Boys in Blue 02 - Reasonable Doubt (3 page)

Geo shut the apartment door behind him. For the fourth morning in a row, beer bottles littered the top of the coffee table along with two empty pizza boxes. Mack sprawled half the couch, his head on the corner of the back and armrest. One bare heel planted a half eaten slice to the coffee table’s surface.

It might not have bothered him if Mack didn’t leave the station pissed off and silent every night. Or, if Lauren hadn’t told him that Andy had a little crush on Geo’s boyfriend.
Geo grabbed the door, opened it wide, then slammed it as hard as he could. Mack and Andy jumped awake.
“What. The. Fuck?” Geo asked, levelling a glare on Mack.
Mack’s mouth screwed up thoughtfully. “Toothbrush.” He got up, shoving Andy off him and casually walked back to the bathroom.
“You. Get the fuck out of my apartment,” Geo snarled at Andy.
“Going,” Andy said in a rush. “See you tomorrow night.”
“Not here.”
Now the prick shrugged?
What the fuck does a shrug mean
?
“If Mack invites me, I’m coming.” Andy whistled as he left.
Geo swallowed past the building anger, trying to calm his irritation as he followed the path Mack had taken to their bedroom. He stormed in, slamming into the bathroom. “Is there something going on with you two?”
Mack looked back at him through the mirror. Toothpaste foamed from his mouth. Mack waited for him to finish and rinse.
“Is there something going on between you and Lauren?” Mack questioned back.
“That’s a stupid question.”
“You’ve got a little something here,” Mack said, motioning to the side of his neck.
Geo looked in the mirror. Lipstick smudged the skin.
When did that happen
? Then he remembered. “She fell over one of the wires in the room. I caught her.”
“With your neck?”
“Fuck you. She must have brushed against me,” Geo defended.
“Yeah. Happens all the time.” Mack pushed past him, snatching underwear from his drawer and a fresh change of clothes. He came back to the small bathroom. “Do you mind? I have to get ready for work.”
“What’s your problem?” Geo snapped. And why the fuck did it feel like they were having completely different conversations.
“Me? Don’t have one. My boyfriend is spending all his time with a woman he used to believe he could spend the rest of his life with, instead of spending it with me. He comes home with lipstick on him and I happen to know she’s trying to get in his pants. What makes you think
I
have a problem?”
“Jesus. Mack, I’m in love with you, you shithead. I come home every night to find you wasted and sleeping all cosy with Andy, who, by the way, has a thing for you.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s been pretty persistent about wanting to suck my cock.”
“Nice,” Geo bit out.
“I’m going to shower. You need to get out.”
“I miss you.” Frustration strangled Geo’s words. “Can we talk? Work this out?”
Mack actually looked a little apologetic. It disappeared just as quickly. His pale green eyes dimmed. “Ask Ruby Red 319 on your neck.” He cranked on the water and turned his back to Geo.
Geo watched him silently undress. It felt like the love of his life was slipping between his fingers. All because Mack couldn’t get it through his thick skull that he had nothing to worry about.
The phone rang. Geo wandered out to get it, numb from the inside out. He listened to Mrs. Sullivan on the phone, gave her the right answers, hung up and wandered back to the shower. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
Renewed with determination, Geo quickly stripped off his clothes and stepped into the stall with him.
Water streamed over the back of Mack’s head, trailing rivulets over his shoulders. Mack peeked at him with one eye. “I meant it. I actually need to shower. It wasn’t an invitation for a wet fuck.”
“Your mom called about the barbeque our parents are having,” Geo said instead. He picked up the bar soap and lathered up a washcloth. “Turn around. I’ll get your back.”
Mack eyed him sceptically, but turned to face the shower nozzle. “Let me guess, potato salad?”
Geo lightly rubbed his back, not missing an inch of beautiful, tanned flesh. He didn’t bother to ask if Mack minded him washing his ass, he just did it. Mack’s muscles stiffened.
“You make the best potato salad. Of course she wants you to bring it,” Geo answered. “She also wants you to do the braised cabbage.”
“You think your dad will actually try some this year?” Mack teased.
Relief eased the tension in Geo’s shoulders. Joking was a good sign. “You’re asking a proud Italian to admit he might like an Irish dish? Good luck with that.”
Back and ass cleaned, Geo couldn’t resist dragging the wash cloth around Mack’s side, sliding it from hip to firm belly. Mack caught his wrist as it rose to his chest. Geo was almost close enough to press his body to Mack’s back. He held off, but his cock had other ideas. Full and aching, its length stretched for Mack’s ass. The tip of Geo’s cock brushed the other man’s lower back.
Mack turned his head towards his shoulder. Geo stayed utterly still. Water pounded around them. Steam had long since clouded the bathroom. It could have been a moment when the world around them drifted away and they lost themselves in each other’s bodies. They’d done it before. Today, though, Mack’s fingers clamped on Geo’s wrist, and despite their roughened breathing, there was no invitation to take things further.
The silence between them stung Geo’s chest. Louder than any argument, it demonstrated exactly how strained things had grown between them. Not able to stand it any longer, Geo spoke. “I want to tell our families about us.”
Mack’s fingers flexed on his wrist. He faced forward again and dropped his chin to his chest. The water spray changed course, flowing between them and splattering Geo’s face. He had to step away to breathe freely. More distance.
“I’m not ready,” Mack murmured. “
We
aren’t ready.”
“It’s been a year. The annual barbeque only happens, well, annually. I don’t want to wait another year.”
“We aren’t ready,” Mack repeated more firmly.
“Because we’re having a disagreement? Jesus, Mack, couples have disagreements all the time. You can’t tell me you’ve never argued with a girlfriend before.”
Mack turned.
Geo gave him room. Yet more distance. They were breaking away from each other, not getting closer. It was exactly the opposite thing Geo had hoped to accomplish by joining him in the shower.
“This isn’t a typical disagreement, and we aren’t a typical couple.”
“No, you’re definitely right about that,” Geo agreed. “We’re a strong couple with years of friendship involved. We’ve worked cases together which required a lot of deductive skill and we’ve covered each other’s asses in gun fire. You’ve taken a bullet for me and I took a bullet for you. What we have is stronger than any
typical
couple, Mack.”
“We’re also formerly straight men who are suddenly gay for each other. That’s going to be a shock on our families. There’ll be questions about our commitment, and I don’t think we’re strong in that department at the moment.”
“Aren’t we?” Geo asked sharply. “I’m serious about my commitment to you. I look at you and think forever.”
“I look at you and I see Lauren—”
“Goddamnit, Mack—” Geo interjected.
“As long as I see Lauren, I’m not fucking my family dynamics for a guy who may or may not want me in another week. You don’t jerk family around. We aren’t solid. If we were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
They stared each other down, anger boiling between them. Shrill beeping sounded. Seconds later it was followed by rhythmic vibrations. They were being paged.
Mack took the washcloth from Geo. “I gotta finish up in here.”
“They’re paging both of us. They found something.”
“Answer it.”
“We aren’t done,” Geo said.
“We don’t have time to get done with this,” Mack replied.
Geo swore under his breath, yanked the shower curtain aside and stepped onto the bathmat, dripping. The shower continued on behind him, the curtain slid back into place, and Geo snatched his cell phone off the counter to read the page.
“They found a body. It’s the Dunne girl,” he told Mack flatly.
“Five minutes. I’ll be out the front door in five minutes.”
Geo left the bathroom and got dressed. His chest ached and his eyes burned with the need to cry. He hadn’t felt so helpless since being a rookie on his first homicide scene. Hadn’t felt the need to cry in probably as long.
His hands shook as he finished dressing. Mack was out of the shower and as badly as they needed to talk, Geo didn’t want Mack to see him like this. Walking to the kitchen, he grabbed a couple of granola bars and some apples. It would serve for breakfast.
“Let’s go,” Mack said behind him.
“Ready.” He thrust the apple and granola bar at Mack.
Picking up his car keys from the counter, he got to his car before he realised Mack wasn’t riding with him. Mack’s car door slammed, the ignition turned over. Geo swore and got in his own car.
Separate? Fine. But this thing wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Mack pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day of reviewing the crime scene with Lauren, Andy, and Geo. Geo had kept looking at him like he wanted to talk. Mack had made sure never to be alone so he could. He had to let the Lauren situation play out. He knew Geo believed he wouldn’t go back to Lauren, but there was always the chance he’d slip up.

Mack wanted to be far away when that happened. He wanted Geo to have the opportunity. Counter logic, it seemed, but it wasn’t. Geo made him crazy jealous. He wanted nothing more than to grab Geo and hold on as tight as he could. But if ever there was a test to see if their relationship was more than a temporary fascination, this was it.

Lauren was a damn fine looking woman. She had legs that didn’t quit, a tight, shapely ass, and breasts that practically levitated they were so perky. She jiggled in the right places and every word she spoke rounded and softened her lips like she was making erotic suggestions. There was more than one hard cock in the precinct at any given moment, and she was the source.

Unfortunately for the other cocks, Lauren’s dedicated interest was on a specific fat dick. Each gesture, look, laugh, casual touch was meant for Geo. Why wouldn’t it be? Geo moved like sex.

His body fluidly changed positions. Sexy dimples turned his rare smiles playful. His silver eyes seemed bottomless and clear, so captivating against his olive complexion and black hair. Mack had tasted his lips, enjoyed their sculpted fullness. He’d kissed that Adam’s apple and had his hands on every aspect of Geo’s body.

In sex, Geo moved the same way. One motion became part of the next, like fucking poetry. His hot little dimples came out when his talented mouth smiled just before wrapping around Mack’s cock to suck him off. Just thinking about his silvery eyes looking up at him as he did it, could make Mack hard. As it did now. Good thing Mack was sitting at the conference table.

He came on strong, but Andy was actually a pretty decent dude.
He shrugged slightly at Andy’s praise. There weren’t many social models for a guy
complimenting another man’s wood.
“So what’s the problem?” Andy asked, taking the chair next to him.
“The killer or the man?”
“Both. Either,” Andy answered. “Why aren’t you fighting for him?”
“I am, in my own way.”
“Doesn’t look like fighting
for
him. Looks like fighting
with
him,” Andy noted. “Kinda both.”
“Throwing him into temptation to see what he does?” Andy asked.
“Partly. I need to know I’m not…”
“Dumpable?”
“Yeah.”
“So you push him into Lauren’s arms? Your logic is messed up,” Andy said. “I know.”
Andy propped an elbow on the conference table and his chin on his palm as he looked
up at Mack. “You’ve made his decision for him. You’re not even waiting for him to tell you
what he wants.”
Mack scoffed quietly. “No I’m not. Besides, I know what he says he wants.” “He told you he wants you, and you’re still acting like an ass?” Andy asked
incredulously.
“You’re in the same line of work I am. You know there’s a difference between what
someone says and what they do. Well, look at him doing.” Mack gestured towards Geo who
was writing on the whiteboard while Lauren stroked his back.
“Damn,” Andy murmured, not looking at Geo and Lauren, but staring soulfully up at
Mack. “You’re hot and you’re smart, but you’re kinda dumb. And yet,” he said, sighing, “I’d
kill for a guy like you to be as into me as you are into him.”
Mack glanced down at him. There was a wistful twist to Andy’s smile. “He’s out there
somewhere.”
“Wish he were in front of me right now,” Andy quipped.
“Thanks for not trying anything during all the nights we’ve hung out after work.” “If I thought you’d take me up on it, Geo or no Geo, I would have.”
“Sorry.”
Andy lifted his brows. “Tell me something. If Geo wasn’t around, would I have a shot?” Mack studied him. “I was into girls before Geo.”
“Humour me.”
Mack knew what he was looking for. Fishing for compliments and shit, but he
understood it. If Mack didn’t go home to Geo every night and there didn’t appear to be a
shot at having him, he’d want to know if Geo thought he was hot anyway.
“As persistent as you are, yeah. Maybe not before Geo because I had no thoughts about
guys like that. But after, knowing what I know and how it can be, yeah, probably.” “Good. New plan of action. Keep throwing Geo at Lauren and when he breaks up with
you, I’ll make you feel all better.”
Mack looked over at Geo again. Is that what he was doing? Mack didn’t think he was
throwing them together, but if that’s what Andy saw, was it what Geo saw, too? “Fuck. I’m
an idiot.”
“Yeah, you kinda are.”
“Fuck you,” Mack said, laughing.
Andy inhaled sharply, his eyes widening with appreciation. “God, you are sexier than
any man has a right to be.”
“Now you’re just being creepy,” Mack told him.
“Maybe, but at least you know how
I
feel. Does Geo know how
you
feel?” “You’re like the twinky godmother.”
Now Andy laughed, too. “You should see my
magic wand
.”
“You two going to work or flirt all day?” Geo snapped.
Mack jerked his gaze to Geo’s furious one.
Oh, shit
. What Geo had seen, had to have
looked bad. Andy practically sprawled the table by Mack and the two of them laughing it up. He steeled himself, got up, and closed the vertical blinds in the conference room. The
CLU liaison had gone home at quitting time, while the FBI, Mack, and Geo had worked on.
Geo was pulling twenty-four hours without sleep. He had to be wiped out, which meant he’d be easily pissed off. Well, it was time Mack stepped up and did something about the
confusion.
He crossed the room to Geo who had resumed working on the whiteboard. Lauren
leaned into him, reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead. The bitch was going to
pay for that, Mack decided.
“Lauren,” he said.
“Oh, you’re working now?” she snarked. “Andy’s a tempting thing. I thought for sure
you two were about to get a room.”
“Andy’s a good guy. You, however, are a bitch. Get your hands off my boyfriend.” Geo whipped around in surprise. Lauren sneered.
“You don’t act like he’s your boyfriend,” she said.
“That’s because I’ve been an ass.” He said the words to Geo. “I fucking hate the way
she’s all over you. I hate that you two have a history and that at one time you wanted her
enough to marry her. I hate that you never had closure to your relationship with her, because
it will always mean you wonder what would have happened. And most of all, I
fucking hate
the way I feel when you let her touch you.”
Geo abruptly knocked her hand off his arm. “She won’t touch me again,” he said
gruffly.
Mack grabbed his biceps and hauled him close. He’d never needed to kiss Geo more
than he did right now. He needed to know that Geo’s words meant what Mack thought they
meant. He needed to know that Geo was willing to go for it, in front of Lauren, hopefully
slamming that emotional door on her pert nose forever.
He kissed Geo, possessively. He wanted Lauren to have a front row seat on the way
Geo let him dive into passion instead of tentative pecks of affection. He wanted to leave no
doubt in her mind, and his own, that Geo really was his. To kiss when he wanted, to fuck
when he wanted, that only Mack turned Geo’s head with love, not some sultry red-headed
Amazon of sex.
Geo melted into the embrace, parted his lips, and grabbed Mack’s ass. Mack’s whole
body sighed with giddy relief. Andy groaned, echoing Mack’s thoughts exactly. His mouth felt like heaven. God, he missed this. He missed the heated slide of his
mouth and the tiny little flick he sometimes gave Mack along his lower lip. He missed hearing the way Geo’s breath hitched. Mack cracked his eyes, smiling when he saw the tell
tale dip of a dimple in his cheek. God, yes, he fucking missed his man.
Geo pulled back, a boyish grin on his moist lips. “You realise we’re in the precinct
conference room, right?”
“I don’t care.”
“What changed?”
“My twinky godmother over there convinced me I was being a wussy ass. I thought
you needed to decide for yourself that Lauren had nothing over you. I’ve never given up a
fight before, so I couldn’t give up the most important one in my life,” Mack confessed. “Does this mean you believe me?”
“Yeah,” Mack acknowledged.
“Thank God,” Geo exclaimed, dragging him into another lingering kiss. “What about us? We had something great,” Lauren complained beside them. Geo turned to her, still holding Mack close. “Lauren, there was never any need for
closure from you. Once you walked away, I never looked back on my memories of you as
what could have been.”
“Why not? We could have it all again.”
“Because I’d never marry someone who thought I was worth leaving in the first place.
I’d never waste my time on someone who had so little respect for me that they didn’t say
good-bye to my face,” Geo finished.
Pride filled Mack’s chest. He hadn’t given Geo nearly enough credit. Mack wouldn’t
make that same mistake again.
“What about him? He was ready to let you go,” she snapped.
“Him?” Geo looked at him. “He’s just thick-headed. I know he loves me. As twisted up
and jealous as he was acting, he definitely wasn’t feeling indifferent. I hoped he’d come
around sooner rather than later.”
“Took me long enough. Good thing you’re a patient guy,” Mack murmured against
Geo’s lips.
“When it comes to you, I have the rest of my life to make sure I get it right. If you’re
insecure about us for a few days, it just means I have to make sure you know how I feel
about you until you figure it out for yourself.”
“A fucking magi of brilliance,” Mack determined.
“What would be brilliant is solving this case so I can take you home and spend my
nights with you again,” Geo said.
“So if you’re done making out, can we do that?” Lauren complained.
“Sure,” Geo answered, reluctantly letting Mack go. “What does your profiler say about
the Dunne girl?”
“It narrows down the pool.” Andy stood and moved around the table to where the
other three talked. “We thought there wasn’t a relative pattern showing dissociative
behaviour, remember?”
“The bit about the children being stand-ins for someone living?” Mack recalled. “We may be wrong. With the new body it looks like a pattern is emerging,” he said.
Andy clicked a handheld remote and the screen in the corner of the room changed to show
what had been on Andy’s laptop, now projected for all to see. It was a profiler’s report. “How did one body change a major determination like that?” Geo asked. “Sounds like
shoddy profiling since that was our initial assessment and the FBI came in and tossed it out
the window.”
The frustration was thick in his voice. Mack noticed the twitching muscle in his jaw. He
understood completely since they’d had to throw out most of their own work when the FBI
popped in to take over. Now they were going back to original suppositions? “What a waste of time,” Mack bit out.
“Easy,” Lauren murmured as though that one word would calm them both. “We never
ignored the possibility of the child as a stand-in, it was just given a lower priority to the other
information we had.”
“Yeah, but it took another abduction and another dead body to find out we were
headed in the right direction the whole time. Explain
that
to Melissa Price’s mother, Lauren.
Better yet. Have your fancy profiler fly down here and hold her hand at her daughter’s
funeral when we find her, because I’m goddamn certain that this has just set us back a day or
two,” Geo spat.
“Hey, cool it. Minutes ago we were hanging out just fine. Let’s get back to the
professionalism,” Lauren said, holding her hands out, palms down like she was physically
subduing the air.
Andy snorted with disdain. “They’re right.”
“Whose side are you on?” she snapped.
“The kids’. The parents’. Theirs. You can’t tell me you aren’t annoyed by the setback,
too,” Andy answered.
“We had to rule things out. That’s the way it goes. We all know it, and that’s why we
reassess every new finding. This happens to be the new apparent direction,” she reasoned. “It doesn’t matter whose fault this is,” Mack interrupted. “We just go on from here, got
it? We work together and go on from here.”
“Don’t be surprised if we don’t follow your profile. Mack and I don’t do fancy
schmancy shit to find answers. We do something radical. We follow the evidence and the
evidence should have been the priority, not some dude’s degree and computer wizardry
from some cubical at Quantico.” Geo swore in a string of profanity.
Mack dropped his hands on his hips, closing his eyes at the wastefulness of it all.
Chances were they couldn’t have stopped the recent abduction. What they could have done
was make the killer think twice, make him scared.
“Back to square one,” Mack murmured. He looked up at the other three. “Here’s a clue.
You two do things the FBI way. Geo and I already tried it and I think it’s safe to say that the
FBI has their heads up their asses on this case. Geo and I will do it our way. We share
information and get the job done by spanning every available department we have between
us.”
“A competition?” Lauren asked, her eyes lighting up.
Geo huffed a disbelieving laugh. Even Andy shot her a strained look.
Mack just shook his head. “Police work, Lauren. Good, old-fashioned police work to
find the little girl and the killer as fast as possible.”
“Competition is good,” she said defensively.
“It’s tawdry,” Andy slammed. He turned to Geo. “What the fuck did you ever see in
her? She’s a cold-hearted bitch.”
Lauren’s jaw dropped, colour rose in her cheeks.
Geo shrugged, clearly disgusted. “Fuck if I know. Mack, let’s go over our case notes
again—alone,” he said pointedly. “Find out if we overlooked something while we were
bending to the FBI’s will.”
“You got it.” Mack grabbed his notebook, a stack of papers, and followed Geo who’d
taken several more papers and his laptop.
“You have to share your findings,” Lauren pleaded.
“So do you, but for now, we’re regrouping. Andy,” Mack addressed him, “keep us in
the loop. We’ll let you know if we know anything new.”
Andy nodded. “Sure.”
“You’re a good guy, Andy,” Mack added.
Andy looked between him and Geo. “Not good enough to turn your head.” “I know a guy. We get this case done, and I’ll put a good word in for you. He’s a hot
young cop in another precinct. Last name Knight.” Mack sent him a wink before leaving with
Geo.
“You think that was a good idea?” Geo asked after they left.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t think Knight is out.”
Mack grinned. “That doesn’t seem to slow Andy down. Besides, it’s just an
introduction.”
“Well, when you call Rook to set it up, tell him I said hi.”
“I’ll do you one better. Let’s invite Rook and Nate to the barbeque and have Knight tag
along,” Mack suggested.
“Lemme guess. You’ll conveniently invite Andy along, too.”
Mack nodded his agreement through his laughter.
“
Now
who’s the twinky godmother?”