“Happens to us all. Let me guess, you’re wondering what will happen if you go to work one day and never come home.”
“How’d you know?”
Johnson gave him a weak smile. “I do the same thing every birthday. And I promise myself by my next birthday I’ll have made changes, gotten myself a less dangerous job. But every time I seriously consider doing something else, I remember what would happen if people like us suddenly stopped doing what we do.”
She released his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, you’re one of the good ones. I’ve been around good cops, mediocre cops, bad cops.” After a moment’s pause, she murmured, “I’ve even sent a few to prison.”
No need for her to name names. “It wasn’t easy sending your child’s father to prison, was it?”
“Was it easy for you to testify against your lover?”
Lucky didn’t talk to many people about Victor Mangiardi. “Like to have killed me.”
“But Victor didn’t threaten to hurt your kid. Tyrone’s daddy knew the first time he stepped out of line, did a favor for an old friend, that he did wrong. Every night when he left home to make some extra money, he knew the cost. When he started using, I stopped seeing him. Told him to stay the hell away from my boy.”
Lucky heard this part of the story before. She’d shot a man she’d once loved. Might still love. Had a child with.
He’d never met anyone tougher, and he’d grown up with hard-living redneck types.
“Remember the good you’re doing. Few people know the shit we’re up against every day. Will never know how many times we kiss our asses goodbye, believing we’re about to die.” Johnson made a kissing noise. “They might call us narcs or pigs, but at the end of the day, we make the world a safer place.”
A safer place. One day Lucky might get blown away, and the only thing he’d have to show for his life would be a blip on the local news, like he’d gotten the last time he died on the job.
Only next time, he probably wouldn’t get a new life and a new name.
Wait a minute! She’d wished him a happy birthday earlier, without acting. “You knew it was my birthday all along, didn’t you?”
Johnson snorted. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”
If she didn’t do or say something soon, he might give in to the urge to hug her and never let go. Or say something stupid.
She saved him from himself. “Now c’mon and get me home. I need to get out of this dress and actually breathe.”
They didn’t speak for the few short blocks to her apartment until he pulled up to the curb. What could he say? “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” She held her hand out. “List, please.”
Oh. That. Lucky dug the scrap of paper out of his pocket and placed it on her palm.
He didn’t acknowledge her kissing his cheek or her soft, “Good night, and happy birthday.” She slogged up the sidewalk to her building, high heels in hand.
Somewhere in all his screw ups, Lucky must’ve done something right, because the good Lord had given him Bo, Walter, Charlotte, his nephews, and Johnson.
And damned if he’d let anything bad happen to any of them.
Chapter Two
Lucky punched the clicker clipped to the visor of his Camaro eight times. Nothing happened. He’d put new batteries in the remote, so the fault lay with the gate. How bad to have to ask permission from an unreliable-assed gate to get home? After a grueling workout, taking his frustrations out on the gate with a motherfucking sledgehammer might be the perfect cooldown.
Of course, having Bo here would’ve sure kept his ass home.
The beautiful, cloudless day mocked his stormy mood. He rolled down his window, punched in a code, and the gate pulled back, barely enough to squeeze the car through. Okay, no rash actions today. Maybe tomorrow.
Empty driveway. Again. He hit another visor switch to open the garage. Nothing. Again. Like the damned thing might magically repair itself. Something else on a long list of things to fix on his and Bo’s money pit.
One day they might have a house worthy of the mortgage payments, if they could stay off assignment long enough to get the ever-growing to-do list done.
They couldn’t win.
