Frisk Me(56)

“Only a year?” Ava asked, genuinely surprised. She’d assumed that they’d been together since the police academy, not only because of their easy relationship, but because Luc had never mentioned having any other partner.

“Who was your partner before this?” she asked Luc.

If she thought she’d seen Luc Moretti’s emotional shutters slam down before, it was nothing like the ice-cold shutdown she was witnessing now. His eyes went cold and dead before he pushed his chair back. “I’ll get us another round.”

“Oh God,” Ava said, horror flooding her as she put the pieces together.

She turned to Sawyer.

“When you said a spot in Luc’s precinct opened up, you meant that…”

“Mike Jensen,” Lopez said, his face uncharacteristically somber. “I didn’t know him, but he and Luc were solid partners, you know? Luc knew his wife and kid and everything.”

For a second, Ava’s mind caught on the name, because Mike Jensen sounded familiar for some reason, but that thought was flooded by the horribleness of the reality as she put the pieces together.

Luc’s former partner had died.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

Sawyer opened his mouth but hesitated, his eyes searching her face as though looking for something and finding her lacking. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“He doesn’t exactly look like he wants to talk about it,” she said, her eyes finding Luc’s broad back at the bar as he waited to get the bartender’s attention.

Only after Luc had returned to the table and let Sawyer coax him into a good-natured argument on Mets (Sawyer) vs. Yankees (Luc) did Ava realize why the name Mike Jensen was so familiar.

It was the name of the officer killed in the Shayna Johnson case.

The one whose death had gotten the barest mention in the media coverage, as though the newsperson on duty had been reporting the weather instead of an officer who’d died in the line of fire.

There was no doubt that Luc Moretti was very, very wrapped up in the Shayna Johnson case, and she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk about it.

But the question was…

Why was it nobody else seemed to have talked about it either?





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE



I still don’t understand how the hell you got her phone number,” Luc said, pushing his fingers to his temples and trying to assess whether the urge to yell at his own grandmother was a first-class ticket to hell or not.

“You’re scowling, Luca,” Nonna said, patting his shoulder before starting to unroll her yoga mat.

“Damn straight I’m scowling!”

“Here, why don’t we do some nice yoga together; it will improve your demeanor,” she said.

“You know what else would improve my demeanor? You undoing your handiwork.”

“I know not to what you refer,” she said before standing on one leg and crossing her other foot over her knee with rather remarkable balance for an eighty-something woman.

“You know damn well to what I refer. The fact that Sims just texted me and said they were running thirty minutes late but should be here within the hour.”

“Sims?” his grandmother said, her dark brown eyes all cloudy confusion.

“Ava,” he ground out.

Nonna’s responding smirk told him she’d known all along what Ava’s last name was and had just wanted to call the wily reporter by her first name.

She dropped into a yoga pose and Luc growled before going to the fridge for a beer. It was only two o’clock, but he had the day off and he was sure as hell going to need it when the cavalry arrived with cameras to his house.

“I thought the home was supposed to be a sacred thing, Nonna,” he said, leaning against the counter. “Isn’t that like an old Italian proverb or something?”

“If it is, I’ve never heard of that damn-fool nonsense. But you know what is an Italian proverb? A good lay with a pretty brunette will make you less irritable.”

“That’s not a f*cking proverb,” he muttered.

It was true though.

Very true.

It had been over a week since he’d kissed Ava at her apartment, and although things between them had been friendly enough, it was harder than ever to be around her without touching her.

Even Lopez had noticed.

Not only had he sent Luc a variety of links on cures for blue balls, but he had also backed off his own flirting with Ava, along with a solemn “dicks before chicks” proclamation, which had just sounded plain wrong.

His grandmother rolled out of an awkward crab-like position and looked him over. “You should change.”

Luc glanced down at his jeans and white T-shirt. “Into what?”

“Your uniform.”

“Hell no. It’s my day off. The only day where I don’t have to let polyester anywhere near my skin.”

“Well at least wear your badge.”

“Nope.”

“But you’re carrying, right? Let her see your bulge.”

He gave her a look. “Nonna.”

She heaved out a sigh and glanced at the clock behind his head. “Fine. Doesn’t matter anyway. Anthony should be here any minute, and he’ll be in uniform. Your Ava can fawn over him.”