Time's Up (8 page)

I never dated much. Oddly enough, guys weren't all that interested in going out with me once they realized I lived in a house full of guard dogs armed with badges and law degrees. Friday night, I went downstairs dressed to the nines with a bellyful of butterflies. Mom and the twins were at the far end of the bar arguing over their latest defendant, an obscenely wealthy and connected child molester. Cash lay on the sectional in the great room, texting in front of the Angels playing the Cubs.

Mom gave me a once-over. “You look terrific.” The twins grunted in agreement, not looking up.

7:50 p.m. I lounged against the arm of the couch and tried to watch TV. The Angels are my favorite team, but I couldn't follow the game at all. I got up and fetched my mail from the mudroom and brought it into the kitchen.
National Review, Vogue Paris,
two offers for credit cards, a dental cleaning reminder postcard, and a single white envelope hand-addressed with the crimson Loyola law school crest in the return address corner.

“What's this, Mom?” I held up the letter.

“I've secured a place for you at Loyola,” she said in a happy, easy tone. The one that always came before the hammer. “I want you to quit Traffic Enforcement. Use the summer to recharge. Refocus.”

Declan and Daicen exchanged a look, scooted back their stools, and fled the room.

“Mom, I'm just about to go on a date with the guy I've been crushing on for a year and a half. Could we please talk about this later?”

“Absolutely. You're in at Loyola and that's all that matters.”

My lizard brain strangled the calming breath in my throat and took a swipe at Mom from under the rock. “You want me to be a lawyer? Really? You're getting a child molester off and you're sick about it.”

She stood up and smiled grimly. “I'm more than sick about the Schumer case. But there are many different kinds of law to practice.” She marched into the kitchen and began to rifle through the freezer. “But if you think for one minute I'm going to let my college-educated daughter squander her future writing parking tickets for minimum wage, you've got another think coming.” She slammed a box of salmon filets on the counter and whirled on me. “Where are the molten lava cakes that Thierry made for my Sunday luncheon group?”

Instantly, the tension left my neck and back. This was not about me. The case was really getting to her. “He hid them in the box marked ‘sea bass.'”

“Typical,” she muttered.

Living to fight another day, I left my mail on the counter and flopped down next to Cash.

8:02.

Hank was never late.

Cash wiggled his empty beer bottle at me. “Were you gonna get a beer, Snap?”

Eight weeks of serving Cash's every whim was starting to feel more like eighty years. “You bet.” I popped up and went to the wet bar. “Want anything, Mom?”

The lava cake heating in the microwave had all her attention. “No thanks, baby.”

I brought Cash his beer, wanting one but holding out.

“What's the matter?” he asked. “You get stood up?”

Mom carried her lava cake back to the table. “I fail to see how that remark is of any assistance to your sister.”

“Just curious,” he said with a cheery smile.

8:16. The phone rang. The caller ID on the bottom of the TV screen read “Hank Bannon.” “I got it.” I ran to the phone. “Hello?”

“May I please speak with Miss Maisie McGrane?” a woman's smooth, well-modulated voice seeped into my ear. The kind of voice that embodied the word
sultry
.

“Uh, this is.”

“Miss McGrane, I'm calling on behalf of Mr. Bannon. He regrets he will not be able to attend your conference this evening.”

Conference?
My throat tightened.
Standing me up. And having his phone sex operator deliver it on his cell phone.
“Why is that, exactly?”

“I'm afraid the negotiations he's involved in require more of his attention than he originally planned.”

“I see.” I said nothing, letting the silence stretch, waiting for her to fill the void.

She didn't.

“Thanks for the call,” I said.

“Is there a return message?”

“No.” I hung up.

Mom kept reading her files, eating cake. Pretending she hadn't heard every word. Cash's texting hit warp speed.

“He can't make it,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to shrug off the disproportionately crushing disappointment.

“That's too bad,” Mom said. “I was looking forward to meeting him.”

“Yeah.” I slunk over to the bar fridge and got a Miller Lite. Cash grabbed the beer out of my hands, making me jump. “Gah!” I hadn't heard him get up.

He grinned smugly at me and said loudly over his shoulder, “You look too good to stay home, Snap. I'm taking you out.”

“That's sweet of you, honey,” Mom said.

“Get changed, thrall.” He popped the top on my beer and took a swig. “The guys and I need a designated driver.”

 

Wearing jeans, a black Mack truck tee, and motorcycle boots, I jangled the keys to Cash's Jeep in the doorway. “Are we going or what?”

“We're waiting for Koji,” he said, glued to Halo mayhem on his TV.

“Well, why don't we just go pick him up? I'm your designated driver, aren't I?”

“Yeah, but he's staying over. We're taking his MDX.”

Cash's best friend loved his shiny red Acura more than anything in the world. It was unimaginable that he'd let me hold his keys, much less drive it. “And Koji is aware of this fact?”

“You bet. He suggested it.”

“Riiight.”

Cash laughed. “He's not so hot and heavy about his baby since some idiot rear-ended him. And anyway, it's the only car that'll hold all six of us . . . And you, of course.”

Six totally wasted hotshot cops. This was going to be worse than
Jersey Shore
meets
Hooking Up. “How long till he gets here?”

A half hour later, Cash shouted from the front door, “Mai-sie! Let's go. Koji's here!”

I got my cell from the charging station and met Da coming in from the garage. “Hullo, luv,” he said. “Heard the bad news. A no-show, eh?”

He didn't exactly look torn up. Which was probably where my brothers got the idea that my life would be better off without any dates, ever.

“Yeah. He had a work thing.”

“What does he do again?”

“Uh—”

“C'mon, Maisie!” Cash shouted from the foyer. “We don't have all night.”

Da set his briefcase down. “I hear you and Cash are two peas in a pod lately. Looks like the job's already giving you some patience.” He hugged me and kissed the top of my head. “I like it.”

“Snap!” Cash yelled from the front door.

Da swatted me on the butt as I walked past. “Have fun tonight.”

Koji, an athletic Asian with a dancer's body, reluctantly held out his keys. “I suppose you might as well drive it under my sober supervision.” He got in on the passenger side, my brother in back.

“Where to?”

“The pack's joining up at Tom's house,” Cash said.

I started the car and drove down the driveway, Koji stomping on the floor as I eased to a stop before turning onto the street. “Maybe you and Cash should switch seats.”

“You planning on ticketing me for backseat driving,
meter maid?
” Koji said, to Cash's hoot of delight.

“No,” I said, “but I'll sure as hell make sure I ticket your double-parking peanut butt, the second you stop to run in and get a Cinnabon.”

“Promise?” Koji asked, “Baby, you'll be my Monday morning trifecta. Cinnabon, you give me a ticket in that cute lil' neon vest, and then I get to drop it on Jensen's desk to clean up.”

Great. They're gonna force-feed me crow all night. With chopsticks.
I tapped the brakes. Hard.

“Hey!” Koji said. “Treat my baby with respect, ticket tyrant.”

Cash leaned up in between us. “Got it out of your system, Koji?”

“Dude, you can't tell me—”

“Zip it,” Cash said. “You want her to screw with our hookups?”

I shrugged in agreement. “I mean, it's not like you'd care if I told them you both still live at home, right?”

“Damn, Maisie.” Openmouthed, Koji stared at me, aghast. “Now, that's just cold.”

I shrugged and glanced in the rearview.

Cash winked.
Only a McGrane can torture a McGrane.

 

Lithium was packed. Half-naked women shivered in the cool night air, waiting for access. Cash's wolf pack had no such problem, waved in by the bouncers. I trailed behind, surprised as much by the pals they invited along as the clubs we were hitting. Then again, maybe cocky hotshot cops were the only ones they could drum up after scoring me as a designated driver on such short notice.

I hung at the bar, counting the bubbles fizzing in my third Diet Coke, the
oontz-oontz
of techno numbing my brain. Koji bought the pack, minus himself and Cash, yet another round of shots. My Spidey sense started tingling. He wasn't exactly the spread-it-around kind.

A girl blew water vapor from an electric cigarette in my face, as she reached across me for a handful of nuts.
Why is it when you're drinking, the mixed nut bar bowl is a tasty treat, but sober, it's more disgusting than a swab of the inside of a McDonald's Playplace tunnel?

My steel G-Shock watch read 22:30. Women swarmed around my brother and his gang like honeybees to a cone of cotton candy.

“Yo,
chica,
” Ernesto said in my ear. “What's my favorite hard-ass doing in a pop-tart lounge like this?”

“My date stood me up so I'm stuck designated-driving for Cash.”

“Date? You?” Ernesto's eyes popped. “With who?”

“Who do you think?”

Ernesto's eyes got even wider. “Huh. Really? I mean . . . I guess I just didn't think he'd ever—”

“Well, he didn't. His girl Friday gave me the Heisman.”

“Her.” He gave a low whistle. “Oh yeah. I could talk to her all day.”

Thanks a lot, Mr. Sensitive Best Friend.
“Ever meet her?”

“Nope. But with a voice like that . . .” He gave a happy shudder.

“She's probably sixty-five, topping the scales at two-fifty with a ratty old beehive.”

“Not a problem. I'll keep my eyes closed as long as she keeps talking.”

“Aig!” I tapped my temple. “Thanks for that.”

Ernesto took a sudden interest in his shoes. “I'm glad, actually, you didn't go.”

“What? Why?”

“Hank started asking me to fill in for him around the time you took off for . . . you know.”

The Police Academy.
I waited.

Ernesto put his hands in his back pockets. “Some of the rehabbers—they're not so quiet when Hank's away.”

“Oh?”

“I've heard some things. Bad things.”

Part of his appeal.
“I need a little more than that.”

Ernesto chewed a thumbnail, trying to break it to me gently. “How about
wet work?
”

“Oh my God, Ernesto.” I rolled my eyes. “Those guys were totally jerking your chain.”

“I dunno. I don't think so. You've grown up in a house full of Clint Eastwood macho badasses, so of course you're gonna go for the toughest guy around, but Hank's a killer. Straight-up.”

My fingers clenched into fists. “He was an Army Ranger, not a Boy Scout.”

“This training he's doing? It's more like recruiting for whatever Blackwater/Academi organization he's working for.” Ernesto shook his head. “I like Hank. I do. But he's carrying some fucked-up black-cloud baggage, is all I'm saying,
chica
. He's one dark guy.”

Cash slung an arm around my neck, making me jump. “Sorry to interrupt, Pads. But our driver's on the clock.”

Ernesto gave me a small wave with a sympathetic smile chaser as my brother and Koji hustled me toward the exit, where the wolf pack was waylaid by a bachelorette party wearing more perfume than a Glade factory makes in a month.

“Who'da thought?” Cash said in my ear. “Flynn was right.”

“About what?”

“Your Mr. Wonderful. Ernesto the Earnest disapproves, as well.”

“Ooh, burn.” Koji squealed. “Squee!”

I glared at him. “Settle down, Preteen Patty.”

Koji laughed. “Don't get mad at me. I showed up.”

“It's a good thing we're leaving. I'm done for the night.”

Cash put his nose to mine. “You're driving if you wanna be working on Monday.” He jerked a thumb at an opening in the crowd. “Let's go.”