Doyle looked away from Larkin’s face and down at the photos—three separate masks, all rudimentary, one of plaster and two of what seemed to be papier-mâché. Each laid over the face of a woman prone on her back, heavy bruising on their necks, and each nude from the waist up.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I need to know how old those Polaroids are.”
“Hang on.”
“Doyle.”
“I said, hang on,” Doyle said, glancing up from his phone. “Unless you want to read a fifty-page manufacturer’s manual yourself, give me a minute.”
When it’d come time to take Ricky in for questioning, there’d been a territorial dispute with Bosman. Ricky was now a person of interest in Larkin’s case, but he’d shot Jessica in an unrelated—according to Bosman—incident on his turf. The argument had spiraled out of control when Bosman declared having heard about the fucker everyone called Grim, what an egotistical prick he was, and that as far as he was concerned, Larkin could take a walk into rush hour traffic.
Larkin hadn’t been particularly insulted. Hedidhave a headache throbbing behind his left eye, however, a combination of stress from the shooting and finding Jessica slowly bleeding to death, irritation with this newbie detective so ready to prove himself that he was about to whip his dick out and literally mark territory, and the overwhelming stimulation from Ricky’s apartment. Every time Larkin blinked, he saw a negative of the studio space. And the dank, spoiled smell had permeated his clothing, every movement stirring that combination of rotting food and pot and morbid curiosity from Larkin’s suit.
“One in every five employees in a committed relationship cheat on their partner with a colleague,” Larkin had told Bosman after he’d finished pitching a fit.
“What?”
“Spray tans on light skin last an average of five days. Yours looks to be at the midpoint. Something you got done over the weekend, then, and you didn’t remove your wedding band for the process. Only now it’s gone and there’s an embarrassing ring of white skin in its absence.”
Bosman glanced at his hand before quickly shoving it into his pocket.
“You’ve got a touch of lipstick on your shirt collar too,” Larkin continued. “Sure, you might have come to the scene after some afternoon delight with your wife, but unless you’re still in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, this is doubtful. Plus, you’d have no reason to remove your ring around her. Ergo, an affair. And not with a beat cop—she wouldn’t bother with lipstick. Another detective perhaps, but I think you enjoy the power trip of the ‘d-e-t’ title too much to share the glory. So a young and impressionable administrator at the Ninth.”
Doyle had said nothing during the back-and-forth, but he did sigh once or twice.
A furious blush had worked its way through Bosman’s tan, and he’d finally suggested that Ricky be brought to his precinct, but that he’d allow Larkin and Doyle first dibs on an interview.
“You’re mad,” Larkin stated, staring at Doyle. They stood in a hallway outside one of the interview rooms at Precinct 9, with Doyle leaning against the wall, scrolling on his phone.
“I’m not mad,” he corrected in that ever-smoky voice. “I’m trying to read.” He must have sensed Larkin’s stare, because Doyle raised his gaze after a beat. “I wouldn’t have used an affair as leverage.”
“I couldn’t possibly care any less who Bosman is actually sleeping with.” Larkin slid his hands into his pockets and began to pace the hall. Upon his return to Doyle, he added, “It was the only clear deduction I had of his person at the time.”
“Hm-hm.”
Larkin passed a second time. “If you don’t like the way I work—”
“We’re partners now. That’s no longer a valid fallback,” Doyle cut in.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, then,” Larkin murmured on his third pass.
“I would like you to apologize to Bosman.”
“No.”
“And,” Doyle continued calmly, as if Larkin hadn’t just so brazenly disagreed, “I’d like, with regard to personal relationships, that you keep those intuitive deductions to yourself. I know you can’t help it, and if you want to blurt it out when we’re alone, that’s fine. But don’t weaponize someone’s romance. In fact—” He paused and looked up from his phone again. “—that’s out-in-the-field, rule three: love and sex can only be used for good.”
Larkin cast Doyle a look upon his fourth or fifth pass. “Bosman needed to be brought down a peg. He’s a detective in the same way an honor student needs CliffsNotes in class.”
“Evie,” Doyle said, and there was a gentle sternness in his voice, in the stress on Larkin’s first name—well, sort of his first name.
Larkin stopped and stared at Doyle.
“Unless you want someone pointing out your own domestic troubles, apologize to him.”
Larkin didn’t respond as a cold sweat broke out under his arms. His jaw tightened. Throat muscles tensed. He felt struck by both the need to simultaneously fight and fly.
