Marc and Jude burst out laughing, while a few of the other guys tried to unsuccessfully hide their reaction.
"Bloody hell," Damon muttered, heading toward the door that led back downstairs and outside. "God, give me strength," he added under his breath as he started to descend the stairs themselves.
"He's so damn tetchy, isn't he?" I said with relish to the guys, making them all burst out laughing loudly. "Kinda cute, really." That received a couple of snorts and more laughter.
"I heard that!" Michaels yelled from just down the stairs. "Move your arse, Keen. We've got cases to solve."
I tried not to notice it was no longer a 'shapely arse' and then scolded myself furiously for letting things get so out of hand. I didn't normally behave like this, I was much more serious and controlled. But the combination of having Damon and the HEAT guys back in my life was doing a real number on my sanity right now.
I couldn't afford to lower my guard like this, but since Carl had left I'd had precious little reason to joke or smile. Sure, I offered the obligatory comebacks to the CIB boys, shared a snide remark with Eagle from time to time. But laugh? Tease? To this degree? I couldn't remember the last time I'd let myself go like that.
No. I did remember. The night before Carl disappeared.
I sucked in a fortifying breath of air, pushed the memories back and said my farewells in a much more subdued manner. If the HEAT guys noticed my sudden change in behaviour, they didn't comment.
Michaels was waiting by my locked car when I made it outside. It had started raining, a light drizzle, but he still hadn't taken cover. I crossed to the vehicle and unlocked the doors, sliding in without making eye contact. Enough of the strained tension and sexually loaded innuendos, we did have cases to solve.
"So, I was thinking..." I started, only to be interrupted by Damon saying, "Is it going to be like this the entire time we work together?"
Oh, and didn't that just get my hackles up.
"I'm not the one who requested we team up," I pointed out through gritted teeth.
"I'm not complaining," he shot back. "I just want to be prepared. Do I or do I not flirt back? I'm all for the foreplay, sweetheart, but if you persist in this I will take you up on it. Is that what you want?"
"What I want," I said, speaking each word clearly, "is to figure out why the hell two of my informants are dead. I didn't ask for your help, if you can't..."
"Yet as soon as you're in front of my men you act as though nothing has changed between us, when you know damn well that it has."
I was fuming, I knew it. And letting myself get so affected by him was a huge mistake. But damn it, Damon made me so fucking mad sometimes that I just couldn't shut the connection down between my emotions and my mouth.
"And you pressing up against my body reminding me of how it felt is not the same?"
"Oh, no you don't, Lara. You pushed me against that wall, not the other way around. I just took advantage of the situation."
I let a long breath of air out. There was no arguing with the man.
"Then let me make it simple for you, Damon. There is nothing between us. Nothing."
"There once was and it was good. It could be again."
"Delusional."
"Stubborn and unforgiving."
I snorted. "Oh, I forgave you, Damon. I just didn't forget."
Silence. Thick and full of meaning, weighted in what ifs, shrouded in reality. I wanted to close my eyes and forget the past year had ever happened. I wanted to sleep for a week and pretend I didn't feel so damn alone.
Only two people had ever truly let me down in my life. One of them was gone for good. The other was sitting next to me right now. I lowered my side window and let the rain come in. It was better than being surrounded by Damon, every sense I have invaded by his presence, by him.
I hadn't realised it was going to be this hard. I'd successfully avoided him for months now. When I did see him across the room, across a crowd, I found a way to escape. Last night was the first time he had attended a case I was assigned to. Every other fire related crime I'd investigated had been under another of his team's care.
Damon Michaels had been out of my life for six months and suddenly he's entrenching himself back again. Why?
"What's going on at HEAT?" I asked, my gut pushing me to a place I didn't really want to go.
"Nothing."
"Damon."
"No, you can't have it both ways, Lara. Push me out and expect me to let you in."
I sighed as I pulled the car onto Queen's Wharf, parking in a emergency vehicle only slot. He was out of the car before I could ask more, not even aware of why I had brought us here, just eager to get away from me. I closed my window with another sigh and shut down the vehicle, following him out onto the wharf itself.
"Why are we here?" Michaels asked when I made it to his rigid side.
"I have a contact I use who frequents the clubs. He works in The Cloud."
"I thought The Cloud only did scheduled events. It doesn't look like it's currently in use."
"He's a security guard, he'll be around. He's got nowhere else to go."
I started heading over to a side door on the long, undulating white building. A few people milled around the wharf, most of them tourists coming to see the oversized billboards featuring the All Blacks rugby team. During the World Cup this building had been overflowing with fans, now it sat a little forlorn, taking up too much space and patiently waiting to be used again.
I banged on the staff only entrance and waited to see if my guy would turn up. The rain started to fall in earnest, making a hollow tin sound as it hit the side and roof of the rounded cloud-like structure, it competed with my further fist banging to be heard.
"Looks like he's not here," Michaels commented.
"He's always here. Come on, let's try around the front."
We walked down the length of the building towards the waterfront where The Cloud had bi-folding glass doors, floor to ceiling almost in height. If Tank was here, he could be lounging in the atrium, taking in the view. I cupped my hands over my eyes and leaned against the front windows trying to see into the darkened interior. The place did look deserted, but sometimes it just took Tank a while to trust that it was safe to come out. He wasn't meant to overnight in the structure, but no one had the heart to turf him out.
It had been a while since I'd last used him, I hadn't realised he liked the night club scene until Tommy mentioned it just last night. Carl had certainly never divulged that Tank was a sub in the back rooms, but before Tommy met his fiery death, he'd hinted that Tank was more involved in that scene than we'd obviously realised.
Thoughts of Tommy left me feeling cold, the water dripping down from the overhang where we stood only added to the chilled feeling through my bones. I rubbed both hands up and down my arms, then felt a contrasting heated sensation down the back of my neck.
I spun and faced the edge of the wharf, my hand on my weapon under my jacket. I hadn't pulled it, but I'd released the safety latch on the holster, prepared.
"What is it?" Michaels asked, moving to stand closer to me. And in a stupid, uselessly gallant move, placing himself between me and the rest of the world, The Cloud at our backs.
"I'm the one armed," I pointed out, stepping around him.
"And yet you haven't pulled your gun," Damon whispered. "What did you hear?"
I shook my head, tilted it and listened. Just the low level hum of a big city mixed with the chopping of waves against the edge of the wharf and the splatter of rain on concrete. I glanced over my shoulder into the atrium of The Cloud sensing eyes on me from every direction.
Sometimes a cop has to trust her instincts with nothing more to go on than her gut.
"Something's not right," I finally whispered, a truth which was voiced way too late.
The glass at our backs shattered before the gunshot was actually heard. I had my weapon out and aimed at nothing by the time Damon had thrown us both to the ground, his body covering mine. But no more
bullets were fired, just our over-loud heartbeats and breathing competing with stunned silence and Auckland city on a rainy winter's afternoon.
Chapter Six
"If you bury it deep enough, it can't climb back out and bite you on the arse, can it, Sport?"
Uniforms swarmed Queens Wharf, strobing red and blue lights from their cars down the Quay Street end. Yellow police tape cordoned off the crime scene, the crunch of shattered glass under booted foot adding to the delightful atmosphere of an attempted murder in the CBD. Detective Inspector Hart strode over towards where Michaels and I stood huddled under what protection we could gain from The Cloud's overhang, steam wafting off the top of our take-away coffee cups.
"Talk to me," he barked, even before he'd made it to our sides. The directive to me, not Michaels.
"We were trying to connect with one of my contacts, a Tyrone (Tank) Anderson who does security guard work here at The Cloud."
"He here?" the Inspector asked and I shook my head.
"No one's inside the building, but there's evidence that someone slept here last night."
"Your guy?"
"At a guess. He usually stays here when he can't find an available bed to share some place else."
"What did you want with him?"
"Info on the club scene, he's a back room sub. Or, so I believe, from what Thomas Withers told me last night."
The Inspector stared down at some of the glass that lay scattered across the concrete, lights glinted off the faceted sides of the debris, making them seem more like jewels than little pieces of broken window pane.
"The bullet been found?" he asked at last.
"A .38 Special, common enough round."
"At least it's something to go on," he commented, then raised his eyes to look me in the face. "I'd suggest taking the rest of the night off, but the pathologist's report has just come in from the car boot crime. It's waiting on your desk." And with that he spun on his heels and headed over to talk to Ryan Pierce who was standing off to the side conversing with a member of forensics.
I ran a hand over my face, closing my eyes for a second and then straightened my shoulders. But I didn't make a move to walk back to my car.
"Two informants dead," I mused aloud. "One sliced with a serrated hunting knife severing his carotid artery, the other burned in the boot of a car. Exact cause of death apparently sitting on my desk. And now a .38 fired at us. Or me. What's the motive?"
"I don't know," Michaels murmured. "Connections?"
"Informants. Two dead, one staying here, right where we're shot at. It revolves around the informants."
"Common thread?"
I blinked into the rain, watching the lights of the Waiheke Island - or was it the Devonport? - ferry flash in and out through the drops.
"The clubs." I shook my head. "Neither Anton nor Tommy had much to go on. Anton nothing, Tommy just Tank's name. It's thin. It's not enough."
"It's a start. Let's get out of this rain and check out that report."
I nodded, my mind still rolling through possible motives, tangling threads and loose connections. None of it was solid and my gut was telling me none of it was nearly enough to figure this all out yet.
We rode in silence up the hill toward Central Police, parking this time under cover in the garage beneath the ten storey building itself. I felt drained and bedraggled, rather like a cat who'd been thrown in a swimming pool and spent too much energy finding my way out. Before I exited the car, I grabbed a hair tie out of my glove compartment and hastily tied my hair back in a loose and decidedly messy bun. No one could accuse me of being too fashion focused.
Wisely, Michaels didn't comment as we rode the lift up to CIB's floor, but I'd have to make an effort to tidy up at some stage, even police detectives are expected to carry themselves with a little decorum in their dress. My trousers were two days old, creased, dirty and now sported a rip in the knee where I'd grazed my skin as we hit the concrete on Queen's Wharf. My shirt wasn't faring much better, and my jacket, well, it was close to a write off.
I didn't have a change of clothes at work, usually I did, but I'd used my last lot just the other day when I'd done a double shift, and hadn't thought to replace them yet. I'd have to make it home before too much longer, I hoped it would be for a few hours sleep at least. But when I sat at my desk, unable to prevent the jerk of my body when Michaels took Carl's seat and not the one beside me, and opened the file from McIntyre, I realised sleep wasn't going to come any time soon.
"Well, at least your involvement is warranted," I muttered, handing over the folder to Damon.
"He was alive when the car caught on fire," Damon murmured, flicking through the report with practised hands. "Cause of death: Smoke inhalation. Burns to ninety percent of the body, possibly received prior to death." He sighed, placing the file down on the desk. "Fuck, sometimes I really hate my job."
"Injuries consistent with being alight at the time of death, but nothing to indicate a struggle pre-burn. Toxicology is also clear," I added. "How did they get him in the boot and why didn't he fight back?"
"Did Anton have injuries consistent with a struggle?"
I rifled through my desk drawer finding the appropriate pathologist report, but already knowing the answer. I tossed the folder over to Damon and let him read.
"No struggle, no pharmaceuticals in the blood," he confirmed once he'd flicked through the report quickly. He sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face, thinking.
I chucked my empty take-away coffee cup in the bin beside my desk and checked my emails, while we both tried to reason anything out of something that didn't seem to have any logic to it at all.
"The knife I can understand," Damon said, breaking into my email scanning. "If he knew the assailant, or hadn't sensed anything out of the ordinary, then they could have gotten close enough to make the lethal strike."
"But the car boot doesn't fit," I added. "I agree. Why get in the boot of a car willingly? He didn't fight until he was already on fire, no knock to the head to incapacitate. There could be a discrepancy in the Doc's findings, an injury overlooked or presumed received after he was alight. Or maybe he was simply pushed in there, the lid closed behind him before he realised what was up. Then whoosh."
"Whoosh," Damon repeated. "He would have smelled the accelerant. Surely that would have been enough to make him fight back."
"Has your lab finished analysis on that?"
"Not yet, I'll follow up now." He pulled his cellphone out and swiped the screen, while I answered a few email inquiries and cleared my messages, noting the uniforms had posted their witness interview results, from the neighbourhood surrounding the car boot fire, to our secured network.
No witnesses discovered, nothing to go on there.
I looked up when he pocketed his phone, several minutes having passed as I caught up on report writing and correspondence.
"A kerosene and turpentine mix," Damon said when he knew he had my attention. "Both ignitable liquids on their own, but extremely volatile when not carefully mixed. The ratio used was stable enough to allow ignition but not explosion. It would have been easily detected by smell prior to the victim entering the boot of the car. Either, alone, would have been enough. But the arsonist chose to mix them, why?"
"The message." Damon cocked an eyebrow. "He wants us to know it was premeditated. And that he's clever enough to not blow the car or victim to kingdom come."
I sat back in my chair, my mind alive and invigorated with possibilities and connections, motives and cause.
"He lured Tommy there," I continued. "A location he had been at hours ago while meeting a cop. That alone would have made Tommy suspicious. Did the assailant pretend to be me? Location and mechanics. It means something. The next will be more complicated, an escalation of the second, almost unrelated to the first in its complexity. But it will be in a location that I have been with an informant recently, and the killer will want to be recognised for how difficult the act would
have been to complete."
I stopped, aware Damon was staring at me with a strange mix of respect and pride, but I didn't have time to consider any of that. "Eagle," was all I said, checking my watch and locking the reports back inside my desk drawer.
"Who's Eagle?" Damon asked at my back as I threaded my way through the near empty desks on the CIB floor. I was surprised to note so few detectives on station, but then, like Hart had said, we were a little thin on the ground right now and several were down at The Cloud processing that scene.
"One of my regular contacts. He'll be up on Karangahape Road at this time of night. Expecting me," I added, remembering the phone message Eagle had left earlier this morning.
Hard to believe it was still the same day. I'd been up since three-thirty, with only a couple of hours sleep under my belt. Exhaustion was about to kick my arse any time now.
"Hold up a sec," Damon called as I strode down the corridor toward the exit. I turned and watched him feed coins into a vending machine, juggling several packets of processed sugar-filled snacks in his arms as he struggled to catch up. "Someone ate my lunch and I haven't eaten all day," he commented when I held the door open for him at the lift.
I felt a stab of guilt, which I soon pushed to the back of my mind as he took relish biting into a chocolate nut covered bar. I watched with a sort of fascination as he chewed, well aware he knew I was studying him eat, so was making a performance out of it.
"Wanna bite?" he offered, holding out the half eaten bar. It would have been easy, so easy, to lean forward and nibble on the end. But we'd been down this path already today, and the road was rocky, not somewhere I was willing to return to yet.
I shook my head. "You look like you're enjoying it, wouldn't want to interrupt."
"There's a comeback there that I'd love to use."
"But you won't," I countered.
He sighed. "No, Lara. I won't."
I wasn't sure why that should have made me feel anything other than relief. But it did, so I ignored that too.
If you bury it deep enough, it can't climb back out and bite you on the arse, can it, Sport?
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