by Lisa Ladew
“You’re kidding me, right? This is a joke. You’ve got a truck stashed somewhere.” He looked around, hopefully eying the big evergreen in front of his neighbor’s place. There could be a truck on the other side of it.
“I never joke about quality wheels, Mac-attack. It’s practical. That’s what matters in a car.”
Mac started forward, then stopped mid-stride and studied Bruin’s face. He was telling the fucking truth. Mac would be stuck in this thing until his car was fixed or the insurance company totaled it. “Bruin, come on.” He dropped his voice, eyeing it and shaking his head. “You can’t even fuck in the backseat.”
Bruin bent and peered in the window, as if to check, then straightened, a frown on his face. “Your car doesn’t have a backseat, Mac.”
Mac groaned again, louder this time, as he dragged his feet over the concrete to Bruin’s sedan. “Maybe not, but at least I look cool in it, not-fucking. This thing is pure woman repellant.”
Bruin pulled open the driver’s door, bent into the car for a moment, then popped back up again, cheap blues-blocker shades covering his eyes. “Not the right woman, Mac. Remember that.”
Mac watched as Bruin climbed into the tiny car and the entire thing settled to the left to accommodate his bulk. Mac hoped a tie rod would snap, then they could walk the twenty-two miles to the police station. That would clear his head. Maybe.
No such luck. With a sigh, Mac pulled open his door. Only good thing, he wasn’t thinking about that thing he didn’t want to think about, anymore.
Really.
Chapter 2
Rogue Kendall pushed her cart into the maintenance elevator of the Chicago condo, her cap pulled low over her face, her non-descript blondish-brown hair hidden under it, her athletic but slim build hidden by the bulk she’d strategically placed under the blue coveralls she wore. To anyone further than five or six feet away from her, she would look like a man. But if they got closer, she could be in a bit of trouble, since she’d worn no facial hair or tried in any way to disguise that she was really a woman. Even in the new millennium, not too many women were working maintenance and wearing coveralls.
She pressed the button for the fifth floor and settled back against the wall as the doors to the stinky elevator closed jerkily and the thing lurched upward. She’d disguised herself as a man many times before, successfully. With her height, she could pull it off, wearing a fake goatee and oversized ball cap, unless someone wanted to talk to her. No matter how often she practiced, her man’s voice was always lacking, and pretending to be mute attracted more attention than it dissuaded. Acting pissed off and dangerous worked better, but people paid attention to pissed off people. Remembered them. Which was the exact opposite of what she was going for.
She shifted her eyes to the corner of the elevator and fixed her face with a neutral expression. Bored employee, counting the hours until work was over. Women would leave her alone, but men almost always tried to talk to her. Not that she thought she would run into any tenants, and she knew she wouldn’t run into any other maintenance employees. She had their schedules memorized.
The elevator reached the floor she wanted without stopping, and, when the doors dinged open, the way was clear. It was the middle of the day, and most people would be at work, even the silly, spoiled mistress she was going to pay a visit to had a spa to visit and a massage to get on Tuesdays.
That morning, Rogue had reached into her bag of tricks to ensure the day security guard to this condo building would not make it in. The night guard who’d been forced to work overtime was currently snoring behind the desk on the first floor. She expected no interruptions, and if there was one, she would handle it. Handling shit was her specialty. One of her specialties.
She pushed her cart to the end of the hallway, eyes swiveling, ears straining to identify every sound. All was normal. When she reached the heavy metal door that led out to the roof, she parked her cart to one side and eyed the control pad there. The standard emergency code would probably get her through the door, but there was no challenge in that, so she would do things the hard way. Maybe someone would almost catch her and she’d have to run, fight, break a sweat, use her brain.
Maybe some cops would show up. Maybe one in particular. Tall, muscles for days, a sharp tongue, not scared of anything…
Rogue came back to herself with a jerk, the sounds and sights of the hallway rushing instantly into her consciousness, along with blistering self-recrimination. What was wrong with her? She listened to the hallway closely before turning her head and confirming what she already knew. It was still empty. She’d been doing that… fugue thing more often lately. Too often. Drifting off into some private recess of her mind, some private fantasy world where a big-Rogue cut the thought off relentlessly and bent over her work. She’d figured out what the trigger was two or three times ago, now if she could just keep herself from thinking about it again she could finish this job. She’d wanted a challenge? Try being a cat burglar and paid spy who couldn’t think the word cop without losing a few minutes of her life.
That wasn’t entirely true. She could think the word, she just couldn’t allow herself to feel the emotions and connections that the word brought to her. The strange fantasy that always—
Rogue jerked again, returning to her conscious mind with a small, startled cry this time. She set her tongue between her teeth and bit down, whipped her head around to ensure the hallway was still empty, refused to contemplate how long she’d been out, and faced front to study the keypad on the wall in front of her, pulling off one of her too-big work gloves to reveal the slim, thin gloves underneath. She always covered her hands. Her fingers were too long and thin. Artist’s fingers that marked her almost as much as her height did. They would be remembered, especially by anyone with an artistic bent.
Three days before, she’d been up here in a different maintenance outfit, and dusted the pad. Now she leaned in, looking for the numbers that the dust had been wiped from by repeated use. 2, 3, 6, and 8.
24 permutations. She’d be on the roof in minutes. She started with the most likely one. 2368-but, as soon as she pressed the 2 in 2368, the box beeped and the door buzzed open. What in the hell? She looked around, stared hard at the box, then pushed the door open before it decided to lock again. Shit. That hadn’t made any sense at all. Was someone messing with her? No. Some instinct told her no, no one was messing with her. The security box must be… malfunctioning. She always was lucky with shit like that.
Rogue maneuvered her cart through the door, the slight chill of the March morning biting at her cheeks. She pushed her cart across the flat, open, roof area, to the northeast corner of the building, distracted by the view for only a moment. The condo was a red-brick building, very typical Chicago, located in an up-and-coming neighborhood, but since it was only five stories high, the view from the roof barely stirred any excitement in her. She needed at least fourteen floors before her heart beat faster. The higher the better.
She parked her cart against the three-foot wall that ran around the roof, corralling it to keep people and crap from falling off the edge, then knelt and dug through the cargo area under her cart, pulling out her Bosun’s chair and rigging, working hard and fast. Just the way she liked it, ha ha. Her lips curled into a bitter line. Yeah, right. She wished she could find someone to give it to her hard and fast, slow and gentle, any way at all. Just one man who wasn’t a weenie, that’s all she needed. Just one who wouldn’t look at her height and her muscles, her sharp tongue, her tendency to throw elbows first and ask questions later, if then. If she could just find that one guy who wouldn’t take all of that in and suddenly remember a very pressing appointment to get his dog washed or his tires retreaded. Just one guy who maybe was bigger than her, stronger than her, not scared of her, who could handle her at her worst, because she didn’t have a best. She could almost see him, The One from her dreams, knew what his profession would be. And wouldn’t that be a bona fide hoot, if he really were a cop? How would th
at even work? She wasn’t giving up her profession, what she was best at, even if the dick game was strong, even if he called her beautiful…
Rogue jerked and looked up into the streaming almost-spring sunlight, blinking and wondering how much time she had lost. She shook her head sharply and bent back over her work, tongue clamped between her teeth so hard the pain kept her grounded.
Fourteen minutes later, she had it all set up. She threw the Bosun’s chair over the side, donned her work belt and harness, tested her rigging, then leaned long ways along the wall, and recklessly dropped her feet into the chair. She grabbed her bucket and squeegee from the top of her cart, attached them to her belt, then wiggled her way into the chair, until her butt was sitting on the canvas seat. She clamped her safety gear on, then lowered herself to the first window, making a good show of cleaning it. Someone was watching her. Make that two someones. She could feel them, both from the building across the street, both on floors lower than her. The eyes on her felt like beacons, pointing out their owners with uncanny precision. Weird, yes; she’d discovered as a child that no one else seemed to have the ability to know when someone was watching them in the way she did, but she certainly appreciated it, weird or not. Growing up in the way she had, it had been a boon, a blessing, a way to survive.
She moved to the next window, cleaning it slower than needed, then dropped down to another. Within just a few minutes, the eyes lost interest, and went about their day. She moved back up the wall, back to the top floor, then decisively went over the side of the balcony there, pulling her chair with her, dropping it onto the floor behind the privacy wall. Anyone looking now would see only her ropes. She would be in and out before any looky-loos thought to call somebody.
Crouching, she scanned the balcony and just inside the door for cameras. Finding none, she quickly stripped off her harness, coveralls, and cap, revealing her black yoga pants and black long-sleeve shirt underneath, loose around the belly and forearms, the better to hide what she had there. Her slim gloves stayed on. She stood and headed for the sliding glass doors, fingering her lock-picking instruments through the leather of the slim black pouch around her waist that looked like a belt. Sometimes she wore it under her shirt, sometimes over, but she almost always wore it. No purses for her.
She didn’t need her tools. The door was unlocked, the alarm not even set. Stupid woman. Rogue knew her target would never have left the door unlocked, but when men chose their mistresses for her honey hams and candied yams, sometimes things like brains and the ability to follow simple instructions that didn’t have to do with mascara or lip liner got left out of the equation.
Rogue pulled the door open and prowled inside, getting a feel for the place as a whole. She knew exactly where the bag she wanted would be, if it were here, but simple human curiosity occasionally got the better of even her. Pictures lined one wall. Rogue snorted when she realized most of them were selfies of Miss Candy Yam herself, with Rogue’s target, Lorenzo Dotti, The Chief of the Chicago PD’s Organized Crime Bureau. Her mouth pursed distastefully as she studied them, their brashness. What would Mrs. Dotti think if she saw these pictures? Rogue refereed a brief internal struggle about sending them to her, then decided against it. Mrs. Dotti knew Lorenzo had an outside snuggle bunny. Rogue had discovered, over the last six weeks of surveillance of him, that he spent more nights in this condo than he did at home.
She’d read it in the paper a few times, too, never wanting to believe that someone in such a high position of authority in the city got away with such frequent and public intimations that he was unfaithful to his wife. That may have been why she’d taken this job. Ordinarily, she would never take a job that had to do with the cops, or even someone who wasn’t a criminal, but she was pissed at Chief Lorenzo. Had been for a long time. That shit wasn’t right.
Rogue headed straight for the tiny alcove off the bedroom that Chief Lorenzo kept as a third office. The words Chief Lorenzo tasted bad to her, even in her head. He was good at his job, but crappy at his personal affairs. Why get married if you weren’t going to stay faithful? What was even the point? She shook her head and entered the tiny room, more of a closet than an office. When Lorenzo had left work the night before, he’d had the black messenger bag over his shoulder, and when he’d left the condo this morning, he hadn’t. Simple logic said that she would find it in here, and if she did, she could put a six-week job to rest.
She grinned as she visually swept the room. When she found that folder, it would make her a quarter of a million dollars richer.
Chapter 3
Mac shifted in his seat, but there was no pulling his knees out of his chest, even with the seat back as far as it would go. Bruin looked even more ridiculous than Mac felt. The big bear hulked over the steering wheel so his head wouldn’t brush the ceiling. If they crashed, the air bag wouldn’t stand a chance; it would pop like a water balloon flung against a brick wall.
“Bru, take a right here. Let’s hit Mik Maks instead of that new place.” Mac didn’t have a lot of hope that new place existed. Bruin was famous for his wild goose chases of anything that had the word honey associated with it, the more unlikely the better. Just last month, they’d driven four hours north to Langlade Forest in Wisconsin, on a rumor that bees had been seen entering caves in the Bear Haven Wildlife Preserve. Never mind that it was the middle of winter. Never mind that Bear Haven Wildlife Preserve didn’t actually contain caves of any decent size. Bruin had rented a full-size van, filled it with climbing and rappelling equipment that made Mac’s stomach shrivel into a tiny, painful ball, then dragged Mac with him, regaling Mac with tales of Elvish honey that had been found in a cave in Turkey and routinely sold for $2000 an ounce. According to Bruin, it could cure any disease, including, apparently, tooth decay and something called Foreign Accent Syndrome.
They hadn’t found any caves or any honey, and Mac had escaped with only a small bit of frostbite on his pinky toe. Easily cured with a shift. Mac considered himself as getting off lucky, since, if they had found some cave they needed to rappel into, he would have been glad to break his own leg or arm to make sure that didn’t happen. Gah, he hated heights of any kind, and even got nauseous on a stepladder.
It had almost been as bad as the time when Wade had forced him to a trust-building exercise in Yosemite with a group of patrol officers, thinking Mac could work on his asshole-tendencies and his fear of heights at the same time. But all Mac had done was ditch the crew and bang some hot-as-lava climber chick as the sun went down…
Still. Mac spoke quickly before Bruin had a chance to think about it. “We’ll check out that Honey Garage another time. There’s a rut tomorrow night and I’m still in charge of recruiting the females. We need about ten more.”
Bruin rubbed his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face, not turning where Mac had indicated. “But Mik Maks is all badge bunnies. If we go to The Honey Shop, maybe there will be regular females there. You don’t like badge bunnies, anyway.”
Mac grunted. Bruin had him there. “They are generally too… petite for my taste.”
Bruin shot him a grin. “You like a woman who looks like she can kick your ass.”
Mac shrugged. “Or at least like she might try.” He licked his lips and savored the thought of a gorgeous woman who was a match for him in every way. A female he wouldn’t have to be gentle with or watch what he said around. He hated trying to filter the bold thoughts in his brain into soft lumps of uselessness that wouldn’t offend anyone. Not to mention that trying made his head hurt. The hash tag #nofilter had been invented for his mouth. He knew it. #notgonnachangewhoIam was his, too.
“Here, Bru! Here, turn here. We gotta hit Mik Maks. We’ll go to The Honey Spot tomorrow.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.” If it didn’t exist, then he wasn’t lying.
Bruin turned the wheel, easing the ridiculously tiny car into the lane that would take them to the cop bar on the other side of the park.
“Hey, w
hy don’t we leave the car here, cut through the park? We could get some fresh air. Nice day today. Sunshine. Spring and shit.”
Bruin threw him a look. “You don’t want to be seen getting out of my car.”
Mac gave up. He’d tried. If the bear wanted the truth, Mac was honor-bound to give it to him. “Damn skippy I don’t, Fozzie, this thing is a disgrace. If you hadn’t crashed my car, we could be riding up in style in my Corvette. Park it, sister!”
Bruin pouted, then actually hung his head, almost brushing his cheek on the steering wheel. “Sorry, wolf, I should have told you bears can’t resist honeybee nests.”
Mac snorted, knowing he was gonna get his way, but unable to resist rubbing it in. He loved his car and she was currently smashed to bits at the mechanic shop. “What if you’d been on your way to a fire, with some other bearen? Would all four of your dumb asses driven the fire engine off the road into a tree if you’d seen a bees’ nest in it?”
Bruin pulled over and parked the car, shaking his head. “That’s what the Dalmatian is for.”
Mac smacked himself in the forehead, the crack of skin on skin loud in the confined space. “You are not fucking telling me that firefighters only use Dalmatians in order to keep them away from beehives.”
Bruin grinned and bobbed his head, then opened his door and unfolded himself from the lunchbox he called a car. Mac swore he heard Bruin whisper, “Duh. It’s the dots. They look like bees,” as he climbed out.
Mac ripped open his own door, but Bruin was already striding off into the park, his nose lifted. Mac ran to follow him. He smelled it, too. Strawberry shortcake? Pie? He couldn’t tell.
Bruin stopped at a piece of metal art Mac had always found ridiculous and useless. It was high and flat, like a wall, but undulating to give the appearance of flowing, like a humungous metal flag waving in the wind. It was so close to the busy road that it never had problems with graffiti. Until today.
