Murder and Mayhem (8 page)

One he could deal with.

Two he’d have to be very careful around.

Dante stopped himself from clearing his throat. The carrion hunters were definitely circling, and any sign of weakness, however accidental, would throw Rook and Archie a psychological advantage he wasn’t willing to give up. “We were actually wondering where you were, since apparently throwing you in jail doesn’t seem to keep you in check. Luckily, here you are, since Detective Camden and I have some follow-up questions for you.”

“You don’t have to say shit to them, son. Not without a lawyer. If they want to talk to you, they can make an appointment.” Archibald nearly spat on Hank’s shoes as he spoke.

“I’ve got nothing to hide, Archie.” Rook met Dante’s gaze. “They’re just going to have to listen to me tell them I didn’t kill Dani. And I don’t know who did.”

The glittering hardness in Rook’s eyes challenged Dante on so many levels, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to punch the man or bend Rook over a table to fuck him. A primal need reared up in Dante’s mind, ravaging away his reason. He was about to call Stevens a liar when Hank’s phone rang.

“Hold up a second. Let me get this. Don’t start anything until I get back.” Hank quickly flashed his screen at Dante. He frowned at the number, recognizing LAPD’s outgoing trunk line. Hank mouthed a “fuck” as he turned his back on the men, whispering as he went by, “Betcha this is someone yanking our asses out of here. You hold them back.”

With Hank gone, he was outnumbered, and Dante braced for the attack he knew was coming. Unsurprisingly, it was Archibald who took the first bite, confirming what Dante would have expected from an old man who’d spent his life carving out people’s guts to amuse himself.

“So, my grandson tells me you two have a history.” Archibald’s eyebrows danced over his beaked nose.

Dante couldn’t help but shoot Stevens a startled look, and damned if the man didn’t quirk a cocky smile back. Their shared history was dangerous—more so if Archie was made aware of it—and Dante didn’t like the edge it gave the thief. The old man would twist anything he got into a weapon, and the case didn’t need Archibald Martin brutally dancing through it.

“Grandpa knows you’re one of the detectives who tried to arrest me a while back. You know, when the LAPD thought I was a thief.” Rook shucked his disheveled mane away from his face, and for a second, the resemblance to the elderly man beside him was uncanny.

“We still think you’re a thief,” Dante replied smoothly, a tingle of satisfaction warming him at Rook’s tight glare. Two could play at the mind-fuck game, and he guessed Stevens was going to hold his trump card close to his chest until he needed it. “We just know you’re a murderer too.”

The woman who’d let them in walked in, pushing a rattling tea cart in front of her. Dante had to give the old man credit. He might have resented having cops at his front door, but he didn’t do courtesy half-assed. A silver coffee urn stood proud among a cluster of heavy white mugs, and a smattering of delicate pastries did a pretty dance on saucers around a cream and sugar set. The mugs were odd, but from the housekeeper’s practiced filling one of the mugs with a stream of steaming, fragrant black brew, then handing it carefully over to Archibald, the thick-walled cups were a house staple.

“I’ll get my own, Rosa. Thanks.” Rook sidestepped his grandfather’s cane as the old man made a jab at his thigh.

“I
knew
her name was Rosa. God, you’re a damned pain in the ass,” Martin grumbled. “Help yourself, Detective. Looks like your partner’s going to be a bit. Might as well get some Kona into you before I kick your ass out.”

Archibald’s hand shook slightly, and the man’s fingers lost their grip on the mug’s handle. As it tumbled to the floor, coffee splashed everywhere, mostly on the floor but enough—frighteningly enough—on the old man’s trousers, probably scalding his flesh beneath the fabric.

Rosa and Rook beat Dante by a second, the woman daubing at Archibald’s legs with a dish towel as Rook cleared the mug’s shards from the floor, folding up the edges of a runner from under the old man’s feet to catch every speck of broken porcelain.

“I’m fine.” Archibald’s grumbles grew coarser, peppered with profanity when Rosa disagreed. “I’ll go change out of these clothes and be right back.”

“I’ll call the nurse to see if you’ve been burned—” Rosa stepped back when Archibald hefted his cane and shook its silver-tipped head a few inches beneath her nose. “Mr. Martin, she should have a look at you.”

“I don’t need that vulture to tell me if I’ve been cooked.” He snapped a growl at Rook. “You keep the cops entertained while I’m gone. Or better yet, let this one finish his coffee, wrap up a Danish, and kick them the fuck out of my house.”

Stevens hovered for a second around the old man, earning himself a thump on the shin. Pulling back, he threw his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Fuck you. You want to turn into a
chicharrón
, go right ahead. Just make sure you leave me that fucking stuffed fox in your will.”

“I hate that damned thing,” Archibald muttered, hobbling toward the library door.

“Yeah, I plan on shoving it into your coffin right before they toss you into the dirt.” Rook sneered at his grandfather’s back. “Let Rosa get the nurse.”

“Fine… fine. Call the fucking nurse. See if I care.” The elderly man shook off his housekeeper’s hand from his arm. “Just don’t get yourself into too much trouble while I’m gone, or I’m not going to be the only one sitting in a dirty hole before too long.”

Dante waited until the man left the room before turning to face Rook. “Charming man. I see where you get your winning personality.”

“Cute.” Stevens sidestepped the folded-up rug to fill two cups with coffee. After handing one to Dante, he added cream and sugar to his, then took a taste. “So, wait for the crimson Sasquatch you brought with you, or do you want to get right into it?”

Dante took the cup from Stevens only to set it down on a table. “You and I need to have a talk about—that night. In the club.”

“
That’s
got you worried?” He shrugged smoothly. “What about it? We were having a good time, then bam, lights on, and neither one of us finished. Pretty much all there is to say. Worried I’ll spill the beans you weren’t at peak performance?”

Stevens studied him over the edge of the mug, his ocean-sky gaze curiously wary behind his shroud of dark hair. He said nothing, waiting for Dante to make his next move, so Dante plunged forward, wary of his partner lingering out in the hallway.

Grabbing Stevens by the arm, Dante pulled him closer. “It’s already on my record. I told Internal Affairs about it, but I don’t know if my captain knows, but he will soon—”

“Look, even after all the shit you tried to drag me through, you should know I’m not that kind of person. I don’t fuck with other people’s lives like that,” Stevens said quietly, his voice low and soft between them. “And I am
never
going to out you that way. Even if everyone on the goddamn police force knows. What happened there at the club was just something between us. Nothing to do with you being a cop and me being… well, me. If anyone finds out about it, it’s not going to be from me. I promise you
that
much.”

“LAPD knows I’m gay.” Dante tried ignoring the strength he felt in Stevens’s arm and the delicious masculine scent of freshly showered skin and vanilla soap. It was bad enough he’d pulled the man close enough to feel Stevens’s breath on his face and see the slick moisture he’d left behind on his upper lip as he licked off a stray drop of coffee from his sip. He wanted to trace where Stevens’s tongue had been and follow it back to where it lay in wait. “They just don’t all know I almost fucked a suspect. And while I intend to keep it that way, if it comes out, it comes out. Just warning you.”

“That was then. This is now. You’re not planning on fucking me, and if you do, let me know so I can avoid it.” Stevens hissed a bit when Dante tightened his grip. “Because you’re a complication I don’t need, Montoya. A fucking hot complication I’d love to slide down into my throat and up my ass, but still, not one I need. So either let go, or I’m going to make a mess of your pants with this coffee.”

He really didn’t know whether or not to believe Stevens. Not consciously. Yet some part of Dante’s mind knew Stevens was serious about keeping his mouth shut. For all of his lying and thieving, Stevens had an honesty about him, an odd moral code probably only he understood but lived and breathed by.

Dante knew the power in the man’s body, muscles and sinew hidden under loose shirts, but he’d felt Stevens’s strength under his hands. He’d only had his hands on Stevens for a few minutes, barely fifteen in all, but they’d burned into his memory, molten seconds seared into the very grit of his being.

There’d been an odd trust then, in that moment of unknown between two men looking for something alive in the dead of night. He’d have to trust again, with something greater than his pleasure—his life as a cop.

Dante’s captain still needed to be told. There were too many nontruths lingering around Vince’s old cases, and the last thing Dante wanted was to be one of them.

“Tell me one thing, Stevens.” Dante loosened his grasp but still held Stevens’s arm lightly. “Did you know it was me? That night? Did you purposely put yourself in front of me?”

“You want the truth from me, Montoya?” Stevens chuckled, a low, husky roll hot enough to tickle Dante’s already aching balls. “I didn’t know it was you. Shit, I didn’t even know you were gay. But that night, I saw someone I thought looked like the hot detective gunning for my ass and wanted it. So yeah, while I didn’t know it was you, it was you I was looking for.”

Hank’s deep, barking laugh startled both of them. Rook pulled back, sloshing his coffee over the floor while Dante grabbed at Stevens’s arm, yanking him to the side and out of the way. Hank didn’t seem to notice the nearly guilty look they exchanged. Instead, he barreled into the room, took one look at Dante’s hand on Rook’s upper arm, and grinned.

“Good, you’ve already got a hold on him.” Hank’s grin grew wider. “Now turn him around and cuff him. We’ve got another murder.”

They drove him to Potter’s Field, then parked right in front, a near miracle most days in Hollywood, but when wielding the power of sirens, lights, and police batons, apparently pretty easy to accomplish. Rook sat quietly when the detectives got out of the car and pretended to consult with one of the crime lab people. But he sighed with disgust as, a few feet away, another cop stood with the same transient who’d tried to stop Rook on the night of Dani’s murder.

As setups went, it was spectacularly bad, especially when it became overtly obvious they were asking the street-sleeper to identify him as he sat in the rear seat of the unmarked police car with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Rook didn’t know what made him feel stupider, sitting patiently while the cops framed him for yet another murder he didn’t commit or that he didn’t get himself out of the cuffs a while back and on the run before they’d gone a block away from his grandfather’s house.

“This is what going straight gets you, Rook.” He banged his head lightly on the clear partition between the car’s front and back seats. “Sitting in a squad car while some guy stoned off his ass is telling the cops you—”

He stopped, straining against the cuffs slightly to lean forward. Montoya was approaching the car, and by the look on his face, things were not well in the land of tall, dark, and Hispanic. Or possibly Latino. Rook wasn’t sure.

Montoya unlocked the car door, then jerked it open. “Get out.”

“Hispanic or Latino?” Rook asked, wedging his foot against the doorsill so Montoya would have to fight to pry him out. “Which one?”

“What the fuck?” Montoya’s scowl deepened. As glowers went, it was a pretty impressive one, but Rook ignored the man’s attempted intimidation.

“Which one do you use? Hispanic or Latin American descent? Wouldn’t want to fuck it up when I’m describing you to my lawyers.”

“Both. My mother’s Mexican. My dad’s Cuban. Either one works. So does
sir
.” Montoya hooked his hand under Rook’s arm and pulled, easily dislodging Rook from his perch. “Now shut the fuck up and come with me.”

Rook stumbled a bit, trying to keep his feet under him. “Hold up. Let me repeat what I told you back at the house. Lawyer. Law-
yer
. Maybe even more than one. Shit, they’re probably waiting for us. Hopefully with stun guns for you assholes.”

“Shut up. I want to see if you can ID the bodies. Something’s weird here. Weird even for you.” Montoya’s grip was nearly as punishing as the pace he set, dragging Rook across the sidewalk, then down the narrow alleyway toward the back of the building. “And don’t think this is a get-out-of-shit card for you. I’m going to catch crap for doing this, but three dead people in a week is high, even for a troublemaker like you.”

“Wait, bodies? Three?” Rook stammered, but Montoya didn’t answer him. “Total or including Dani?”

There was a stream of cops they rode, like skipping rocks over a mean blue wave. Their faces were mostly blurs. Some in uniforms, others in suits, but all with the same damning judgmental expression Rook’d been running from every since he could remember.

Montoya’s redheaded partner was there waiting for them, stepping aside when Montoya pulled Rook up past a cinder-block enclosure the surrounding buildings used to store their trash dumpsters and to the graffiti-tagged charity bin next to it. If the front was swarming with cops, behind the building was a murmuring of nearly every breed of civil service Los Angeles had on its payroll.

The parking lot and side alleys by his building weren’t normally places he spent a lot of time. There’d never been a need to. A few trips to toss out his trash once in a while and a couple of steps across the sunbaked gray asphalt to get to his SUV parked in one of his three designated carports pretty much made up Rook’s entire experience with the back lot.

Still, Rook was fairly certain he’d have remembered if there’d been blood splattered on the donation bin a few feet away from Potter’s Field’s back door. And he sure as shit would have recalled if it’d been stuffed full of legs and arms when he’d snuck by the cops to get into his apartment in the early hours of that particular morning.