Needing Her (From Ashes #1.5)(22)
“I will kill you for this! You flooded my apartment!” I yelled, knowing full well he could hear me.
Grabbing all the towels in the bathroom and linen closet, I ran back to my living room and started throwing towels everywhere as I continued to scream and curse Connor Green. Not five minutes into trying to dry everything so there wouldn’t be permanent damage, two different neighbors stopped by because of my screaming, and graciously lent me piles of their towels too.
“What happened?” an older guy who lived across the hall from Connor asked. “And what’s with the trash can?”
I gritted my teeth as I gathered soaked towels to take them to my laundry room. “All I’m saying is this, if you hear my neighbor yelling tonight . . . just know that he’s getting what he deserves.”
The guy jerked his head back before continuing to pat dry my throw rug. “The guy I’m across from?”
“The very one,” I hissed.
He shook his head and huffed. “You’re saying this is because of him? I don’t buy it. That guy is the quietest neighbor I’ve ever had, and isn’t he law enforcement?”
My face drained of expression as I stared at him. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean for me right now? I grew up with him. Pranks are kind of a phase we go through every now and then.”
He just continued with shaking his head. “Just doesn’t seem like that kind of guy.”
I wanted the guy to leave, but he was helping me dry my apartment. So instead of responding again and being snotty, I just walked back to the laundry room and threw the towels into the washer.
Once we were done, I went to Connor’s apartment, but wasn’t surprised to find him gone. I figured he was at work, with how long he’d been off. Part of me was happy that there had been a prank at all. A very. Very. Small part, mind you. Because that meant that whatever weirdness had been going on between us was, hopefully, ending. But I was absolutely livid that he almost gave me a heart attack as I’d sat on my toilet, and then flooded my apartment.
Shit just got real, Connor Green. I’m going to enjoy pissing you off.
Connor
PICKING UP MY phone off the desk, I glanced at the screen and didn’t give it a second thought when I saw PRIVATE NUMBER. I always had informants calling from blocked numbers, and since my partner, Detective Sanders, and I were getting nowhere fast with a homicide that wasn’t adding up from two nights ago, they were expected and wanted.
“This is Detective Green.”
“I’m interested,” the deep voice said.
“Excuse me?” I grabbed for a pen and pad of paper, and waited for the voice to start up again.
“I’ll call you ‘Daddy.’ ”
The hell? “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.” I pressed END and stared at the screen for a few seconds before shaking my head and putting the phone back on my desk.
“Who was that?”
I looked over at Sanders and shrugged. “No clue. Okay, every lead we’ve gotten has been a dead end. Let’s review the footage from the store again, look at all the people who entered after him and left before or right after he did. Let’s get all the cars we can see from the outer cameras, and make sure they all match people who were accounted for in the store.” I loosened my tie and ran a hand through my hair. “I need more coffee first, want some?”
Sanders looked over at me like I was stupid. “We’ve been at this for almost thirty hours. What do you think?”
“That you need to get your own damn coffee if you’re going to be a bastard, gramps. I got called in same time you did, I’m just as tired as you are, and I’m just as lost about this case as you are. Don’t be a dick to me because we’re not getting anywhere,” I snapped and walked over to the coffee station.
Sanders and I were complete opposites, but when we worked together, we were damn good. To have a case that left us completely clueless was frustrating for both of us. We needed to go home and get some f*cking sleep before we tore into each other.
The victim had been shot three times as he’d exited a store in a nice part of the city. He lived alone, and nothing had been stolen or happened to his house before or after the shooting; he still had his wallet with all his money and credit cards on him, and he had no ties to gangs or drug trafficking. No witnesses saw him get shot, but the way it was done was like someone was getting revenge, or sending a sign. And where he’d been standing was out of range of the outside cameras. All his immediate and extended family lived in the Midwest and couldn’t believe what had happened when we’d called. According to them, and everyone he worked with, he was the nicest guy and kept to himself. I’d been sure we’d find something when we tore apart his apartment, but there’d been nothing. We’d just finished going over his phone records when my phone rang. Other than work and family . . . there was nothing. Murder was what I faced with my job; more often that not, it was gang or drug related. But these cases where the victims were completely innocent were something that just tore you apart. The need to solve them intensified, so you could give the family some kind of peace.
After getting both Sanders’s coffee and mine, I walked back over to our desks and handed him his. “Come on, let’s go review the footage again.”
Two and a half hours later, Sanders and I were more frustrated than we’d been before. There was nothing, and in the large gap between outdoor cameras, there were multiple lanes the shooter’s car could have gone down, but none had gone through both cameras at the right timing. We were getting ready to do a press briefing with news outlets about what had happened, asking for help and any information, before we called it a night, when my phone rang again.