistake. Sloppiness, even. But it was she who’d been standing when the cops arrived, and it was Anderhal who’d been beaten—and arrested.

She could handle her shit. Was being with Apollo a mistake? She didn’t think so. Was he worthy of her trust? He’d proven repeatedly that he was. Were the Brazen Bulls outlaws? Absolutely. Had they done bad things? Yes. But she believed those things to be mistakes, made out of a need to protect that was not so very much different from her father’s. She’d been directly threatened by the club, but knowing Apollo and having a chance to see the Bulls in their own home, she understood. They were decent.

If she was wrong, she would own it and fix it, but what she absolutely would not do, or allow her father to do, was spy on them. She had to be trustworthy, too.

That wasn’t an argument that would work on her father, because he didn’t have the same experience with the Bulls or Apollo. What would work on him was an appeal to his essential decency.

“No.” Finding her argument, Jacinda shook his hand off and stood up. “Dad, no. You wouldn’t touch this case if it weren’t for the Bulls connection. I saw it on your face—you believe the police version. Because it makes sense. And the arson is more than a year old. That case is stone cold. The only reason you’re even considering taking this poor woman’s money is the Bulls connection. That’s not fair to her. She can’t afford to bankroll your vendetta against my boyfriend.”

She’d obviously thrown a wrench into his thinking, but he recovered quickly. “Now you’re being obstinate and histrionic. It’s not a vendetta to want to know who it is my only child has let so far into her life. Especially considering your history. I want to protect you, Jaci. You won’t do it yourself.”

“Snooping around the Bulls is not going to protect me.” She wanted to tell him that it might put her in danger—and him, too—but that would only make his case stronger in his eyes. “I’m protecting myself, Dad. I handled my shit this morning, right? I know how to take care of myself, and I’m not being stupid about Apollo!” She took a breath and tried to find a calmer, more reasonable approach, one he couldn’t lob back at her. “It’s not fair to Michelle. She’s broke, and she’s sad, and nothing you can find out will bring her daughter back. Taking this case is a shitty thing to do to her.”

He stared up at her, and Jacinda could tell she’d struck center mass. “Okay. Okay. I’ll call her tomorrow and tell her we can’t help her. But Jaci, you have got to watch your back. Your mother and I, we’re worried.”

“Get to know him, Dad. You won’t be worried if you actually see him for who he is. If you just look.”

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~oOo~

––––––––

By the time Apollo showed up at her apartment, just before midnight that night, coming straight to her from his club run, she’d spent most of the rest of the day trying to figure out how to tell him about Michelle Thompson’s visit to the office and how she’d convinced her father not only to refuse the case but also to get her mother on board for inviting him to Sunday dinner.

She needed to tell him. Michelle might go to a different agency. It truly wasn’t a strong case, but some agencies didn’t care as long as they got their hourly rate and expenses. If somebody else looked into it, the Bulls could end up in real trouble. Assuming that they’d been the ones to start that fire. Which, yes, she did assume.

But telling him might cast the club’s suspicion on her father, and on her, again. There had to be a way to tell him and keep everything cool. She liked the Bulls, and she liked that they seemed to accept her. She didn’t want to lose that—and she most definitely didn’t want to lose Apollo.

The topic never got addressed, however. When she answered the door and he bent down to kiss her, he saw the bruise on her face—she’d nearly forgotten about it.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded, pushing into her apartment. “Who did that?”

“Hazard of the job. I had a little altercation with a guy I was tailing. But he ended up in much worse shape, and he spent most of the rest of the day in jail. I’m okay.”

His fingers grazed over the light bruise and the thin split in her lip. She took his hand in hers. “It’s nothing, Apollo. He got off one half-assed punch, and I kicked him in the balls and shoved my fingers in his eyes. I put him on his ass.”

He laughed and wrapped her in his arms. “That’s my girl. You’re gonna have to show me that Krav Maga shit sometime.” With his lips on her throat, he murmured, “I wish I could’ve seen you lay that shithead out.”

He’d told her that she made him stupid, and she knew what he meant. It wasn’t stupidity, really, but a massive reordering of priorities. A shift from what had been important to something new. Like this—his thick, hard arms around her, his broad, firm chest against her, his lively, gorgeous eyes fluttering closed as he came close, his beard and breath caressing her skin. His scent and sound all around her. And not just those physical, sensual experiences but what they meant—not only how beautiful his blue eyes were, but the power of the emotion in them. Emotion for her. Not only his strong arms but the desire in them. For her. The light moan that floated out on his breath and told her how glad he was to be where he was.

She could trust all that. Nothing else warranted notice when they were together.

She hooked her arms around his neck. “You’re in luck. There’s security footage.”

“Excellent.” He lifted her up. “Right now, though, I want to wrestle our way. Interested?”

“God, yes.”

They could talk tomorrow.