Your Best Shot: An Electrifying British Crime Thriller (DI Benjamin Kidd Crime Thrillers Book 3)

by GS Rhodes

  “Alright,” Kidd said, taking a heavy breath. How much time did they have left? How much time had they already used up? He didn’t want to think about it if he could help it. He just wanted to keep going.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Sanchez asked, nudging him in the side where they stood, the two of them side by side in front of the board.

  “Yeah,” Kidd said, not really wanting to tear himself away. But it wasn’t so much due to the case—the evidence board, the murders—it was the nervousness in the pit of his stomach that was stopping him from wanting to lay eyes on John. “He’ll probably be outside waiting.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a nice night ahead of you,” Sanchez said. It was almost like she was encouraging him to leave, trying to kick him out of the station. “What’s the hesitation?”

  “What’s the rush?” he replied with a smirk.

  Zoe didn’t return it, instead she fixed him with a somewhat withering stare. “What’s going on in that big old head of yours, Ben?” she asked. “You okay?”

  He laughed. What she’d said wasn’t funny in the slightest, but being asked if he was okay tickled him in a very specific way. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been properly okay, when thoughts of Craig or of a case didn’t haunt him. The last time he was properly okay was probably when he was with John, before he got that message from Andrea and made plans to get on Craig’s trail once again.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “That picture—”

  “He lived here,” Zoe interrupted. “It’s bloody shit luck that he’s shown up in a photo while you’re on a case, but it’s a coincidence. It’s not a sign.”

  “I don’t believe in signs.”

  “Then why are you leaving that nice guy you’ve been seeing stood out in the cold?”

  “Because…” he trailed off. “I don’t know.” It was the only answer he had.

  “Permission to give you a hug,” she said.

  He snorted. “Granted.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight. They weren’t really the hugging kind. They were friends and work colleagues, and for the most part kept everything professional, but it was what Kidd seemed to need in that moment.

  “Whatever it is,” she said, letting go of him and stepping away. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay.”

  “And if you let John help you, I’m sure he’d be very understanding about it,” she continued. “I know you don’t want to tell him, it’s an awkward conversation to have and not really an easy one, but you’ll feel better if you do. And maybe he can help.”

  “Help me find my ex-boyfriend?”

  “Help you find Craig, help you find peace with it, I don’t know,” Zoe said. “Either way, no good can come from you keeping it from him. You have to know that.”

  Kidd knew that. Every time he thought about the fact that he’d been keeping it from John it knotted his stomach. But how do you bring up that kind of thing? How do you tell the person you’re very happily getting to know that you’re still looking for your ex-boyfriend who went missing two years ago? At least, how do you tell them and still get to stay with them? That was something Kidd didn’t know the answer to. And he wasn’t so sure he wanted to find out the answer to it either.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Druid’s Head was packed considering it was only a Tuesday night. Apparently, everybody else in town had as difficult a start to their week as Kidd. John had been waiting for Kidd outside, just as they’d arranged, dressed in a smart pair of jeans and a button-down shirt. His hair looked a little more windswept than normal, a few flyaways that made him look a little fluffier than usual. Even his cheeks were tinged a little red, despite it being a fairly balmy spring night.

  Now, he was sitting across from Kidd in a quiet corner of the pub upstairs. The lights were a little dimmer up here, the crowds thinner, so they could actually hear each other talking. Their glasses were full and their knees were touching beneath the table, and the comfortable feeling Kidd always seemed to have when he was around John returned quicker than even he anticipated.

  Maybe it was the tension of the weekend, or of the case, but the nervousness had been enough to make him feel worried about seeing John again. But that feeling faded when he saw John smiling from outside the station, when he kissed Kidd on the cheek, when he took his hand and they walked to their destination.

  “So, how was work?” Ben asked, taking a long sip of his cider, letting it fill him up. They’d ordered food and he was absolutely starving but couldn’t resist the drink. “Still absolutely slammed?”

  “I have so many deadlines I can barely keep up,” John said with a nervous laugh. John was an editor for a pretty big crime imprint at a publisher in central London. He worked long hours, read a lot of crime fiction, and had a calendar so chock full of events that, strangely, it suited the lives the two of them were leading. Kidd worked late quite a lot and John often found his evenings occupied also. “It’s a lot. There are book fairs coming, so many launches I’m going to be giving speeches at—”

  “You’re going to be giving speeches?” Kidd said, unable to keep the smile off his face. “What kind of speeches?”

  “Oh, God, embarrassing ones most likely,” John replied. “I’m terrible at public speaking, really awful, so when I have to give a toast at a book launch my hands are always shaking. I put the wine glass down most of the time so people don’t notice.”

  “I can’t imagine you being nervous for things like that,” Ben said, shaking his head.

  “That’s because you only see the confident me,” he replied. “I’ll let you see the slightly more nervous wreck at some point, you’ll run a mile.”

  “I doubt it,” Kidd replied, as earnestly as he could.

  John locked eyes with him across the table, his hand poised around his pint glass, a smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. Kidd could feel himself melting, and he could hear the nervous part of his brain telling him that it wouldn’t last, that it would all end in chaos, in fire, but he ignored it. He pushed it aside because moments like this with John were everything.

  “Anyway,” John said. “You should join me some time.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I could,” Kidd replied. “Although I would love to see you in your element.”

  “In my element?”

  “Mingling, doing the networking thing, then your speech of course.”

  John practically choked on his drink. “Jesus, maybe not then,” he said. “If I wasn’t nervous already, doing a speech with you there would have me shaking like a leaf. You’d end up covered in warm wine.”

  “Warm wine?”

  John shook his head. “The wine is always warm at book launches,” he said. “I don’t know why. It’s a hideous hallmark of the events.” He took a sip of his drink and turned his attention back to Kidd. “How about you?”

  Kidd blinked. “What about me?”

  “How’s work?” he asked. “You said you were running late, I assume that means something’s happened.”

  Kidd sighed. “Something is always happening,” he said with a lazy half smile. “This is big though.”

  John’s eyes widened. “Oh really?”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied. “Two bodies so far. Limited evidence and leads.” He shook his head and took a nervous gulp of his drink. “So if I seem at all tense, that would be why.”

  “You don’t seem tense,” John said. “But that’s hardly the thing you want to be coming back to, huh?”

  A rush of nerves flew through Kidd’s body. His heart quickened, his palms suddenly became sweaty. He tried not to let it show on his face, but wasn’t sure if John noticed the slight shift.

  “Why’s that?” Kidd asked.

  “Well, coming back from your parents, I mean,” he replied. “You have a lovely relaxing weekend with them, I assume anyway, and then you come back to something like that. I feel for you, I do. Constantly thankful that the most stre
ssful thing I have to deal with at work is hitting a print deadline. It’s not life and death or anything like that.”

  “There’s more to it than that, I’m sure.”

  John nodded, agreeing. “There is, but I’m not about to bore you with scheduling and things like that,” he said. “But you’re alright? Everything was good at home?”

  Kidd could see the choice dancing in front of his face. It was an open question, open enough that he could very easily just tell him everything about what had happened over the weekend. How he’d not been to see his parents, how he’d been looking for Craig, everything that had been on his mind for the past however many years.

  Kidd felt like he knew John pretty well at this point, it had been quite a few months. Surely he would just take it in his stride, would appreciate the honestly, finally. Would understand that it was all part of a life that Ben had long before he’d met John.

  But the risk of losing him, of breaking the spell of their evening together, of looking behind the curtain, felt far too much. It was a risk that Kidd wasn’t willing to take, at least not right now.

  “Everything was fine,” he said. “They’re dying to meet you, of course.”

  John sat back in his chair, smiling, his eyes looking a little bit sparkly in the dim light. “You told them about me?”

  Kidd opened his mouth to speak. He had told them about John. They’d been glad to hear that he was moving on, that he’d found someone worth telling them about. It wasn’t a lie as such.

  “Of course I have,” Kidd said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  John was about to say something. He leant forward in his chair and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by the waiter arriving with their food. She read their order back to them and both Kidd and John smiled politely as she sat it on the table between them.

  “This looks great,” John said.

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “It does.”

  He wanted to ask what John was about to say, but the moment had gone. The waitress had taken it away with her as she delivered their plates. Maybe it would come up another time.

  The rest of their evening went by in something of a blur peppered with a dessert—though the waiter blessedly didn’t interrupt a significant moment this time—and more drinks. When they rolled out of The Druid’s Head at around ten o’clock, Kingston had turned quiet.

  In the distance you could hear the sounds of O’Neill’s down towards the town and The Ram down towards the river, but the streets were pretty quiet, and it was nice to be there in the quiet with John.

  “I’ll walk you home,” John said, his hand finding its way to Kidd’s once more, filling the spaces between his fingers.

  Kidd guided him down towards the river despite it being in the opposite direction. John didn’t question it, following where Kidd walked, the two of them falling into step with one another as they made their way to the riverfront.

  The quiet gave way to the sounds of people sat outside eating and drinking, enjoying the evening despite it being a little chilly. They walked by, hand in hand, the silence between them oddly comfortable.

  “Is everything okay?” John asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You just seem a little off,” he said quietly, not looking over at Kidd. He kept his eyes facing forward.

  “In a bad way?”

  John shrugged. “Just that you seem a touch distracted, that’s all.”

  There was that opportunity again. But Ben didn’t even hesitate. He knew he wasn’t going to take it. Not this time. Not after the evening they’d had. Not while his brain was foggy from the drink.

  “It’s the case,” he said a little flatly. “There’s so much happening. I don’t want to bore you with it.”

  “You can bore me with it,” John said before laughing. “Not that I’ll be bored, God, drink talking. I mean you can talk to me about it. If you want to. You can tell me anything. Or nothing, I don’t mind.”

  Kidd looked over at him. John turned his gaze to lock eyes with Kidd and smiled. He didn’t know what he did to deserve someone like this. His brain would argue that he didn’t. The way he was acting right now, he certainly didn’t.

  He would tell him everything one day. He would have to. He just needed to process it in his own head first.

  Kidd felt his phone ringing in his pocket. His heart immediately leaping into his mouth.

  But it was a Withheld Number again. He shook his head and pocketed it.

  “Do you need to get that?” John asked.

  “Almost certainly not,” he replied. He took a breath and stopped walking, leaning against the railing and looking out at the water. Behind him, a group of women were talking and cackling loudly, their voices soaring up into the night. In front of him the river flowed gently by. The rental boats knocked lightly against one another, the lights they’d put on a bridge a few years ago washed everything with a purple-blue glow. He breathed in the night, and tried to breathe out the stress, the panic, the worry.

  John appeared at his side.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “You want to come back to mine?” Kidd asked. “I know it will be a nightmare for you to get home at this time, buses and stuff.”

  John raised an eyebrow. “You’re giving me public transport as a reason to stay over at yours?”

  Kidd laughed. “One reason. I can think of a few others.”

  John smiled and bumped his hip into Kidd’s. “I’d like that.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” And he was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The morning reached in from between the gaps in the curtains, draping itself across Kidd’s face and rousing him from his sleep. Instinctively, he reached out and grabbed his phone from his bedside table. He’d beaten his alarm, as was often the case, and was now wide awake. His brain had switched on, there was no chance he was getting back to sleep.

  He turned his head to see John on his left. His back was to him and he was tucked up tight in the foetal position, lightly snoring as the world outside woke up, as Kidd scrolled through his phone and turned off his alarm. He’d wake John up in a moment. Just because he couldn’t sleep, didn’t mean John shouldn’t.

  His head hurt from the previous night. Alcohol always seemed like a good idea at the time, but the older he got, the more mornings he spent regretting his past self’s decisions. The fourth pint was always the difference between feeling fine and feeling like a truck had hit him when he woke up the next day. And unfortunately, that fourth pint had gone down like a dream last night. He silently cursed himself and took a sip of water from the glass on his bedside table. He had pills in the cupboard, they would have to get him through the day.

  Kidd dragged himself out of bed and to the toilet before popping a couple of pills before his morning shower. He looked in the mirror and winced at what he saw. The stubble on his jaw had patches of grey running through it. His eyes looked bloodshot. His hair…he didn’t want to get started on his hair. The whole thing was not what he needed to see at this time of the morning.

  When he had showered and returned to his bedroom, John was already awake and gathering his things, pulling on last night’s clothes.

  “I hope you were planning on saying goodbye,” Kidd said with a smile.

  “Sorry, Ben,” he said, pulling his shirt on over his head. He’d not had a chance to undo the buttons last night. “I hadn’t prepared to stay here. I need to get back and get ready for a day at the office.” He grabbed his watch from the nightstand and checked the time. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Sorry,” Kidd replied. “I just thought—”

  “Not a complaint,” John said with a smile. “Not a complaint in the slightest. I just hate that I have to run.”

  He watched as John scurried around the room grabbing his things, pulling on one sock while hopping about to grab the next one. He needed to tell him. He just had. Quickly. Rip it off like a plaster.

  “John,” Kidd said, and even he could feel the weight of
that word as it dropped out of his mouth.

  John stopped and looked at Kidd, his shirt a little bit open, his eyes wide with concern. “Everything alright?”

  Kidd took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but where on earth was he supposed to start? And John had to leave. He couldn’t hold him up. Kidd needed to leave too. He had to get to work, had to work on this case, had to—

  “You could always leave some stuff here,” Kidd said. “You’ve got a toothbrush, you might as well leave some essentials or something.”

  “What?”

  “So you don’t have to rush off in the mornings,” Kidd continued. “I’ll clear out a drawer or something.”

  John’s face softened, moving from one riddled with concern, to one that couldn’t stop from smiling. “I’ll have to think about that for the next time I come over,” John said, nodding. “Thanks.”

  Kidd shrugged. “It just makes sense,” he said. “You’re here enough, you might as well be able to be here more. If that’s what you want.”

  John nodded. “It is. It is what I want, Ben, thank you.” He suddenly seemed to reanimate, pulling on his other sock and then his trousers before walking over to Kidd and kissing him softly on the lips. “After a gesture like that, I hate that I have to leave, but if I don’t walk out of this house right now I’ll end up late and—”

  “Don’t be late,” Kidd said with a smile. “We’ll catch up later.” They kissed again and John hurried down the stairs and out the front door.

  Kidd couldn’t help but move to the window and watch him as he hurried down the street and towards the nearest bus stop. When he disappeared around the corner, Kidd let out a heavy breath and practically collapsed back onto his bed.

  “You’re an idiot,” he told himself. “A total fool.”

  His phone started to vibrate on his bedside table. Withheld Number.

  He groaned and pressed accept.

  “What?” he barked.

  Nothing came back. Just that same sound of somebody existing on the other end of the line. He could feel his blood starting to boil.