“Hit-and-run. Happened right in front of my eyes. Truck crushed his leg. I stopped and pretty much peeled him off the road, took him to the vet. They couldn’t save the leg, so amputated. No one claimed him.” Maddocks shrugged. “Maybe his owner didn’t want to pay vet bills, or couldn’t. Maybe he was just a stray. So I paid, and then I couldn’t have them just dump him at the shelter, poor guy.” He glanced at her. “So I took him. He needed follow-up surgery anyway. He’s just getting over that second op now.”
“What kind of name is Jack-O?”
The hint of a smile toyed with his mouth as he pulled into the road. “It was Halloween night when he was hit. He was trying to eat a shattered pumpkin on the road.” He shot Angie another look, and his smile deepened, lighting his eyes. “Besides, he’s a scary-ass-looking little thing, don’t you think? And he’s partially orange, like a pumpkin. I think it fits.”
She weighed him, her preconceptions turning on top of themselves in her mind. So, the good-looking homicide cop blessed with a beautiful big dick also rescued orphan animals.
He turned the heat up. Wipers squeaked as he drove. Her gaze lowered to his wrists, where his sleeves were pulling back to expose the red ligature marks left by the friction of her restraints and their hot sex. Her mouth turned dry, and her focus settled on his wedding band.
“Why doesn’t your wife look after Jack-O—she also work full-time, or what?”
A flash of those eyes. His mouth tightened. Ah, she’d hit a sore spot. Curiosity deepened.
“She lives on the mainland. I moved here to be near my kid. Ginny just started school at UVic.” He stopped at a red light, tapped his fingers on the wheel. “I was actually with Ginn at the Blue Badger Bakery when I got the call for the floater. Trendy spot where Drummond worked.”
More questions about this man, his wife, his kid, rolled through Angie’s mind. She looked out of the rain-streaked window. She didn’t want questions, or to feel interested, or to know that he could be available despite that wedding ring.
“Buziak was a bit of an ass back there, cutting you off,” he said as the light turned green and he entered the intersection. “Sorry about that.”
Surprise rippled through her. “It’s not for you to apologize.” Then pride whipped up her spine. “It’s not like I was fazed. Buziak is like that.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Are you trying to indulge me?”
“Is that what you think? Look, if you’re going to be partnered with me, I want to hear your theories. All of them. And you’re gonna hear mine.” He turned onto the slipway that led onto the highway that would take them to the morgue. “Besides, you and Hash worked those earlier rape cases. I read the files, but there’s nothing like a firsthand account.”
“When did you read the files? Last night?”
“Early hours of this morning.”
She stared at him. She was beginning to feel like her old cases, plus everything she’d already done with Holgersen on the Drummond investigation, were being sneaked out from under her. “Why didn’t you guys call me when you got the Hocking ID?” she said.
He smiled. “Because you needed your beauty sleep.”
“Fuck off, Maddocks,” she said quietly. “If you’re going to patronize me—”
“Hey, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder and want to think that everyone is somehow patronizing or indulging you because you’re female, or some kind of misandrist, that’s your problem, not mine.” His eyes turned serious. “Because I don’t play those head games. Understand?”
“Tell me one thing,” she said coolly. “Since we’re clearing the ground here. Why did you take this job? It’s a step down, from what I can see. You were pretty much Buziak’s equivalent with the RCMP, yet here you are, taking orders from him, getting your fancy tie and wool coat dirty in the trenches. You fuck up on the old job, or what?”
“I told you. I came here to be close to my kid.”
“And you just left your wife back there? Yet you wear your ring.”
He shot her a hot glance. “It’s complicated.” The warning in his features, in his voice, told her to back off. “And personal.”
She studied his profile—the aggressive thrust of his forehead, dark brows, strong nose. Wide, sculpted lips. Long, thick black lashes. An image of his dark groin and chest hair came to mind. In spite of herself, she felt a spark in her groin. She looked away. Yeah. Personal. They’d gotten real personal at the club.
Thiswasgoing to be complicated.
Dangerous, even. If she wanted that homicide job.
CHAPTER 22
“Jayden? What’s the matter? You look positively white.”
He clicked off the television news in the kitchen. His heart galloped in his throat. They’d identified the Cemetery Girl.Gracie.There had to be a mistake.How in the hell could it be Gracie?He felt like he was going to throw up. “Nothing.”
