Page 73 of Under Cover
Oh God. “Well, in two hours, I’m gonna be asleep. I hope you brought a book or something.”
Junior gave him a hopeful smile. “I’ve been, uhm, reading the paperbacks in your room. I like the fantasy ones.”
Crosby frowned and realized that he’d let Junior sleep on his couch enough times that Junior might have had plenty of time to do that.
“Fair,” he said. Then, because he didn’t want Junior to think this was a date. “I’ve got to text my girl for a bit. It’s been a while—she’s getting needy.” The truth was just the opposite. Garcia sounded like he was doing okay. He kept Crosby briefed on all the team was doing every day, and they would talk personally if there was time. Courtship language; Crosby could recognize it.
He treasured it.
“Yeah,” Junior said. “I figured. Just….” He didn’t need to finish that sentence.
Anything to get him away from his father’s thugs.
“No worries, kid.” He turned around and pulled out a ten. “Bring some hot dogs—and maybe some cookies or something.” Crosby’s stomach was all acid, but God, Junior may have been twenty-one or so, but he was a kid who needed some fucking cookies.
And then he smiled, and Crosby’s stomach gave a volcanic churn.
“Sure, Ricky. Anything you want!”
As the kid turned down the stairs and Crosby hauled his exhausted, depressed ass up the three flights to his flop, he knew, deep in his bones, that Junior really meant that. And while Crosby had no intention of taking the kid up on it, he couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much trouble having a puppy was going to be.
“BARNES,” CROSBYsaid into his comms three days later, “if you do not get your boot out of my line of fire, he’s going to get shot, and I’m going to feel really bad about that.”
“Sweeney!”Rufus Barnes was a solid training officer, but a rookie was a rookie, and in this case, Corrigan Sweeney was fresher than lettuce.
“Sorry, Barnes,” Sweeney said apologetically and then took a step to the left, which was more in Crosby’s line of fire than he had been.
“Sweeney,” Crosby said through his teeth, aiming his service revolver at the front door of an old walk-up building which emerged next to a hardware store. Their suspect was on the first floor of the walk-up and had shot twice through the door—the plan was for Crosby to aim for the long shot, while Sweeney and Barnes stood on either side of the door, their backs to the thin brick façade that went halfway up the wall, to take out the perp while Crosby distracted him.
Except Sweeney kept moving directly over the doorknob, which put him in the line of fire.
“Rookie!” Crosby snapped. “If the suspect doesn’t shoot you, I will. He has been shooting through that door all day. The fuck you think you’re doing?”
“It’s just,” the rookie said hesitantly, “I canhearhim behind me—”
Oh shit. “Get down!” Crosby screamed, and just as the kid started to drop to his knees, the shot came from the plain stucco behind him and shoved him on his face.
And Crosby aimed at the shattered wall and emptied his clip.
In the ensuing silence, the rookie whimpered, but his back showed, thank God, no blood. The Kevlar had held, although at that range, he might have some bruising on his spine and ribs to contend with.
Crosby called in shots fired and asked for a bus, and then he took point while he and Barnes burst through the house.
Sure enough, their dead suspect was lying on his back behind the wall the rookie had been propped up against, looking surprised as a gutted fish.
Crosby bent and took his pulse, because that was procedure, and when he felt the guy’s flesh already cooling, he motioned that he was heading up the stairs, and then for Barnes to follow him, facing the other way.
Barnes nodded—he assumed the guy would have his back.
He’d gotten to the third floor when he heard the slamming of the door behind him, and he turned just in time to deflect a kitchen knife wielded by a whippet-thin woman covered in blood.
“Ma’am!” he shouted, wrestling her for the knife. “Ma’am! We’re the police! You’re safe now! He’s dead!”
Dispatch had reported a hysterical female calling about her husband, who’d done all her stash and was trying to slit her throat. Crosby hated domestic disputes—all cops did—but the drugs, the violence, and the location near a business put it directly in Active Crimes patrol.
“You killed him!” she screamed. “You killed him! He was all I fucking had!”
She swung the knife outward, and he blocked with both hands, waiting for her swing inward so he could take her wrist and bring her close. Apply pressure… apply pressure… and the knife clattered from her hand as she screamed. With quick, efficient movements he swung her around and to her knees, then prone on the ground, where he held her in place with his knee and one hand and then cuffed her, still screaming.