Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Read online

  Drunk on dreams of pizza and mint chocolate chip ice cream, I stop dancing, recalling the fact Ang’s dead, images of her mangled shoulder flashing through my brain. “Stoke,”I say, unwilling to invite him to stay the night,“I’ve got to get my GPA back up—”

  “Yeah, I know,“me, too.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. We’ve got another crim quiz coming up.”

  “Nooooo.”

  “Yeah,”he says. “I can stay and help you study if you’d like.”

  I know what’ll happen if I let Stoke stay. We’ll toss our crim books in the living room floor and gorge on pizza, then ice cream. While we do that, we’ll make our best guess at figuring out who murdered Ang. Then before we know it, we’ll crash. And, finally, against my wishes, Stoke will have spent another night in my apartment. I’ll also have missed filling in for Ang at Omar’s tonight and probably get fired.

  The thought of trying to sleep with him crashed on my couch gives me the courage I need. “I forgot. I’ve decided to work at Omar’s tonight,”I say. “I need rest, Stoke, so I can’t stay up—again. Not now. When we’re done eating, you have to leave.”

  “Right, Blaze. No problem.” He grabs the pizza box and drags me, still stunned he’s being so cooperative, from the kitchen. “Let’s do what we can. I’ll even pick you up after work.”

  “No,”I say,“not in that Coke truck.”

  I’m aware it’s being stripped by the skinheads, even as Stoke and I are speaking, and that pisses me off all over again. Sorry for the owner’s loss, but needing to make sure Stoke leaves, I rub salt in a festering wound. “He’s picking me up. He said he’d make sure I got home after work at Omar’s,”I add, remembering his promise and my response to what I’d mistakenly perceived as Aidan’s advances. How could I have been so stupid? I thought he wanted me when we were parked in front of Stoke’s, but I behaved with as much willful abandon as the alley cat my mother accuses me of being. Stoke doesn’t need to know about my shame, though.

  As he pulls me into my tiny living room, I feel a slight tremor shake his body, like I’ve stepped on a slumbering crocodile’s tail. His hand tightening on mine is my only clue that I’ve made Stoke angry.

  Do I care? No. As of tonight, I’m firing my self-appointed Robin Hood. I’m taking care of myself. I don’t need anyone, except maybe Aidan, and I have to be honest with myself: needing him is more of a bad case of want. It’s just me acting like silly Cinderella and believing my prince will rescue me from my life of drudgery.

  It’s a dream, that’s all, a fairy tale I can’t afford to believe in, same as imagining I’ll ever get a call from the Rockettes—if I ever do finish my video. The only thing I’m sure of, and right now even that is in jeopardy, is that I will graduate college and pursue a career in law enforcement.

  “Stoke,”I say, pulling free,“we can work for an hour, but then you’re going home. I’m serious. And you don’t need to show at Omar’s. Aidan’s made plans to bring me home.”

  His heavy brown eyes take on a Basset’s droopy-eyed sadness. “But what about finding Angie’s killer?”

  “We can work on that some other time.”

  “What about your jump-the-line video?”

  “Some other time,”I repeat, tossing my textbook in the living room floor, along side the pizza.

  “What about—?”

  “No. Stoke, I said no. I’m riding home with Detective Hawks. That’s final.”

  “He has a partner. Why can’t shedrive you home?”

  Good point. “I guess he wants to drive me so he can ask me more questions about Ang,”I say, searching my brain. When did I tell Stoke about Aidan’s partner, Officer Barbie?

  “One more thing,”I say. “When you leave, take that Coca-Cola truck if it’ll still start. And don’t bring it here again—ever.” I stare hard to reinforce my point. “There’s consequences to stealing,”I add, wiping my hands in a“done with that lifestyle”gesture. “I realize it, even if you don’t.”

  Stoke’s expression keeps darkening. I see the anger lingering behind his hooded gaze, and something even darker, which I pick up on only because I’m Berta Colby’s daughter.

  “Is that big ol’ cop making Blaze turn sweetums on Stoke?”

  Mocking Professor Levin’s one thing, but mocking Aidan is definitely the wrong move. Biting into a pizza slice and moaning like I’m having sex, I shoot back,“No, he makes me feel a certain way believe methat goes beyond sweetums.”

  The remark pisses him off, but tonight I could care. “If we’re gonna study,”I say, standing my ground,“we’d better get busy. I’m going to work, and you my friend? You’re leaving when I say tonight.”

  “Who’s gonna make me? You?”

  The taunt makes my hand itch to use my shiv on his face. I feel inside my hoodie pocket for my shiv. My razor, always reserved for cutting, is there, too. In the right circumstances, I could be persuaded to use it on someone other than myself.

  “Stoke, don’t come any closer,”I warn, when he steps toward me. “I told you not to touch me again—”

  Chapter 30

  I spent the time after leaving Bite Doc’s office thinking about Megalo Don’s motive. I’m starting to feel obsessed. Not a good place for a homicide detective to be. Getting ready to look at Megalo’s third victim, I know I’ve got to pour on the heat and accept the stress I know’s coming, the anxiety and lack of sleep that working a homicide demands.

  I parallel park my Buick, get out, and suck night air into my lungs. Maybe it’ll help me stay awake. It’s closing time for the bars, so I wade through the student revelers out looking for a thrill and the chance to post selfies, along with their Facebook status: I was at the Brass Ass tonight.

  “Detective Hawks,”Kliebold Bucks, says, greeting me. A bouncer, he and I go way back. He’s sitting on a stool outise the Brass Ass. “You’re starting to be a fixture around here.”

  “I’d give my left arm not to have to be here tonight,”I say, glancing at the down-at-the-heels Brass Ass. A star above her entry pins the façade of the Ass into Newport’s night sky.

  Decades ago, the iconic strip bar attracted men—and money—from all over the U.S. Today, it sits sedately among revitalized historic buildings showing off hip roofs and sand-blasted brick walls. Girls once came here and poured their naked bodies like nectar into the gazes of lusting strangers. A few were immortalized in Hustler magazine as nude models. Nowadays, few co-eds want photos of themselves posing naked ending up on Facebook.

  I think of Alaina Colby. I don’t fault her for her choice of part-time work. Like the perverts that haunt Omar’s, I also enjoyed seeing her half naked when I went to warn her and the other dancers to be careful. I’m way off base, but I hope she finds a means of support. It’s a high risk lifestyle. There’s a whole world of crime associated with being an exotic dancer, one most coeds aren’t aware of, until it’s too late. One of the big problems is that dancers are targeted by dealers, who introduce them to drugs and then pimp them out. Once the girls are hooked, their lives are lost to the drugs. They’re also often out alone at night, or in places they shouldn’t be, so they’re easy targets for murderers, like Megalo Don.

  Cutting left across the sidewalk, I bowl through the Ass’ side parking lot and into the back alley that ribbons between Monmouth and Orchard.

  A frenetic panorama greets me. Several Crown Vics are nosed diagonally into the alley, blocking both ends and bathing the night in an eerie red and blue from flashing light bars. NPD deputies are working the scene, blocking rubberneckers and questioning everyone to identify witnesses. I doubt there’ll be any. I glance up. Cameras once mounted the buildings above this alley, but the soft economy has gutted business owners’ budgets. The money once spent on surveillance back here is now saved for cameras for the more heavily trafficked front entries.

  I give the rooftops another quick scan and take a wide-angle mental photograph of the crime scene.

  “Get the big pictur
e, son. Keep your eye on the mouse, not the cornfield you’ve found him in. Think like a Hawk.”

  That line rarely made me laugh. Think like a Hawk. Dad’s not my biological father, so to make up for that he sometimes overdoes his role as advice giver. Following it now, I start taking mental photos and imagining what things down here look like from up above.

  This is my first pass at the scene, so I don’t take notes. I’ll walk the grid here with Captain Meyers and DeeDee, or with Wes if he’s lurking nearby, and then write everything down later on. For now, I start by taking in the crime scene’s periphery.

  A darkened alley, it’s lit up by a jaundiced glow from security lights mounted above doors, rear entries to the businesses along the alley. These back entries are used mainly by service trucks or by drug dealers and others, like Megalo Don, to do their dirty work.

  More buildings with concrete block back walls. Like Omar’s, they also have no mounted cameras. This scene, where Megalo Don’s latest vic awaits my inspection, looks clean, no garbage or debris that usually plagues cities the size of Newport piling up.

  Finally, I zoom in on the alley floor and what all’s squeezed between the buildings’ walls. Up ahead sits a dumpster shared by all the businesses and located at the opposite end of the alley from where I’m standing. That’s where all the action is, and there’s one helluva commotion going on around it.

  Walking toward Omar’s, I note the distance from here to that dumpster, about sixty feet. It’s April, so Kentucky temperatures can hover between cold and cold as hell, about forty degrees or lower. Right now, forty is my guess.

  A million questions run through my head, but only one matters. Is the girl in that black trash bag by the dumpster Megalo Don’s third vic? She might have been frozen, like the other two, but I also wonder if this one will be thawed? If so, she’s a pretty mess.

  I stride past a knot of deputies who’ve cordoned off the alley. “Detective Hawks,”they mumble in greeting, but don’t stop working. Like I am, they’re here to do a grisly job. I don’t stop to chat or ask what they’re doing. Don’t need to. But I can tell something’s up from the looks they cast my way.

  It takes me about two seconds to figure out what’s wrong. I spot a figure backlit by the flashing light bars and headlights. If she gets tired working with NPD and decides to take up dancing at the Ass, DeeDee could add another fortune to the Laws’ family’s already engorged coffers with those long legs. Sprinting forward, wondering who the third guy with her is, I recognize two of the other three men standing beside her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I storm up to DeeDee and shove a hand straight out, blocking the view of the Cincinnati Enquirerreporter standing with her. “No, better yet, what’s he doing here?” Dumb question. I’m ready to mush Tim Stewart into the alley’s floor, right along with his cameraman, who steps back when I thrust my body forward like a clenched fist. “Get that camera out of here.”

  DeeDee’s giving Stewart the scoop. Ever the star, she wants her face splashed on the front page. Or maybe, having worked with him previously, she feels like she owes him a favor.

  “Aidan, Tim’s a friend of mine. I invited him here—”

  “I don’t give a damn,”I say, working to keep my voice low.

  Why didn’t I leave Bite Doc for later and haul ass here to my crime scene?

  “In two seconds he’s going to be a dead friend.” I turn back to Stewart. “Come in to the station tomorrow morning like everyone else, and get your information there.”

  “Screw you, Hawks,”he says. “She invited me and I’m staying on my story.”

  When I lunge toward him, several NPD deputies glance our way. A couple of them run toward us. Tim and his cameraman step back. I signal two of the deputies. “Escort their asses out of here—to jail if you have to. This scene’s being processed, Stewart. I don’t have to tell you what happens if you contaminate my evidence.”

  Two of NPD’s beefiest shoot over and stand beside me, flexing brawny backs and arms.

  “You can’t do this,”Tim says. “She invited me.”

  “I heard you the first time, but she’s not a reporter anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed. She now works for NPD, so she’s got no business inviting you here. Now leave.”

  When Stewart and his cameraman don’t budge, I order two officers we call“boots”because they’re always working the streets,“Arrest them.”

  The boots turn and scuff a few inches of alley gravel in Stewart’s direction. He backs off, grumbling and cursing. His photographer sprinting ahead of him to escape arrest, they find a spot and hover at the alley’s end near the back of the Ass.

  DeeDee glares. I’ve trumped her decision to shoot her friend a breaking news story.

  In exchange for what? What have I gained?

  She’s even more pissed than her media cronies. Miss Kentucky, spoiled scion of the rich Newport Laws family, glowers. Ignoring her ugly pout and the man standing beside her, I grab her sleeve and pull her aside.

  “What the hell were you thinking, inviting a reporter here?”

  She turns, glances toward the third man I’ve yet to identify.

  “Why are you looking at him? He’s not making the calls here tonight.” I want to shake her, but I’ve laid all the physical force against her flesh I dare. I’ll be lucky to escape a sexual discrimination suit, or worse. “This is my crime scene,”I say, lawsuit and be damned. “And I don’t recall giving you permission to invite reporters.”

  “Reporter,”DeeDee pouted,“one of my friends, Aidan. The other’s his cameraman.”

  She has no defense, at least none I’m going to hear. But bottom line? Her mother is Newport’s mayor, Darlene Laws, so even if I file a misconduct report on DeeDee with Captain Meyers, nothing will happen. She knows it. I know it. With my back to the stranger she’s been standing with, I ask,“What do you think’s going to happen when this story hits the front page?”

  Another dumb question.

  Freaks will crawl from the woodwork calling and claiming to be Megalo Don. One of those callers might even be Megalo Don. But I will expend so much of my limited resources chasing down useless leads that I’ll miss the critical one, the one I need, the one lead that can stop the bastard and save another young girl from ending up in this damn alley.

  “Are yougoing to spend time running all the crackpots’ leads down?”

  She glares her blue-eyed murderous glare at me. “I—”

  “Do you give a shit about her?”

  Not giving her time to answer, I point behind me. All I see is our vic’s head and a partial torso. The rest of her body is obscured by darkness and the fact that her chewed-up remains are stuffed into one of those big black commercial garbage bags Megalo Don uses, making me wonder if he’s got stock in Hefty. “Don’t you care about helping her?”

  “Why, Aidan, of course. Y’all know I do.”

  It hasn’t taken me long to figure out DeeDee’s modus operandi. Like many rookies with their caps set on becoming career cops, the“ass lickers and shit kickers”we dicks call them, DeeDee cares about networking, about building relationships between NPD and the Press. Most of all, she cares about growing her reputation.

  One day she’ll be my boss. She’ll make case assignments, which means I’ll sit at a desk until my Bates Lites’ rubber soles crumble. She’ll decide promotions: I’ll remain a detective until they shove me out the door with my pension. If she’s even attracted to me at all, she’ll dump me for the first alpha stud with the most power at NPD, and then she’ll kick me in the teeth while I watch her do him.

  “I’m really sorry, Aid. I don’t see how I could be jeopardizing our case,”she says, her vinegary voice of a moment before turning sugary, her tone growing contrite. “Timmy wouldn’t do anything—”

  “Aw, Je-sus!”

  “—other than his job.”

  “Don’t do it again,”I say,“not if you want to continue working with me.”

  Before I stride t
o the man waiting patiently for me to finish chewing out DeeDee, I give her an assignment I hope will keep her out of my hair until I can cool down. “Find out who Alaina Colby’s friends are. Get me their names, addresses, sexual preferences.”

  “Sexual preferences?”

  “Yes. You know. How they do it, what they like, and any special equipment they like to use while they’re fornicating. Crap like that.” I’m tempted to let go a line of vulgarity to make my point, but I hold back.

  “But Aid—”

  I turn. Stewart and his flunkie are watching from the sideline, camera rolling. If I choke DeeDee, it’ll be all over tomorrow’s paper. “Yes?”I say, gritting my teeth.

  “Isn’t that sexual profiling?”

  “Just getit, dammit.”

  Rebellion’s brewing in her eyes. I’ve obviously mistaken them for sexy blue bedroom eyes, but I quickly realize they are infinitely bureaucratic and calculating. “Get it,”I repeat, leaving no doubt what I’ll do if she screws up—again. “And bring it to me tonight when you come to my place for dinner.”

  You’ll suffer for using her like this.

  My brain’s telling me I’ve made a mistake, but I no longer give a damn. I haven’t had a turf war like this since I first joined NPD and one of the old dudes took me on—and lost. If DeeDee shows up tonight for our date, I’ll screw her into the mattress and then pick her brains to see what she and Meyers are up to.

  “We’re still on?”she asks, incredulous.

  I don’t need to glance at my watch to know it’s morning, but I do because weariness is taking its toll. Two o’clock. I’ve been going non-stop now for a couple of days. It’s been longer since I’ve slept. “Yes, tonight.

  “What? You don’t think I can compartmentalize my professional and personal lives, Rookie Laws?”

  She smiles. “I’m sure you can.”

  Game on!

  “Okay, so now—get my shit like I asked.”

  We’re back to our usual game, a move or two before checkmate—for one of us.