by Jordan Dane
Cronan fed the tip jar at the counter and slid into a corner booth with Angel to wait for their food.
“So what do you think?” she asked.
“I think…” Cronan reached for napkins from a dispenser on the table and shrugged. “…grilled chicken pitas are for lightweights who can’t take the heat.”
“Or someone without a cast iron stomach.” She smiled and stared into his eyes in a way that always dug into his heart before she said, “This place brings back great memories.”
“Yeah.”
In that moment, it struck Cronan as strange that he’d brought her here—a joint where they both shared memories with Manny. Was he sabotaging any hope he had of a life with her by keeping Manny between them? Or was he reminding her how much she’d loved Manny so she wouldn’t make a mistake with someone new—someone who wasn’t him?
Either way he felt like an ass.
His love for Manny had brought him closer to Angel. He saw what it meant to be loved without venturing into those murky waters, but his respect for his only real friend had kept him from crossing a line with her now. Coming to Slim’s hadn’t been the smartest idea. A shrink might’ve thought he had deliberately kept her at a distance for a reason.
If people sought the love that they felt they deserved, what did that say about him?
“Why did you bring me here, Gabe?” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “No jokes, okay?”
When it mattered, Angel never let him get away with anything. Her eyes made it hard to sling his usual bullshit. She stared at him, waiting. He felt the intimacy of her soft fingers on his hand that sent a rush of heat through his body.
If he were a better man, he should’ve told her how he felt about her right then—that he’d had these feelings for her since before he’d ever introduced her to Manny. His best friend had been a good guy without all the baggage he carried. Manny had the goods, and he let her love him. There were times Cronan wondered why he couldn’t let her in, but his answer always came back the same.
Angel deserved better.
‘Why did you bring me here, Gabe?’ Her question had become a wall between them, when it could’ve been a door meant to be opened.
“I don’t know, Angel.” Cronan told her the truth—just not all of it. She looked disappointed, like she’d caught him in a lie and knew it.
“You’ve been telling me that I should move on,” she said. “I can’t argue with you on that. I’m tired of feeling sad. Manny left a hole in my life that I don’t know how to fill.”
“Yeah, you do. You need to know that it’s all right to move on…and find someone…new.” Cronan felt her looking at him, but he couldn’t hold her stare.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Angel tossed him an easy softball over the plate, ready for him to take a swing. “Talk to me, Gabe. Tell me what you’re thinking. I can see there’s something bothering you…and it’s not just this case.”
Cronan fixed his eyes on her and took a deep breath as the noise of the restaurant faded to nothing. All he saw was Angel, backlit by the light from the front window. When he opened his mouth to answer her, he had no idea what he’d say.
“You deserve to be loved.”
His words were out, and they sounded like they came from someone else. He’d stepped perilously close to a precipice and teetered on the brink of change.
“So do you.” Her voice was so hushed that she almost mouthed the words.
Being this close to Angel—nearly saying how he felt with her holding his hand—the intense rush of it was painful and addictive at the same time. His brain pinged with the realization that if he went too far, things would never be the same again. Yet the rest of his anatomy wanted…more.
Angel stared at him with tears welling in her eyes. When she grasped his hand tighter, he loved how her hand felt in his. But after she pulled from him and looked away, he didn’t know why she’d broken off their connection until he heard Vinny’s voice over his shoulder.
“Grilled chicken pita for the lovely lady…and Manny’s Fire Dogs for the gent. Anything else?”
Angel made small talk with Vinny when Cronan didn’t feel like it. Like a good partner, she knew when to cover for him, but his moment with her had come and gone. After her fingers pulled from his hand, Cronan sobered up as if he got hit with cold water. If Angel had feelings for the violinist—or anyone else—he didn’t want to stand in her way. She deserved to be happy. She deserved someone better than him.
Cronan took a bite of peppered tube steak and chewed in silence. Angel picked at her pita sandwich until the conversation shifted to the case and they got into it.
“The chief will push us to close the Davenport case, now that they have the McFarland motive, but something doesn’t feel right,” he said. “That missing front door key bugs me, and someone could’ve planted that burner phone to make the neighbor look guilty. It’s too easy.”
“Maybe it is that easy.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “If our guys find the key and make that question go away, would you see McFarland as our killer?”
“No, something else is bothering me. If McFarland was gay and obsessed with Chandler, why did Olivia look the way she did when she died? Her skirt was hiked up, and her blouse was unbuttoned.”
“He could’ve done that to throw suspicion off a gay man.”
“But then why openly send a stalker letter claiming to have killed Olivia? I’m not saying he’s our letter writer, but whether or not he is, all he had to do was…nothing. He wasn’t on our radar. And why call attention to himself with that backstage argument?”
Cronan didn’t wait for her to answer. He shook his head and took a bite of curly fries.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I keep coming back to Chandler being at the hub of something. He’s got a circle of people around him who would do anything to protect him. Who knew about the neighbor’s obsession? Who would Ethan have told if something had happened between McFarland and our boy?”
Angel took a bite of her sandwich and thought about it.
“Bryce definitely knew. Maybe it had something to do with that gift box and the delivery addresses getting switched. I heard Bryce say that Ethan had told him about McFarland’s good neighbor policy. His sarcasm was obvious. And when Evelyn Carmichael and her boy toy asked about that argument backstage, Rachel was pretty quick to spread the word about McFarland.” Angel shrugged. “Hell, anybody hearing that quarrel between Bryce, Rachel, and McFarland would’ve wondered what could be wrong between neighbors.”
His partner was right. Anyone within earshot would have seen and heard the altercation and wondered how things had gotten heated. The bad blood was obvious.
“I wonder if McFarland had a tie to Simone’s. He doesn’t travel in the same circles as Olivia and Ethan, but maybe there’s another connection.”
“Why does he have to be connected to Moreau’s sex club? Do you know something you’re not telling me?” She glared at him in a way that women do when they’re trying to make a point that read better between the lines.
“After I saw the sex toys at our vic’s home, I had an angle to investigate. I didn’t make a beeline to Simone. I hit several places that cater to the BDSM crowd before I talked to her. With Simone, I had to go alone and it paid off.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Why alone? Didn’t you think I could take it? I’m your partner. You should’ve included me. It wouldn’t be my first bump and grind rodeo.”
A tough cop like Angel never liked to be treated different than her male counterparts. He understood that and respected it, but he wasn’t sure that was her only reason to object. The way she looked at him now, it felt like their old argument of him going rogue and investigating on his own, had turned personal.
“I knew Simone wouldn’t have talked to me, like she usually does, if you were there. She’s a confidential informant that I don’t have to pay.”
“That might be the only thing she doesn’
t do for money.”
Cronan narrowed his eyes at her and went on.
“I have history with Simone because of her sister’s murder, but there’s never been anything more between us. Never.”
Cronan didn’t know why he felt the need to explain his relationship with Simone, but the fire in Angel’s eyes cooled.
“Did you ever ask Chandler about…the sex?” he asked. “Was she into the toys and fantasy play…or was he?”
He pushed for an answer on Chandler. Angel didn’t look happy, but she didn’t hesitate either.
“Ethan told me she was the one who had the fantasies, and she liked role play, but he went along with it…for obvious reasons.”
“When did he say that?” he asked.
Angel blinked and hesitated before she said, “When I met him at Bogart’s.”
If his partner didn’t like his rogue investigation into the sex clubs, she got reminded of her solo meet with a suspect at Bogart’s. Cronan couldn’t point the finger at her without looking in the mirror either, but something more bothered him.
From his recent visit with Simone he’d learned that Ethan had been the paying member at Chez Moreau, not Olivia. Yet the musician had misdirected his partner by implying the rough sex play and games had come from Olivia, as if he were an innocent bystander who had no connection to ‘the life’ except through her. Something wasn’t right. Had the prominent violinist merely avoided the truth to keep his reputation intact, or had he lied to cover his ass in the death of his girlfriend?
In that moment, sitting across from Angel at Slim’s, he made up his mind to search McFarland’s place again, without her. Maybe neither of them could be objective, one way or the other, when it came to the guilt or innocence of the violinist. But Cronan thought it would be better to error on the side of letting the evidence support or deny the truth, rather than turning a blind eye, so to speak.
“Do you think he’s telling you the truth?” Cronan shoved his half-eaten basket of dogs to the side. He’d lost his appetite.
She thought about it and said, “Yeah, I do. Gut instinct, but I got nothing else to back up that feeling.”
Cronan only nodded. He had nothing else to support his version of the truth either. Until he did, he wouldn’t risk bursting the bubble of his partner’s high opinion of Ethan Chandler. Holding back on his doubts wasn’t about the case anymore. Angel had the right to be happy, even if that meant he had to finally let go.
***
Evening
If Cronan wasn’t working such a high-profile case that included face time with the chief, he would’ve been looking for a fight. The underground fight club would’ve pounded him into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep. Without the punishment of a good fight, he had to find release another way.
After he got home and fed One-eyed Jack, he hit his makeshift gym located beneath the metal rafters of his lofted bed. He had free weights, an exercise mat, and other contraptions to work on his abs, but hanging from metal girders, he had a seventy-pound punching bag, his chosen method of abuse now.
Wearing only gym shorts, he bound his hands in elastic wrap, donned boxing gloves, and got to work. In no time he shifted into high gear and battered the bag in blinding succession, side-stepping and circling it with each driving blow. The muscles in his legs burned, and his fists ached with every jab, but nothing would free his mind of Angel’s dark soulful eyes.
Stay focused and keep moving. Use the pain.
He grunted with each hard blow. His gloved punches had a rhythm that intensified. When he picked up his pace, he circled the bag and focused his whole body on every blow. His lungs were heaving and sweat trailed off his arms and back. He switched up the speed and varied his combination punches—left jab, straight right, left hook. Cronan had hit the zone physically, but he was still haunted by his partner, Angel. The subtle perfume she wore, the gentle curve of her back, the lips he always wanted to taste. These were the things he couldn’t block no matter how hard he worked out.
He finally stopped when he couldn’t hold his arms up anymore. Exhausted, he stripped off his gloves and unwound the elastic wrap from his hands. Before he cleaned up, he caught a glimpse of Jack. The yellow tabby sprawled on his floor belly up, staring at him in a squint and purring like a jet engine. Cronan shook his head and grinned.
“Not all of us have…luck with the l-ladies, like you do, Jack,” he panted. “Some of us…have to work hard…to look half as good as you.”
When Jack chose that moment to lick his junk, Cronan rolled his eyes and left him to it. He turned on his shower and let the water get hot. Billows of steam filled the small space as he cut through the humidity and stepped naked into the stall. With a gasp, he let the hot stream trail down his neck and shoulders. He hoped the pain of an exhausting workout and the torture of hot water would be enough of a distraction, but it wasn’t.
Nothing would free his mind. Even with his eyes closed, all he saw was Angel. She was all he wanted to see.
Simone Moreau had tempted him in the past, before he knew Angel, but something about the French woman had kept him from her bed, even after the case with her sister had been closed. After seeing Simone recently, there were nights he’d dreamed of her in strange suggestive ways. His fantasies might start with Simone—a woman who wouldn’t expect anything from him except his body—but his erotic imaginings would always end with Angel in his arms.
When he reached for the gel wash, he slathered it onto his skin as he pictured Angel. In a familiar fantasy, he closed his eyes and imagined her stepping into the shower with him. They wouldn’t talk. She would look at him with those eyes, hungry for the same thing he wanted.
***
In his fantasy, Cronan pulled Angel’s warm naked body into his and caressed her under the steamy, wet heat. His hands buttered her breasts with citrus scented soap as he kissed her neck from behind her. When Angel leaned into him, he felt his penis stiffen. He slipped his soapy fingers between her legs and pressed her perfect soft curves against him.
“I want you inside me.”
Her throaty whisper echoed in his shower stall and would haunt his mind afterward. When she turned toward him, the feeling of her hard nipples pressed against his body sent a rush through him. As her hand slid over his engorged cock, her fingers grasped him and ran the length of his flesh, working him into a fevered pitch.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Angel.” He loved saying her name in a whisper meant for only her.
With his fingers covered in lather, Cronan mimicked the velvet touch of her hand on his penis, but even in his fantasies, he refused to finish until he pictured her in the throes of orgasm. He slid his hand between her legs and brought her pleasure until her body shuddered, wave after wave. The sounds of her growing need came in urgent panting that grew louder than the pounding water.
When he plunged his tongue into her mouth, Angel writhed against him until he reached down and hoisted her up with both hands. She wrapped her legs around his hips, still kissing him as he pressed her back into the tiles to hold her. He pushed his rigid cock into her and mounted her with a thrust that filled her.
“Yes, yes,” she cried as he shoved into her.
Cronan felt every driving inch as he pumped harder and faster until hot semen shot from his body and spewed over his fingers in waves. He cried out, and his whole body convulsed in spurts. With the heat of the water, he saw stars as every muscle let go.
***
The release sobered him up. When he opened his eyes, Cronan looked down and took in what he’d done as Angel’s sweet face vanished in the steam.
He had it bad for his partner. Real bad.
***
Downtown Chicago
11:20 PM
Cronan knew sleep would be impossible. Between his thing for Angel and his restless mind, he chased theories for the real reason behind McFarland becoming a player in the Davenport case. After his shower, he got dressed in jeans, boots, and a blue chambray shirt that he left
tail-out so he could hide his Glock 21 at the small of his back in a leather belt holster. When he hit his kitchen, he fixed a quick pasta stir fry and cooled a few pieces for Jack to eat as a peace offering.
His furry roommate would not take his leaving well.
Jack liked to sleep at the foot of his bed, curled into a ball of yellow fur. The stray had his rituals and hated when Cronan didn’t abide by the rules of a proper bedtime. The cat stared down at him from the elevated loft of his bedroom as he grabbed his keys. Jack mewled in a long raspy whine.
“We’re not married, Jack. Get over it,” he said. But before he headed out the door, he added, “I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”
That satisfied Jack. He turned, flipped his tail up, and flashed his butt. Cronan wished all his relationships would be that clear cut.
During his drive downtown to revisit the crime scene, he visualized what he remembered about McFarland’s place to get his head in the game. Earlier, he’d called ahead to let building management know to expect him. He flashed his badge at the door when the manager let him in.
“Please let me know when you leave. I’ll have to let you out and secure the door again,” the man said as he handed him a card with his direct number on it. “Call this number. I’ll stay for as long as you need me.”
“Sure thing.” Cronan said. “By the way, can residents come and go after hours? Or do they need someone to let them in after the doors are locked for the night?”
“They come and go as they please.” The guy explained how residents used their keys to access doors in and out of the building. “We don’t have a curfew like some frat house. Privacy is important here. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
Yeah, Cronan did understand. The manager’s answer meant that if McFarland was murdered, and the killer staged the scene to look like a suicide, whoever did it had to be either a resident or know the ins and outs of the building as if they lived here. Cronan chewed on that as he hit the elevators and punched the floor number.
