“You went home and got your spare?” He thought about it and said, “That takes a certain amount of tenacity, especially if the rest of you looks anything like your face. I’m sure premeditation won’t be hard to prove.”
“You fucking cheated,” he roared.
“You’ve been cheating for months,” Simon said. “What makes you think you could get away with that forever?”
He stared at him. “I can’t go home,” he said. “You don’t understand. I can’t go home like this. My wife will kill me.”
It amazed Simon that these guys could face down all kinds of danger, even get their faces punched in, but the thought of going home and confessing to their wives what they’d been doing terrified them. Big strong men, shaking in their boots. “Yes, you can.” He turned and walked away.
“Wait,” the cheater called out.
Simon turned, looked at him, at the gun, and said, “If you shoot me, then you best make sure you kill me. If you’re after the money, most of it is gone already.”
The cheater stared in shock. Simon pulled out the bag to show him. At the sight of the much smaller pile, he looked like he would walk away. Simon shrugged and turned his back on him again.
A shot fired behind him.
Simon stood for a long moment, eyes closed in resignation, then turned to look. “Shit.”
Chapter 11
Friday Morning, Later
By the timeshe crashed in bed, Kate was so past exhausted, she didn’t have time for a shower. Waking up four hours later, she knew that was all the sleep she would get. She dragged herself from bed to stand under the hot water, as it sloshed over her shoulders. Her apartment still had boxes from when she’d moved in two years ago. It was the story of her life. She ate on the run, slept on the run, and everything else just came to a grinding halt.
She’d had a couple quick relationships over the last few years, but that was it. Now she didn’t even bother with those. Nobody understood her work; nobody understood her drive, and that was okay. She was who she was, and she’d be damned if she would give that up for anybody else anymore. She’d done that with her prior relationships, but she wouldn’t ever again.
She opened the fridge and found nothing to eat. She groaned. “I’ve got to get to a grocery store someday,” she murmured. Neither was there any more coffee. She rubbed her eyes, put on her holster and her jacket. Next, she put on her boots, which were looking more scuffed and well-worn than they should be, and headed out the door. She stopped at the first vendor and grabbed a pretzel, wondering how she was supposed to live on carbs alone. As she headed to the office and walked in, straight to the coffeepot, she noted she was the first one in.
She filled her big mug and sat back down and munched through the rest of the pretzel. The others all came in after her. They looked at her and groaned.
“Are you always so fucking early?” Owen asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Roll over and try again?”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“We don’t have anything to go on yet.”
“Maybe, but we do have to get somewhere on it.”
“Have you actually started working?”
“No,” she said, “too tired.”
“Great, you’re still human.”
She stared at him in surprise. “I’m pretty-damn sure that’s not what you were gonna say.”
“Yeah, it is,” he said. “You’re always first in, and you’re always last out. You’re always so damn perfect that you’re making the rest of us look like shit.”
She gave a startled laugh. “No,” she said, “I’m just doing my job so I get to keep it.”
He stopped at that, looked at her, and nodded. “That makes sense, and, by the way, I still could shoot you if you didn’t leave me any coffee.”
She was just so damn busy with all these cases now that she was eating, drinking, and sleeping them. She didn’t dare give herself a break because those kids hadn’t gotten one either. The last thing she wanted to be was a cop who was asleep at her job when yet another child was taken. She also knew she wasn’t to blame if it did happen, but the idea was pretty hard to live with.