Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“O’HARA REALLY THOUGHT I was going to do as I was told?” Cade asked. He nudged the chair out of the way with his knee and leaned one hand on the table as he pulled his emails up on the screen. Too many from various clients. “I didn’t take the man for an idiot.”

“Liar.”

He was. That didn’t mean he wanted someone to call him on it. Except Marlow’s off-hand delivery slid under Cade’s guard and caught his sense of humor. He felt his mouth try to slide into a smile and bit the inside of his cheek to stop it.

“Most people wouldn’t call me that to my face,” he said.

“I’ve only got fifteen minutes,” Marlow said. “I don’t have time to do it behind your back.”

Cade couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. The black sludge of his temper loosened its grip on him, whether he liked it or not. That was the problem. It wasn’t that he wanted Marlow, or that he’d played out the vodka-sharp kiss and what might have happened next a couple of times since the full moon. Over the years, Cade had fucked a few people he’d not piss on if they were on fire. Some of them, that was why he’d fucked them.

The thing was, he liked Marlow. The Night Shift officer was easy to be around. He was laid-back enough that Cade had to shift down a gear to spend time with him without feeling like he’d lost some sort of advantage. Even the occasional jabs of wit at Cade’s expense were unexpectedly tolerable, as much as Cade hated being the butt of the joke.

It made it hard to stay angry with him.

That was okay. Cade was willing to chew over the sour memory of puke and bile to keep the grudge fresh.

“What about you?” he asked. “Have you toed the line?”

“Unlike you, O’Hara is my boss,” Marlow said. The corner of his mouth tilted up slightly, a flicker of sly humor, and he added, “Of course, Haley’s death is my case. So I’ve put feelers out to see if anyone else has turned up traps or logged any suspicious injuries or deaths after the full moon.”

“And?” Cade asked, his voice clipped and deliberately abrupt.

Marlow pulled an annoyed face. “It’s hard to pin down,” he said. “A wolf wakes up one morning missing half a foot, it could have been caused in an accident, a fight with another wolf, or—”

“Or a trap,” Cade finished.

“Exactly,” Marlow said. “One thing is that there has been an uptick in moon-hangover deaths in the last few months. Three train-related deaths, one suicide, two deaths by misadventure when they took a wrong turn in the desert. More than usual this time of year, but not enough to raise any red flags. I’ve put a request in for their files. If there’s something there, maybe I can pinpoint it. What about you? Anything?”

Cade flicked the images from Lem’s report up onto the screen on the wall. Photos slid over each other and slotted into a rough grid-like pattern of faces pulled from a variety of sources—selfies, work IDs, mugshots. Three women and four men, all of whom had maintained some sort of steady contact with Piper since he’d been in prison.

“Do you know any of these people?” he asked. “Did you ever see any of them around, back in the day?”

Marlow got up and walked over to stand in front of the screen. He absently pulled his glasses off, the smoked lenses and wire frames dangled by one leg from his fingers as he studied the faces.

“Well?”

“It was ten years ago,” Marlow said. He didn’t bother to look around at Cade. “And we didn’t exactly move in the same circles. He didn’t become a crooked cop to hang out with guys working with a rookie’s salary.”

Cade came around the front of the desk and leaned back against it. He crossed his arms and made a soft sound of disgust in the back of his throat.

“He sounds like a great boss,” he said, without any attempt to dilute the sarcasm.

Marlow glanced around at him. A wry smile tugged at the side of his mouth as he raised his eyebrows. “If I asked, would you know the janitor’s name?”

“We don’t have a janitor; we have a cleaning service,” Cade said. He nodded to the screen to redirect the conversation before Marlow could ask what anyone else was called. “Think back. Anything?”

Marlow scrutinized the faces again for a moment. Finally, he shrugged and pointed to two of them, one in the right corner and one just slotted in left of center. One man. One woman.

“These two look familiar.”

The man in the middle was wiry and miserable-looking, with one dull brown eye and three raw-looking scars livid on the right side of his face. He was a wolf, so he’d got them young… same as Cade, and without the chance to hide them. At the top, the woman was bright-eyed and glossy, her face blurred with carefully applied makeup until she looked airbrushed. She had a hard line about her mouth.

“Lance Rilkes and Maria Cafolla,” Cade identified them confidently. The background checks had been thorough; he probably knew them as well as any of their relatives did. “Both nulls. Lance gets a call from Piper once a month, and the next day he gets a grand deposited in his account. Do you have any idea why?”

“No, but I know who he is,” Marlow said. He paused for a moment and then hedged that statement with a shrug. “Maybe. Piper used to tell this story about when he was a kid. Him and a bunch of his friends used to hang out at each other’s houses during the full moon. One night, one of them shifted unexpectedly—an early bloomer. It happens sometimes; puberty isn’t great at schedules.”

The back of Cade’s throat felt raw and itchy, like he’d eaten peppers. He’d been twelve the first time. Early, by most people’s standards, but not his dad’s. The Deacons all shifted early—he’d sworn that up and down and called Cade a bastard when he was eleven and still hadn’t changed. He’d thought that self-preservation could force the turn, and he’d dragged Cade out into the snow naked and left him up a tree. Change or freeze. He’d not cared which.

It hadn’t worked, neither one. The wolf came out when the moon wanted, and his step-mother always cached a key to the front door and one of his coats in a hollow tree stump the day before.

“How many died?” he asked.

“Nobody,” Marlow said. He didn’t look around to catch Cade’s skeptical look, but he shrugged like he’d seen it anyhow. “According to Piper, they all grabbed the kid as it started and tried to drag him outside. They might have managed it, but one of the kids panicked and got all cut up. Piper saved him, led the wolf outside, and they ran straight into the Night Shift.”

The idea of someone touching you mid-shift made Cade’s stomach turn uneasily. He probably wouldn’t remember it, but the thought made the back of his neck itch as if he still had hackles. Cade scrubbed his hand roughly over the bare skin to try and redirect the discomfort.

“Well, that’s an inspirational tale,” he said.

“He told it better,” Marlow said.

Cade curled his lip and mouthed, “he told it better,” sarcastically to himself. The man had tried to kill Marlow, for fuck’s sake; why defend his reputation?

And, Cade reminded himself with resigned amusement as he pushed himself up off the desk, hadn’t he decided not to care what Marlow did anymore? It had been a lot easier to amputate his feelings for people when he’d been young and desperate.

The memory of Lem’s “old man” smirked in his head. Younger, Cade corrected himself. It placated his offended vanity—for now. He stopped beside Marlow, crossed his arms over his chest, and frowned at the screen. Lance stared, half-blind and disinterested anyhow, past them.

“Fascinating glimpse into a corrupt public official’s past,” he said. “What does it have to do with Lance, perennially under-employed kitchen porter?”

“The scars.” Marlow traced the photographed scores out on his own cheek, from his eyebrow and down over his cheekbone to his jaw. “The friend that got cut up lost an eye, and Piper said he’d been left with stripes to remember his stupidity. It was his ‘shape up or ship out’ speech. He always said either do what needs to be done or stay out of it from the beginning. No second thoughts…”

He trailed off as he thought about that.

“For reference?” Cade said. “That’s a bit of a red flag.”

“I suppose, in retrospect,” Marlow admitted. “At the time, it just seemed like good advice. Hesitation can get you killed.”

“So could Piper.”

It was meant to be cruel. Marlow just laughed at the jab, a soft huff of humor, and pointed at the woman’s face.

“I know her face,” he said. “But I can’t place how I know her face.”

“Maria Cafolla. She’s a Spanish teacher who also volunteers with convicts to teach them life skills. Piper ever show any problems with basic literacy, numeracy, or cooking a microwave dinner?” That got him a smirk from Marlow, but he otherwise ignored it. That was fair enough, Cade supposed. It had been petty. As low as he claimed his opinion of the SDPD was when they inconvenienced him, he doubted they’d promote someone to Night Shift that couldn’t do the basics of the job one way or another. “Her and Piper are penpals. He writes to her monthly, and she visits him once a year. Conjugal visits, apparently.”

Marlow went “huh” as he absorbed that and stared at Maria’s picture a moment longer, his eyes squinted as if that would help him place her. Apparently it didn’t work because he finally turned away from the screen.

“Sorry,” he said. “I could ask Bennett? Her and Piper had a thing for a while.”

Cade raised his eyebrow. That hadn’t turned up in the background. Jay Bennett dated women—mostly redheads, but she wasn’t prescriptive—and there’d been no suggestion she’d broken that streak for her boss. Marlow caught his surprise and misinterpreted the reason for it.

“If there’s anyone in Night Shift I can trust, it’s Bennett,” he said. “She’s the one that turned Piper in to IA after he shot me. Even if she had a change of heart, she knows Piper doesn’t give second chances.”

Marlow trusted her. Cade knew it wasn’t fair to let that put his back up; it didn’t take anything away from him. It felt like it did, though. It was meant to be the two of them against the corruption in the Night Shift, after all. What other reason did Cade have to talk to Marlow?

Cade winced to himself at that. What was this? He was calling himself on his own shit now? Okay, so when he’d run into Marlow, he’d just grabbed at the first excuse to keep him around that he could think of. It didn’t mean anything—nothing he was going to deal with right now, anyhow.

Still, Cade wasn’t sure if it was common sense or that prickle of jealousy behind what he said next.

“What if she didn’t ask him?” he said. “You said it yourself; Piper flew under the radar. He didn’t leave bear traps in the woods or dump corpses with no hands in front of the cops. Maybe whoever did this just took up where he left off, whether Piper left it or not.”

Marlow opened his mouth to argue, but only got as far as “She…” before he had to give up. He grimaced sourly and rubbed his hand over his face.

“Do you know what sucks?” he asked.

Cade did. It was being left to think you’d killed someone you cared about. He didn’t say that, though.

“What?”

“You’re still pissed at me,” Marlow said.

That… That was not what Cade expected. He’d workshopped a dozen versions of this conversation. Most of them ended badly. In a few, Marlow had apologized profusely and physically, and none of them had been that straightforward.

“I’m… not,” Cade lied. Poorly.

Marlow didn’t even bother to call him on it. He just raised a dark eyebrow pointedly and then shrugged.

“It’s up to you,” he said. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m—”

His radio crackled. “Dispatch to Charlie-forty. Charlie-forty, respond.”

Marlow swore under his breath in exasperation, pulled an apologetic face at Cade, and reached up to his shoulder to thumb the button.

“Charlie-forty,” he said, chin tucked down toward his chest. “What is it?”

“We have an FTA for a court-ordered custody mediation,” Dispatch said. “Can you do a 10-91?”

Marlow screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his thumb over his temple. “Seriously?”

“Records show it was your case originally. Is that a 10-4?”

“Yeah,” Marlow sighed as he opened his eyes. “10-4, Dispatch. Send me the coordinates and details of the pickup. I’ll send my ETA once I’m on the road.”

He flicked the radio off and shifted his attention back to Cade. “I—”

“Duty calls,” Cade said.

Marlow’s crooked smile was rueful, but he didn’t argue. “Keep me updated if these”—he gestured to the photos on the screen—“yield anything useful.”

“I’ll think about it,” Cade said as he uncrossed his arms. “Good luck finding your parolee.”

He waited.

Marlow turned to go, and Cade’s stomach sank with disappointment. That wasn’t what he’d been waiting for.

“You forgot your fish,” he said abruptly. The words hadn’t sounded great in his head—they’d just been the first thing that occurred to him—but they sounded worse out loud. Marlow hesitated mid-step, just for a second, and Cade decided, “fuck it.” Anything that stopped him from running his mouth was a good idea.

He reached out, grabbed Marlow’s arm—the tinted glasses he still hadn’t put back on slipped out of his fingers—and pulled him around into a kiss. It was a dry, awkward buss, mouths smashed uncomfortably together and heads at clumsy angles.

Then Cade ran his hand up Marlow’s arm and curled his fingers around the nape of his neck. Marlow shivered at the contact and stretched up into the kiss. His mouth was sweet, warm, and slightly fishy. Cade grinned against Marlow’s mouth at the brief distraction. It was the weird details that made reality better than imagination.

Well—he remembered exactly how far things had gone in his last sticky late-night fantasy—sometimes.

Marlow grabbed a handful of Cade’s shirt and pushed him back against the desk. The hard ridge of it dug into the backs of his thighs. Heat knotted through Cade’s stomach as he thought of what his daydreams could make of this.

He shifted his weight and pulled Marlow closer, his lean hips slotted between Cade’s spread thighs. The dull weight of arousal tugged at Cade’s cock as he worked his fingers up to tangle in Marlow’s hair.

Then Marlow pulled back from the kiss. He was still close enough that Cade felt the tickle of his breath as he exhaled raggedly. It might have been regretful too, but that stank of Cade’s dead crush, so he squashed it.

“Duty,” Marlow said, the corner of his mouth tucked up in a rueful smile, “and all.”

Cade twisted his fingers tighter around dark curls and pulled Marlow’s head back. For the first time, he noticed the faded bruises stippled along Marlow’s throat, the long line of it taut and vulnerable. He’d known nulls didn’t heal with the moon. Obviously. It just hadn’t occurred to him to look for the marks he’d chewed into Marlow’s skin.

It was even hotter than he’d thought it would be.

And Marlow might need to leave, but he still hadn’t pulled away.

Cade ducked his head and pressed a wet, messy kiss against Marlow’s throat. He felt the quick flutter of a pulse against his mouth, and he had to resist the urge to bite down. The moon had waned; he couldn’t even blame the wolf for the urge to send Marlow out of his office looking well-fucked.

“Far be from me to keep you from doing the job my taxes pay you for,” Cade said. He untangled his fingers and leaned back on the desk, muscles bunched in his shoulders and pulled tight across his chest. The bulge of his cock was on full display under the thin fabric of his trousers. He wasn’t sure if it was an offer or a tease, but Cade knew he looked good. He smirked smugly at Marlow. “You know the way out, Officer.”

Marlow bit his lip and made a soft sound in the back of his throat as he took in the view. He still took a step backward and tugged the neck of his T-shirt straight. It didn’t cover the bruises, now damp and slick from Cade’s mouth.

“Next time,” Marlow said, then rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. He gave Cade a questioning look. “I mean, if this means you’re not pissed at me anymore.”

That reminder worked on Cade like a cold shower: not that well, but it reminded him it was a bad idea. He pushed himself up straight and raised his eyebrows at Marlow in his best amused dismissal.

“What makes you think I’m pissed?” he asked.

Marlow grinned, a flash of quick, unexpected humor, and glanced down at Cade’s fly. “Well, you haven’t lost interest,” he said in a mild voice. “But you haven’t gotten in touch either. So…”

“Maybe I wanted you to do the running,” Cade said, “or I lost your number?”

Marlow nodded and tilted the corner of his mouth up in a rueful expression that didn’t quite qualify as a smile. “So, still pissed.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Cade shrugged and glanced down at his desk, tapping his finger on a catering receipt as if it suddenly interested him.

“Fair enough. Call me if you find anything.”

Cade looked up in surprise and scowled at Marlow. He wasn’t sure how he wanted this to go, but he’d not expected Marlow to give up.

“You’re not going to ask why?” he asked.

Marlow glanced back over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me?”

Probably not. Not until Marlow begged—which did have its appeal—and jumped through a series of hoops to prove he’d do it. Then Cade would just bring it up occasionally, whenever Marlow thought he was finally over it.

It sounded exhausting. He could spend that time with his tongue down Marlow’s throat. Or elsewhere.

“I’m not mad,” he said. Marlow looked skeptical. “We’re good. This is good. Next time.”

Marlow tapped his fingers on the jamb of the door for a moment and then nodded. “Sure. Sounds good.”

He left.

Cade rolled his head from one side to the other to crack his neck. He’d never taken the high road before, but it had been easier than he thought. Maybe the next thing he’d do was give up his grudge against Justin—who had apparently thrown one last blowout party in LA on the company dime before he’d been congratulated on his new job out the door. Cade pulled a sour face at that as he balled the invoice—already paid—and tossed it in the trash. Or not. He wasn’t that generous.

He got up off the desk and walked over to grab Marlow’s abandoned fish cakes from the table. They had tasted good second hand, after all. Cade finished them off and folded the wrappers up neatly before he deposited them in the bin. He buzzed his assistant to bring his car around. It was time to find out if Lance was so grateful to Piper that he’d turn down a job offer rather than spill his secrets.

“I’ll have it brought around now,” his assistant assured him. “It’ll meet you downstairs.”

Cade pulled his jacket on. The other good thing about forgiving Marlow, of course, was that now he had the upper hand. Now, instead of him being the idiot with a crush trying to get the Night Shift hero’s attention, Marlow would need to prove that Cade hadn’t made a mistake when he handed over a second chance.

Yeah, Cade definitely thought he’d done the right thing when he let Marlow off the hook.