Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (2 page)

The biggest issue is
me
. No one deserves to deal with me for more than a single night of fun, a night where neither of us do much talking at all. I can barely give my boss what he deserves, and I just have to show up and fix cars.

There’s no way I can give a
girl
what she deserves. Especially not one with an ass and a smile like
that
.

I turn around, grab the board, re-attach the leash to my ankle, and head back to the water.

If she’s going to be watching, fuck
yes
I’m going to get better at this.

* * *

A
n hour later
, I’ve had coffee, showered, and I’m driving to work with the windows of my white Ford Escort down because it’s a beautiful morning. They’re all beautiful mornings on the California coast, but I still like to savor them.

Besides, the windows in this wreck don’t go all the way up.

I stop at a corner, wave another car past, then I turn the corner and Big Eddie’s Auto Repair comes into view.

The second it does, I see the graffiti. The gate across the front of Eddie’s is half-rusted blue, but the graffiti is bright orange and yellow, practically a slap in the face.

Fucking kids
, I think. I pull my shitty car into a parking space across the street and get out, slamming the door behind me. The car rocks on its wheels.

What the shit did Eddie do to deserve this?
I think, storming toward the graffitied gate.
It’s painted in ugly swirls and whorls, probably gang signs for some stupid gang the high school kids in Tortuga think they’re in.

There are no
gangs
in Tortuga. It’s a beach side town with a population of about four thousand. There’s one high school. Look up the word
idyllic
in the dictionary and there’s a picture of this place.

People think they have problems?
I think.
You spray paint Eddie’s shop, I can give you some fucking problems.

My hands are in fists again, at my sides this time, and I don’t bother counting backward from a hundred as I pick up an empty spray paint can and
hurl
it at the gate. It bounces off with a clang, and I don’t feel better, so I pick up another and do the same thing.

I want to wring someone’s neck. I wish whoever did this had stayed behind instead of running away so I could deal with them myself. Eddie’s worked fucking hard for thirty years, and now some asshole comes along and redecorates for him?

Never mind that ten or twelve years ago,
I
was that asshole.

Throwing cans at the gate isn’t getting me anywhere. I reach in the pocket of my coveralls for my keys, only to realize they’re still in the ignition of my car.

I grab them out, and when I turn toward Eddie’s again,
it
catches my eye.

Way over on the right side of the gate, almost by itself. In lime green spray paint. A dollar sign, inside a circle, inside a triangle.

My stomach drops. For a second, I think blood stops pumping through my body. I’m frozen. Everything is frozen.

It’s a coincidence
, I tell myself.
Just some high school kids doodling with spray paint. It doesn’t mean they’ve found you. Anyone could fuck around and draw that by accident
.

I’m lying to myself. It’s no accident. I know
exactly
what that symbol means: it means that the Syndicate’s arms reach all the way to California, and they’re trying to smoke me out.

But it also means they’re not sure I’m here. If they were sure, they’d have come after me already instead of trying their scare tactics. It’s just a coincidence that they’ve tagged Eddie’s.

I have some shit to figure out.

Then I hear a rattle coming down the block, and it unfreezes me. I turn and watch Eddie drive up in his current project, a 1964 Land Rover that constantly sounds like someone is rolling dice under the hood.

He stops in the street, not even looking at me. Eddie is totally quiet, just taking in the scene for a long moment.

Then his shoulders sag, he shrugs, and he parks his car on the street behind mine.

“Come on,” he says grimly when he gets out. “I guess we’re spending the morning talking to the cops instead of working.”

“Do you know who did this?” I ask him, my voice a low growl.

The graffitied building is at odds with everything else here: the palm trees, the ocean in the distance, the mountains rising opposite it, the morning sunlight dappling the street. Except for the spray paint, this place feels like a fun-in-the-sun postcard from the 1950s.

“Kids, probably,” he says.

Then he stops and looks at me, narrowing his eyes a little. He’s got steel-gray hair, bright blue eyes, and a face lined from a lifetime of living in the California sun. Eddie looks serious and laid-back all at once, and I can never quite figure him out.

“Why?” he asks.

Because we don’t need to go to the police
, I want to say.
Point me in the right direction and I’ll take care of these motherfuckers myself, the old-fashioned way.

I stop myself. This isn’t the kind of place where people deal with things that way. I’m not the kind of guy who deals with things that way. Not anymore, at least.

“Just wondering,” I say, but he’s not listening.

I follow Eddie’s eyes to the handle of the door set into the cinder blocks. It’s hanging down, clearly nonfunctional, and the door itself is ajar by maybe half an inch. I hadn’t even noticed.

Whoever was here got
inside
. My fists clench again, because that takes this from vandalism to breaking and entering at least, and God only knows what else.

I can see Eddie’s jaw flex as he pushes the door open grimly, and we look around at the interior of Eddie’s Auto Repair.

It’s much worse than the outside.

P
lease refer to Section X
, Form 33DHR if ALPHA protocol is to be followed; refer to Section M, Form 76GBR if protocol ZED is to be followed. If neither is applicable, please fill out form 405C and put “no such person or persons” as the reason.

I swear I read the instructions on the prisoner transfer form seventeen times. It’s barely English to begin with, but by the time I hit
refer to Section M
, I’m back to thinking about the dark-haired, green-eyed
hunk
I finally talked to this morning.

By
talked to
, of course, I mean
told about the time I pulled an enormous chunk of snot and seaweed from my nose
. Because when you approach the cute new surfer you’ve been eyeing for a couple of weeks, and he turns out to be not
cute
but
smoking hot
up close, you tell him about disgusting things that were in your sinuses.

Flirting is not, has never been, and will probably never be my strong suit.

I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, open them again, and read the prisoner transfer form an eighteenth time. I refer to Section X, Form 33DHR, fill in the proper code, and realize that the desk is practically up to my chin again.

For the third time this morning, I stand, hunch over, find the lever under my chair, and drag the thing up to full height. Now, my feet barely touch the floor, but at least I’ve got another twelve or so minutes before my knees are back in my chest.

Somehow, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff had the funding the buy
an assault tank
last year, but when it comes to office chairs, there are “austerity measures.”

I read forms. I fill them out. I think about how I swear I could see chiseled abs even though his wetsuit. I think about how that wasn’t
all
I could see, because wetsuits don’t hide much.

I grit my teeth and get back to paperwork.

My knees are in my chest again. It’s only been seven minutes, and there’s no way I can do this all day long.

I grab a pencil from my desk, stand, and kneel on the floor next to the chair, pushing the seat up and looking under it.

I turn the chair seat back and forth a few times, then take the pencil and jam it into the space right underneath the lever mechanism with a
crunch
. The tip breaks off, but the pencil holds, and I test it, pushing down on the seat of the chair.

It’s working. I think. I stand, shoving my hair out of my face with both hands. There’s a slight
crunch
when I sit, and my feet don’t quite touch the floor, but I think I’ve stopped the sliding problem.

As I pick up my pen again, I see my ex-boyfriend Chad from across the room. He’s in uniform, but sitting with his feet on a desk, bouncing a rubber band ball on the floor.
Smirking
, like he just caught me doing something.

Technically, ex-boyfriend isn’t the correct term. Technically, Chad is my ex “guy who I slept with for a while and did a bunch of activities with, but who was not my boyfriend because he ‘doesn’t believe in labels.’” He stopped being that six weeks ago when I got promoted to detective and he didn’t, because it turned out that he only liked me as long as he could pretend he was better than me at everything.

I ignore him and go back to my reports.

Ten minutes later, my coffee mug is empty, so I get more from the kitchen. This stuff is barely better than discolored water, but I’m going cross-eyed from
Form DJFK 76 A Yankee Foxtrot Megalodon 17X
and I need
something
.

When I step back into the main room of the police station, Chad is
grinning
, looking at me, like he’s waiting for something. Around the room, other people are talking on the phone, talking to each other, or filling out forms. Nobody’s paying us any mind as I walk for my desk.

He looks like the cat that ate the canary, so he’s probably pulled another stupid, childish prank while I was pouring myself more coffee. After all, it isn’t like he’s got citizens to protect or crimes to prevent.

I get to my desk. It’s not even a prank. A prank would involve some level of cleverness, but this is just a tampon. He left a single tampon on my desk, still in its wrapper, right on top of the paperwork I was filling out.

While we were still not-dating, every single time I got angry at him, he’d ask me if I was on my period. As if that was the only reason I could
possibly
get angry.

I’m
furious
.

Mostly, I’m furious at myself for ever spending time with this douchenozzle. I know, objectively, that I’m a smart, capable, driven woman who kicks ass and takes names. And yet, I keep dating losers, fuckwads, and assclowns like Chad. Guys who “don’t like labels.” Guys who call me “bro.”

In
bed
.

I’m also furious that, if I go to my superior, Sergeant Pushton will tell me it was a harmless joke, boys will be boys, and I shouldn’t get so upset. He won’t think this is workplace harassment, he’ll think it’s some kind of lovers’ quarrel.

This wouldn’t happen if I were a man. I’m just saying.

I roll my eyes, drop it into a drawer, and go back to paperwork. I try to act like I barely noticed, because the last thing I need to give him is satisfaction that he riled me up.

I pick my pen up again, and the phone rings at the next desk over. My partner, Detective Maryanne Batali, answers it and starts taking notes. I tap my pen against the desk and try to listen in until she’s finished. The room is pretty loud and I don’t have much luck.

Finally, she hangs up, writes a few more things down, and swivels toward me.

“You get your chair fixed?” she asks.

Batali always finds the strangest ways to introduce a conversation.

“Fixed well enough,” I say, the soles of my feet brushing the floor.

“Good. Won’t need it right now, though,” she says, and stands. “Vandalism report over at Eddie’s Auto Repair.”

I frown.

“What happened?” I ask, standing. I grab my blazer off the back of my sort-of-fixed chair. I wrangle my mass of hair into a bun.

“Someone tagged the whole place up pretty good,” she says.

I blink in surprise, already following her out the door, pad and pen in one hand. Usually when we investigate vandalism, someone’s toilet papered a front yard or rearranged the letters on the movie theater marquee to something lewd.

Tortuga isn’t exactly a den of crime.

“Who?” I ask as we step into the sunlight. “A gang?”

Not that Tortuga has gangs.

“That’s what we’re supposed to find out,” she says, and we get into an unmarked car.

* * *

S
hit
, Eddie’s really
was
vandalized. Batali told me what had happened, but I imagined that someone painted a few lines and swirls on the building and then called it a day. This is bad, though.

The gate is covered from side to side in big bubble letters that are so painted-over in other symbols and markings that they’re hard to read. I think one says
ROYALE
and one says
BAY MOFOS
, but both those things are completely meaningless to me.

“You recognize anything?” Batali asks me.

I shake my head.

“Inside’s worse,” she says, and I follow her through the door set in the wall. She pushes it open gingerly, looking at the broken handle.

“Breaking and entering,” she says. “They hit the handle with something, hard enough to break the lock mechanism inside. We’ll get pictures of that later.”

I just nod. We haven’t been partners for long, but I’ve learned when Batali does and doesn’t require a response.

When we step through the threshold, we both gasp. The inside of Eddie’s is an open concrete space, surrounded by concrete walls, four repair bays along the far wall, each with a car inside.

All the cars are covered in graffiti. It looks like it’s the same paint that’s on the gate.

Worse, some of the windows are smashed. Not all, but at least one on each car, enough that there’s pebbles of light blue safety glass covering the floor of the auto bays.

“Holy shit,” I whisper.

Batali’s mouth is a thin, grim line, and she surveys the scene with her hands on her hips. I force my mouth shut before I start saying dumb civilian shit like
who on earth would do this
or
I can’t believe this happened in Tortuga
.

I can’t believe it, though. And I
don’t
know who would do this.

“Officers,” says a man’s voice.

We look over together, and Eddie is walking toward us with the quick, authoritative walk of a man who is
pissed
.

“Eddie,” says Batali, holding out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Detective Maryanne Batali, and this is my partner, Detective Luna Rivers. Sorry to see this happen.”

He nods curtly, shaking her hand and then mine. Then he narrows his eyes slightly and points at me, thinking.

“Blue 1995 Civic with a roof rack and spark plugs that need to be replaced soon, right?” he asks.

“It’s a ninety-three, but otherwise you’re spot on,” I say.

“I can’t remember faces, but I never forget a car,” he says. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“It’s our job,” Batali says, still straight-faced. “Is this how it was when you got in?”

“We haven’t touched a thing,” Eddie says. He’s wearing blue-gray coveralls, and they’re rolled up to his elbows, his nails black with grease. “Didn’t want to interfere with the investigation.”

“Good,” Batali says. “Is it just you here?”

“One of my mechanics got here about when I did,” Eddie says. “He’s in the office.”

“All right,” Batali says. “Rivers, go talk to the employee. I’m going to start going through all this with Eddie, and we’ll reconvene in approximately thirty minutes. That acceptable to you?”

“Sounds good,” I say.

Batali’s kind of a weirdo, but I like working with her. At first I thought she was always annoyed with me, but once I realized that this is just her personality, I warmed up. She’s been doing this for at least twenty years, so she knows what to do and how to do it.

Plus, she doesn’t seem to think that having a vagina while detecting is a handicap.

I head for the office, looking around at the destruction, trying to take in the details even as pieces of safety glass crunch underfoot. It’s another beautiful, sunny day, and that’s at odds with the broken windows of cars covered in spray paint.

As I pull open the office door, I wonder again who the
hell
would do this. Spray painting the gate is one thing — some dumb high school kid dares another dumb high school kid.

But breaking in and destroying stuff like this? That’s something else.

The mechanic is on the phone, his back to me, so I take a moment to look around the office. As far as I can tell, it’s untouched — grimy, everything coated in that thin layer of motor oil that all auto repair shops seem to have, but there’s no sign of the havoc outside making its way in here.

That’s odd. The door just has a knob lock and a deadbolt — a piece of cake for someone who seems to have sledgehammered their way inside.

“Thank you,” the mechanic says into the phone.

I stand up a little straighter, because his voice is familiar.

“We’ll be in touch as soon as we’ve got this sorted out,” he says.

I’m about ninety-five percent sure it’s the surfer from this morning. He sounds
pissed
. I can’t blame him.

“Sorry for the last-minute rescheduling,” he says, like he’s got his voice under tight control. He listens for a moment, says goodbye, and turns to hang the phone on the wall.

Then we look at each other. It’s him.

My stomach ties itself into a knot, and I clear my throat.

Seaweed snot
, I think.

He pauses for an instant, his hand still on the receiver.

“Hi, I’m Detective Rivers with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s office,” I say, on autopilot, walking forward to the desk he’s standing behind.

God, now he’s really going to think I’m stalking him
.

I hold out my hand. He looks at me for just a moment too long, and I feel like his green eyes are going
right
through me. Like he can see the future, and in it, we’re naked together.

“Stone Williams,” he finally says, and takes my hand. He’s got a firm, almost hard handshake, and his hands are rough, the nails embedded with grease.

The hands of someone who works with them for a living.

The hands of someone who knows how to
use
them, and oh
fuck
now I’m blushing at work. Thank god Batali isn’t here to watch me turn into a fourteen-year-old in front of a cute boy.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” I say. I let his hand go, pulling out my pen and notepad.

“Ask away, Detective,” he says, and smiles.

His smile is just a tiny bit crooked, and he has
one
dimple, on the left side of his face. Between that, the dark hair, the sideburns, and the coveralls, he’s got a 1950s,
Rebel Without A Cause,
devil-may-care, rockabilly vibe.

I’d let him take me to a soda fountain and a sock hop,
I think.