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“Your loss.” Reggie shrugged. “So introduce me to Little Miss Trouble and let’s find out if she has any more costumes.”
Officer Puberty was just finishing up when Carlos and Reggie made their way over. As soon as he drew near, Mika turned his way and looked at him with the slightest hint of relief in her eyes.
“Mika,” he said. “This is Reggie Watts. He’s a friend and a police detective.”
“Are you doing okay, ma’am?” Reggie asked as he pulled out a small notebook from his inside jacket pocket.
“I’m a little shook up, but yeah.” She gave Reggie a considering look tinged with annoyance. “A detective, huh? Does that mean you guys are finally going to investigate these muggings?”
Carlos chuckled. He probably should have warned Reggie that Mika didn’t have a problem unsheathing her claws.
“The Harbor City Police Department takes all criminal activity seriously,” Reggie said, smooth as peanut butter on burned toast.
She gave the big cop a dirty look that would make weaker men beg for mercy.
“Was anything taken?” Reggie asked, unperturbed.
“I just told the other officer all of this,” she said, frustration eating away at the edges of her words.
Reggie waited.
She rolled her eyes in annoyance. “He had my purse, but he dropped it right before Carlos started kicking his ass.”
“Did he say anything?” Reggie asked. “Make any direct threats?”
“He just said, “Where is it?’”
“Where is what?” Reggie asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what the asshole wanted.
“I’m assuming the same LARP costume that he’s strong-armed away from four other people in my court.”
Reggie arched an eyebrow but let the court comment slide. “And you didn’t have it on you?”
She shook her head. “We were having a planning meeting. There wasn’t a reason to have it.”
Reggie pocketed his notebook. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me borrow your costume so the lab can take a look at it and see why someone is going to all this trouble to steal it.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to help catch this guy.” No hesitation.
At that moment, if Reggie had asked her to act as bait and walk down the darkened alleys of Harbor City wearing the vestment around her neck like a noose, she probably would have said yes. That kind of impulsiveness had Carlos popping his sore knuckles again. He’d need to find a way to curb her act-first, think-second reaction if he was going to solve this case without her going off half-cocked and getting hurt.
“Hey, Detective,” a uniformed officer called out. “We found the weapon.”
Carlos pivoted on his heel and took a step toward the officer, but then a large hand clapped down on his shoulder, stopping him.
“I don’t think so,” Reggie said. “This is my crime scene. You two stay put and I’ll send a unit over to take your statement, ’Los. After that, you two head back to Mika’s. I’ll be by later to pick up that costume.”
Thirty minutes and one short walk later, Carlos stopped at the front entrance to Mika’s building down the block from the Grounded Coffee. He didn’t know anything more about the perp’s handgun than he had before the cops had found it, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the addition of bullets meant only one thing: trouble.
Mika stopped on the stoop’s top step, put one hand on her hip, and gave him a hard once-over. “What is it?”
“Hold on.” He hustled over to his jet-black Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and popped the trunk. His nine-millimeter was in a small safe under a false bottom along with a go-bag packed with a week’s work of necessities. He slipped on his shoulder holster, secured the gun into place in it, and closed the trunk.
Mika stared at him from the stairs, the streetlight illuminating her like a spotlight. “Ready for round two?”
“I’m ready for anything.” He meant the gun, but seeing her like that brought back the sight of her last night with the soft light leaking into his bedroom from the hallway, letting him see just enough of her bare flesh to desperately want to see the rest. Heat and hunger strengthened his craving for her even as his mind rebelled. He’d already traveled down that path, ignoring his internal warnings and falling for a woman who tempted him into forgetting his objective. Two people had almost died then. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen again.
Gritting his teeth, he strode forward and brushed past Mika on the stoop. His step may have faltered for a millisecond when her spicy perfume wrapped around him like an invitation he couldn’t accept, but he pushed the door open and walked into her building’s tiny lobby and headed up the stairs to her third floor walk-up loft apartment. He didn’t have to wonder if she was right behind him; her glare burned a hole through the back of his head. Good. The more she hated him, the less of a distraction she’d be. That’s all that mattered.
