He watched the suspicion and envy flicker through the driver’s eyes as he checked Cade out a second time in the rearview. It would have been more satisfying if he didn’t hate himself for needing that validation.
Lem was in his office when Cade got there. Any points he got for that were lost because he also had his boots up on Cade’s desk.
He might not know where the line was, but he wasn’t an idiot. He caught Cade’s glare and swung his feet back down onto the floor.
“Boss,” Lem said as he straightened up in the chair. “Rough morning?”
Cade glanced down at the SDPD-branded sweats he still had on. They were clean enough—the only smell worked into them was bleach and the morning after the moon before stink of him—but still.
“What gave it away?” he asked as he pulled the sweatshirt off and draped it over the back of his chair. “Did you find who that card belonged to?”
“No,” Lem said. Before Cade could get beyond a breath sucked through his teeth in irritation, Lem scrambled on. “I mean, I found whose allotment the card was drawn from. Wallace Macroy.”
“Halfway there,” Cade said. “Time to bring it home. Who did he want a guest card for?”
Lem pulled his face into an exaggerated grimace of anticipation. “You aren’t going to like it.”
“Well, then,” Cade said dryly as he stood on one leg and then the other to strip the loose fleece off. “Keep me waiting. That always puts me in a better mood.”
He headed for the smoked glass door that led into the small shower room he’d had the architect add to the floor plans when they were drawn up. When you built your own office, you got to have your own way.
“It’s for his office, for when he’s away. In case he needs someone to get something from the house or water his plants,” Lem said. He held his hands up defensively when Cade turned to look at him. “Hey, I didn’t approve it.”
“Who did?” The minute the words left his lips, Cade regretted the question. He could guess the answer from Lem’s reluctant expression. “Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah,” Lem said. “Him.”
Cade scratched his head—and pulled a twig out of his hair—and tried to think past the sour old grudge. His ex-partner had fucked him over worse than this. A shared office card for a wealthy celebrity-adjacent client? That was just Justin trying to curry favor, not actually undermine the company.
“Fine. Get me Wallace’s contact details,” he said, and almost instantly changed his mind. “Make it his office manager. They’re more likely to know. And see what you can dig up on an Officer Marlow. Night Shift. He pulled a few of our operatives in… last year?”
Lem unfolded himself from the office chair, a lean man made of black leather. “Well, that narrows down the suspect list,” he said. “Is he a problem?”
Yes.
“No,” Cade said. “But technically, this is his case.”
“Huh. So why isn’t he doing the leg work?”
Cade pulled the bathroom door shut and thought about Marlow’s tight shoulders and the way he’d leaned against the morgue wall like it was all that kept him upright. It made a shiver of breathless electric interest run down his spine and tug at his balls. He had no idea where it came from—his type was arm candy, not roadkill—and he wasn’t going to work that out in front of Lem.
“Hopefully because he’s getting some sleep,” he said. “If he’s my backup, I’d rather he be able to keep his eyes open on the case.”
Chapter Three
MARLOW MOVED BEFOREhis brain caught up with the fact he was awake. He stopped mid-stride in the middle of his house, barefoot on sun-warmed tiles with his gun in his hand and his blood loud in his ears. The dregs of old bad dreams had left a sour taste in his mouth.
Dark streets echoed with the eerie howls of wolves. Some of them were his colleagues. His friends. They’d still rip him apart and not even know they had in the morning. Habit made his hand flex around the emptiness where the gun they’d taken off him should have been.
‘I’m not going out there.”
He sounded scared. He was. For the first time in his life, he knew he was going to die.
“Die out there or die in here. Your choice.”
Gunshots deafened Marlow—
Someone hammered on the door again. Okay. That explained that. Marlow scrubbed his hand over his face and went to tuck his gun into the holster. Cold metal scraped along his hip, and he remembered he slept in boxers. The elastic wasn’t up to that.
