She blew a pink bubble with her gum. It popped. She peeled it off her nose and poked it back into her mouth. “I called someone to do it earlier.” She flipped out her hand as if she’d done her duty, and all deals were off.
The deals weren’t off. If Cali decided to ignore his advice again and came collecting an extra pair of panties, he didn’t want her ex waiting on her.
Stepping closer, he scowled. “If something comes up missing from her place, the owners could be held liable. And I’ll stand up in court and say I told you. So call them again.”
He left, but not before he caught the glare she shot him. Lately, all he got from women were glares. Didn’t women used to smile at him? Then he remembered what Cali had said. You’re rude. Hell, maybe he needed to work on that.
Crawling inside his SUV, he stared out at nothing. How could he not be in a piss-poor mood?
What kind of a homicide cop was he if he couldn’t find his own partner’s murderer? The guilt ate at him like vultures picking at a kill. Soon, he would be nothing more than a pile of raw flesh.
His cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his coat pocket. “Yeah?”
“It’s Duke.”
Brit recognized the voice of the detective who had landed Keith’s case. “What’s up?”
“I just got a call from one of my informants,” Duke said. “Got a location on Payne. Mark and I are headed over there right now. Thought you might like to help us question him.”
Brit fired up his engine. “Hell, yeah!”
~
Cali made her two o’clock meeting at the lawyer’s office. Attorney Calvin James, a big man stuffed into a black suit, shuffled documents in front of her. A few crumbs from his lunch fell from his red tie onto the desk and he simply brushed them off. In spite of his less than professional appearance, she trusted the man—probably because her mom had trusted him. Feeling emotionally rung out, she signed without doing much reading.
“All together, your mother left you close to a hundred thousand dollars,” Mr. James explained. “That’s not including her house, which is paid off. It should make things a lot easier.”
Easier? A spark of bitterness bubbled up inside her, but the concern in his eyes tempered her anger. “Mama went over all this with me.” She fought the desire to stand up and stomp her feet like a two-year-old and demand somebody bring her mother back. She didn’t want her mother’s money—didn’t want to dream about her at night. She wanted her mama. Alive. And without cancer. She didn’t want to be alone. Tears watered down her vision.
“It’s hard. I know.” He pushed a box of tissues her way. “Maybe you could take some time off from work. You can afford to.”
She ignored the tissue offer and took a deep breath of resolve. “Work helps.” And it did. At school, she managed to forget about her own problems. Maybe because she worried about the students having oral sex, smoking pot, getting into gangs, and quitting school. And their mothers dying of cancer. Her throat grew tighter.
“Are we finished? Because I need to run.” It wasn’t a lie. She needed to go make a report to the police.
An image of Detective Lowell flashed in her mind, and she hoped she didn’t have to see him at the police station.
Rain and cold greeted her when she left the lawyer’s office. The drops pelted her face while questions pelted her mind. Where had the blood come from last night? Had Stan hurt himself trying to shoot in her apartment door? Why did her mom have to die?
She stopped by her car, not caring that her new sweater jacket grew rain heavy, or that the Texas-size downpour soaked her hair, or that goose bumps made her skin crawl with the cold.
Nothing mattered. She stopped to dig out her keys, feeling the water wave over the edge of her shoes. She glanced down at the black shoes. Her favorite, most comfortable pair. Maybe she cared a little about them. She moved out of the puddle of water. Remembering her search for her keys, she commenced to digging around in the bag’s contents.
“Hate this purse,” she mumbled. Her keys always fell to the bottom. Frustrated, she slapped her wallet on the hood, and dug deeper. Tampon, check book, mints. The rain started falling harder.
Finally, she gripped her keys in her hand.
She inhaled, tried to relax, but the air carried the oddest scent of cigarette smoke. Oh, Baby. Her mom’s voice echoed in her mind at the same time someone wrapped their hand around Cali’s arm. Her breath hitched.
“Hello, Cali.” Stan’s large frame pressed her against the car.
Chapter Seven
Brit parked his SUV on the side street and ran through the sheets of rain to where he spotted the other two detectives. As he drew closer, he saw Duke had Payne up against a fence in a strip center’s alley—the man’s arms and legs spread wide as Duke searched his pockets. Duke looked back when Brit’s footsteps echoed louder than the rain.
“Look at this,” Duke said. “He’s got weed on him.” Duke dropped the plastic bag on the ground. “Oh, that’s not good.”