Sanchez glanced at Andrew’s still form, then motioned at the man with his gun. “That Beanie Boy?”
“Looks like it,” Kane assented. Then his eyes narrowed, and his hand dropped to the swell of Miki’s knee. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“He kicked me.” Miki shrugged. The touch of Kane’s fingers on the joint nearly made him crawl out of his skin. “Kind of pissed me off. Beanie Boy?”
“It’s what we’ve been calling him. He’s the guy I chased down the alley.” Kane stood and pressed a hand on Miki’s shoulder, preventing him from getting up. “You stay right there, Slugger. I’m calling for a couple of ambulances. One for each of you. Talk to me, love. How’d you get here? Did he bring you here?”
“Russian guy brought me.” Miki waved Kane off when the cop frowned with worry. “Cab driver. I asked him to bring me here. Guess Andrew either followed me here or I walked into his spiderweb.”
“You know him?” Sanchez carefully rolled Miki’s assailant over onto his side to cuff his hands. Kane walked through the weeds, hunting for Andrew’s gun.
“His name’s Andrew Coons.” Miki shifted the weight off of his hip and tried to get his leg underneath him. “He used to be one of Carl’s… boys.” Kane turned, fixing a steely blue eye onto his lover. Miki gave him a light shrug. “He’s a bit off in the head, Kane. He liked what Carl… did. Or at least the attention. I don’t know. I don’t speak that kind of crazy.”
“Why’d he kill them, then?” Sanchez frowned, pointing Kane over to a clump of weeds. “Over there, man.”
It happened too quickly for Miki to see. One moment Kane was reaching for the discarded gun then Andrew Coons was up on his feet, wrestling with Sanchez for control of his weapon. The handcuffs jangled from one of Andrew’s wrists, and Kel began shouting at Kane to draw his gun.
Despite the pain eating through him, Miki got to his feet when Kane pulled his Glock free from his holster and drew down on Andrew and Kel. Taking a step toward the cops and Andrew was a big mistake, probably one Miki would regret for the rest of his life.
He took that single step. Then an ear-splitting boom fractured the neighborhood’s eerie silence, and Miki’s world went black.
Chapter 21
I like that riff, D.
Yeah? Wrote it yesterday when you were in the shower.
Was that when you flushed the toilet?
Yeah. Sorry about that. I was just thinking about the chord progression.
Next time, think about the singer in the shower, dude.
Song came out kick ass though. Isn’t that worth a little burnt skin?
—Studio 5, Take 17
Three months later
THE dog was underfoot. Again.
No matter where Kane was—even in Miki’s warehouse—the damned dog seemed to always be underfoot.
Kane nudged Dude aside and reached for his drill, checking its screwdriver bit. One last screw and the two doors he’d dragged over from his workshop to Miki’s place would be hung from the newly installed hinges. At the very least, they’d be able to close off Miki’s bedroom from his mother’s prying eyes when she came over to visit.
Fixing the final piece into place, he stepped back to admire the job and test the swing of one of the doors. Inspired by the warehouse’s elaborate metal-and-wood front door, he’d replicated the design for the bedroom doors, using thick frosted glass for the interior panes so more light could pass through the room.
“Not like he closes the doors,” Kane told the dog panting near his feet. “But with my mother sniffing around, doors aren’t a bad thing.”
The warehouse gleamed, smelling of spices and lemon oil. In the days following Coon’s suicide-by-cop, Kane and Kel put their administrative leave to good use, moving the furniture down from the second floor to fill up the emptiness. Miki grudgingly agreed to have his mattress put on the iron four-poster bed the designer originally purchased for him, and he grunted at Kane when Kane pointed out the mission-style furniture looked nice against the former dining room’s pale walls. The sectional wasn’t negotiable, and they’d come to a compromise to have it recovered. Miki chose a soft brown bomber-jacket-style fabric and sulked for the few days it took the upholsterer to do the work.