The outer door opened and a woman walked in.
He almost dropped his mug.
She pushed her sunglasses up and smiled. “Hi, lover.”
Renee. He waited for a blast of something—gladness, fury, resentment—and couldn’t find anything. “This is a surprise.”
His voice was calm. Good.
“Right? Of all the gin joints in all the world...” She grinned, inviting him to smile back, but he couldn’t find that, either.
“What do you want?” he asked evenly.
“Since you won’t talk to me on the phone, I decided to see for myself how you’re doing. What you’re doing with yourself these days.” She propped a hip on the edge of Marta’s desk, angling her body to best advantage. “Why don’t you show me around?”
“I’m busy.”
“Come on, Jack.” She swept a look around. For a moment, he saw the department through her eyes: three desks jammed close together, the cheap veneer door to his office with the premadePOLICECHIEFsign, the narrow hallway that led to the cramped back rooms, the gun closet, and two small holding cells. “It’s not like it will take very long.”
“We only give tours to the kiddies on Tuesdays,” Hank drawled.
Renee glanced in his direction, her smile sharpening. “You must be Barney Fife.”
Jack sighed. Renee didn’t take anybody’s shit. Ever. He used to admire the way she always brought a gun to a knife fight. Now it just made him tired. And wary. “Hank Clark, Marta Lopez, this is Renee Mancuso.”
She angled her chin. “Six months ago, it was Renee Rossi.”
“Except at work,” he said.
Renee had never used his name professionally.There are too many damn Rossis on the job in this town, she’d said when they were married.It’s confusing.
And he, poor sap, had gone along with whatever she wanted, determined not to act like the knuckle dragger she’d sometimes accused him of being.
His coffee was suddenly bitter in his mouth.Whoops. Seemed like he had some lingering resentment after all.
He set down his mug. He couldn’t imagine his family sending his ex-wife to find him. Especially Ma. Still... “Everybody okay back home?”
“They’re fine. They miss you.” She laid her perfectly manicured hand on his arm. Looked up into his eyes. “I miss you.”
“Good to know.” He realized how that sounded and winced internally. Not so calm, either.Shit. “I mean, I’m glad that everything’s okay. We really have to get back to work here, Renee.”
“Of course.” She stood. “I can wait for you. On your boat?”
Ah, shit. He kept his face impassive.
“Or you could let me buy you a drink. Unless...” She widened those big golden eyes at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Maybe you don’t drink anymore.”
She could have been concerned or testing or digging at him. With Renee, it could be all three.
That had been the last straw, the final incident that cost him his cool and his reputation.
All cops drank, coming off shift at four in the afternoon, at two in the morning, taking the edge off, diluting the stress of the job before they went home to their three-bedroom suburban houses, to their bills and their lawns and their dogs and their wives.
The brass didn’t give a damn if you drank.
But if you looked up from your beer and saw your bastard partner with your cheating wife sitting together at the bar, if you saw her hand move up his thigh and his hand close around her nape, if you hauled off and slugged him in a public place, precipitating a bar fight... Yeah, they cared about that.
Particularly if your wife outranked you in the department.
