A smirk dancing along his face, he turns the lights back on, looking at his watch, "Usually you just sit in the crowd and watch your girlfriend watch the fights, you creeper."
I don't want to admit to Skyler that, as it turns out, she's not my girlfriend and confess that I'm even more of a creep than he knows. If we're really that close, shouldn't he already know that Brigit and I are slightly less acquainted than I first believed?
"Have you seen her yet?" he pries.
Before I can answer the question, a loud knock rattles the steel front door.
Skyler frowns, his face mirroring the confusion on mine, before shutting his computer and opening the door, where a uniformed officer stands, staring at us impassively.
"Are you gonna let me in?" he asks, a smug smile pulling at his lips.
I narrow my eyes, looking at Skyler where he's standing between us. "Why would we let you in?"
"Oh, shit, they scrambled your eggs good," he laughs, pushing past an unnervingly stoic Skyler. "Can't remember a thing huh?"
"Bits and pieces," I shrug, lying. "It's slowly coming back."
I don't know who this guy is, but he's coming here armed and uniformed in the middle of the day, and something about the way he's looking at me makes my fucking skin crawl. He wears the expression of a schoolyard bully that has everyone but you in on a joke and is just waiting for the right time to drop the punchline.
If he's turned perpetually, maniacally grinning Skyler into a statue of a man, there's not a single doubt in my mind that he's not to be trusted.
"Hmm. Well I'm Officer Steele," he paces through the bar with his hands clasped behind his back. "We're friends."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm the type to keep cops as friends," I can't explain the animosity I feel towards this man, like my instincts are screaming something that my conscious mind can't yet comprehend.
A single, mirthless chuckle escapes him into the air before he responds, "I'm the exception, not the rule. I just wanted to come by and see how you're settling back into your life and if you’re ready for an assignment.”
Assignment?
Like this fucking asshole is our boss or something?
I raise a brow, not answering him, instead waiting for him to continue and tell me what it is he thinks he can fucking order me to do.
Pulling a folded manila envelope from the pocket inside his jacket, he holds it out to Skyler. "We have reason to believe a local loan officer is just your kind of dirty.”
Skyler raises a brow, “If you have the intel, you take care of it. We're retired."
Now the officer really laughs, throwing his head back before locking eyes viciously on Skyler, "Retired? No. Just becausesomebodywent and nearly got themselves buried doesn’t mean you get out of our deal. There’s not quite enough concrete evidence for a search warrant, but I know you two have your little ways around that and you’re going to fucking use them.”
The glare rolling off of me has to be utterly glacial. I can feel the cold blister of hatred with every word he speaks, barking orders like we’re his to command.
"Leave it on the bartop," Skyler says, looking at his nails, feigning boredom with this conversation to get rid of the prick. "I'll have a look and see what I can do."
"Great," he slams it on a table, the contents spilling out from the force. He slinks to the door, painting a golden streak across the deep purple and gray floor as it opens. "Nice to see you, Fomori."
Assoon as he disappears into the bright day, Skyler groans in annoyance, grabbing the papers left behind, and scurrying towards the office. I snag his computer and the sheet, carrying them and following shortly behind until he closes the office door behind us.
"I was really hoping we'd get a little more time before we saw Ben, but it is what it is and what it is is a fucking nightmare in the shape of a cop," he sighs, sinking into one of the couches pressed against the wall.
"Why does he give usassignments?" I press.
Throwing a dramatic arm over his eyes, he responds, "The problem started maybe two years ago now. Officer Benjamin Steele caught us disposing of a body and basically let us off, so he didn't have to admit that two fucking criminals were responsible for stopping the guy.
"I never liked him, and to be frank, you liked him even less. But he’s not completely useless. When we stumbled upon a huge scheme to rob a weapons dealer warehouse last year and sell the artillery to somereallydangerous people, he took the credit and fudged the report, looking the other way while we disposed of the bodies you dropped. Otherwise, we would have been toast.”
My mind spins with the new information, "So, my... my known victims weren't the only ones."
Skyler laughs, "Not by a long shot, buddy. That special treatment is saved only for the worst of the worst that need to be exposed. The rest become fishy food.”
