CHAPTER SIX
HUNTER
I let Grace do the driving—again. I actually wouldn’t mind getting behind the wheel, feeling my way around town, but the last thing I want to do is piss off my very first partner. Given the way she’s handled herself so far, she’d probably give me brain damage.
It’s funny, girls would fall at my feet in college. I barely breathed a word before they were sucking my cock, but Grace? She’s no sister looking to bag a Beckett. I can’t picture her playing avalanche with the boys back in the day. No, sir. She’s Bruce Banner in a supermodel’s body, nothing but pure, uncontained energy waiting to explode.
I allow myself to consider what she’d be like in bed—naked, writhing, screaming out my name…
I look across to her, a fierce concentration set upon her face. Slap a smile on there and she’d actually be kind of cute with her slightly pinched nose and laser eyes. I don’t know why, but whenever she watches me it’s like I’m pinned under a microscope. I haven’t even thought about Wrightworth, about my ex and the happy family life she wanted.
That was the idea, wasn’t it? Get back to the city, the action.
NYC is not LA, but they do share some similarities.
I try to imagine myself with this Grace, but it’s impossible. She’s city bred from the get-go, independent, the kind of man-killer I thought only existed in movies and pulp fiction.
Her eyes are on the road when she speaks, the slight grit in her voice causing my cock to rise. “What the fuck are you looking at, Beckett?”
“Nothing, I was just—”
“Why don’t you ‘nothing’ out the window.”
Jesus.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to strip off her panties and find a bear trap there in place of a vagina. “Look, we’re partners. We should get to know one another.”
“Oh, so I should stop in the alley around the corner here and let you have your way with me? That’s what you’re thinking over there with that goofy grin and big erection, right?
How the hell? I shift in the seat. “I wasn’t saying that.”
“But you want to, don’t you?”
Wouldn’t say no. It’s been too long since I’ve seen any action between the sheets—too long. “You’re not my type, sorry.”
Liar.
She laughs. “And you are so definitely not mine. What the hell kind of name is ‘Wrightworth’ for a town anyhow? Did they steal it from an Agatha Christie novel, fucking Clue? What did you even do there? Pick up trash, call in on Miss Daisy for a cup of lemonade after cleaning her gutters and staring up her petticoat?”
“I was a sheriff, actually.”
“Sherriff,” she mocks. “My, my, I guess you are well qualified for the Wild West then.”
“Wrightworth had its share of trouble. And in LA—”
She cuts me off. “Cats in trees can be the darnedest things, can’t they?”
“Drugs aren’t exclusive to New York, you know.”
Grace scoffs. “Seen one addict, you’ve seen them all.”
“I beg to differ.”
She’s not used to being challenged, which is precisely why I have to find my balls here and step up to the plate. I’ve got to channel that arrogant asshole who owned Abbotsleigh… and every pair of panties in a square mile. “Is that so?”
“Have you ever been stuck with a needle?” she queries.
“No.”
“Had a junkie literally eat his own shit in the back of your cruiser?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Have you ever been shot?”
“No, and you have?”
She lifts the side of her top, an inch-long scar showing just above her hip.
Shit. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ll get your own badge of honor if you work these streets long enough. Just make sure you don’t get it in the head.”
“You’re right, by the way,” I continue, trying to redeem myself and not really sure why.
“Right about what?”
“Cats in trees were a pain in the ass.”
She smiles, really smiles, for the first time and it’s god damn spectacular. I’d like more of it. I’d like to be the cause of it.
She looks to me. I’ve never seen eyes like hers, so fiery, flecked almost gold-ish in places. “And the lemonade?”
“Freshly squeezed.”
A thinner smile stretches over her lips “Just how I like my perps.”
I twist in my seat, still a little uncomfortable given Miss Pocket Rocket’s eagle eye for boners. “How long have you been with the Force?”
“Six years. My pop was a detective. Fifty years kicking ass. Only stopped when he was diagnosed.”
I don’t ask with what, thankful that at least she’s imparting something.
She fills it in. “Dementia. I’ve got him at a home on Staten Island. I try to get over there when I can, but you know how it is.”
I don’t. I’ve got a father with his full faculties, not that he’s been putting them to good use. I’ve got brothers, who in turn have their own families. I’ve got support. Something tells me Grace Siddell does not.
“You enjoy it?” I ask. “The job?”
She turns those honey-amber eyes burn right through my chest. “Tell me, what was an average day for you like in this Wrightworth place? Honestly.”
I sit back. “Honestly? I don’t know. Grab a cup of Joe, check in at the office. Might get a domestic or two, more than likely ol’ Bob Senior trying to slap his son silly. After that? Maybe some trouble at one of the resort bars, tank up anyone who’s had a few too many. We had some biker trouble, break-and-enter issues, but you’re right. It was petty crime in many ways.”
“But you worked in LA, too?”
I almost tell her about my disease, but hold off. I’ve got to keep some cards close. “Great pay, good benefits.”
“So a shitty gig?”
“There was a lot of the mind-over-matter principal at work.”
“I don’t follow,” she says.
“As in, ‘We don’t mind, because you don’t matter.’”
Grace explodes with laughter, hammering at the wheel with the palm of her hand. “And you think this place is going to be any better? Oh, boy, are you deluded. You want to know what my day looks like?”
“I do.”
“Good, because you’ll be living it soon enough. I drag myself out of bed and down to the precinct, try to swim my way out of the never-ending paperwork that’s clogging up my desk. That’s followed by a bagel for breakfast and probably a murder or two, usually upper side where people actually care about such things. Might get a fraud case, straight-out theft, but the Feds usually handle that stuff. They like to leave us with the gruesome shit, which is fine by me. The more of these scumbags I can pull off the street, the fucking better.”
“You don’t make it sound very appealing.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Beckett. It’s fucking depressing, but it’s my job and I’m damn good at it.”
I wet my lips. “What do you do to relax, wind down?”
She eyes me with suspicion. “You were at the bar, weren’t you?”
“That looked like winding up, actually.”
She laughs. “You’re funny for a hick. What do you think I do? Go home and cuddle my ten kittens while sipping Kombucha and meditating the world’s worries away? Fuck that.”
Don’t push it, but I do. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
She pats her gun holster. “Name’s Chewie—thirty-eight special, my father’s.”
“He doesn’t look so friendly.”
She glances to my waist. “He’d put that 9mm of yours to shame.”
“I’ll take that challenge.”
“Another time.” She nods forwards through the windshield. “We’re almost here.”
I look around at earth-brown apartment blocks all in a line, a kid no more than ten years old smoking a joint on the sidewalk. He gives us the bird as we pass. “Charming. Where are we?”
“Brownsville, Brooklyn, and I fucking hate Brooklyn.”
She turns the car down a tight side street and stops at a corner where a group of men are standing around the front of an apartment building. She checks the cruiser screen. “That’s our man alright. Shall we say hello?”
We get out, Grace with her hand on her piece and the other holding her badge up. “Police.”
They don’t even flinch. I can pick out Doyle as we get closer, half of his face drooping like a candle that’s spent too much time in the heat. He’s picking his teeth, his tweaker friends in various poses around him all jittery eyes and hands in pockets.
Doyle grins, his mouth full of gold. He’s wearing a worn Metallica T-shirt—‘Ride The Lightning.’ “Detectives, I presume. What brings you out to Brown Town on this fine morning?”
Grace stands in front of him with her hands on her hips. “We’re not here to bring you in, if that’s what you’re thinking, but you are going to answer some questions.”
He stands up to her, my hand moving to my weapon, but she waves me down. “Because you’re an upstanding citizen who wants nothing to do with the murder of Rachel Jackson. Now, isn’t that right?”
He shrugs, shoulders loose. “What do I care about that junkie bitch?”
I step in. “Watch your mouth.”
Doyle looks me up and down before turning his attention back to Grace. “You brought Ken doll too, huh? Cute. What, you scared?”
Grace laughs, shaking her head and kicking at the ground. “Of a pindick pusher like you? Hardly. You’re not even big league, too busy slinging shitty brown sugar to play with the real movers. Up in my hood? Pure China white. Stuff you can’t even imagine. So fucking clean you don’t even feel that monkey on your back.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it’s turning me the hell on. If she keeps this act up, I’ll be walking back to the cruiser pitchin’ a tent in my pants.
“Now, tell me about Rachel,” she continues, “or turn around, because either way you’re talking today.”
I’m worried about the cronies. They’ve been slowly advancing behind him, creeping forward like a pack of wolves.
Doyle sucks on his teeth. “Okay, baby. You want to know about Rachel and her shit-kicker of a boyfriend?”
“I do.”
“They’re junkies, plain and simple, some of my best customers.”
“What were they buying?”
“Whatever they could afford—C, H.”
“You weren’t selling them fairy dust?”
He draws back. “Soap chips, sugar and shit? I’m a crook, but I’m not a crook, you know?”
Grace looks to me with a ‘This fucking guy, huh?’ expression.
I met plenty like him in LA. They never change.
“Okay,” says Grace, “so where were you last night, around midnight?”
He looks to his friends.
“Eyes on me, asshole. Where were you?”
“At the laundromat ’round the corner.”
“The whole night?”
He grins, mouth gleaming. He grabs his junk. “What can I say? I’ve got a lot of dirty laundry.”
“Can anyone back this up?”
He looks behind himself. “My boys.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t know, bra. They got cameras and shit in there. Go ask them.”
“We will. And you had no contact with Rachel?”
“Not for fucking days.”
“Her boyfriend, Chris?”
“A day ago,” shrugs Doyle. “He came around here but didn’t have the cash. I sent him packing.”
“Did he have anything to say about Rachel?”
“Only that he found out she was doing tricks downtown. Was real cut up about it.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I fucking knew, could see it in her eyes, you know? Bitch had been taking on more dick than Annabel Chong.”
I see Grace tense visibly. She’s struggling to hold herself back. “Where?” she blurts.
Doyle looks confused. “Is Rachel?”
Grace’s getting impatient. “Rachel’s on the fucking slab. No, moron, where was she doing tricks?”
Doyle seems hesitant to speak up, but he eyes me and thinks better of it. “Extended-stay hotel, The Baxter or some shit.”
“How do you know this? Were you one of her clients?”
He laughs again. “I let her suck me off once. A garden hose has more suction, you know what I’m saying?”
Poor choice of words, brother.
“And you know where she was because what? You were checking in on her?” Grace continues.
“Delivering flowers,” he smirks.
“Flowers, hey? I fucking bet you were.” She whips her finger in the air. “Let’s go, Beckett.”
We turn to leave, but Doyle hasn’t had his fill. “So, Detective, what do I get in return?”
Grace spins around. “What do you get? How about not spending a night with a big black cock up your ass?”
He kisses the air, lips smacking. “How about I put my cock up your fine little ass? How about that, huh?”
His cronies are moving, surrounding us. We’re outnumbered three to one. Neither of us has drawn yet. If we do it’s going to real ugly, real fast. The last thing we need is a shoot-out here in this shithole, not on my first day.
One of Doyle’s men leaps forward and grabs a handful of Grace’s ass. Something inside me snaps. Before I know it, I’ve covered the five feet separating us and brought my fist into his shoulder, pinning him down into the pavement so hard he’ll be breathing concrete for weeks. I press my knee into his shoulder and lever his arm up with one hand, the other pressing the tip of my 9mm into the back of his neck. He screams, begging for release. Another inch or two and I could break his arm, but Grace’s shouting, her own gun drawn as she backs away, those hands really fidgeting away in pockets now, who knows what in there.
“Beckett, let’s go!”
I throw the goon’s arm away and stand, gun trained on Doyle. He has his hands up, grinning. “It’s okay, boys. They’ll be back.”
“Like fuck we will,” says Grace, backing up to the cruiser. She slides into the driver’s seat, gun out the window as she reverses out of there.
She spins the car around and I get low, expecting bullets to fly, but they never come. I watch the side mirror as Doyle and his friends simply stand there watching us go, grinning the entire time.