Dirty Kiss by Rhys Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

that I probably would need if I was going to go any further in Hyun-Shik’s death. My throat closed up around the words. It was like standing in front of my father again, unwilling to crack open and be vulnerable. There was nothing to lose, except perhaps the job. Suddenly, I wasn’t certain the Kims would appreciate a gay man looking into the death of their son. “You have my card, right?”
     
    “Yeah.” Patting his front pocket, the smile dimmed just a bit.
     
    “Call me, please,” I asked softly. The edge of my card was peeking out of the pocket, his thumb pressing down against the corner. “If you have anything to add or if you want to talk about your cousin.”
     
    “Sure.” We both instinctively stiffened when the taps of high heels in the hallway alerted us to Grace’s approach. “You’d best head out before Almira Gulch catches you here.”
     
    It wasn’t until I was halfway to my office that I realized I’d laughed more in that short time in the kitchen than I had for the last two years. My ribs ached a bit, and I rubbed at the scar stretching over my abdomen. It hurt, as did the one on my leg, but that was from running away from Mrs. Brinkerhoff. The pain stabbed into my gut. A treacherous twist echoed in my chest as I thought of Rick for a fleeting moment. With any luck, I wouldn’t hear from Jae-Min Kim again, and I’d be better off for it.
     

     

     
    There was a section of a redwood tree standing on the front porch to my office. It wasn’t a real tree, just one of Claudia’s many offspring. In all of the time that I’d known Claudia and her brood, there was never a mention of Mr. Claudia, and I’d never worked up the guts to ask. For all I knew, he was alive and well, chained someplace in her house with a never-ending honey-do list, a fate worse than death in my book.
     
    As I mounted the steps, I noticed the man on the porch was, at most, in his late teens, and if possible, even larger than my mind could comprehend. I was tall, but he stood nearly a foot taller than me and a solid six inches or so wider across the shoulders. He saw me look at him, and he straightened, distancing his head from mine even more.
     
    “Hey, Mr. McGinnis.” I tried not to flinch, hearing myself age about twenty years as he spoke.
     
    “Hey.” I nodded my chin at him. It might not have earned me cool points, but maybe I could gain back a decade or so of my youth. “Which one are you?”
     
    “Mo. Martin’s my dad.” Dangling a set of keys from his fingers, he gave me a sly smile. “He said if I picked Nana up this afternoon, I could have the car tonight to go out with.”
     
    “Excellent deal.” I saw movement in the office, shadows moving behind the black-screen security door. “Guess I better get in there before she comes out here and gets me.”
     
    “Yeah, you don’t want that,” he rumbled. “Nana told me to wait out here on account that you all had business. That okay?”
     
    “Oh yeah, it’s all good.” Nodding again, I braced myself for the Brinkerhoffs. “I’ll send her out. Sorry you had to wait.”
     
    “No problem.” His grin was wide, creasing his strong face nearly in half. “I got out of mowing the lawn. Sissy had to do it instead.”
     
    There wasn’t a gender line dividing tasks in the Clan of Claudia, and other than not being massive enough to form a sea wall to hold back a tsunami, the girls in the family were expected to do the same chores as the boys and vice versa. Self-sufficiency was a stern requirement in that genetic pool. Made me wonder what they did to the ones who failed to live up to their matriarch’s expectations.
     
    Dressed, Mrs. Brinkerhoff looked much more of the traditional grandmother I’d had in mind when I set out to stalk her the night before. There was not a shred of black studded leather in sight, her lush body covered by a floral-print dress. She sat primly in one of the comfortable wing chairs I’d reupholstered in a red faux