“For Christ’s sake, Cali. She died. You didn’t.”
His callous words burrowed so deep she stumbled back. The baseball bat he’d left leaning against the wall banged to the floor. She watched it roll under the bed. Was a four-day reprieve from sex too much to ask when one’s mother died? She didn’t have the handbook to know. Didn’t want to know. All she wanted was a shower and to get away from the naked weasel and the—she looked one more time—limp penis in front of her.
~
Detective Brit Lowell stared at the dog-eared file amongst the other litter on his desk. Until the mold was scraped off Hopeful’s Homicide Division’s ceiling, the entire unit had temporarily moved into the main precinct. Brit slung a Styrofoam cup into the metal trash can. They had cases to solve and higher-ups were worried about a freaking fungus. Right now, he’d take his chair and his office—with the mold—over being stuffed in this broom closet.
“Go home, Lowell,” someone said as he passed an office door.
The grit that lined his eyes reminded him he’d been here too long. He hadn’t adapted to the graveyard shift. It might help if he went home and slept during the day. He seldom did. Go home or sleep.
He curved his shoulders back in the pitiful desk chair. Then, knuckle-locking his fingers behind his neck, he tried to work out the kinks. The kinks hung on. The stress had hunkered down in his shoulders for the long haul. As had the grief.
Damn, he missed Keith. Partners on the force for two years, they’d seldom agreed on anything except that they each would have taken a bullet for the other. But Brit hadn’t been there when the bullets were fired.
“Hey.” John Quarles, his new partner, freshly transferred from another unit, walked into the office and tossed one file on the desk while he clutched another two.
“What’s this?” Brit reached for the file, his chair squeaking like an injured bird.
“The jewelry store heist got promoted to homicide.” Quarles dropped into a chair and rolled closer. Too close. Brit could smell what his partner had eaten for lunch, and it wasn’t particularly appetizing.
“The old man who owned the place died,” Quarles added.
Brit heel-skidded his chair back and tried to remember the buzz he’d heard about the case. He shuffled through a few crime-scene photos and remembered the owner of the store had been knocked around with a baseball bat. “I thought he was okay.”
“Doctors thought so, too.” Quarles ran his fingers through his blond hair. “They stitched him up and sent him home. His daughter found him later.”
“Prints at the crime scene?”
“Come on, do we ever get it that easy?”
“I could use some easy,” Brit said.
“And if she was gorgeous and female, I’d fight you for her.” Quarles grinned. “But, the vic gave great details of the robbery. He even called the distributor and asked for images of the stolen jewelry, so, we’ll have something to show the pawn shops.” Quarles rolled closer.
Brit leaned back. Quarles didn’t seem to appreciate personal space. Right now, Brit needed a lot of space. And it wasn’t just because of Quarles’ fondness for chili-fries, or the fact that he’d fight Brit for some gorgeous girl. Which, frankly, Brit was about as much in the mood for as he was chili-fries.
Quarles dropped the other files on the desk. “I did find two other jewelry store robberies. Same MO. Four men, ski masks. One in Austin, the other in Dallas.”
“So our guys move around, eh?”
“Yeah.” Obvious pride at his findings brightened the man’s green eyes.
“Any leads?” Brit flipped open the other files. More photos, a few written reports. Unfortunately, the only case Brit gave a rat’s ass about now had Keith’s name stamped on it.
“Nope.”
It figured. “Any chance we can pass this over to Smith and Tates?” The smell of yesterday’s coffee assaulted Brit’s nose; he picked up another half-empty cup and tossed it. It landed with a dead thud in the trash can.
“Nope. Sergeant gave it to me personally.”
A clattering noise exploded down the hall.
“Get your freaking hands off me you pervert! What’s wrong? You gotta tiny dick or something?” The woman’s tone, more so than her words, made a man want to cover his dick, small or not, and it brought Brit’s head up in a flash. He knew that tone. More important, he knew the woman—Rina Newman, a local prostitute.
Rina, wearing red and very little of it, jolted to a stop in his doorway. Brit’s gaze moved over her. The part of his male psyche that hadn’t had sex in seven weeks appreciated her hourglass form and exposed cleavage, but the appreciation fizzled out before anything below the belt reacted.
Brit started to turn his chair to face the wall, hoping to do it before Rina spotted him.