Slow Burn (MM) (21 page)

He snatched the file up without a word. He wanted to storm from the office, slam the door back against the wall, but he wouldn’t give Griggs the satisfaction. Just in case the fucker was somewhere nearby.

Instead he walked out without a word, not even a heavy footfall. When he got home, he put his fist through the wall.

An hour later, his phone rang.

He answered it without looking, expecting it to be Zack.

“I just got your message. Mother
fuck
!”

“Hey, Lamont.” Brody stretched his fingers wide and replaced the ice pack, knuckles still singing.

“How come you don’t sound pissed? I chew Hill a new one…then he chews me one for disrespect, and you don’t even sound bothered.”

“You fucking kidding me? I did the same thing. Now I’m worn out from the adrenaline rush, staring at this new hole in my wall, and thinking maybe I need to calm my ass down.”

Silence on the other end, then, “I wanted to punch one too, but Felicia would kill me.”

“Where are you now?”

“On my way over, but I swear to God, man, you didn’t get these from me. You took them yourself; you don’t even know my damn name. We understand?”

“It’s our fucking case, Lamont. And a few copies of the latest case notes aren’t going to get you sacked. I would take all the files—originals—if I knew it’d get the job done.”

“All right, all right. I said I’m bringing them over, didn’t I? You still have copies of your old notes?”

“I got them.” Of course he did. And Lamont knew it. Brody had never let this case go cold.

* * * *

Brody glanced over at the drawn blinds, the sun forcing its way through the sides. It had to be midday at least. He shifted his focus to the blank wall beside the window, anything far away and easy on the eyes, because they were fucking killing him from staring at small print on white pages all night until he passed out.

“Shit.” He rubbed each lid with a forefinger. Not only had he been demoted and kicked off his case, he had a reading-and-whiskey hangover and would probably need glasses sometime in the next ten years, and that just pissed him off.

He sat up and put his feet on the floor, his head pounding in protest. Coffee.

Coffee was what he needed. He’d had just this side of too much last night, but he knew he wouldn’t have slept without it.

“Shit.” Brody tripped over his copy of the most recent Strangler file that Lamont smuggled over.

He made his way to the coffeepot, and by the time he’d had a piss and washed his hands and face, there was a full pot waiting on him. Beckoning with promises of a clear head and finally being able to see what he hadn’t seen in the last ten fucking years. The old files he practically had memorized, and in the new one, there was nothing that jumped out as any different other than the time between.

There was something vital there, and he wasn’t seeing it.

That was the only explanation for why this case remained unsolved. There he was, throwing stones at Griggs, when his sorry ass couldn’t get the job done either.

“
Fuck
.” He sighed.

If he had to study the files until his eyes fell out of his head in order to solve it, then that was what he’d do. He couldn’t work the case actively anymore, but he could fix this. He could bring these girls justice and hopefully save a few more.

He’d study this thing and figure out what they were
all
missing.

He was two sips into his second cup of coffee when there was a loud thumping on his front door.

“Hey! Brody. You alive?”

Zack.

Brody got up from his small kitchen table, hands going to his hair so at least he wouldn’t look like complete shit upon answering the door.

He opened it to find Zack in his work polo and slacks. There was none of that now-familiar grin, just concern pinching his eyebrows.

“Hey.” Brody kept it casual.

“Don’t ‘hey’ me.” Zack wasn’t having it. “You disappear completely for two straight days—no call, no text, no reply when
I
call and text to ask how you did on your PT, no jack shit. I know you were getting news about your job, and you want to give me a
hey
?”

Brody backed up to let him in. “I didn’t disappear. I’m right here. I’ve just been…busy.”

Zack stopped just inside the door, the pinched look still on his face. “Busy? Normally, I get a reply within a couple of hours, definitely before forty-eight, so don’t act like I’m being all”—he waved his fingers in the air—“needy or paranoid. Two days go by, and I don’t hear shit? I’m wondering if you’re back on active, if you got hurt, or worse, given your line of work…”

He let the sentence go, then shrugged and studied some point beyond Brody’s left shoulder.

The vulnerability in that look made Brody realize he was being an asshole. Old habits died hard. All Zack had ever done was help him get back in shape, and it was natural to worry when your…your…whatever the fuck they were…when one of you was a homicide detective.

Except Brody wasn’t a homicide detective. Not anymore.

“Yeah, I— Sorry. It’s been…” He didn’t want to go into what it’d been. Zack didn’t need to know the darkness of some of his corners. “Come on in. Ignore the mess.” He led the way past the kitchen and dining area. “You want some coffee?” He grabbed his cup as Zack followed him to the den.

“No, I’m…good?”

Brody glanced back to see his gaze lingering over the coffee table, the mess of folders and papers, whiskey bottle.

“Sorry.” Brody closed each file and stacked it all up as neatly as possible. There was nothing there Zack should see.

He grabbed the whiskey bottle and returned it to the kitchen, opening the blinds on the way back.

“I’m going to guess this is about work,” Zack said as he sat down next to him. “Because you’re walking just fine, and you aren’t pissed off at me, that I’m aware of.”

“Yeah.” Brody nodded. He didn’t want to talk to Zack about work or the case or any of the shit from the last two days, but he did deserve some type of explanation.

“Your place has a kind of… It has a very angry bear-cave feel to it, and you look a little rough.” He turned and touched Brody’s day-and-a-half-old stubble. “This I like, though,” he commented before pressing his lips to Brody’s.

Brody let himself fall into the kiss for just a moment, lips closed, a few seconds’ reprieve from real life’s shit pile, before pulling away.

“Okay.” Zack sighed and beckoned with his hand. “What’s going on? You never pull away, so talk to me. Feel free to leave out any gory details, but say something, because seriously? You look and feel like you’re ready to snap. No offense.”

He knew he looked like hell, and Zack would only badger him until he came out with it, but he’d only ever talked to Zack about work a couple of times. Both times it was about old, long-closed cases, and both times he still hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Just did it because there was no avoiding it.

This was different. This case was current and a part of him. His shadow. It was woven into who he was, and for reasons he couldn’t grasp, it didn’t feel natural to open up to Zack about it. It was like worlds fucking colliding, and it was two worlds that he never mixed. Worlds he’d never intended to mix. His giving lover and his job as a homicide detective.

No!

He didn’t want to talk to anyone about work, especially not Zack. He wanted to sit, alone, with his files and think. Be pissed at the world and find the bastard who had taken another life from this world like it was his fucking right.

None of it had anything to do with Zack—and that was how Brody preferred it. He couldn’t think about Zack while he was thinking about his job or vice versa. Force of habit, and he didn’t function that way. Work meant only work. Not family, not friends, not anything.

Zack wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t understand what the job meant, because they met during the freak-accident part of Brody’s life. The anomaly of Brody having free time, not working his ass off as a detective, not being married to the job.

Zack’s sun-warmed face pinched further as he shifted on the couch again, the tension in his shoulders evident. “Well?”

There would be no deflecting or dodging what was going on. Brody wouldn’t even try.

“I’ve been asked to back off on a case.
The
case. The one I’ve been involved in since I was a probie.” Brody didn’t know what else to say. How did he express all the nights this case had haunted him? How his job was all he’d ever had. It was his life.

Understanding widened Zack’s eyes for a moment. “But you passed your PT, right?”

“I killed it.” Brody nodded, staring at his hands, the hangnail on his right index finger. “Thanks to you.”

“So why wouldn’t they put you back to full duty?”

“I am. But this case was being worked on while I was on leave and light, and the captain doesn’t want a high-profile case to be passing around to too many hands. There was another murder while I was gone, so…”Brody tightened his hands at that thought, because he refused to let go. ”I get screwed over. And I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of bullshit politics at play here too. Now I’m not even in homicide. I’m working robbery.”

His voice was sharpening. Yet another reason he did not want to talk about this with Zack. He felt sharp. The momentum of reading over the case files was the only thing that smoothed him out. Zack wanting to talk about it? Not really helping. He was in cop mode, and cope mode wasn’t one that’d blend well with being-around-Zack mode.

“Y’know…” Brody scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I…we don’t have to talk about my work anymore. Really,” Brody tried. “I’d rather not.”

“You can’t help with the case anyway?” Zack pushed.

Brody glanced over and found Zack’s expression totally in earnest. He leaned his elbows on his knees and waited for Brody’s response. That was Zack. Open. Patient. Such a decent guy. The kind of guy who deserved everything. All the things Brody would never be able to give him.

He felt a low tug in his gut that reminded him who was the one lacking in this equation.

“This is the second warning for me to stay off the case. Really, man, I don’t want to—”

“Whoa. What do you mean second warning?” Zack sat forward a little.

The tension in Brody’s chest rose again, causing an ache that made it hard to breathe. “As in, I’ve already been told, indirectly, not to be involved. Now I’ve been told again, officially, to fuck off.”

“I don’t—” Zack touched his forehead as if to stop the flow of words. “I mean when? When did all this happen? I’ve known you for months now, and I didn’t know all of this was going on with your job. I thought things were okay. I’m here without a clue about what’s going on in your life?”

It started to build again inside of Brody. The frustration that he’d ignored for the last day. The same resentment and anger that ended with his fist in the wall. “When I was on paid leave, my partner still had this case. I went to a scene, was reminded it was not my scene. When I aced my PT because I worked…
we
worked to make it happen, I was told to stay off this case. I’m still not listening, so I’m sure I’ll be told again to fuck off when they should let me do my job.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

”Yeah. I know.” That edge in his voice was getting brusque. He could hear what he didn’t say.
You’ll never understand, so I’m going to sound condescending no matter what. May as well not bother trying not to
. “They don’t want me to help, because I’m not even in the same fucking department anymore. Normally a cop’s case is his case, but oh no. I’ve been moved to Robbery and cut off. Do I look like a Robbery guy to you? So I say fuck them and their orders. I’m working this case anyway. I don’t care if they suspend me; this has to stop.”

Zack’s eyes went wide. “Is it wise to just say fuck them?”

Brody shot to his feet. “You’re taking their side?”

“No.” Zack held his hands up, a conceding gesture. “Jeez, you should know I’m on your side. I’m just trying to grasp what you’re saying.”

Brody started pacing, the room shrinking around him. It was too damn hot in his den now. And stuffy. He jerked open the glass door by the kitchen table.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Zack asked. “Why avoid me for days?”

Good question, but Zack wouldn’t like the answer. “Because I just didn’t want to get into it. Not with everything else going on. I don’t want to be discussing it now, yet here we are.”

There was long, tight silence until Brody finally looked over at Zack.

“Okay,” Zack said, the muscles in his neck and jaw working. “So they give you what you consider a downgraded job, cause this huge change in your life that clearly upsets you, and you don’t want to talk about it? At all?”

Zack’s gaze burned through Brody as he nodded.

“Is that why I get the feeling you’re mad at me?” Zack managed. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“By giving me the third degree? All while sitting there, righteously pissed at me for trying to deal with this in my way and not drag you into my shit pile? This is my issue. Not yours. I’m saving you from this, and I told you at least three times I
didn’t
want to talk about it, but here we are. Talking about it.”

ZACK TOOK A breath and tried not to let the sheer anger rolling off Brody knock him off the couch. But his words still hit like a fist to the chest. He’d been on the receiving end of another man’s unhappiness before. Felt the blame through harsh words and icy-cold withdrawal, when the fault was far from ever being Zack’s.

And third degree? Righteous? What the hell? He got that this case meant a great deal, but Brody was shutting him out and expecting him not to be offended. And then being a shithead about it.

Being shut out was not going to happen. Zack was pretty sure they’d passed that option a couple of fucks ago.

He tried to keep his voice level. “I’m helping by being here for you when you’ve completely ignored me even though you need someone to talk to.” Okay, he’d done it. He’d tried. Now breathe. Be supportive. “Brody. I get it. It sucks.”

Brody gave him a look like razor blades might fly forth from his eyes. His thick arms were still crossed.