“Great. Now I really look like the killer I’m writing. Talk about getting into character.” Laughing to himself, he put the ice cream in the freezer and went to take a shower, anticipating his piece of apple pie.
Chapter Two
Detective Harper Rose was tired as fuck.
Eighteen hours straight on a case would do that, but when he’d slapped the cuffs on the latest bad guy—a rapist who’d broken into his ex-wife’s apartment—it had driven away the brain fog. Nothing beat that adrenaline rush. Not even sex, although it had been so long, Harper could barely remember that kind of high.
Even sleeping for nine blessed hours hadn’t helped—he’d need a week to play catch-up with his bed for all the OT he’d put in. So worth it, to tell Alma Rodriguez her slimeball of an ex was behind bars. Still, he’d had to wake up. He and his partner had to be fresh to report to their captain about the details of the arrest.
His brother, David, had woken up earlier than usual, and they’d shared breakfast at seven. Luis—David’s live-in aide—came into the kitchen at eight, and Harper had decided to head in early and get started on paperwork, but coffee was a sly seductor and called to him as he passed by Perk Me Up, the neighborhood coffee shop.
Predictably, a line snaked through the store, but he sighed and waited, checking his messages. What he didn’t anticipate was the sightseeing. As in the fucking hot guy in the corner. Tats up and down nicely muscled arms, a scruffy jaw, bedhead hair, and the glitter of a diamond earring.
Mmm-mmm. Damn.
Their eyes met briefly, and a sizzle of attraction crackled straight to his balls. The man swallowed his coffee the wrong way and choked. Harper thought about offering to give him the Heimlich maneuver and grinned, imagining all the filthy things he’d like to do to the hottie once he got his arms around him.
Ah well, nothing like some dirty thoughts about someone he’d never see again to make the morning more palatable. He ordered a quad espresso and wedged himself into a seat across the shop from his pervy fantasy, who was on the phone, talking and waving a hand about, his lips curved in wicked smile that did strange things to Harper’s dick.
Jesus, he needed to get laid. Maybe this weekend, he’d head to one of the nearby bars and blow off some steam. He sipped his coffee, feeling it do its work as his eyes opened a bit more and he was able to read his messages.
Great. More red tape, meetings with the DA’s office, and not to forget, Pride month was almost over, and the NYPD was holding special events.Whoopie. Let’s trot out the gays.Leaving his phone on the table, he got up and ordered another coffee—a cold brew this time. He still had a few extra minutes before heading to the precinct.
One PP could say whatever the hell they wanted about acceptance; there were a bunch of detectives in his squad who had no use for him once they knew he was gay. On patrol, Harper never hid his sexuality, and it was a sad truth that when he’d made detective two years earlier, the first thing his assignedpartner—an old-timer named Vic Lombardi—had said to him was, “I heard you’re into guys. Or are they into you?”
Lombardi had thought his joke was hysterically funny, but Harper had not. He’d reported him, which hadn’t won him many friends, and Lombardi had then used his years and connections to request a new partner. Harper was put with Nolan Martinez. They’d clicked immediately, and Harper knew Nolan had his back and had no issues with him being gay. In fact, Harper had to tell Nolan’s wife, Gina, whom he loved, that no, he wasn’t interested in dating her hairdresser or the guy at Sephora who’d helped her pick out a new lipstick and was so cute.
Who had time for a relationship?
Between the demands of his job and taking care of his brother, Harper was stretched as tight and thin as a wire. After his father’s death and his mother’s suicide several years after, Harper became the sole caretaker for David, who’d been severely injured in a school bus accident as a child, leaving him a quadriplegic with profound brain injury. He had extremely limited ability to move his arms—therapy twenty years ago was different than today, and David had only learned to hold a fork or spoon in the past year.
Determined to keep his little brother at home with him, Harper had hired a full-time live-in aide, but he made sure almost all his free time was spent with his brother. No one else and nothing mattered to him more. The smile on David’s face when he came home was enough happiness in his life.
Tears pricked his eyes, but he ignored them and gulped the rest of his coffee. Better get his ass moving. He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“Ex-excuse me?”
He glanced up to see a group of women in front of him, all with the same worried expressions.Uh-oh.His gut instinct, which rarely proved him wrong, buzzed.
“Can I help you?”
One of them, obviously the appointed spokesperson, looked to the woman next to her, who nodded.
“Go ahead, Marianne. We have to say something.”
“You’re a police officer? We saw your shield on your belt.”
“Detective, ma’am. Is there a problem?” Harper had zero clue what they could be concerned about. He’d been sitting there for over twenty minutes and had noticed nothing awry.
“Oh, even better. See, we were sitting across from you over there.” She pointed to the now empty table with four chairs. “A man was sitting behind us. He was very…different-looking. And acting very strangely.”
Different-looking? For fuck’s sake, what the hell did that mean? He tamped down his anger, hoping he wasn’t listening to a bunch of nosy bigots. “Different how?” he asked, attempting to keep a neutral voice.
“He was covered in tattoos and…messy. But that wasn’t the problem. It was what he said.” She lowered her voice. “He was talking about murdering someone.”
Harper blinked. “I’m sorry? What?” The hot guy he’d noticed when he walked in? Discussing murder?
Like bobbleheads, they nodded in unison. “It’s true, Detective. He was talking about stabbing this old lady who lives on the same block as him.” Her voice lowered. “He was even talking about dismembering her.”
