Joey couldn’tstandthat guy.
But here, now, listening to Chadwick greet him with genuine warmth and Crosby reply with a shy smile, hereallycouldn’t stand him, and that’s when it got him.
Oh fuck.Joey wasjealous.
Not romantically (really?).Joey didn’t advertise, but he wasn’t particularly discriminating when it came to the gender of a sex partner.Mostly he thought of them as fallow deer who were to be set upon, devoured, and then left behind.
He didn’t… couldn’t think of Chadwick like that.It was much more visceral than that.Chadwick wasJoey’s.Sure he could have other sex partners, as long as his main focus wasJoey.And while Chadwick didn’t seem particularly romantically interested in Crosby, hecouldbe, and that would be a threat toJoey.
As Crosby made small talk about how badly New England sucked in the playoffs, and Chadwick asked him how close he’d gotten to playing pro ball, Joey realized how small that made him.
“Yeah, I was only a few games away from the end of the season,” Crosby said with a philosophical shrug.“We were set to win division and compete in the Citrus Bowl when that illegal tackle came out of nowhere.It would’ve been nice, but then I wouldn’t have ended up here.”
Oh Christ.He was so fucking earnest.Joey hadreadthe guy’s file, trying to use Gideon Chadwick skills to see what Gideon Chadwick saw in him.What he saw was that this guy had gone against his entire department to find a serial murderer who’d been trying to start a gang war, and his house had been so grateful for Crosby bringing the guy down single-handedly, they’d tried to kill him when he’d gone against another flatfoot who’d shot a Black teenager in the back.
Crosby had done more than just have the bad luck to blow his knee out like every other jock on the planet.He was there through character, hard work, and intelligence.
Joeyhatedthat guy.
But he couldn’t be cruel or dismissive of him either.
Fuck.
“Well, we’re all glad you’re here,” Harding said.“But we’ve got to get you a better coffee cup.”
Harding glanced pointedly at Chadwick, who grimaced.Joey wondered about that.Pearson’s coffee cup was a cat holding a bloody dripping knife.Chadwick’s cup was a fox in a cap and gown.Everybody had personalized coffee cups except him and Crosby.
Except last week Joey had run down a suspect by following his trail through a park, noting the way his footsteps had disturbed leaves and left impressions in the soft ground.The chase had ended when Joey had executed a flying tackle and handcuffed the guy when they landed.
That Monday, Joey had gotten to work, and in the place where his usual cup—plain white porcelain with Joey’s name in Sharpie—usually sat was a cup with a cartoon wolf on it, wearing a slick suit.
And Joey had seen the cup and gotten it.He’d tracked that guy down like a wolf, and he liked a slick outfit after work.
Nobody said anything (except Pearson, who’d saluted him slightly), and Joey realized that the cup needed to be earned.
And Crosby didn’t have one yet.
Oh.Bummer.
Abruptly Joey hated him a little less.
And with that lessening of distracting emotion, he could pay attention to the situation Harding was rolling out.
“Meet Kent and Colin Gleeson,” Harding said, firing up the screen at the end of the conference room.“The Dogfight Brothers.”
“Brothers?”Denison was the one to say it.Kent Gleeson was six two, Black, with two thick braids coming from his temples down his back, and heavily tattooed with handsome tribal markings.Colin was White, five six, with brown hair buzz-cut into a ragged mullet and pale blue red-rimmed eyes.They were as different as two humans could appear, right down to Colin’s yellow meth teeth and Kent’s gold inlaid grill.
“Oddly enough, no,” Harding said.“Same last name, same taste for candy, same idea to run dogfights out of Red Hook.Kent is muscle, Colin is greed.I don’t know which one is brains, because so far we haven’t seen a damned thing about them that’s smart.”
“What are they wanted for?”Crosby asked.“Besides being garbage humans.Because dogfighting is the fucking worst.”
A little more of Joey’s frozen black wolf’s heart melted at that.OfcourseCrosby would champion dogs.
“They are wanted for the disappearance of this man,” Clint said, tapping on his tablet.The screen flashed, and the image of the Gleeson brothers was replaced with a picture of a rather sweet-faced middle-aged man wearing a tweed suit and carrying a small white Chihuahua.“This is Tad Spencer.His dog, Carl, was, well, sort of the terror of their Haworth, New Jersey, neighborhood.According to police sources, Carl was under quarantine for biting a woman at the dog park when he disappeared.The enclosure in the back wastotallysecure.The only way the dog could have escaped is if he had help.”
“Wait,” Joey said, not sure if Harding was having him on or not.“The, uh, Gleeson brothers kidnapped a Chihuahua for dog fights?”
Harding grunted.“Apparently the little-dog fights are some of the most brutal.I guess the story spread—the woman who was bitten was a social-media influencer, and Carl gained some notoriety.Mr.Spencer went looking for him, and after asking around, told his husband he was going to Red Hook to get his dog back.When he didn’t return that night, the husband called the FBI.”
