Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance by Charlotte Raine Read Free Book Online Page A

for too long, Lauren,” Stewart says. For the first time, he glances over at me. “I can’t believe that Rodriguez wouldn’t tell you about the massacre though. It was huge around here.”
    “What happened?” she asks. I keep my jaw clenched as I stare at Oriental decorations on the wall. Stewart grimaces.
    “I shouldn’t be the one to tell you,” he says. “It’s…it was a terrible thing. It’s the kind of thing that makes you a firm believer that humans are inherently evil.”
    I see Lauren glance down at her phone. I’m sure that she’s itching to look up the massacre on it.
    “Were you there?” Lauren asks me. I try to remember how to breathe.
    “Yeah,” I say. The waitress returns with our drinks. After she leaves, I take a sip of my beer. “It happens in this line of work. When you get the badge, you should always have some kind of expectation that you’ll get hurt.”
    “Were you hurt?” she asks. I shrug.
    “I had a bullet in my pelvis,” I say. “It wasn’t too bad.”
    I sip more of my beer and she seems to get the idea that she needs to back off. We eat our Thai food in awkward silences and random comments about the case. Stewart leaves early when he gets a call from Officer Peak about a robbery case. Lauren and I poke at the remains of our food.
    “Are we going to talk about the massacre?” she asks.
    “No,” I say. She nods and bows her head over her food. She was so vulnerable when she told me about her parents’ deaths, and I can’t even show her the same vulnerability. The waitress stops by with the check and two mints. I take it.
    “How much was my meal?” Lauren asks.
    “I got it,” I say, pulling out my wallet.
    “Come on, we’re partners,” she says. “I can pay for my meal.”
    I shake my head and put two twenty-dollar bills on the check. “You can pretend that this is your welcoming meal.”
    She puts her straw between her lips and I watch the liquid flow up to her mouth. “Next time, you can just try to be a nicer person.”
    “There won’t be a next time,” I say.
    “Why?”
    “Because you will be my last partner,” I say.
    “Because…you’re quitting?” she asks.
    “No,” I say. “Because we’re going to stick together and nothing is going to happen to you.”
    She watches me as I stand up.
    “You just jinxed us,” she says, echoing my own words.
     
    ~~~~~
     
    “He looks like Bono,” Lauren says when the sketch of the man who was seen taking professional, pornographic photos of Timothy and Jasmine flickers onto the TV screen.
    “Really? He looks like a grungy Brad Pitt to me,” I say.
    “Have there been any calls?” she asks. I turn my chair.
    “Hey! Richmond!” I call out to one of the patrol officers. “You’ve been helping to man the phones. What have you gotten so far?”
    “I have…a lady who thinks her cat needs to be exorcised. A woman who thinks that her—and I quote— stinkin’, cheatin’, no good husband is the man in the sketch except her husband has been in prison for the last six years for dealing drugs. I also have a man who confessed to being the man in the sketch and when I asked him what he was confessing to, he said that he robbed four banks. There are a few police officers checking out that one right now. And then I had three different people tell me that the man was Bono.”
    “Told you so,” Lauren says.
    I turn back to her. “Why do phone tip lines never work?”
    “Because it’s a bit like saying Hey, have you seen this average height, average weight, average looking person before? And everyone wants to feel like they are contributing,” she says. “Besides, possessed cats are a problem.”
    I sigh. “So, we’re back to not having any leads?”
    “Other than Bono? No.”
    The phone rings beside Richmond. He picks it up. I rub my temple.
    “Oh, God, if that’s another senile geriatric, I’m going to tear out the phone lines,” I groan.
    “Marcus O’Dell? Why do you think it’s him?”