Glaring at the two of them, Adams pounded his fist against on the table. Brit could see that stress had Adams in a piss-poor mood. The man wanted answers, he wanted the assholes who’d killed Keith and Anderson and had attempted to kill Trooper Garland.
No one wanted that more than Brit, but people in hell wanted ice cream, the kind with marshmallows and nuts. And they friggin’ weren’t going to get it just because they wanted it. Neither would he or Adams. And no amount of brow beating on the sergeant’s part was going to change it.
“So why the hell did you bring him in?” Adams snapped. Obviously, he hadn’t heard the whole story.
Quarles, his green eyes bright with anger, looked at Brit as if to see if he wanted to take a stab at the question. Brit shrugged, and his partner took the lead. “Well, let’s see. Maybe at this precinct you let assholes shoot at your men, but where I came from, we are accustomed to dragging their asses in and locking them up until we find out why they chose to fucking try to kill us.”
Adams’ nostrils flared, giving him a cartoonish appearance. “I didn’t know shots were fired.”
“You could have asked or read the report before jumping up our asses,” Quarles snapped back.
Even running on weak fumes, Brit could see this wasn’t going to end well if someone didn’t intervene. So he intervened. Or, he did the next best thing. He took the focus off his partner and brought it down on himself. He and Adams had a history; they knew how to fight fair.
Brit got to his feet. Sometimes the best way to show a smart man he was being an idiot was to become a bigger idiot yourself. “I tell you what, sir. I’m going to go in there and beat the crap out of that guy, and I’ll bet he’ll tell us what we want to know.”
Adams shoved a chair closer to the table, its legs scraping on the tile floor like chalk on a blackboard. “Go home. Both of you look like the walking dead, but when Garland wakes up, I want someone over there to find out what he knows.”
Brit opened the door and motioned for Quarles. His partner snatched up the file and stormed out of the room. Obviously driven by anger, Quarles didn’t stop until he stood in the parking lot. He cut Brit a sharp glare. “Adams is a fucking ass.”
“He can be,” Brit said, feeling that persistent tightness pulling at his shoulders. “But there are worse assholes.” Brit pressed a hand on Quarles’ back. “Come on, I’ll take you back to your ride.”
A few minutes later, they pulled up at the hospital beside Quarles’ truck. Quarles turned. “Are you headed home?”
Nodding, Brit thought about Cali. “Yeah.”
“Tell Susan I’ll call her later,” Quarles said. “What time does her plane take off this afternoon?”
Brit blew out a deep breath. “I don’t remember the exact time.” In truth, he hadn’t remembered period. But hell, he’d pretty much been an ass to his sister this trip. He was going to have to do some major sucking up later on.
Quarles put one foot out the door, then looked back. “We worked good together today. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Brit said and meant it. He didn’t want to mean it, hadn’t wanted to start replacing Keith, but it was happening.
Quarles shifted, but didn’t leave. “I know how you feel.”
“Feel about what?” Brit blinked the grit from his eyes.
“About Keith. I lost my partner last year. He was working security part time for a grocery store. The bank inside got held up. It’s part of the reason I transferred down here.”
Brit stared at Quarles. Now he understood why the man had taken so much shit from him these last three weeks. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” Quarles said. “So am I. Sorry about Keith.”
Brit leaned back. “Did you catch the bastard who shot him?”
Quarles’ smile sounded in his voice. “His trial is next month. They’re asking for the death penalty.”
“Good,” Brit said.
“We’ll get Keith’s killer, too.” Quarles sent him a nod.
“Yeah.”
Brit watched the man get in his car. Leaning back, Brit closed his eyes as his mind juggled the issues weighing on his chest.
Keith—finding the sorry son of a bitch that took him out. Laura—Keith’s wife—whom Brit hadn’t spoken to since the funeral.
Thoughts of Cali sifted through the worry funnel and landed with a thud on his chest. What kind of reception would he get when he got home? Hell, would she even talk to him?
He drew in a pound of oxygen and let it out slowly. When he reached for his keys, his cell phone rang. Too tired to think straight, he snagged it from his pocket and answered it before checking the number.
“Yeah.”
“Detective?” the male voice asked.
“Yeah?” he repeated while his frazzled mind, almost too tired to work, attempted to put a name to the voice.
“It’s Bradley Faith, from the hotel. I got beat up last night.”
Brit ran a hand over his face. “What’s up?”
“Well, I found something that the jerk left here. It concerns the girl, so I thought you might want to know about it.”
~