Chapter One
AJ
“Stone. Blade. Get your asses in here.” Chief Harris stalks into his office, his bad attitude following him through the station like a cloud of Axe body spray in a sauna. Shit. Ten more minutes and I would have been on I-35 headed home.
I push up from my chair as Jasper shoots me a look I know all too well. We ain’t gettin’ out of here on time. We’ll be lucky to get out of here at all.
“Keep the piss and vinegar to yourself if you don’t want to spend the next month doing the chief’s paperwork,” I mutter.
My twin brother snorts. “You’re the one gunnin’ for captain. I’m going fishing tomorrow.”
“We’ll see about that, little brother. I’ll pull rank if I have to.”
“You’re five minutes older than I am, AJ. That don’t mean shit and you know it,” he grumbles.
“Maybe not, but the chief likes me more. Or dislikes me less.”
“Shut the goddamn door.” Harris barely glances up from his computer until the din from the bullpen falls away. The scent of stale coffee in here could choke a hog. He doesn’t ask us to sit down, a sure sign we ain’t gonna like what he has to say.
“The Cordova Cartel is making moves again. One of Marvin’s CIs thinks they’re running some distribution operation off Rundberg. Shipments goin’ in and out of a strip mall at all hours of the night.”
“Marvin hasn’t had a reliable CI since Jasper and I were in college.” I glance at my brother. “You hear any chatter about a strip mall op?”
“Nope. Dead silence.” Jas holds his hand to his ear. “I reckon that was a pin droppin’ in the break room.”
“You’re a goddamn comedian now?” Harris barks.
“No, sir.” Jasper shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stares down at his boots.
Fuck. We’re gonna be on the chief’s shit list for months if we ain’t careful. “What my brother means, sir, is that our CIs say the cartel’s been quiet the past few weeks.”
“And quiet usually means they’re up to somethin’. So you’re gonna work on your jokes while you run stakeouts for the next two nights.”
I shake my head. “Chief, I’m takin’ Grace up to Lake Livingston this weekend. We’re fixin’ to leave in a couple hours.”
“Not anymore.”
He slides a piece of paper across his desk. I have to squint to make out his messy scrawl. With that handwriting, he should have gone to med school.
“Stone, take McGrath to location Alpha. Blade, you’re with Billings on location Bravo. I expect a full report from each of you by ten a.m. tomorrow. Now get the fuck out of my office.”
“Goddammit.” I punch Jasper in the upper arm once we’re back in the bullpen and out of the chief’s earshot. “Next time, keep your wisecracks to yourself.”
“This wasn’t my fault and you know it,” Jasper snaps. “Marvin’s had it out for us since I pranked him last year. That idjit can’t take a fucking joke.”
“You spiked his coffee with ghost pepper extract. He was shitting fire for a week! Thanks to you, I gotta tell Grace we can’t go up to the cabin this weekend.”
Jasper cringes. “Fuck. I’m sorry. But Grace knew what she was signing up for when she married you. She’ll understand.”
“Not this time.” I pull my phone out of my back pocket and stare at the screen. Grace smiles back at me from the finish line of last year’s Austin Half Marathon. “She taught her final class of the term yesterday. We were goin’ up to the cabin to celebrate.”
“So you’ll go next weekend.” He waves Billings over from across the bullpen.
“Can’t. She’s got the Austin Marathon in two weeks and she keeps talkin’ about carb loading and taper runs. Apparently, her sleep schedule has to be ‘on point.’ Whatever the hell that means. Once this weekend’s over, she won’t touch a single drop of alcohol til she crosses that finish line. Then she’s back to a full teaching load. Including summer session. This was our last chance to get away until Christmas.”
“Shit, man. I’m sorry.” Jasper checks his watch. “But if we don’t start to look like we’re takin’ this assignment seriously, Harris is gonna have our asses. Call Grace so we can get to work.”
A few feet away, McGrath pushes back from his desk and grabs his jacket.
