“Or?”
“I’ll punch you, and we’ll both end up with a disciplinary,” Marlow said.
Franklin glared at him for a second and then suddenly laughed. He pushed himself upright and shook his head.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” he asked of the room at large. “I’m trying to escalate things here, and he’s just not working with me. C’mon, man. Call me Frankenstein because I’m tall or something?”
“Frankenstein was the scientist,” Marlow told him.
“Fuck off.”
“He’s right,” Bennett said.
“Then why’s the movie calledBride of Frankenstein?” Franklin asked.
Marlow left them to bicker over that and headed for the door after Cade. It didn’t take him long to catch up. Cade stood next to his car on the phone, jaw clenched as he listened to whoever was on the other end. He glanced briefly at Marlow as he walked over, and a muscle in his jaw twitched.
“…is not the level of—” Marlow picked out the tinny voice over the sound of scant mid-moon traffic. He turned away and tried not to listen. After a second, Cade hung up and stuck the phone into his back pocket.
“So much for keeping this quiet in return for my cooperation,” Cade said as he pulled the fob out of his pocket and unlocked the car with a flash of the headlights. “I don’t expect much from the SDPD, but I thought they could make it two days before they threw my company under the bus.”
It might not have been O’Hara,” Marlow said. Even to himself, he sounded detached, his voice aggressively placid in response to Cade’s annoyance. That always pissed Bennett off, and from the repeated jump of the muscle in his cheek, Cade had that in common with her. It didn’t matter. Marlow couldn’t help it. High-pressure situations made him calm. “Leaks happen.”
“Do they?” Cade asked, something pointed in his voice. “Is that why Piper tried to kill you?”
He looked like he regretted it the minute he said it, but he had the good grace not to apologize. Some things you didn’t get to take back. Not right away. It had to sit on your conscience for a while.
“I would have gone with, ‘You should know, after the number of holes Piper put in you,’” Marlow said, still detached and pleasant, despite the bite of sour water in the back of his throat. It shouldn’t bother him this much—people had said worse, and some of them had been people he’d known a long time—but it stung from Cade. “But for the record? No, it wasn’t. I didn’t know enough to leak anything.”
Marlow didn’t wait for a follow-up question that he had no intention of answering. He turned and walked away, along the well-worn trail from the bar back to the precinct. Most people had the good sense to be going the other way when they took it.
“Hey,” Cade called after him. “You never asked me.”
Despite himself, Marlow slowed down as curiosity tugged at him. Asked aboutwhat? What had brought Cade from Alaska to California? The scars? Why he was such a dick?
Marlow didn’t stop, but he did turn around and walk backward a few steps.
“Ask you what?”
Cade looked awkward as he scratched behind his ear. “What I thought of your ass.”
That stopped Marlow in his tracks as he laughed. He crossed his arms.
“That sounded smoother before you had to say it, right?”
“Maybe,” Cade admitted with a wry smile. “Just… I don’t like to be angry alone.”
It wasn’t an apology. Marlow didn’t know if he needed one—or would have accepted it if it was. The truth was that his life would be a lot less complicated without kissing Cade Deacon in restrooms.
Somehow, the fact he knew that had no impact on how much he wanted to kiss Cade again.
“That’s your therapist’s problem, not mine,” Marlow said. “I’ll find out how news of Haley’s death got out. If O’Hara lied, I won’t be happy either.”
Cade shrugged to that, as if it hadn’t just made him storm out. “So, are you going to ask what I think?” When Marlow stared blankly at him in confusion, Cade’s mouth tilted in self-mockery. “About your ass?”
Marlow raised his eyebrows briefly and then shook his head as he turned around.
“It’s my job to work out twice a day,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I know I have a great ass. Maybe I’ll see you tonight—unless you behave yourself.”
