Authors: Rhys Ford
Almost five years. Five long years since Dante was forced to close the case file he’d built up on Stevens and the other members of the carnie crew suspected of running a burglary ring up and down the West Coast. His old partner, Vince, had taken the case harder, more personally than Dante, and that’d been his downfall. By the time their two-year investigation went down in flames, Vince was tired of being a cop, tired of chasing criminals, and certainly sick to death of banging his head against the solid wall of lies and subterfuge spun by Rook Stevens and his partners.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Vince had muttered when they’d gotten word Stevens walked free of all charges they’d brought against him. “I’m spending my life trying to nail some damned uneducated smartass who hawks sideshow games for a fucking living. Asshole
knew
we had him dead to rights, and all we had to do was find out where he fenced that damned last haul of his.”
They hadn’t found Stevens’s fence or anyone who’d even admit to doing business with Stevens to launder the high-end goods from the mansions he’d hit when the carnival wintered in Los Angeles. None of the carnies would spill a single word from their close-lipped mouths whenever Vince and Dante came around, and if anything, the victims themselves wanted the cases swept under the rug when the detectives began to poke a little too deeply for their comfort.
Then Vince did the unthinkable. He’d crossed the line between good and bad, planting evidence so flimsy it unraveled before the accusations against Stevens could even take hold, and Vince’d almost brought Dante down with him.
He’d liked Vince. The older detective’d taken a slightly angry, gay, Mexican-Cuban baby detective under his wing and poured everything he knew about catching criminals into Dante’s eager brain. In the end, Vince’s career ended in a sour mess, and Dante skirted the edge of demotion when they’d been accused of taking bribes to let the crew slip out from between their fingers. Vince tried to talk Dante out of telling their captain about Dante’s encounter with Stevens in a dark Hollywood club, and even then, Dante kept the details sketchy, admitting he only realized he’d almost fucked Stevens when someone accidentally turned on the bathhouse’s floodlights and bleached the back rooms in a harsh white glow.
It was the last time Dante went to a club to get his needs met. It was also the first time he’d seen Stevens’s sexy, nearly apologetic smile.
The asshole still got the tickle going in Dante’s belly, and damned if he didn’t want to dig his hands into Stevens’s hair, strip him down, and fuck him until he couldn’t breathe.
“So you finally got your white whale, huh, Moby?” Hank Camden, his partner of three years, wandered into the side room, a bone-white tangle of clumsy limbs topped off with a shock of red hair bright enough to set off a fire sprinkler.
“Moby Dick
was
the whale,
puto
,” Dante replied, picking up the paper cup of sour cop house coffee he’d poured himself before coming into the viewing cubby. “And we haven’t harpooned him yet. What’s the lab say? Anything come back yet?”
“No, nothing. But shit, he was practically coated from head to toe. If there’s no gunpowder residue it’s because he washed it off in her damned blood.” Hank saluted Dante with his own cup, a tea bag tag dangling from a string over its rim. “Huh, he doesn’t look old enough to be a nemesis.”
“He’s old enough.” Dante grunted. “Pisses me off I can’t be in there. I’ve waited a hell of a long time to take Stevens down. Who’s taking the case? O’Byrne? She’s the only one I can think of who could go toe-to-toe with him.”
“Just because you made the collar doesn’t mean it’s our case. ’Sides, Captain knows you’ve got a history with the guy. You and me are on door-knocking and story-taking duty until he says—”
“Montoya. Camden.” The man in question, a thick-chested walrus of a cop, thrust his head into the cubby. Captain Book, a veteran of LA’s long, tenuous relationship with the law, pointed at the interrogation room and LAPD’s latest acquisition. “Everyone’s caseload is backed up to hell and gone. You’re all I’ve got open, so get in there and crack him. Do it clean. Do it fast. Shut him down quick.”
“Yes, sir.” Dante suppressed a grin as he tossed his cup into the trash. “Thanks, Captain.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Montoya. Get in. Get what we need, and keep it professional.” Book stabbed at the air near Dante’s chest with a thick finger, his severe frown thick with warning. “Camden, you watch your step. Don’t give the DA any damned wiggle room to let this bastard out. Son of a bitch lawyer is rubber-stamping shit left and right. Make something stick here.”
Dante waited until the captain was gone before he let his smile slip free. Jerking his head toward the mirror, he patted Hank on the shoulder and grinned widely. “Come on, man, let’s go see what Stevens has to say about all that blood.”
The two detectives entered the room as if it were a rancor pit and they were the predators coming to feed on Rook’s helpless body. He barely glanced at the flaming matchstick of a man lurking behind Montoya. The Hispanic detective had all of Rook’s attention, especially when he caught a flare of something hot in Montoya’s gaze when he stared Rook down.
It’d been a long time since he’d seen Montoya. Rook couldn’t remember which police station it’d been in. Hell, he could have even been sitting in the same damned room they’d used to try to tear him apart that last time he’d been brought up on charges. There’d been anger in Montoya’s body language then, and a sense of defeat hung heavy on the cop’s shoulders. His partner’d been an older man, his eyes puffy with age and drink. If anything, he’d worried the senior detective wasn’t going to make it out of the police station that afternoon. Rook’d caught Montoya sliding a hand under the old man’s arm when he’d fumbled a step leaving the booking area. Back then, the rage in the older detective’s eyes promised Rook would come to a very unhappy end if he had anything to say about it.
If he were honest, Rook was kind of surprised it took the cops more than four years to try to nail him for something he didn’t even do. He wouldn’t have credited the old man for that kind of patience. Hell, when he thought about the senior detective’s gray pallor and racking cough, he’d be kind of surprised if the old man was still alive.
Showing panic would send them at him like sharks on chum, so Rook forced himself to a calm he didn’t feel. His belly twisted up, and his nerves keyed in to the aggressive body language of badges strolling into the room knowing they were holding all the cards. His protests about being innocent fell on deaf ears, and if possible, those ears got even deafer when Rook claimed not a single cop identified themselves when coming through Potter’s Field’s front windows.
Instead he’d been stripped, scraped, then raked over by a team of grim-faced forensics lab rats before being hosed down while standing on a plastic mesh evidence trap. When a hatchet-jawed man snapped on a pair of latex gloves and told Rook to spread his legs and lean forward, Rook knew he was in deeper shit than he’d ever been in before.
As if he’d even had time to shove something up his ass between the moment he’d been shot at until Montoya face-planted him into one of Hollywood’s dirty sidewalks. He didn’t know what the cops thought he’d have up there, but a few stinging pokes, and the Dick Tracy wannabe seemed satisfied Rook didn’t have anything hidden up his butt.
His rim stung a little, but he wasn’t going to give the detectives the satisfaction of seeing his discomfort. Instead Rook focused on taking a read on the men as they worked the room, settling into their roles to mind-fuck information out of him.
There wasn’t a damned thing anyone could teach Rook about mind-fucking and social engineering. It was his tool of trade, something he’d learned before he ever crawled into houses to find treasures hidden in freezers and safes behind badly painted landscapes and since perfected as he wheedled people into handing over rare collectibles for a price he could turn into a huge profit.
As far as he knew, the cops had nothing on him about his past, and Rook knew as sure as shit they had nothing on him about Dani’s murder. But that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try to stick it on him.
“Hello, Mr. Stevens.”
The matchstick spoke up first, a singsong, gravelly voice Rook supposed he used to lull cranky babies to sleep.
“I’m Detective Camden. This is Detective Montoya.”
Rook had to admit Montoya looked damned good. A bit leaner in his face but packed with more muscle everywhere else. He’d changed his jacket and shirt, probably because tangling with Rook smeared dirt and dried blood over the others. The latte-brown suede and corduroy jacket was tailored to fit Montoya’s broad shoulders and trim waist, and the weathered gray T-shirt he wore under the corduroy was nearly thin enough to see through, its soft cotton weave sticking to Montoya’s chest and flat belly. The jeans were the same, Rook noted, scuffed and speckled with a bit of grit Montoya hadn’t bothered to brush off. His thighs were thick with muscle, and his 501s clung and tugged in spots, drawing attention to a creased bulge slung down Montoya’s left leg.
As delectable as the man’s body was, it was Montoya’s face Rook enjoyed the most. Chiseled cheekbones and a full mouth softened his nearly too harsh features. Montoya’s light brown eyes, wide and doe-like, made Rook smile someplace deep inside himself. Even as the man stared down at him with nothing on his face but a cold professionalism, those liquid hot amber eyes tickled away some of Rook’s wariness.
Not enough for Rook to let his guard drop, but still, hot enough to send tingles up and down Rook’s spine.
“Hey, Montoya. Long time, no arrest.” Rook held up his hands, teasing the detective. “Look, normal number of fingers. Didn’t kill your father. Or Dani either.”
“What are you talking about, Stevens?” the man growled, a deep, resonant thrum accented with a rolling Cuban lilt, far different from the staccato chop of the SoCal Mexican Rook grew up with. “Do we need to get a doctor in here, or is this just another one of your games?”
“Do you think Stevens here is playing games with us, Montoya?” Camden cocked his head and studied Rook as if he were an odd bug he’d found in his food. “To what end? Get out of a few questions? It’s not like he has anything to hide, right?”
“Neither one of you have heard about Inigo Montoya?” Rook looked from one cop to the other, sighing when he was met with blank stares. “Shit, what’s this world coming to? And no, I’ve got nothing to hide there, Detective.”
“You’ve already been read your rights. Do you need us to go over them again?” This time the redhead shot his partner an odd look when Montoya said something in Spanish beneath his breath, the whisper too low for Rook to hear. “Do you understand your rights as they’ve been read to you?”
Rook leaned back into the stiff-backed chair they’d given him to sit in. Its metal braces dug into his shoulders, and its thick square legs made it nearly impossible for Rook to rock it back, but he gave it his best effort, scraping the steel ends on the room’s linoleum tiles. He felt something give a bit under him, and Rook grinned, a little satisfied he’d be leaving a mark on the cop house floor.
“Yeah, I understand my rights. Go ahead, Weasley. Question away.” Keeping his eyes on Montoya’s face, he purred, “Like I said, I’ve got nothing to hide. Well….” He gave Montoya a sly wink. “Mostly nothing, anyway. I try not to dredge up the past too much.”
From the startled look on Montoya’s face, the detective caught the flirtation Rook tossed his way, and the amber flicker in his gaze flared briefly in response. Montoya shut it down as quick as it came up but not before Rook saw it. After pulling out one of the two chairs across the table from Rook, Montoya sat down and began to flip through the portfolio he’d brought in with him. Matchstick Camden paced the length of the room before coming back to roost his hip on a corner of the table, angling his body slightly to face Rook.
Of the two detectives, Rook would have chosen Montoya to loom instead of the redheaded scarecrow trying to intimidate him by leaning into Rook’s space. The skinny man barely cast a broad shadow over Rook’s arm, much less psychologically pushing him into talking. Keeping one eye on Montoya, Rook let a tiny smile creep over his mouth as he stared up at Camden.
Camden continued to rattle off the particulars of recording their session and asked Rook to state his name and personal information for the record.
Shrugging, Rook replied, “Rook Martin Stevens, birthday April first… maybe twenty-six or seven years go.”
“You don’t know the year you were born?”
“Mom did a lot of drugs,” Rook shot back. “I’m happy she got the gender part right.”
The cop rolled his eyes, then continued, “Birthplace unknown. Father unknown. Mother, Beatrice Martin, location currently unknown.”
“And where do you work, and what is your current residence, Stevens?” Montoya interjected.
Rook rattled off his store’s address twice, painting a pleasant expression on his face when the cops asked him to clarify. “I live above my shop, Potter’s Field. Used to be a dance studio, so it had a shower, and I got it renovated. Made sense at the time. Now, not so sure.”
“Let’s talk a little bit about your past. We’d like to go over a few things. You’ve got quite an arrest record here, Stevens. Even as a juvie.” Camden rattled a piece of paper in the air. “Fifteen counts of breaking and entering, burglary and fraud, to name a few. Lot of charges here and not far off of a step to murder, really.”
The room’s florescent lights were bright enough to turn the white page transparent, and Rook quickly read a bit of a transposed menu from an Indian restaurant on Sixth. For an arrest record, it was rather sparse. It did, however, inform Rook of their five bucks all-you-can-eat luncheon buffet.
Playing along with the cop, Rook inclined his head slightly. “Yet no convictions. What does that tell you?”
“That you’re slippery.” Montoya’s rumble ran dark beneath Camden’s nearly bright pennywhistle voice. “But not that smart.”