“You owe me,” I tell him.
“I know I do,” he grumbles before he ends the call.
When I arrive at Kirsten’s apartment door, I try the knob which easily turns. You have got to be kidding me! I mean, I know I told her to hide out in the bathroom, but dammit, a whole crew could’ve burst in on her in the five minutes it took me to get here.
I send her a text message from my phone that I’m in her apartment, so she, hopefully, won’t shoot me. I’m still surprised she called me instead of someone else tonight.
I shut and lock the door behind me while keeping an eye out. I don’t hear anyone, but they could be waiting in the hallway outside her bedroom door, ready to ambush her.
I creep through the front rooms to the hallway where I find the dead man.
He’s flat on his back, clutching his gun and guts in a puddle of blood. A giant puddle. Jesus. How many times did she shoot him?
I can’t help but cringe. I could’ve been him if I hadn’t emptied the bullets from her gun while she was sleeping the night I brought her home.
No, that’s not necessarily true.
Kirsten never even tried to pull the trigger to find out it was empty. At some point she, thankfully, did realize what I’d done or else she would’ve been dead tonight.
I promise myself I’ll never do that shit again, even if it means her blowing off my head someday.
God, why do I keep thinking about the future with this woman? There’s only right now, getting this mess cleaned up, and then we’re done. There’s no future for us, not when I’m everything she’s worked her entire life fighting against.
Bending down, I check for a pulse on the side of his neck just to be sure he’s not playing a long game of possum, then roll him over to get to his wallet in the back pocket of his pants.
The bedroom door cracks open and a strand of blonde hair over a single eye appears watching me a second before opening the door wider. “You’re robbing him? That’s your first instinct here?”
“No. Well, hell yes I’m going to take any cash he has, since the dead can’t spend it where they’re going.” I open the wallet and find a twenty and a few ones that I shove in my pocket. Then I pull out his driver’s license. “I wanted to know his name and who the fuck he is, before dumping his body. Oh, and you’re fucking welcome,” I huff when I glance back up at her.
“Sorry.” The apology from her lips is nearly as shocking as her calling me for help. “Thanks, I guess. I didn’t mean to…I wasn’t sure who to call…”
“You didn’t have a choice,” I remark. “There’s no telling which other cops are working with him. They’re a tight-knit group. And when they find out he didn’t complete his mission, they may come after you too.”
“How do you know it wasn’t your boss who sent him?”
“Because Creed told me it wasn’t. He has no reason to want you dead now. And he’s on the way over here with Dre to help clean this up.”
“You invited a mob boss to my house?” she huffs.
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s more than just removing the body from the scene. We’ve got to wipe every trace of him being here and delete the surveillance video. Unless you want to go to prison for murder…”
“It was self-defense,” she whispers.
“Right, but some of your rivals in the DA’s office would probably love the chance to get a headline in the news about the DA killing a man, right?”
“I just wish I knew why he came after me.”
“You don’t know him?”
“No, I’ve only seen him around the courthouse a few times.”
“So, you think he’s an actual cop?”
“Yes.”
I pull the badge from his hip and examine it. The thing looks real enough. In his wallet, I find his ID that says his name is Tony Wallace. There are a few business cards as well with his name on them. “These say he’s a homicide detective.”
“Do you think he came after me for someone being investigated for murder?”
