Internal Affair

by Samantha Cayto

  In an effort to pull herself together, she hefted her briefcase strap higher on her shoulder and took a step into the office. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. I’m Detective Parker Li from internal affairs.” She could all but hear her niece telling her to stop being so derpy. “Do you have a moment?”

  The look on Lieutenant Callaghan’s face clearly conveyed he wished he didn’t. “Of course, Detective, come in and sit down.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Parker entered the office fully and shut the door quietly behind her. Ignoring Callaghan’s raised eyebrows at her perhaps presumptive actions, she sat on the edge of one of his visitor chairs. She also ignored the spike of pleasure zinging through her when the seam of her pants dug into the aroused flesh between her legs. She pulled her briefcase onto her lap as if to hide her inappropriate reaction to him. How dumb was that? It wasn’t as if she had an erection to hide, yet she felt self-conscious anyway. “I need to speak with you about a delicate matter.”

  Callaghan treated her to a slight and amused smile. “Isn’t everything you do a ‘delicate matter’?”

  She ignored the somewhat baiting tone, having learned quickly that she couldn’t work in internal affairs without developing a thick skin. Dislike, mistrust, and even open hostility came with the job. She had to ignore it all, the looks when she checked in at the front desk and the stares boring into her back as she walked through the bull pen to reach the lieutenant’s office. Cops could practically smell her coming. One actually had told her so with a sneer on his face, as if she were dog shit he’d just stepped in.

  But her job mattered. Without people like her, some cops, just a very few of them, tarnished the badge and made all of their jobs harder to do. She had a hard time accepting that other cops couldn’t see the value in what she did, didn’t appreciate that she wasn’t against them, wasn’t the enemy. She fervently wanted to make the department better. She hoped the man sitting across the desk from her would understand that she was there to help, not hurt.

  Taking a deep, furtive breath for courage, she pulled out a bulky manila envelope. Although files were increasingly done electronically these days, there were still paper files as well, and they often contained scraps of information and photographs that no one had bothered to scan into a computer. That was particularly true for a cold case close to a decade old. The file had resided in the bowels of the records department, yet surprisingly free of dust and more worn than she would have expected given its age. Someone, some people, had been pulling it out and going through it over the years. She’d bet anything one of those people sat in the room with her. Her suspicions were confirmed when Callaghan leaned forward to stare at what she held.

  “I’ve been investigating the death of Connor Mahurin.” She paused when she thought she heard Callaghan mutter fucker under his breath. She suppressed a smile. If she were him, she’d feel the same way. “As well as another member of the force about whom incriminating evidence was found in Mahurin’s personal papers at home. That person is on administrative leave and faces criminal charges as soon as the D.A. and I finish lining up our ducks. That’s confidential information, by the way, sir.”

  Callaghan didn’t respond. He kept staring at the file in her hand.

  She cleared her throat delicately. This next part of the one-way conversation was going to be tricky. Unpleasant in a way she hadn’t become used to. This would be personal to the lieutenant, and more, it would be painful. She hated dredging up old memories and picking at painful wounds she imagined hadn’t completely healed. But it had to be done. Justice hadn’t been served on this old case yet. With the Mahurin matter only a few months old, this case wasn’t even as cold as everyone else seemed to think. In her mind, it remained red-hot.

  “In any event, as part of my investigation, I kind of stumbled into your parents’ murders. I went through this file and I, um, know there was talk at the time that your father had gotten into some trouble with the Irish mob, that he was, like Mahurin has turned out to be, dirty.”

  Large hands slammed down on the top of the desk. Callaghan half rose up from his seat. “Get to the damn point, Li. What the hell do you want?”

  If she’d seen only anger in those vivid blue eyes, she might have reacted with equal force. But another feeling showed through—hurt. So she met his temper with the same modulated tone she’d been using and cut to the chase. “I’m reopening this case. I intend to investigate the murder of your parents as part of a broader search for cops corrupted and in league with Mahurin.” When Callaghan’s expression turned stormier, she hurried to finish. “To be clear, I’m not going into this with the expectation that your father was one of those cops.”

  Silence reigned for a few seconds as Callaghan digested her words. She maintained eye contact so he could see her sincerity. She never went into a case with preconceived expectations that a cop had done something wrong. Her goal didn’t involve bagging cops for contrived infractions. She chased after the truth, whatever it turned out to be.

  Callaghan sat back in his chair once more, his gaze skittering off to the side. His chest rose and fell on quick, harsh breaths, testament to how riled up he’d become. But he obviously tried to get himself under control before speaking to her again. She gave him the privacy he needed by sticking the file back into her briefcase.

  Really, there’d been no need to take it out in the first place. It had served as a kind of prop, something for her to do with her hands to expend nervous energy. She didn’t enjoy confrontations, even though it came with the job. Worse, gorgeous men who pushed all of her feminine buttons unnerved her. The raw sexuality of Callaghan was enough to unsettle her. Her body had forgotten she’d sworn off men and dating for the foreseeable future.

  Of course, when she’d done that, the images in her mind were of the nice, mild Chinese men her mother had been pushing on her since she’d finished college. None of them had held the allure of Daire Callaghan. It was easy to give up vegetables. Far harder to turn away dessert.

  Callaghan finally broke his silence. In a weary tone, he asked, “What do you want from me?”

  Okay, back to business. “Your help. As a son of the victims, your perspective and your memories of the events before, during, and after the murders could prove very useful to my investigation. Plus, you were already a cop yourself and must have interacted with at least some of the same cops as your father. I need that insight about who you might suspect had been dirty back then.”

  Callaghan smiled wanly at her. “What makes you think I wasn’t one of them, that I’m not currently one of them?”

  Parker tossed herself back into her chair and crossed her legs. She swiped with annoyance at a stray hair that swung into her face, working out the proper response. She was used to hostility. Bluntness, not so much. Challenge lurked in the lieutenant’s expression.

  “For me to worry that you were a corrupt cop back then, I’d have to also believe your father had groomed you like some mafia kid to join the family business,” she said with air quotes. “Then after your father, did what? Double-crossed his criminal cohorts? You still joined up?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, so maybe you’re such a crappy son you did that and proceeded to nevertheless become a stellar police officer, racking up collars as a patrolman and participating in some major busts as a detective. If that was some kind of diversionary tactic, then congratulations, it certainly makes you look like the real thing. In fact, if more dirty cops did the job you’ve done, some might consider it a fair trade.”

  She paused to gauge the effect she had on him. He stared back at her with ever narrowing eyes and a grim set to his lips. Hard to read exactly what his thoughts were, but she had his attention at least. She believed what she said, too, having thought it through already. She re-crossed her legs, squeezing her thighs a bit because Callaghan still made her hot and bothered in a distracting way despite her resolve to tamp down her interest.

  “So then,” she continued, as if ticking off a list of how she’d spen
t her day. “You raised your younger brothers to also join the family business. Apparently you did a lousy job there if you are dirty. Sergeant Callaghan was the one who flushed out Mahurin, which means either your brother is clean or crafty enough to get rid of a loose end without splashing any mud on himself. And, his partner, Nieves, either corrupts easily or is too stupid to know what his partner is up to. I’ve seen his file and don’t peg him as either dirty or dumb.”

  She paused again, just for a second. When Callaghan opened his mouth, she overrode whatever he’d intended to say. “Finally, we have the baby of the family. He looks like he’s still in high school, let alone college. That’s why he did so well working undercover as a teen prostitute, I guess. Once again, either you’ve shielded him from the awful truth of your doings or he’s dumb enough to get himself beaten half to death by someone who paid off and blackmailed higher-ups to turn a blind eye to his little horror show. Not exactly how a dirty cop gets ahead.”

  The lieutenant shot to his feet in an almost violent move that sent her heart thumping with a hint of fear, but also a purely feminine appreciation of the power he obviously kept tightly leashed.

  “That’s enough,” he all but growled. He stood staring down at her, his chest heaving. Breaking his gaze, he looked out into the bull pen. Although she’d shut the door, it was flanked by long windows with open blinds. She didn’t turn around to check but could imagine others were watching them.

  With a huff, Callaghan sat down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. It’s just that what happened to Finn in particular still gets to me.” When he looked at her again, fear showed through his eyes and she knew it was tied to how he must have felt seeing his brother come so close to death.

  Now she felt bad. She squirmed in her chair a moment and swallowed hard. “No, I’m sorry. You asked me how I was sure about you, and sometimes, well often,” she admitted with a ruthful smile, “I get so caught up in chasing the truth and solving a puzzle, I lose sight of the fact that it involves real people and their lives. It was insensitive of me to answer your question with such cavalier honesty.”

  She leaned forward. “Look, sir. I don’t know if your father was involved with the mob or was otherwise on the take. From what I can see in the record, the idea doesn’t jibe with the man being described. The weird thing is that there’s nothing official, no investigation ever started against him. It’s as if the idea of his being dirty just popped up out of thin air.”

  “Rumor, innuendo, whispers at his fucking funeral while he and my mother were being lowered into their graves.” Callaghan’s voice caught, and a shudder ran through him.

  His obvious vulnerability got to her, brought out all kinds of instincts in her, not necessarily maternal ones, either. Because she could picture herself getting up and putting her arms around him, she gripped her briefcase hard and planted both feet on the floor.

  “Yes, that’s how it looks to me, too. If your father had been dirty and the other dirty cops had been there, why wouldn’t they stomp on any rumors? It could only lead to more questions unless someone was trying to deflect all of the mud onto a dead man. The whole thing smells off to me, and even if it’s true, his killers, your mother’s killers, need to be brought to justice.”

  Callaghan closed his eyes briefly. “Amen to that. My brothers and I have been trying to figure this out since it happened. You say you want my help?”

  Parker nodded once sharply. “Yes. Like I said, it makes sense to me that you’d know things that could be useful, and I really doubt you’re dirty.”

  “Okay.”

  She couldn’t keep the smile back, then lost it quickly. “You have to understand, though, that I go where this takes me. If your father was dirty, I won’t sweep it under the rug.”

  Callaghan put his elbows on his desk and drilled his stare right into her. “Neither will I. I want the truth, whatever that may be, although I’m confident my father was clean.”

  “Just so we’re clear.” She pulled out her phone. “Let’s set up a day and time for me to interview you.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her use of the word “interview” and shook his head. “It has to be at night, and I suggest my house.”

  She blinked back at him. His house? No, no way. That would be too intimate a setting, and her weak body already had too many bad thoughts about this man as it was. “Why not here?”

  Callaghan’s gaze swept the area behind her for a few seconds. “Too many eyes and ears. It’s not safe.”

  She frowned. “We’ll be in a private room, of course. Not here, here.”

  He shook his head again. “This thing, it goes too deep and too wide. It crosses districts and ranks. I don’t trust talking about this anywhere but my home turf, which is my home itself. If you’re uncomfortable meeting me alone, I can have my cousin, Regan Malloy, join us.”

  What an odd offer. She knew about his cousin, of course. The woman had just closed a serial killer case and received a commendation for it. If her presence was supposed to assure Parker he wasn’t going to “silence” the nosey internal affairs officer forever like this was some kind of cheap thriller, what stopped the cousin from being an accomplice?

  He rubbed at the back of his neck in a nervous tell, and it hit her that he was referring to her being a woman alone with a strange man. And, yeah, that idea again goosed her supposed-to-be slumbering libido.

  She squirmed in her chair, giving him her own tell about her state mind. “Oh, ah no, that’s not necessary. If you think it’s more prudent to meet at your house, then that’s fine. I, ah, trust you to be professional.”

  Callaghan smiled grimly. “Yeah, that’s me, always the guy you can trust to do the right thing. Is Friday night at eight okay? I have a busy few days ahead of me.” He furrowed his brow. “Unless of course, you have plans? I just realized it’s a pretty common date night.”

  For most people, it was. Just not for her. She stood up, suddenly done with this exhausting conversation and the annoying sexual need trying to claw its way out of the box she’d stuffed it in.

  “No, I have no other plans,” she replied curtly. Holding out her hand over his desk, she added, “I appreciate your time, sir.”

  Callaghan stood, too, and clasped her hand in his. A noticeable spark jumped between them. They pulled away simultaneously and stared dumbly at each other for a few seconds.

  “It’s, um, dry in here, huh?” the lieutenant said, taking a step back and bumping into his chair.

  Parker was equally ungraceful as she scooted back toward his door. Static electricity? Sure, that’s what had happened. “I’ll see you Friday, sir.”

  “Wait,” he called when she turned to grab the doorknob. She looked over her shoulder. “You need my address.”

  “I have it already,” she said in a voice that managed to be both breathless and squeaky. God, what a hot mess she was turning into in the blink of an eye. “Bye,” she said and practically ran out of his office.

  She ignored the stares of the other cops. She always did.

  Chapter Two

  Daire gave the big open room that served as both living room and dining room one more critical glare and decided it would do. Christ, Jesus, when had he ever fretted over housecleaning this much? Sometime around never, he figured. Sure, he’d gotten on his brothers’ cases about picking up after themselves, and they’d vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms maybe twice a month. Not up to their mother’s standards, of course, but good enough for three guys. More than. So why had he left work an hour early to chase dust bunnies and put fresh towels in the downstairs half-bath?

  It wasn’t as if he were having a date over. Parker Li, the woman who’d coolly and neatly sliced his balls off in his own office, didn’t count as any kind of date. The better description for her would be the enemy, except if there was any chance she sincerely wanted to solve his father’s murder and exonerate him, then Daire had to agree to help her. Making sure his home didn’t look like a demilitar
ized zone counted as just good manners, nothing more. Which didn’t explain why he’d changed his clothes twice in the last hour.

  God, he was acting like a dope, but he found it difficult to ignore how his body had reacted to the woman. As soon as he’d caught sight of her in his doorway, every cell in his body had stood up and taken notice. That was true even though he knew she had to be from internal affairs, and that never bode well. It remained true even after she started in about his parents’ murders and he’d thought she was digging up dirt on his old man. That’s the part that rankled the most. His dick should have shriveled up in his pants at that point. Instead, it had steadily gotten harder and harder, not flagging even when he’d gotten mad at her detached description of Finn’s torture.

  He didn’t think she’d noticed at the time. Tonight would be different, though. He had to make sure to keep his unruly body under control while they pored over whatever she brought. Keeping his mind on the awful task of once more reliving his parents’ murders agonizing detail by agonizing detail would definitely help. As should his jerk-off session in the shower earlier.

  He’d felt like a tool doing it, but at his age, it should help. The evening would probably be a bust anyway and end quickly. He couldn’t imagine what she had that was new and helpful in the way of evidence. He certainly wasn’t going to share what Ronan and Diego had dug up at Mahurin’s place and kept from being logged in as official evidence. As an internal affairs officer, Li would hang them all out to dry for it. So, yeah, likely he would be wasting his time.

  The doorbell rang, and his heartrate kicked up a notch. Damn it. Rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms against his thighs, he made himself walk slowly to the door and open it. A blast of cold air preceded his visitor, yet he hardly noticed it. Parker Li stood bundled up on his front stoop, her pert nose and sharp cheekbones a little red.