CHAPTER TEN
HUNTER
I’m surprised to find Grace’s office is relatively spartan. There’s a framed photo of a man I assume to be her father near her monitor, but apart from that it’s just stacks of neatly ordered case files. “Homey,” I state, trying to keep my eyes off the hypnotic dip of her cleavage.
“Trust me,” she replies, “the last thing I want to associate this office with is home.”
I notice a pillow in the corner. “What’s that for then?”
“Muffling my screams of frustration.”
I’m thinking it could be used to muffle screams of a different kind. “Funny, thought you might have used it as a silencer.”
She leans back in her chair. It squeaks with protest. “Wow, you’re really coming out of your shell, aren’t you, Big Boy?”
“I suppose I’m getting into the swing of things.”
“Tell me, what are you doing, right now?”
Her golden eyes glint with possibility—cat eyes.
I check my cell, the message I received earlier still on screen. “I’ve got something to do, but after that, no idea. I’ll go home, I guess. There’s leftover Chinese with my name on it.”
She screws up her face and rocks forward, that sweet, sweet valley on show, the hint of black lace below. “Hello, salmonella. You want to really ‘get into the swing of things,’ you need to eat out, see the city a bit instead of moping around your apartment. Jesus, it’s so sad it’s almost bringing a tear to my eye.”
“What makes you think I’m staying in an apartment?”
“You don’t strike me as the St. Regis type, sorry.”
“So, you’re taking me out?”
She throws her hands up. “Sure, after your pedicure, peep show—whatever it is you’re off to. Eight?”
“That’ll work. I’m paying, though.”
She raises a finger of warning. “No way. I’m not into that chivalrous bullshit. Just try opening the door for me, I dare you.”
I can’t tell whether she’s serious or not. “O-kay, where are we going then?”
She smiles, lips rolling together. “Let’s see… A big, growing boy like you… Something moist, juicy, and tender, I think.” I don’t know if she realizes she’s spreading her legs as she says it. Whatever she’s doing, I’m about five seconds away from a full on, conversation-ender of an erection.
“There’s only one thing that will do,” she continues.
“And that is?” I ask.
Her eyes light up. “Barbeque.”
*
It’s not hard to recognize Cayden amongst the other players coming out of the stadium gate, a sports bag slung over his shoulder.
A small crowd of fans and autograph-seekers crowds in. Cayden looks up from a shirt he’s signing and sees me, a smile growing on his face.
He saunters over. “Well, well, if it isn’t my hobo of a brother.”
We embrace. I have to admit I’m a touch jealous of how fit he’s become. We were all units in college, but what I’m looking at is a demolition ball with legs.
He holds me away by the shoulders. “You’re looking good. No relapse?”
I shake my head. “Fit as the proverbial fiddle thanks to the fifty fucking medications I’m on.” I look past him. “And look at you, hitting the big league here. The fucking Giants. Who would have thought it?”
Cayden turns and points out various players. “The guy with the crazy hair is Odell Beckham Junior, nose tackle Damon Harrison…” Damon gives him a wave. “I can introduce you if you want?”
I stand back. “No, it’s all good. I’m just happy to see a Beckett kicking ass out there.”
“And you?” says Cayden, dropping his bag. “Detective, hey. I bet our old career advisor would flip the fuck out if he knew that.”
I smile at the memory. “Test said I was going to be a masseuse.”
Cayden turns around, pointing at his back. “Hey, you can put those skills to use on me any time you like, bro.”
I roll my eyes. “And let your teammates wallow they didn’t get to give you a happy ending? Come on.”
“I shouldn’t complain. Indy’s got magic fingers, after all.”
I roll my eyes and pretend to gag.
Cay punches me in the chest. “I’ve missed you, you cheeky fucker. Drink?”
I slip my hands into my pockets. “I’ve got to be somewhere, actually.”
He grins, smacking his lips. “Already? Damn, you work fast, but you always did.”
“It’s my partner.”
Cayden steps back. “Oh, shit, so you are coming out of the closet.”
“She is a detective.”
Cayden nods approvingly. I notice he’s sporting a silver hair or two, but I guess a gaggle of kids will do that to you. “Tell me more.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We’re working together on a case. That’s all.”
Cayden spins on the spot laughing. “And she’s working on your old man, right? ’That’s all,’” he mocks. “Listen to you. You’ll be tapping that ass to kingdom come before the sun’s down.”
I take a moment to appreciate the visual of Grace’s backside, the firm, tight buns that seem to defy gravity whenever she walks. “She’s… not like the others.”
Cayden clues in on it immediately. “So she’s playing hard to get. We had rules for that, brother, guidelines.
“She’s not playing,” I laugh. “That high-school crap ain’t going to fly this time. I’m pretty sure she can breathe fire, probably bite my clean dick off if it got too close.”
“Sounds like fun if you ask me. Fifty shades of freak.”
Fun—I could imagine a few adult activities that would fall into that category, but trying to bed my own partner is a guaranteed way to fuck up damn near everything I’ve been working for. I can’t let it happen… tempting as those curves may be.
Something starts to buzz, Cayden withdrawing his cell and grunting down at the screen. “Indy needs me. Raincheck?”
I take his hand. “Of course.”
Cayden picks up his bag, walking off towards the 1966 Fastback parked in the corner. “And I want details. Fuck knows I need someone to live through vicariously.”
*
We’re at a happening joint called Mighty Quinn’s in what Grace tells me is Second Avenue, an “extravaganza of slow-cooked barbeque perfection,” I am told.
I have to admit. The place does smell amazing—smoky and succulent. I look around. “Not really what I pictured for a first date.”
Grace chokes on a forkful of pulled pork. “You think this is a date? Oh, man. The day I date a guy like you…”
I lift an eyebrow in curiosity. “And what am I, precisely?”
“A stiff, do-what-you’re-told type.”
My god. If only she only knew the shit I used to get up to. “You don’t think I can break rules when I need to?”
She pauses. “No, I don’t. I’ve heard they scrub that right out of recruits over California way, harden them up for the big, bad West Coast world.”
The only thing ‘hardening up’ is my cock considering all the ways I could prove her wrong. “I’m full of surprises. You wait.”
She resumes eating. “Oh, I’m waiting, but I have to admit, the way you took down Doyle’s buddy, fucking tackling Chris through a god-damn door—that was special. You’re not Chuck Norris under there, are you?”
I reach up to my face. “No beard, sorry.”
“Not yet.”
My plate arrives.
I dig in.
This brisket blows my mind, just the right amount of smokiness and spice, a sprinkling of salt. There were some folks in Wrightworth who knew how to BBQ, but this… this is next level.
I tap my hand against the table, what looks to be reclaimed wood. “Nice place.”
“I don’t know if you guessed it, Beckett, but I’m not into fine dining.”
“No,” I joke, “I would never have guessed.” I lay on the sarcasm thicker than I need to, consider whether I should inform her of the streak of sauce on her cheek.
She points to a guy behind the counter at the grill. “See that dude with the hat back to front?”
“I do.”
“He’s the pit master, turned me into a brisket believer.”
“Pit master?”
“Damn straight. We dated for, I don’t know, a day.”
And there’s the green-eyed monster again, crouched on his haunches. “Is that your usual timeframe?”
She shrugs. “What can I say? I’m too over the top for most guys. I simply swallow up their masculinity with my awesomeness. They can’t take it. Give me a bad boy and I’ll break him right back down to a baby.”
“You are confident, I’ll give you that.”
“Don’t confuse confidence for simply being the best, Beckett, and make no mistake, I am the best.”
I’m starting to believe. “How many cases have you solved?”
“One-hundred-and-two—almost a case every two weeks. And that is fucking impressive.”
I have to agree. “It is. What’s your secret?”
She taps her head. “I told you, but it’s different for guys. Your dick and your brain are one and the same. You can’t separate them.”
“What makes you think I have a brain?” I offer.
She points to my forehead, the tip of her finger swirling in the air. “Oh, I bet it’s buried in there somewhere, or do I have to fish in your pants for a while first?”
The latter does sound appealing. I think about how her lips might taste, the sensation of her hair running over my thighs as she goes down on me. My ex wasn’t into it at all, as vanilla as they come.
Sense returns.
She’s your fucking partner, dipshit. How do you think that is going to end?
I snap out of it. “This whole… partner thing. It’s new to me.”
“What, no one to boss around?”
“Something like that.”
“I can put a cat up a tree if you like, make you feel right at home.”
I give her the bird, certain I’m going too far. Instead, she smiles, nodding. “That’s more like it. Attitude. Maybe you’ve got a set of balls tucked away after all.”
“You think we should tie this up like the Captain said? Seems premature.”
Her smile widens. “I hate things that end prematurely.”
My cock gives a twitch. I clear my throat. “He seemed pretty adamant.”
“Did you notice he said ‘H’ when you told him you found drugs, for heroin?”
“And...”
“We never told him what we found. Don’t you find that odd?”
I play devil’s advocate. “Maybe he was assuming. I mean, heroin would be the likely answer. He could have called down to the lock-up.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. “Maybe. I don’t know. Everything’s a bit off, if you ask me.”
“You want to ask him, don’t you? That’s not going to end well.”
Her face says it all.
I read it. “Now? What makes you think he’ll be around?”
“He’s got an overbearing wife and two stepkids he can’t stand. He’ll be there alright.”
It’s full-on with this girl. I give in. “Okay, but I’m driving.”
*
The station is quiet after-hours. There are a couple of unscrupulous individuals waiting to be booked in, a guy who’s holding what’s left of his nose together.
“One of yours?” I ask Grace, failing to contain my smile.
She spins while walking, mirroring the same smile. “He wouldn’t be conscious if he was one of mine.”
She arrives at the desk and smiles up to the officer behind it. “The Cap in?”
The officer shakes his head, pointing though us. “Headed home a while ago… thank fuck.”
There goes that idea. It seems the Captain’s reputation really proceeds him around here.
Grace turns with her hands on her hips. She exhales, taking out her cell and bringing it to her ear.
I’m watching her.
She’s attractive, as is the desk sergeant… or her ass, more specifically. She is attractive no doubt, but it’s more than that. Ball-stompin’ attitude aside, she’s beautiful, from her honeycomb eyes to her raven hair sheeting down her back. There weren’t girls like this in Wrightworth. They’d fall into traditional roles, happy to gossip over whatever tabloid tidbit was doing the rounds. I can’t picture any of them as a cop, let alone a detective. And the girls in LA? Empty human husks with the depth of a paddle pool. I don’t imagine there are many female detectives even in the Big Apple, at least none that could bring a city block to a stop with a swish of their hair and smile.
Grace takes the cell away from her ear, quietly cursing. “Nothing. It rings out.”
“What now?” I ask.
And suddenly that smile is right in front of me. “How do you feel about house calls?”
*
“Where are we?” I ask, the lights and towering walls of the city replaced with the quiet hum of suburbia.
Grace sniggers from the passenger seat—a miracle in and of itself. She only decided to let me drive under the proviso I didn’t “go all Dukes of Hazzard” on her. “Just be thankful it’s dark,” she replies. “You wouldn’t want to see this place during the day.”
“And the Captain lives out here?”
The way she’s sitting in the passenger seat, legs spread, has turned my cock to lead. It’s hard enough driving around this maze of a road network as it is without your pants steadily turning into the Pyramid of Giza. “It’s a family home or something,” says Grace, “passed down,” she adds, brushing a renegade strand of hair over her ear. “You’d think with a brother for a councilman and all he’d level up, but no. He says he likes to live ‘amongst the people,’” she air-quotes, “whatever the fuck that means.”
“You don’t like him much, do you?”
“Does a dog bite the hand that feeds it? I know who butters my bread.”
I look at her with confusion. “You’re calling yourself a dog?”
“Why, you calling me a bitch?”
I put up a hand in defense. “Shit, I didn’t mean…”
That crushingly beautiful smile breaks over her face. “I’m fucking with you, Beckett… emphasis on the ‘with’ before you go getting any ideas.”
I lift my hands from the wheel. “Hey, no ideas here.”
She looks down. “So what’s with the pocket rocket you’re packing in your pants there? I mean, Jesus, are you ever not packing wood?”
Only when you’re not around, I want to add.
“You should see a doctor.”
I shift in my seat, about to argue against it, when I notice she’s looking into the rear-view. “What is it?”
“That car, one back. It’s been following us since we left the island.”
I check it myself. “You sure?”
She nods slowly. “Not really,” pointing. “Take this left.”
I pull sharply left down a narrow street.
Grace’s eyes remained trained on the rear-view, her welcome musk lingering. Sure enough, the car pulls down the same street.
“Right.”
I take the right, the car following. It’s gaining.
“Fuck,” barks Grace, squinting. “It’s Doyle.”
“The dealer?”
“I’d know that piece of shit Navigator anywhere.”
“What do you think he wants?”
Grace looks at me with her eyebrows knitted together. “Oh, I’m sure he wants to invite us to the nearest IHOP, order a stack of pancakes, cup of joe… You know, to say thanks to you for near breaking his fucking arm.”
“Hey, I had no choice.”
There’s a gunshot, the rear windscreen shattering and fragments of glass blasting around the cabin.
Grace takes out Chewie, flicking off the safety. “Punch it!”
I slam my foot down on the accelerator and take the next left, tires screeching. But this is a patrol car, not a Lamborghini.
The shots keep coming, pinging off the panels, the side mirror blown to pieces beside me.
I keep my head low, foot on the gas, trying to work my way back to the main road. Grace’s putting her window down and turning in her seat. “Call it in.”
I shout over the drone of the engine, calling it in and asking for immediate backup.
The operator chirps back in response.
The air outside whips her hair behind Grace’s head. She jerks back as another shot hits the B-pillar, sparks darting off into the night like fireflies.
She starts to fire back towards the Navigator, loading up another clip when she runs out.
I check the rear-view. The Navigator’s right behind us. I’m giving this thing all it’s got and it’s like we’re stuck in molasses.
The Navigator strikes us on the right rear, enough to drive us into the curb. Metal crunching against concrete fills the cabin with sound, but I manage to pull ahead and keep driving.
My heart’s pounding, but I’m calm. Los Angeles taught me that much—to channel the fear, to use it. Before that it was the football field, because god knows you need to keep your cool when two-fifty pounds of pure muscle is barreling towards you.
I hear a pop and see the Navigator shift to the right.
“I got one of the tires,” shouts Grace. “That’ll stop the fuckers.”
I flick my eyes back to the road and slam on the brakes.
We’re at an intersection, the lights red, cars banked up in front of us and no way to get around them.
Shit.
I check the rear-view again. The Navigator is blocking the road behind us, the doors opening and the same tweakers we ran into earlier jumping out.
I reach for the radio again, scanning for street signs and relaying our position.
“Out, now!” yells Grace, opening her door and getting out low. I follow her lead, drawing my weapon and meeting her around the front of the patrol car behind the engine.
A guy’s getting out of his car behind us. “Hey, what’s going o—”
A gunshot answers his question.
“Go!” Grace shouts at him, waving her gun to the houses to the right. “Fucking move!”
The guy goes running off.
I look down the side of the car and see the tweakers lifting their weapons—automatics, by the look of it.
Grace stands and fires, calculated. A shout, another, and two of them go down.
I turn, can’t hear any sirens. Where the fuck is our back-up?
What has to be Doyle is staggering forward with another crony.
Grace ducks as they open fire.
I stand and pop off a few rounds, but they’re still coming.
A spurt from his chest and the guy beside Doyle is done, but still Doyle approaches.
“Throw down your fucking weapon!” shouts Grace, training her weapon on him.
“Fuck you, bitch!” Doyle yells.
“See?” she says to me.
I stand and fire a single shot, manage to clip Doyle in the arm, his weapon clattering to the ground.
Grace runs forward and kicks it away, a foot against his shoulder, pinning him to the ground. He grunts in agony. “Come on!”
“You’re fucking shooting at us now?” Grace shouts, furious. “You serious?”
I quickly check the others, but they’re gone. I hate to think what the Captain’s going to make of this.
I move back to Grace and keep my gun on Doyle, looking back to the patrol car where a group of people are starting to gather, drawn by the commotion.
“Did you call it in?” says Grace, breathing hard.
“I did.”
She looks back irritated. “Where’s our god-damn backup then?”
It’s a good question.
Someone shouts something, another throwing a bottle in our direction. It shatters beside Grace, but she keeps her foot on Doyle’s shoulder. From the look of the buildings and general decline in the area, this doesn’t seem like the kind of neighborhood that lays out the welcome mat for law enforcement.
“What are you doing, Doyle?” Grace continues, huffing. “Your friends are dead and you’re hella lucky my friend here’s a good shot, because I sure as hell would have put that round through your ugly fucking head.”
He starts to cry, breaking down there on the ground.
Grace looks at me in surprise. “What’s he doing?”
“Crying, it looks like.”
The mob is growing down the end of the street. “We can’t stay here,” I suggest.
Grace turns around, taking her foot off Doyle’s shoulder and crouching down beside him. “Do you know something, Doyle? Now is the time to fess up.”
“He’ll kill me,” he cries.
“Who?” Her voice is calmer now, an adult trying to calm a child.
Doyle shakes his head. “I can’t…”
He reaches to his pocket with his free hand and pulls a blade.
I fire once, right into his chest, and the blade falls.
Grace checks his pulse, punching him in his lifeless chest, her knuckles returning red. “Fuck!”
“I had to.”
She nods. “I know.”
“Fucking pigs!” comes the shout.
“We’ve got to go,” I warn.
The mob starts to approach, but Grace fires her weapon in the air before aiming it at them. “Get. The. Fuck. Back.” She spots the guy who owned the car in front of us. “You. Move your vehicle, now!” He puts his hands up and runs over to his car, starting it up and reversing.
Grace gets into the patrol car still holding her weapon out the window, the crowd growing almost by the second. “Back!” she shouts.
“’Gun it,” she commands.
I plant my foot, the crowd separating as we drive past.
I check the rear-view one last time, but we’re good—as good as you can be given the situation.
“Where to?” I ask, the adrenaline beginning to soak away and a cold realization forming in its wake. “We’re not going to wait for the backup? We just shot, what? Four guys?”
“Call it in, but let the local boys deal with it. We? We go to the Captain,” says Grace, still gripping her gun. “We go to him and sort this shit out once and for all.”