Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)(2)

Chuckling, I shook my head. “I don’t know. I mean, I could definitely stand to get laid.”

“We could all stand for you to get laid.”

I shot her a pointed look.

She shrugged without an ounce of contrition. “What? Don’t act like it’s not true.”

I opened my mouth to remind her that I wasn’t the only one in this car who was less than bearable when I wasn’t having sex once in a while, but right then, the radio came to life.

“All units, 242 at 4th Avenue and Wall Street.”

Laura and I exchanged glances. A fight. Lovely.

“That location’s only about two minutes from here,” she said.

“Let’s go.” I put the car in drive, and she got on the radio to advise the dispatcher that we were responding.

Though Seattle traffic was always snarled to hell, I knew some alternate routes and back roads to get us there faster without running lights and sirens. In minutes, I pulled into the parking lot of a bar and grill type restaurant a couple of blocks from the Space Needle. Dispatch confirmed that a second unit was on its way but was still several minutes out.

The apparent disturbance consisted of two Caucasian males in their mid-twenties, with what looked like a couple of restaurant employees trying to run interference. Both men were brick shithouses, too. Not balloon animal bodybuilders, but they had that hard, compact build that meant that if they went to blows, this situation could get ugly real fast.

A small crowd had gathered, and several were filming with their phones. Beside them, a very expensive yellow sports car had a smashed windshield and an impressive dent in the fender. There didn’t appear to be any weapons in play.

“Well, this should be fun,” Laura muttered.

“Always is.”

We got out of the car and cautiously approached the scene. Almost everyone at least glanced our way, including one of the two men involved in the altercation. The other kept right on screaming at him while the employees warily tried to stay in between them. He gestured wildly as he spoke but didn’t seem to be armed or intoxicated. Just really pissed off.

“Hey, hey,” Laura said in her cop voice. “Enough.” She stepped into the fray with me right on her heels. “Sir, I need you to step back and be quiet.”

The man was instantly silent, mouth still open. His arm stayed upraised, frozen in mid gesture, and he stared at her, as if stunned by the blond pony-tailed woman a head shorter than him who’d walked up into his space and told him to shut up. Laura had that effect on a lot of people. She was the opposite of intimidating, which made her that much more intimidating when she fearlessly threw her authority around. I loved my partner.

“You,” she said to the other man. “Go over there.” She pointed at a bench beside the restaurant’s tinted glass doors about fifteen feet away. “Sit down. Don’t talk. Don’t move.” The second man blinked, but he didn’t protest. He shuffled away and did as he was told. As he walked past me and I got a good look at his angular, freckled face, I had a flicker of recognition, but I couldn’t place him. A repeat offender, maybe? There was something familiar about him, anyway.

To the first man, Laura said, “And you, go stand over there.” She nodded sharply in the opposite direction. He started to speak, but she put up her hand. “Go stand over there. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Once the men were where she’d ordered, I turned to the flustered restaurant manager. “I’m going to need statements from you and your employees after we speak to these two.”

The manager nodded, glaring at the man who’d been screaming when we’d arrived. “That one better not leave before he pays for my broken dishes.”

“Broken dishes?” I asked.

“Yeah. Threw a conniption while they were having dinner. That’s why I kicked them out. Then they just took it out here in the parking lot and kept at it.”

Laura scowled. “We’ll need all that information in your statement.”

The manager nodded again, and he eyed the two men warily before he and his employees went back inside. The onlookers gave us more room, but three were still filming because of course they were.

“Which one do you want?” I asked Laura, keeping an eye on the more volatile of the two men.

She had her attention fixed on the other. “That one looks pretty rattled. He might need a light touch.” Her eyes flicked toward me. “Why don’t you talk to him while I take the screamer?”

I snorted. “You just like dealing with hotheads.”

“Um, yeah.” She shrugged unrepentantly. “And you’re good with the emotional ones. That’s why we rock as partners.”

I suppressed a laugh, mostly because no one—least of all the cameras—needed to see a cop snickering at the scene of a very public altercation. “All right. Go get him.” I started toward mine, but hesitated. “Hang on.”

She stopped. “Hmm?”

I glanced back and forth between them. Laura and I weren’t exactly slouches, but neither of us were built like these two. She was all of five-foot-six, and though she was strong as hell, not to mention fast, there was this thing called physics. The two men we needed to question were big. The hothead was a solid six two or three and seriously broad. The other was around my height, so maybe five-foot-ten or eleven, and made of pure muscle. If either of them, or especially both of them, decided to get cute, Laura and I had weapons at our disposal, but again…physics. Put them alongside us in the ring, and I was pretty sure the two walls of muscle would have an advantage over a petite officer and her middle-aged partner with the fucked-up ankle and a couple of shoulder surgeries under his belt.