She was a little more than ten years older than me, but she looked more motherly than I thought I ever would. It wasn’t that her short hair was a solid dark brown rather than my wild style, or even her actual age. Estrada had always wanted children, and I got the impression she dressed herself for the part. She’d told me that it wasn’t possible for her, but not why. The pain in her eyes had kept me from asking. It wasn’t any of my business anyway.
“I don’t think he has a fever,” I said. “And after his bath, he felt better, so I think he’s over the worst of it.”
Her concerned gaze darted back toward the bedroom. “There’s that flu going around.”
I shook my head. “I read about that. It’s not a stomach thing. The fever’s what you need to watch out for.”
“Could it be something he ate?” she asked as she set down her purse and took off her jacket.
I sighed. “Possibly. I can’t think of anything I have here that would’ve made him sick. I always check the expiration dates.”
“Was Iva sitting this morning?”
I could tell she was trying to keep the disapproval from her voice, but I saw it anyway. “She didn’t say he ate anything strange.”
Estrada pursed her lips. “She probably let him run around right after eating, and he got worked up. It may be winter, but kids can still get overheated.”
“Iva would never do anything to hurt Austin,” I protested.
Estrada shook her head. “Not on purpose, but she doesn’t pay attention the way she should.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Iva wasn’t mean or anything, but she always seemed like she had somewhere else to be, somewhere more important. It wouldn’t be too much to imagine she was talking to someone or go through social media when Austin ate too much of something. A look through the cupboards would tell me what was missing, but I didn’t have time to do that now.
“Did you change your schedule?” Estrada asked, tilting her head in curiosity.
“No, why?”
She held up her phone, so I could see the time.
“Shit! I’m going to be late!”
I shoved my feet into my shoes, snatched up my purse, and was out the door without saying goodbye. Estrada knew I wasn’t being rude. After Rhoda’s stunt earlier today, I needed my second job more than ever. I mentally cursed as I ran down the stairs. The clock in the bedroom probably needed new batteries. I always forgot about it until it started running slow, or stopped running altogether, but my phone was usually nearby for me to check. Tonight, however, I’d left it in my purse while I’d been taking care of Austin.
I headed for the bus stop at a jog, moving around people who either didn’t notice, or cursed at me, but none of that phased me. If I missed my bus, I’d have to race to the next stop for another bus, then take two more to get to where I was going. I’d be late for sure.
And there’d be hell to pay.
I was more than five minutes past the scheduled time for the bus to leave, but it was still there when I arrived. I darted up the stairs, swiped my pass, and dropped into the first empty seat. Unless we got lucky with lights and traffic, I’d still be late but not as much as I would’ve been if I’d had to take a different bus.
Still, I couldn’t relax. I tapped my foot impatiently, leaning forward as if I could make us go faster through will alone. At least I didn’t have to change into my uniform before I could clock in. I hated wearing it in public, but when I was running late like today, I was glad I’d started taking the tiny skirt and equally tiny shirt home with me. I hadn’t done it for the time though. Technically, we had two uniforms, so we could alternate days and allow time for them to be cleaned, but we marked the tags with our initials to ensure that we got back the right sizes. My clothes kept getting lost or returned in a smaller size.
I couldn’t figure out how they managed to find anything smaller unless they’d gone to children’s sizes…and even then, it would’ve had to be a small child because I wasn’t very big.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
I gritted my teeth and ignored the asshole behind me. There was always at least one. Why did some men think that a woman sitting alone was fair game? It wasn’t my clothes. I got the same shit no matter what I was wearing.
“Come on, don’t be like that. Just talk to me.”
“Why don’t you back off?” A deep voice cut off whatever else my admirer was going to say. “Take a hint.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I think I’m talking to a little punk who can’t understand that his attention isn’t wanted.”
I closed my eyes and wished that I was somewhere else. Pointless, I knew, but it kept me from screaming in frustration.
“Whatever.”
A scuffling behind me told me that someone was moving closer. Whoever it was bumped into my seat hard enough to make me open my eyes. After a few seconds, when I hadn’t looked around, I felt someone lean over me.
“Some people are just jerks.”
I gave a short nod but didn’t turn around. “Thank you.”
“If you’d really like to thank me, you can let me take you to get something to drink.”
Damn being polite.
“I’m going to work.”
Warm breath moved closer to my ear, and I suppressed a shudder of revulsion. “Then let me pick you up after work.”
I clenched my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. I knew better than to speak to anyone hitting on me. If I didn’t react, they generally left me alone.
I looked through the windshield and mentally cursed when I saw I was still two blocks away. I turned around with my best fake smile and saw that my ‘savior’ had two gold teeth, three tacky rings, and the sort of smug-ass smile that told me everything I needed to know.
“Sorry. I’m on all night, and then I need to get home to my kid.”
And the magic word worked its magic.
“Okay. No problem.” He stood. “Have a good night.”
I didn’t feel the least bit bad about lying to him either. Sure, he’d gotten rid of that other guy, but no way had he done it without thinking he was getting something in return.
That was the way the world worked.
Five
Slade
“…so I come in, and he’s bent over the toilet, pants around his knees, and his cousin is behind him, trying to shove a condom full of heroin up Franco’s ass.” Neely let out one of his loud brays. “The cousin’s so startled, he pushes the whole thing up there, and Franco starts screaming about how he didn’t use enough lube.”
I rolled my eyes and drained my glass. This was the fourth time I’d heard Neely tell this story in the past couple hours, and while it’d been one of the funnier things that’d happened on today’s raid, it wasn’t nearly as funny as Neely seemed to think it was.
The waitress appeared to agree with me, giving Neely a tight smile as she added my glass to the others on her tray. When she walked away, he leaned over to stare at her ass, and I had to force myself not to punch him in the face.
“You probably would’ve had a better chance with her if you hadn’t eaten fish for lunch,” I said.
“I don’t think it would’ve helped,” Joey added with a grin.
“Why not?” Neely glared at her. “You think I couldn’t get a girl like her?”
Before he could get riled up, Ramon cut in, “I think Joey’s referring to the fact that our waitress just handed over a napkin with her number on it.”
“What?” Neely’s head snapped around. “Where? Why didn’t she give it to me?”
It was Joey’s turn to roll her eyes. “Because she wasn’t giving it to you, ass-hat.” She held up the napkin, covering the number as she displayed the top.
Joey, call me sometime.
Neely scowled as he slumped back into his seat. “Figures she’d be a–”
“You’re going to want to think good and hard about what word you say next,” I said mildly.
I could
put up with Neely being obnoxious, telling the same stories, checking out every decent-looking woman who walked by, but there were times when the things that came out of his mouth made me want to hit him. My loyalty to my co-workers had its limits.
He took another long swig from his beer before leaning closer to me. “You can’t tell me it doesn’t piss you off when you find out a gorgeous woman like that prefers cunt to cock.”
“Could you be more of a misogynistic bastard?” Joey said, the muscles in her jaw clenching.
Neely kept going, either because he hadn’t heard her, or because he didn’t care. “Can’t say I’d turn her down if she asked me to watch though.”
“I gotta take a piss,” I announced as I stood. “Try not to kill each other.”
“Don’t worry,” Joey said as she finished her drink. “Ramon will keep us in line.”
“If I don’t kill them myself,” he said mildly.
I snorted. “Just make sure no one finds the bodies because I won’t be your alibi.”
“Sure you will,” he countered. “Because Angelica will kick your ass if I go to jail.”
“You’re right,” I agreed with a laugh.
It’d been a good night. We’d busted six drug mules off a single tip and taken in fifty kilos of heroin on top of a dozen boxes of something we hadn’t even identified yet. Two of the mules – including Franco – were in the hospital under guard. One was just waiting for the drugs to pass, but Franco would need surgery. Most mules swallowed the condoms or balloons, then either vomited them up or waited for them to pass through their systems. Thanks to the actions of Franco’s cousin when Neely had burst in on them, the condom was lodged inside Franco in such a way that surgery was the only way to retrieve it. The whole thing had been done without a single life lost, which was rarer than I liked.
All in all, it’d been a great way to end the week. When Neely had suggested we go out for drinks after finishing our paperwork, all of us had been game to talk over how well things had gone. It was past seven though, and despite it being Friday, I knew Ramon and Joey would both be leaving soon. Ramon never stayed out late, and Neely was already getting on Joey’s nerves. It was too bad, because I wasn’t ready to go home yet. I wanted to blow off some steam, maybe even find someone to take home.
Sure enough, as soon as I came back to the table, Ramon was on his feet, tossing some bills onto the table.
“Nothing I can say to convince you to come out with me?” I asked anyway.
He smiled and shook his head. “After those late nights last week, Angelica made me promise I’d be home to tuck in the kids this week. They stay up an hour later Fridays, or I wouldn’t have even come out today.”
“You gotta get your balls back sometime,” Neely smarted off, earning a smack upside the back of his head.
Ramon was too nice to do it, but I wasn’t. “Show some respect.”
Sometimes, it was hard to believe that Neely was older than the rest of us. All the time.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ramon said. “I’m the one who goes home to a beautiful wife and six wonderful children.”
“Better you than me,” I said with a grin. He hit my shoulder and nodded at Joey before heading for the exit.
“That’s my cue too,” Joey said. She stood and stretched, gaining admiring looks from quite a few of the men around us, not to mention the waitress.
I sighed and gave her my best sad face.
“No good, Slade,” she said. “That doesn’t work on me. Besides, my date is hotter than you.”
“You wound me,” I said with a mock hurt expression.
“You wish,” she snapped right back at me.
“Be safe,” I said, becoming serious for an uncommon serious moment.
“You too.”
I plopped back down in my chair and reached for my glass. I wasn’t about to waste good beer. Besides, it gave me a chance to see if there was anyone here I wouldn’t mind taking home. Or, me going home with them. I didn’t really like taking women back to my place. It was ruder to kick them out than it was to leave right after we were done, and I didn’t allow sleepovers even with casual girlfriends.
“Now that we got rid of those two wet blankets, you and I can have some real fun.” Neely elbowed me and somehow managed to slosh his beer on himself.
I normally would have ignored him, but no one here struck my interest. I didn’t really have a type, and I wasn’t the sort of guy who automatically zeroed in on the best-looking woman in the room and went after her. Even if I was looking for a vanilla quickie rather than something a little more…involved, I needed someone interesting.
“You sure you don’t want to go home before you end up with a massive hangover?” I asked.
“Pfft.” Neely made a face. “I’m just getting started.”
Sure he was.
“You want to go somewhere?” he asked. “I know the perfect place to find some serious pussy. Better than anything they got in here.”
I could be crude sometimes, but something about the way Neely said it made me want to tell him to watch his mouth. I might use certain words in certain – sexual – circumstances, but even at my most flirtatious, I tried to be respectful. Neely struck me as the type of guy who saw women as nothing more than an object to be used and discarded.
As soon as I thought it though, I felt a stab of guilt. Neely didn’t have a lot of friends at work, or anywhere else for that matter, and I knew a lot of people said and did stupid things when they thought it was the only way people would like them. He was immature enough that it wouldn’t surprise me if that was his rationale.
“Why not?” I said, reaching for my wallet. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”
“Fuck yeah!” He jumped up, stumbled, then caught himself.
Not for the first time, I wondered how he’d gotten into the DEA in the first place.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we paid for our drinks and then headed for the exit.
“Triple D’s,” he said with a grin. “You know, like D-D-D. Like big–”
I held up a hand. “I get it, Neely.”
I had a bad feeling I’d made a mistake. The kind I’d end up regretting for a long time.
Six
Cheyenne
If one more creep slapped my ass, I was going to need to take a break to cool off, or someone was going to end up with broken fingers.
And I’d end up completely unemployed.
The thought of Austin at home, recovering from whatever had made him sick, made me grit my teeth and head back into the kitchen. I could put up with anything for him.
I took my tray of empty glasses over to the sink and waited to be acknowledged. Julio might’ve been the dishwasher, but anyone who pissed him off ended up getting fired or wishing that they had. He was a surly guy in his forties who smelled like cigar smoke and unwashed socks. Not exactly the sort of guy anyone would’ve wanted to handle their dishes.
You’d think working at a strip club would’ve put him in a better mood. Then again, he was stuck in the back and didn’t get to watch unless he was taking one of his many breaks. Or maybe, when you’d been watching girls take their clothes off for who knew how many years, it lost its appeal.
“Dump ‘em,” he grunted at me.
I leaned past him to slide the glasses off the tray and into the soapy water. I wrinkled my nose. The once soapy water. Now it looked like gray sludge.
I made a mental note to encourage every guy who wasn’t groping me to have a bottle of beer. The rest, I’d happily serve glasses ‘washed’ in that filth and wish them all dysentery.
“Cheyenne! Get your ass back out here! You’ve got tables waiting!”
I pressed my lips together, turned around, and headed back out. I couldn’t tell who’d yelled at me since one smoke-roughened voice sounded the same as the next when the music was blasting. It didn’t matter though. None of the other waitresses liked me. I didn’t like to waste time shooting the breeze, and I didn?
??t flirt with the customers to try to get a bigger tip. I did my work, but I didn’t try to pretend that I wanted to be here.
They said I was stuck-up and thought I was better than them. That wasn’t the truth. I knew exactly who I was: the daughter of a dead drug-addict prostitute. I’d had to work my ass off just to graduate from high school, but I’d had no delusions of college or a better life. I had Austin, and that meant practicality had to win out over dreams like art school.
I just didn’t feel the need to act as if this was the life I’d always wanted.
I walked over to a table of college guys who ordered another round of tequila shots, sidestepping a couple pairs of grabby hands. The younger guys didn’t really bother me much. They were the same as the macho assholes who harassed me on the bus. It was the older regulars who usually had a harder time taking no for an answer. They’d tell me how long they’d been coming here, how much money they spent, and how well they knew my boss’s boss’s boss or the police commissioner or whoever. I was just another commodity for them to purchase.
“I’m going on break,” Ruby announced as she shoved past me.
I held back a scowl as I made my way behind the bar. If she had a reason for telling me, I’d hear it shortly. She didn’t need me asking about it.
“Tables three and four need refills,” she said.
And there it was.
I nodded once to indicate that I’d heard her and loaded up my tray without a word. Ruby knew damn well she was supposed to make sure all her tables had refills before she went on break, but if I reported her, she’d get a slap on the wrist and be on my ass for weeks. It was easier to just do what she’d asked – well, ordered.
Table four wasn’t happy with the change.
“Where’s the waitress with the big tits?” a tall, scrawny man with a rather large nose demanded the second I got to the table.
“Ruby stepped away for a minute.” I delivered the standard response with a broad smile. “I’ll be bringing your refills until she comes back.”
“What if I don’t want a refill?” He leaned back in his chair and grabbed himself through his stained jeans. “What if I want something off the menu?”