“It’s the get-along shirt.”
“It’s the fuckin’ get-along shirt,” I grunt. “I want to stab that motherfucker in the face every time I look at him, so I’m gonna do what I need to do to make Fabian happy. Then it’s done and we can go back to normal.”
“One good case, right? You run it by the book, behave, close it out, and prove you can cooperate, then it’s you and me again?”
“That’s how I see it. And I reckon Drake knows it, too, because he’s keeping his mouth mostly shut. He doesn’t wanna work with me anymore than I wanna work with him, so we’re doing the job, then we’re putting this in the past.”
“Good.” He claps my shoulder. “Don’t screw it up. I’m counting on younotgetting my ass bumped down to TO. Clay’s nice and all, but a demotion means a pay cut, and this economy is already kicking my ass. I’m just trying to keep the lights on at this point.”
“I’ve got it, I promise.” I take a step back and let his hand fall. “Text me each time you move. I’ll do the same. We’ll meet up at the George Stanley and get an update onourcase. Yours and mine,” I press. “Banks is just a fuckin’ tagalong.”
“A tagalong,” he chuckles. “And this is your version of shutting your mouth, huh?”
“Mmhm.” I turn to my car, my eyes trained on the driver’s side door, which is precisely where I intend to go, to slide in and drive away, but then I lock eyes with Detective fucking Banks already sitting in my seat. His belt already on. His hands on the steering wheel. “I’m driving.”
“Not anymore, you aren’t.” Smirking, Fletch backs up with a shake of his head, and at least thirty percent of his expression sour, like heknowsa demotion is coming and it might be time to dust off the old resumé.I heard Wendy’s is hiring. “Button it up, Malone. It’s justonecase.”
Button it up.
BUTTON. IT. UP.
For fuck’s sake.
ARCHER
Banks brings the cruiser to a stop on a street lined with townhouses stacked side by side. Each portion of land boasts, by fast count, five or six units each, but with at least twenty consecutive blocks in a row, this street is jam-packed with parked cars, even in the middle of a workday. Summer break means kids litter the sidewalks, and since the sun is out, dozens of balls bounce in dozens of different directions.
Tennis balls. Footballs.Basketballs.
Dennison Avenue is an ecosystem within itself, where children mingle, the scent of cooking food wafts in the air, and at least half of these kids clock me and Drake for what we are, even without the cop insignia on the side of our car, or the strip of lights across the top.
This is where middle-class families come to live, but the lower end of middle-class. The end where residents still get to eat and keep the electricity on, but losing a job or totaling their car could be the straw that breaks a camel’s back. It’s where each home probably has two working adults, since folks can’t afford otherwise these days, and when summer break hits, childcare falls upon the village and a metric dose of hopes and dreams.
It’s a precarious balancing act most work hard to maintain.
And then there are the single-parent families… like Josey’s.
“We tell it to her directly.” Banks cuts the engine and tugs the keys from the ignition. Unsnapping his seatbelt, he twists and meets my eyes. “We say it straight. We don’t drag out her suffering, and we don’t?—”
“You think this is my first day on the job? Shut the fuck up.” I snatch the keys faster than his brain thinks to stop me, then I push out my side and nod for the street biker security crew.
As in, five boys who look older than Mia, but younger than Cato, while they mean-mug us over the top of their handlebars.
“Don’t tell me how to do my fuckin’ job.” I keep my voice low enough to spare the kids from having to testify in court once I bury this prick in the woods, then dipping my hands—and the keys—into my pockets, I start along the cracked footpath leading toward Josey’s front door. “You’re the new one around here, Banks, not me. And maybe you’ve gotten into the habit of coaching, since you spend all your time with Clay nowadays, but I’m not him, and you don’t have seniority over me. Zip ya lips, bitch, and mind your damn business.”
“Boggles my mind that Chief Mayet could even look at you and thinkyeah, this is the asshole I wanna marry. She blind or something?”
“Married metwice.And you don’t get to talk about her unless you want me to shove my gun straight up your asshole and pop your eyeballs out through your ears.” I move up the two concrete steps out front and knock on Josey’s door. Lowering my hand, I back up and wait… wait… wait to fuck up some poor woman’s day. “This isn’t a game, Banks. And she doesn’t need us shouting over each other while we’re telling her about her dead daughter. Don’t turn this into a pissing contest just because you wanna feel like top dog. This ismycity, and the only reason you’re here is because you nabbed yourself a nice girl who dreams of working formywife someday.”
Footsteps echo inside the townhouse, so I straighten my spine and clamp my lips shut. Locks disengage inside: one, two, three, then the door opens and a woman who looks horrifyingly like the girl we’ve already studied today, just eighteen years older, stops on the threshold with tears already in her eyes.
She looks from me to Drake, her breath catching and her chest heaving. “No, no, no, no, no.”
I dive forward the instant her knees give out and wrap my arm around her back. I take her hand in mine, while Drake squeezes through the doorway and takes her other side.
“No!” She wails loud enough to alert the kids in the street. “Not my baby! Please, God, no.”
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Ryan.” I kick the door shut and buy her a little privacy, then I half-carry her through the small entryway and into theliving room not more than ten feet away. Together, Drake and I lead her to the sofa and set her down on the edge.
