by L. A. Witt
Anyone else, any other case, I’d have said, You start by going home and letting us do our job. But would I have let anyone push me away from this investigation? Hell, they’d already tried. I was way too close to this case to be anywhere near the actual investigation. And Lisa . . . well, she wasn’t a cop, but she was as likely as I was to walk away and let the detached professionals handle it.
Darren drummed his fingers on his own desk. “Can either of you think of anyone who’d want to mess with you?” His eyes flicked back and forth between us.
“There isn’t a cop in this town who’ll say my name without making the sign of the horns,” I said dryly. “But cops don’t fuck with other cops’ families.”
“No, but we can’t rule anything out,” Darren said. “Has anyone you collared been let out recently?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I haven’t actually checked lately. I usually keep an eye on that, but . . .” I gestured at my foot. “I’ve been distracted.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to look into it.”
Nodding, I sat up and opened my laptop.
Lisa unfolded and refolded her arms. “There’s . . .”
We both turned to her.
She kept her gaze down, gnawing her lower lip so hard I was amazed it didn’t bleed.
“Lisa?” I said.
She was silent for a few more seconds, then inhaled. “What about Pitbull?”
The loan shark’s name put my teeth on edge. “What about him?”
“Well . . .” She struggled, but met my gaze. “I do still owe him money.”
“And I put the fear of God into him,” I growled. “He knows damn well if anyone touches one of my kids, he’s fucked.”
“Actually.” Darren sat up, chair squeaking. “She might be on to something. He might be retaliating against your threat. A power play. He’s letting you know he’s not afraid of you.” He paused. “Or someone’s trying to piss you off and put a bull’s-eye on Pitbull’s back.”
I tapped my nails on the edge of the laptop keyboard. “At this point, I don’t think we can ignore any potential lead, so we should talk to him.”
Darren met my gaze. “Am I driving?”
I hesitated, glaring at my crutches. Nothing intimidated a suspect like being approached by a cop who could barely walk. And considering how much we’d roughed him up last time, I didn’t like the idea of giving him any kind of upper hand. I couldn’t run. My hands were occupied, which would mean wasting precious seconds if I needed to draw my weapon.
There was no way I could meet him on his turf right now and expect to get anything out of him. It might even be dangerous, if he saw an opportunity to exploit a weakness.
“I think we need to bring him to the precinct,” I said.
“No way.” Lisa shook her head. “He’ll never set foot in a place like this unless he’s under arrest.”
“That could be arranged.” I paused. “Doesn’t he have a few outstanding warrants?”
Darren shrugged. “I think he had a bench warrant or something when we went down there last time.”
I nodded. “Go grab Officer Blaine. I think I know how he can help us after all.”
Somehow, Pitbull didn’t have any warrants or even unpaid parking tickets. Between the last time we’d roughed him up and now, the bench warrant had evaporated. Bribery or an honest resolution, I had no idea, but it left me with no way to arrest him.
Technically.
Officer Blaine was, as I’d expected, the typical perfect cop. The badge-wearing equivalent of a hall monitor who wore a pocket protector and actually studied for exams. Not the kind of cop who’d bring someone in without a proper warrant.
To my surprise, though, he was willing to bend the rules under certain circumstances.
“The sooner we bring him in,” he’d said as he and his partner headed for the elevator, “the sooner Erin is safe.”
And less than two hours later, Pitbull was in an interrogation room, shaking like a leaf in handcuffs, believing he was a suspect in a murder case. They’d dragged him in literally kicking and screaming, the tough guy loan shark reduced to a blubbering mess as he faced being brought up on charges of killing a man in a carjacking gone wrong.
“He’s all yours,” Blaine said.
I kept my gaze fixed on the loan shark through the two-way mirror. “Thanks.”
Blaine walked away, and Darren stood beside me. “So how do we play this?”
“Same as last time.” I turned to him. “Let me do the talking.”
He didn’t protest. He just nodded. We hadn’t been working together—never mind dating—all that long, but we’d already developed that sixth sense. That telepathy that partners forged after years on the job together. I didn’t have to spell out what he needed to do in there. I just trusted that he would.
Darren opened the door, and I hobbled inside.
Pitbull blinked. Then he rolled his eyes. “Oh God. You?” He faced the camera in the corner and screamed, “Police brutality! Police brutality!”
“Oh, shut up.” I leaned on the crutches. “You want to hold still so he can take those cuffs off? Or do you like them?”
He froze. “Take . . . take them off?”
Darren jingled a set of keys.
Pitbull held still.
Nobody said a word while Darren opened the cuffs. After he’d stepped out of the way, I spoke again. “Looks like you’re in the clear. We got a confession from the actual carjacker.”
“Oh.” Pitbull rubbed his wrists gingerly. “So . . . I’m free to go?”
“Yep.”
He started to get up, but looked at the door. And Darren standing in front of it. The loan shark swallowed hard. “Am I really free to go?”
“Yes.” I narrowed my eyes. “But I would suggest answering a few questions for me first.”
His eyes darted toward Darren. Toward the camera. Then back at me. “Is that camera on?”
I glanced up at it and shrugged. “Don’t know. Rumor has it the camera is out in one room.” I twisted around to look at Darren. “You know if that’s this room? Or the one next door?”
Darren shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Well.” I faced Pitbull again. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
He gulped. “What do you want, Ruffner?”
“I want to know if anyone wants you dead.”
The guy was already fair-skinned, but he went damn near albino. “Huh?”
“Because, I mean, I can’t imagine any other reason why your name would be attached to harming a cop’s family. You’re smart enough not to fuck with a cop’s family, aren’t you?”
He blinked, nothing but fear registering on his face. “I don’t . . . I don’t follow.”
“You know what would happen if you were involved with something like that, right?” I asked as coldly as I could. “If I found out you went back on your word after the last time we talked?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Man, I don’t know what you’re—” A piece must’ve fallen into place, because he sat ramrod straight, and his eyes were suddenly half-dollars. “Did someone fuck with Lisa? It wasn’t me, Ruffner. I swear to God! I haven’t touched her, I—”
“No one touched Lisa.”
Another blank stare. Another horrified epiphany.
“Emily,” he breathed.
I nodded. “And two of my older kids.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but he went even whiter. “Oh God.” He shrank back against the metal chair. “Ruffner, I swear on my mother’s life, I had nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t touch a kid. Ever.” He looked me in the eye. “Even before we, uh, talked.”
“Then who would?”
“I don’t know!” His voice was strained, bordering on hysterical. “I’m just a loan guy. I don’t—”
“Who have you pissed off, Pitbull?” I growled. “Because what better way to make sure you’re a dead man than to give me a reason to believe you hurt my kid?”
�
�I don’t know! I don’t . . . Man, I swear, I don’t fucking know.”
I just stared at him. I didn’t speak. Darren didn’t speak. No one made a sound aside from Pitbull’s increasingly rapid breathing.
After a long moment—one that probably felt ten times longer for him—Pitbull said, “I swear to God, Ruffner. I have no idea what’s going on.” He put up his hands. “I do a lot of shady shit, but I never fuck with kids. Ever.”
It was a weird feeling, realizing you were disappointed that a man had just convinced you he hadn’t laid a hand on your kids. We were back to square one. Square zero. My kids were out there somewhere—alive—and I had no leads. No hunches. No hints.
But I wasn’t done with Pitbull yet. As I came around the table, the crutches clicked on the concrete floor, and the sound was actually kind of menacing. I stopped right behind him and loomed, leaning down as much as I could so I was almost speaking in his ear.
“I know you’ve got tentacles in every corner of this town. If anyone so much as whispers about where my kids are or who’s got them, we both know it’ll get back to you. Right?”
He was shaking bad, and nodded. “Y-yeah. I’ll keep an ear to the ground, but I—”
“You’re right.” I put a heavy hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You will.”
Hours after Pitbull had been released, I sat at my desk, rubbing my tired eyes so I could go over the list of recent parolees one last time. It wasn’t entirely unusual for convicts to want revenge on the cops who’d busted them. Some just wanted to get back to their normal lives after spending months or years in a cage, but others were hell-bent on destroying the people who—in their minds—were responsible for those lost months or years.
I could think of three convicts who might be compelled to fuck with me. A serial rapist named Dean Klein I’d arrested four years into my career. He’d told everyone who’d listen that he was going to take out me and my then-partner, but instead his first priority had been picking up where he’d left off with his heroin addiction. Too bad for him he hadn’t realized how much his tolerance had dropped in three years, and his landlord had found him with the needle still in his arm.
Then there was the murderer named Jason Wells, who was doing twenty-five to life. Every time he came up for parole, “life” seemed a bit more likely, considering he couldn’t seem to face the parole board without mentioning everything he planned to do to me once he got out.
And finally, there was Wesley Turner, who for some reason believed it was solely my fault that he was in lockup for distributing narcotics to middle school kids.
Klein wasn’t an issue, but Wells and Turner were on the list. Though they couldn’t touch me from their maximum-security cells, they had connections on the outside. All communications were strictly monitored, but criminals were not, by and large, stupid. Coded letters and conversations could go a long way. As could former cell mates who’d been paroled, tasked by their still-incarcerated friends to complete “missions” once they were on the outside.
Which meant our suspect—or at least the mastermind behind everything—could be literally anyone I’d ever arrested. For that matter, there was Trent Newberry, the dirty cop who’d been at the heart of the massive crime ring Darren and I had busted . . . Shit, was that only a couple of months ago?
I rubbed my forehead and swore softly.
We had a million possibilities, and not one concrete lead. Cops had enemies. It was an occupational hazard. The problem was sifting through the endless lists of names and figuring out who’d be satisfied to spit on me or write PIG in the dirt on my windshield, and whose grudge ran deep enough to warrant hurting my family.
Footsteps approached. I didn’t look up—I’d memorized that gait. “How is she?”
“Worried,” Darren said. “I told her to call if she hears anything, or if she needs something.”
“Good. Thanks for taking her home.”
“Don’t mention it.” He stopped behind me and touched my shoulder, and I absently put my hand over the top of his. He squeezed gently. “I should probably take you home too.”
“No.” I gestured at the screen. “I need—”
“You need sleep.”
I closed my eyes.
Sleep. Every ache in my bones, not to mention the throbbing in my foot and the thumping in my head, said I desperately needed some of that, but I didn’t see it happening anytime soon. Awake, I could do something. Get somewhere.
Asleep—assuming I could get there—I’d dream. I didn’t want to dream tonight.
Turning my head slightly, but not looking up at him, I said, “You really think I can sleep right now?”
“I think you need to.” He put his other hand on my other shoulder, and kneaded the stiff muscles. “You’re not going to be able to function if you don’t.”
“I can’t function now.” I tilted my head back so I could see him. “My kids, Darren . . .”
“I know.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead, and God, I didn’t even care if someone saw us. I needed his comfort a lot more than I needed discretion.
“At least if I’m here, I’m doing something.”
“And what good does it do if you’re so tired you can’t see straight? Or you miss an important detail?” He squeezed my shoulders. “You need to be sharp. I’ll keep going while you’re home. I promise.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I need to—”
“You need to sleep.” His voice hardened just enough to shut me up. “You’re shaken up, and on top of that, you’re still recovering from surgery. You’ve got to take care of yourself if you’re going to take care of your kids.”
I winced.
“Let me take you home,” he said, softening his tone again. “Take a few painkillers and crash, and I promise I’ll keep working while you’re out.”
Any other time, I’d have dug my heels in and argued, insisting I was fine for no other reason than I didn’t want to accept that someone else knew me better than I knew myself. But I was flagging hard. I’d only been running on a few cylinders since I’d fucked up my ankle. Fewer since the last surgery. And tonight, after everything that had gone down at the restaurant, I was drained, hitting a bone-deep level of physical and emotional exhaustion that I hadn’t even known was possible.
“You’ve got to take care of yourself if you’re going to take care of your kids.”
Those words echoed relentlessly inside my head. And I couldn’t argue with him. Running myself into the ground wouldn’t get us any closer to finding my kids and bringing them home. They needed me. They needed me sharp and rested.
I exhaled, shoulders sinking under his hands. “All right. Let’s go.”
I stayed with Andreas until he fell asleep.
He didn’t want me to. He wanted me to drop him off in front of his apartment and head right back to the station, but there was no way that was happening. He was so tired he was almost staggering, barely able to lift his crutches anymore, and the pinch of pain in his forehead had become a clench of his entire body. Besides, Erin shared the apartment with him now that she was living in the city, and I didn’t want to leave him to see signs of her everywhere with nothing to distract him from her glaring absence.
Instead, I parked and hustled him into the elevator, got him upstairs and into his apartment without giving him a chance to second-guess. It was tougher once we got inside. Andreas stopped in the kitchen to grab a glass of water, and paused in front of the fridge, his thumb brushing the edge of a construction-paper drawing Emily had done. It was a family portrait, lovingly rendered in crayon, with Andreas and Lisa and all of Emily’s siblings, and Emily in the middle holding on to the dog that she kept hinting—in the way an almost-five-year-old hinted, which was by outright asking—that her parents should give her. He already had a name, she’d said. Scruffy Ruffner. It was written across the bottom of the drawing in big blue letters, with the Rs reversed.
I put my hand on his and gently guided it away fro
m the picture. “Let me bring the water, you head back to the bedroom.”
“I don’t need a fucking nanny, Darren.”
I shrugged. “Just being efficient.” I left it at that. After a moment, he walked out of the kitchen, and I exhaled, slowly and quietly. Andreas was going to be an emotional minefield for a while—I’d have to tread carefully. I very deliberately didn’t let myself think about my own latent sense of desperation as I poured a glass of filtered water into a cup, then headed back to join Andreas.
He was already sitting on the edge of bed, his head in his hands, but he looked up when I came in. “Saved you the trouble of bringing me pills. I already took them.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He met my eyes. “I might be fucked up, but I’m not an idiot. I know I need something right now, and if I have to sleep anyway . . .”
I wasn’t about to go and count his pills to see if he was telling the truth. Andreas was right—I wasn’t his nanny. I was his boyfriend, and he knew how to take care of himself. He just needed a reminder every now and then.
“Good call.” I passed him the water, and he drank half of it, then shifted onto the bed and settled onto his back with a wince. I sat down next to him and gave in to the urge to brush his hair off his forehead. It was still a little tacky with gel; he’d gone out of his way to look nice tonight, wanting to make a good impression on the boys.
Andreas sighed and closed his eyes. “You’ll call if you find anything?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t keep me out of the loop just because you think I need more sleep. The kids come first.” I need to be able to trust you. I heard it, even if he didn’t outright say it.
“I know they do. I’ll call, I swear. Otherwise I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“And then you’ll need sleep,” he grumbled, but I could see that fatigue was winning out at last.
“I can go another day, I think. If not, I’ll catch a nap at the station.”
“Don’t be like . . .” He yawned. “Paula.”
Paula was another detective, and one of the few who was friendly with us. She’d helped a lot on our last few cases, including helping me pull Andreas out of a burning building last month. She was also a workaholic and a caffeine addict, but there was no denying she got shit done. “There are worse role models to have.”
