Crazy From the Heat (17 page)

Paul
stepped out of his arms and, smiling–more like grinning–he slipped the familiar
sunglasses on over his eyes and pulled away, their fingers slipping apart.

“Tomorrow.
I’ll see you tomorrow. For sure.”

Grey
watched as he jogged up the street, his beat up Converse seeming to fly over
the concrete slabs, plaid shirt billowing out behind him. A minute later the
beater car drove out of the lot and disappeared into traffic out on Government.

Movement
out of the shadows made him jump.

“Isn’t
that wonderful? Grey has a pretty new boyfriend.”

“What
are you doing here, Cole?” Grey crossed his arms over his bare chest and looked
at his former…What the hell was Cole to him anyway? They weren’t exactly
friends and, with the exception of one really bad sexual experience, they
weren’t even lovers.

“I
came to see if you were ready to forgive me. But I see you’ve replaced me with
your little cop buddy.” The rocker’s eyes glimmered in a way that suggested he
wasn’t exactly sober. The smile he gave was more of a leer. What the hell had
Grey seen in him?

“I
haven’t replaced you Cole. We were never anything to begin with. And no, I
haven’t forgiven you. Have no plans to.” Grey edged toward the door with his
keys ready but Cole stepped in his way. “Get lost Cole.”

But
Cole wouldn’t take the hint. He pushed Grey against the wall and leaned into
him. His mouth hovered over Grey’s, his cool, lilac gaze caressing Grey’s face.

“Come
on, baby. I missed you. Let me in and I’ll show you how much. I’ll be good,
Grey. I swear. I was just so jealous. He was all over you and you were mine. What
was I supposed to do?”

“You
could get off the drugs, Cole. And maybe take a bath, man. You reek. Get your
hands off me before—"

“Before
what? You call the cops? Your little friend is gone. It’s just us, and you have
no phone in your pocket. I want you, Grey, I want to finish what we started
last week.”

Grey
didn’t wait for Cole to make a move, and he sure as hell didn’t need Paul
coming to his rescue. He lifted his leg and kneed Cole in the nuts. Hard. Hard
enough to make him squeal like a pig and drop to his knees.

“You
had your one and only chance with me, Cole, and you blew it. I don’t take
assholes back. Now get the fuck out of my sight before I decide to treat you to
some of what you gave me.” He kept his eye on Cole while he unlocked the outer
door and, without a backwards glance, he closed the man out of his life,
hopefully forever.

* * * * *

The
bull pen was abuzz with activity when Paul wandered in. Vinnie grabbed him by
his arm just below his stitches and perp walked him into an interrogation room
and closed the door.

“Where
the fuck have you been all weekend?”

Vinnie
had brown eyes which, at that precise moment, were narrowed in extreme anger.
His Cajun accent was thick and would most likely get thicker.

“You
know where I was.” There was no use pretending, not with Vinnie. Vinnie knew
him too well. And of all of his partners ever, Vinnie understood him.

“Oh,
Boudreaux, no. It’s New Orleans all over again. You slept with him?” Vinnie
shook his head, his bangs brushing his eyelids, making him look like a butched
up Bieber clone. “Of course you slept with him. You’re wearing him like a
second skin.”

“What
the hell is that supposed to mean?” Paul had checked there were no visible
marks.

“You
fell for him, Paul. He’s a suspect, and you fell for him.” Vinnie pushed him
into the wall and shook him. “Please tell me you haven’t told him anything?
He’s using you for information.”

Paul
shoved him across the room. Vinnie hit the table in the middle of the room and stumbled
before catching his balance.

“What
the fuck do you mean by suspect? Suspected of doing what?”

“Those
kids rolled on him. Well, they rolled on a teacher. We ran his background and
he fits the profile. He has a record, a long one. The rest of the staff is
clean. The dealer walked on Saturday after he gave up your boyfriend as his
contact in the school.” Vinnie wiped his mouth as if Paul had punched him there
instead of shoving him.

“I
checked. I never found a record.” Panic buzzed through Paul’s system. No, he
didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it. “He said he had a couple of drug
possession charges when he was a kid but—"

“I’d
say there were more than just a couple. Possession with intent to distribute.
Several prostitution charges. Vagrancy. Vandalism. Shop lifting. It’s a pretty
long list. He has a couple million dollars spread out over several bank
accounts. And the kids all love him. At least the kids who end up in his
detention sessions all love him. Because he’s hooking them up with drugs.”
Vinnie wouldn’t look at him while he completely destroyed Grey’s reputation.
And tore Paul’s heart out to stomp all over it.

“He
told me about the arrests. About being on the streets when he was sixteen. He
told me that he was taken in by a cop who’d served with his father and
straightened his life out. He has a fucking PhD at age twenty-seven, with not
one hint of anything—"

“He
left Baltimore one step ahead of scandal, Paul. He was sleeping with his foster
father. He broke up the man’s marriage. And now he’s sleeping with a kid in his
class. He can’t be all that good. He just learned how to hide it. He learned
how to not get caught.”

Paul
walked over to the glass and rested his forehead on the cool surface. This
couldn’t be happening again. Not again. He wasn’t that bad of a judge of
character. Grey never seemed all that interested in his job. He never asked
questions, not like Rene back in New Orleans. There was never anything to make
him think that Grey was using him.

“Which
kids? And did they specifically say it was Grey…Dr. Talbot? Because I don’t buy
it, Vinnie. And even then, what proof do we have that links him directly to the
dealers we’ve been picking up?”

Vinnie
didn’t answer immediately. He shuffled his feet and stared at the floor.

“They
picked up a junkie in a club Saturday night. I tried to call you then to let
you know the guy was saying his boyfriend at the high school was his contact.
That he sent the kids to the club and the junkie gave him a cut. A finders fee.
The kids wouldn’t roll on him. They didn’t say exactly that there was a teacher
involved. But there are rumors that, if you weren’t too busy playing footsie
with the professor, you would have heard too. One of the teachers has parties
and invites small groups for study sessions to help them pull up their grades.
You and me both know what that means. And you’re in it up to your neck.”

“But
he knows I’m not a kid. He’s never offered me a damned thing. He wouldn’t have
come near me if I was really under age. And
I
pursued
him
.” Paul
stopped when he remembered the night Grey accused him of investigating him for
inappropriate behavior with the students. Or setting a trap to catch him. “If
he’s having sex-for-grade parties, he’s not doing it in his apartment. It’s not
big enough to do more than sneeze. He’s not living some lavish lifestyle.”

“Then
where did the money come from?” Vinnie shouted. “Orphaned teachers in student
loan debt up to their eye balls don’t suddenly just magically have that much
money. And what is he holding it for, if he’s not paying his debts with it?
It’s all…Nothing here is adding up.”

“It’s
all too convenient, if you ask me.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that
something was off. “Are we being watched?”

“This
is being monitored, yes. You have a track record. Trouble follows you. Your
partner’s death in Chicago. The mess in New Orleans.”

Paul
winced. His past was as fucked up as…Well, he couldn’t think of anyone whose
past was as fucked up as his.

“So
you outed me to the Mobile cops. Thanks a lot, Vinnie.”

“Dude,
only you thought you were in a closet. The rest of us…It’s not hard to tell
with you, Paul. Of course, after what happened in Chicago no one will dare mess
with you. You have that reputation, at least. But no one wants to work with
you. Except me. Because I know you’re a good cop. You have great instincts, the
guy in New Orleans being the exception. And, seriously, he wasn’t on
anyone’s
radar, so how were you to know.”

“So
what am I supposed to do now?” He knew what was coming and he knew without a
doubt that he wasn’t going to like it.

“Exactly
what you’ve been doing. Now that you’re in his bed…”

Paul
closed his eyes and tuned out the rest. Yeah, he knew what he had to do now.
And exactly how to do it. His gut roiled at the thought. Killing Jack had been
easier to do than what he was about to do to Grey. He closed his eyes and
pictured Jack lying in a pool of blood from the single gunshot Paul had put
through his head just before he passed out. The scar on his shoulder seemed to
contract and pulse at the reminder of how he’d gotten it. Betrayal. It always
came back to betrayal. And this time it was Paul doing the betraying.

Chapter
Fifteen

Paul
hadn’t shown up for his class on Tuesday, though the other kids said he was on
campus. They all seemed abnormally subdued after the long weekend. Or maybe
that was just him. At lunch he texted, but Paul didn’t respond. Maybe he was
reading too much into the new developments. Maybe it was not his business.
Maybe it didn’t matter.

He
traded off detention duties this week because Paul was supposed to serve his
time. He didn’t give a reason why. He just didn’t need any more time with the
man than was necessary. After his last class, he packed up to head home. He
made it to the student parking lot before the sounds of kids shouting on the
practice field caught his attention. Soccer try outs started today for the next
semester. Football practice was later tonight. There shouldn’t be any kids here
at all, except those trying out. Curiosity overcame him at the shout of, “Go
Spicoli!”

His
nickname for the man had apparently caught on. He smiled to himself and, giving
in to the need to at least see him today, he walked over. Sarah stood beside
the small set of bleachers set up beside the practice field, watching the kids
goofing around.

“I
thought you had detention duty?” She waited for him to draw up alongside her
before giving him one of her seductive smiles.

“I
traded it for next week. I have to be somewhere today,” he lied as a group of
kids all dressed out in nylon shorts and t-shirts ran past chasing a round
ball. One kid in the group wore jeans. Blond hair pulled back from his face,
his smile huge as he deftly intercepted the ball with his ratty converse
covered feet and, turning on a dime, sent the ball back in the other direction.
The six or seven other boys looked slow and clumsy compared to Paul.

“He’s
really good. If his grades and attendance were better he could try out. He
should try out,” Sarah said as Paul took the ball again, but this time he sent
it soaring into the goal. The goal was unguarded but, still, it was a great
shot. A whistle blew off in the distance, signaling the approach of the coaches
and, with a groan from a couple of the boys, the game ended. But not before one
of them kicked the ball to Paul, who bounced it into the air with his foot to
his knee and, for several seconds, kept the ball in play from foot to knee
before he sent it soaring across the field to the coach with a flying leap
meant to impress.

“He
is really good.” Grey agreed sometime later. He couldn’t take his eyes off the
man showing off on the field, even as the coach ran up to him with the dead
ball in his hands.

“And
you are absolutely smitten with our beloved Spicoli, aren’t you Dr. Talbot?”
Sarah said, but Grey was too busy watching Paul shake the coach and move to the
sideline to gather his things. “I thought you were seeing someone?”

“I
am.” Grey still wasn’t completely paying attention. Paul caught his eye just as
he dropped the sunglasses in place. He quirked his lips in that smirk he wore
when amused. While Grey watched, he went for his pocket and pulled out his
phone. His face went white his mouth slack at whatever came up on the screen.
His sunglass covered gaze seemed to reach out to Grey and his stomach twisted
into a knot.

“It
wouldn’t happen to be Paul Gibson?” Sarah held out her own phone, with a photo
cued up for him to see. The look in her eyes went past evil. “This has been
making the rounds today. You and our friend Paul kissing on the street. You
half dressed. Him dressed in the same clothes he wore to school on Friday. Very
interesting.”

Grey
couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t move. His brain stopped working. Everyone
stared at him. Paul stared at him. The kid, Vinnie, the only person who seemed
to not be caught in slow motion. Jesus. He was fucked. So, so fucked.

Vinnie
dragged Paul off the field. Neither man paying Grey any attention. His pocket
buzzed and it was all he could do not to drop his phone as he pulled it out and
opened the message.

Principal’s
office now. Cops are on the way. Just don’t ask questions. Go now.