“I take it she can keep her mouth shut?”
“She knows what’s at stake,” Merlo said. “Tancredi’s a good officer. She’s smart, and she’s ambitious.”
Bass laced his hands over his stomach, the buckle of his belt cold against his palm. “I don’t want to know her arrest rates. I want to be sure she’s not going to run her mouth and get me killed.”
“I trust her,” Merlo said. “And it’s a bit late to worry about what she does and doesn’t know.”
Bass snorted and dropped his head back against the hard metal back of the chair. “Touché.”
The door didn’t close. Bass turned his head toward it and raised his eyebrows expectantly at Merlo.
“If you need a night off, we can keep you in overnight,” Merlo said. A flicker of humor tucked the corner of his mouth as he added, “Not in the cells, but I could arrange a hotel. Or I have a couch, when the dog’s not on it.”
Bass considered it. Back in New York, he’d have taken the offer off at the wrist. Sometimes just being able to put your own skin back on for a night made a big difference. But in the city, a shave and a borrowed uniform were enough to dodge identification. When there were a couple million people around, at least five of them could pass for your brother. It was more of a risk in a town like Plenty, especially since he came from here.
He didn’t have any family left—his dad died a couple of years ago, and Bass hadn’t come back for the funeral—but there were still old teachers, the clerk from the gas station he robbed when he was twelve, or just an old neighbor. People went through life worried they’d made no impact, but the minute you didn’t want to be recognized, there’d be some old biddy with a photographic memory.
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s not worth the risk,” he said. Besides, if he was going to spend the night anywhere, he’d rather it be on Tag and not a federal agent’s probably minimalist leather couch. “Just cut me loose in a few hours and slap a court date on me. I’ll tell the Brothers I’m being harassed by the pigs. Maybe it will get me a few brownie points.”
Merlo accepted that with the relief of a man who’d made an offer he hadn’t wanted to follow through with. He slipped out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him, but he didn’t lock it. Bass appreciated that. He didn’t care to be locked in a room he didn’t have the key to.
The clock ticked off another loud minute. While he waited for some info to roll back down the chain of command, he checked his battered old phone. Just one message from Tag. The flicker of disappointment made Bass snort at himself. What had he expected? A sex tape from the operating room?
Although that would be hot.
Tied up till later,he sent.Your place tonight? 10. I’ll bring food.
The clock ticked off another loud handful of minutes, and then the phone buzzed three times in succession on the table. He turned it over, an unusual touch of doubt in the back of his throat as he wondered if Tag had finally come to his senses. Apparently not.
Drunken noodles… and you can Thai me up.
… fuck. Ignore that.
Just bring you. And noodles.
Bass snorted to himself and tossed the phone back onto the table. The back of the chair pressed hard against his shoulder blades as he stretched and wondered how the hell that sext misstep had managed to circle back around to sexy.
THE COFFEEwas reassuringly bad. It was a touchstone of sorts for what skin he had on. Bass the Biker drank beer, with a chaser of whiskey if someone else lined it up. Detective Sebastiani drank his bitter, over-brewed coffee black and hot enough to scorch his tongue smooth.
“So who is he?” he asked.
“He’s a urologist,” Tancredi said.
That would… not have been Bass’s first guess. He hitched his foot onto the metal seat and rested the coffee cup on his knee.
“I’m not saying that Shepherd’s going to take the Brothers to Pride next year,” Bass said. “But he’s not homophobic enough to kill someone just so no one ever found out a medical professional touched him in his fun zone. Trust me. Most of these guys have been to the clinic to have their cock swabbed at some point.”
Tancredi gave a caught-off-guard snicker and then glanced at Merlo and cleared her throat.
“Well, ah, maybe not,” she said. “I don’t think he’s Shepherd’s urologist.”
Bass didn’t need the glance at Merlo to know he’d slipped out of his cop skin. That wasn’t a Sebastiani joke. He took another drink of coffee, somewhere between a reminder and a punishment, and waited for the awkward to fade.
“Go on,” Merlo told Tancredi and lifted an eyebrow. “I assume there is an on to get to?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded firmly. “I don’t know how or why this ties in, but last month, Cochrane’s girlfriend was the drunk driver who took out Jason Morrow, the lawyer who’d just about talked his client, Logan Franks, one of the Brothers, into taking the deal we offered.”
Franks had been a couple of months before Merlo requested Bass’s secondment. Bass had read about it in the briefing when he got here. He rifled through his memory for the details.
