Temporary Partner (Valor and Doyle Book 1), page 24
I anticipated they would lawyer up, and we’d get nowhere fast. My gut churned and churned. The longer it took to get information, the more at-risk baby Mathieu would be.
We kept a pair of officers at the house to complete a thorough search of the premises. A team of CSIs was on the way to go over the room in the basement. If there was evidence of Mathieu having been there, they’d find it.
Once everything was as tied up as possible, I met Quaid outside on the sidewalk. He had his phone pressed to his ear, and I caught snippets of his conversation, so I knew he was talking to his sergeant. He paced, pressing fingers into his eyes the whole time.
When he got off the phone, an awkward silence filled the space between us. I was still unreasonably angry every time I looked at him. His cutting observation after our activities earlier still resonated inside my head.
“I guess I’m just another notch in your bedpost now, huh?”
I’d been worked up at the time. I figured the presence of alcohol had thrown me off my game—made me unnecessarily irritated. Quaid’s comment shouldn’t have grated under my skin. It was the truth, and I was usually the first to brag about my sexual conquests and their impermanence.
So why had I taken it so personally?
Why was I still so angry?
“Meet me at the station?” Quaid’s question broke me from my stupor.
“Yeah.” I stormed off, fresh agitation making me crack my knuckles over and over.
It was midnight on a Sunday, so the streets were about as empty as they ever got. I opened the throttle on the bike and made it to the station in half the time, parking in the underground lot.
Quaid pulled into the spot beside me five minutes later. I’d shed my helmet but hadn’t gotten off the bike. I was too busy rolling everything around in my head again and again—the Quaid stuff, not the case stuff—which was not where my attention should have been focused.
He got out of the Charger and came around to the other side, leaning against the car and staring a hot hole through me. I wouldn’t look at him.
“What the hell happened at my place earlier?”
I clenched and unclenched my jaw, unsure what to tell him. Why the hell did I have to explain myself anyhow?
Tony’s voice was inside my head, reminding me I’d overreacted by shattering the glass against the wall, asking me why I was so pissed someone had called me out when I wore my manwhore badge proudly.
“How come you didn’t tell this guy straight up you’re an alcoholic?”
“Are you having an unexpected emotion?”
I cracked my knuckles, ground my teeth, and faced Quaid. Of those dueling issues, one was simpler to deal with than the other. I was not having an emotion. The boiling anger was caused by pushing my self-restraint to the limit. Nothing more.
The jitters were back. I kept my hands fisted so Quaid wouldn’t see them shake. Ownership was the hardest step for me. It always had been. Tony was right. In my messed-up head, admitting I was an alcoholic was emasculating.
Quaid waited for an answer to his question. His patience was such, I bet he would have happily waited all night.
I’d said the words at every meeting I’d attended since Christmas. I could say them now. It was no different.
“I’m an alcoholic.” I cursed the barely audible confession. Quaid didn’t ask me to repeat myself, so I figured he’d heard. “Shoving a drink in my face after I said I didn’t want one was…” Don’t place blame. “You didn’t know, and I should have told you then and there. You put me in a bad spot. No, I put myself in a bad spot when I didn’t speak up.”
A long pause.
I didn’t know if I should keep talking or shut up. I chose the latter.
“How long have you been sober?”
“Eight months, but it’s been challenging. Tasting the rum on your tongue was… like an aphrodisiac.” My body responded with the memory, warming and tingling. “It was… really fucking hot, and… God, Quaid, your mouth was like a goddamn drug, and I was going out of my mind.”
It was the rum, not the person! I wasn’t having an emotion.
“Tasting it on you put cracks in the walls I’ve been building. After tasting you… it… I wanted that drink you poured me so badly I couldn’t think straight. Look, I’m sorry I threw the glass, and—”
“I understand now. I’m sorry I offered you a drink. I didn’t know. I thought you were mad at something I said.”
I was, but I don’t know why.
“I should have spoken up. I’m not too good at that part yet. I struggle being around alcohol. I try to avoid it.”
“Is that why you cut out early at the restaurant back in May? I thought you followed me outside on purpose.”
I nodded, unable to meet his eyes. Despite knowing it was healthy to share about my addiction, red-hot shame engulfed me. Instead of feeling empowered, I felt weakened. Embarrassed.
Quaid shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The fragile moment was about to end, but it was only fair that he gave me something since I’d given him something. He’d contacted Jack after I’d left, and I wanted to know why.
It wasn’t until my mouth was half-open, a question ripe on my tongue, that I wondered why I cared so much about this thing between him and Jack. It wasn’t my business. It wasn’t my life. I didn’t want anything more from Quaid, so why did I keep pressing the issue? Why did it annoy me so much?
“What?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You look like you were about to say something.”
“Oh.” I threw my leg over my bike, getting off. I stuffed my hands into my pockets since I had this uncontrollable urge to touch Quaid for reasons I couldn’t explain. “I was going to ask about Jack, but it’s not my business, as you’ve professed many times. You seem hellbent to self-destruct where he’s concerned. Who am I to stop you?”
He didn’t respond, which was infuriating because part of me did want to pick at that wound and find out what was going on. When I’d called him earlier and he’d thought I was Jack on the phone, I’d been pissed. Hearing those stumbling, panic-laced apologies had made me sick. What the hell did he think he owed that guy? Did he crave the abuse? I didn’t get it.
“Right. Never mind. That’s why I didn’t ask. We should get inside.” I turned my back on him and used a key to unlock the saddle bag and retrieve the Walmart bag I’d stowed inside.
When I turned, Quaid had popped the trunk on the Charger and found an evidence bag. Since I’d already contaminated the evidence by handling it, Quaid didn’t offer to take it and held the bag open. I dumped the contents inside. We used a second evidence bag to store the blue plastic Walmart bag.
Then we stood there again, neither of us eager to go inside.
Our gazes caught several times, and we both looked away until we could finally hold eye contact. I wondered if he was right back in the kitchen with me, watching me swallow his cock.
My mouth pooled with saliva. It had been a rare moment. Quaid had no idea how few people had seen me on my knees like that.
“We should head inside,” he said.
“If you ask me, we should make them sweat it out for a couple hours.”
The shadow of his smile was intoxicating.
“Can we get through this case without it being awkward?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“It probably shouldn’t have happened.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m not sorry.”
The soft hint of a smile he wore faded, and I read his mind like it was a billboard on the side of the highway.
“I’m just another notch in your bedpost now, huh?”
“Let’s go figure out what we’re doing,” he said, his voice huskier than usual.
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
We wandered inside in companionable silence, but the air between us remained charged with an energy we both preferred to deny. When we chose to ride the elevator instead of taking the stairs, we stood close enough I caught the heady scent of sex still on him. It took everything I had not to punch the emergency stop button, shove Quaid against the wall, and do it all over again.
“You didn’t shower, you dog?”
No response.
I chuckled. “I smell my cum all over you. It’s sexy.”
“Fuck you,” he muttered.
“Maybe next time?”
When the doors opened, Quaid lanced me with his trademark sneer. “You don’t do repeats, remember?” Then he barreled past me and stormed down the hall.
At least we were back on familiar ground.
twenty-five
Quaid
The first thing I did was head to the staffroom to brew some coffee. It was going to be a long night. The days were starting to blend and blur. Once I had the machine set, I impatiently stared at it while it gurgled and spat and dribbled steaming, rich Colombia brew into the pot. The aroma alone was enough to kickstart my sleep-addled brain.
I sensed the moment Aslan came into the room. “They’ve got them separated and sitting pretty, waiting for us. No one’s requested a lawyer, which I admit shocks me a little. Who do you want?”
“I’ll take Eyan.”
“You’ve got it.” Aslan approached the small kitchenette and started opening random cupboards. “Where are the extra mugs in this place?”
“Far left.”
I waited for the quip about setting foot in the MPU zone or being deep in enemy territory, but it never came. Homicide was on the same floor, but they occupied the other end of the building. An invisible line divided us. They didn’t come over here, and we didn’t venture over there. Unless forced.
Aslan set a mug beside mine and leaned back against the counter, leaving only a foot of space between us. I tried to ignore the way his shirt pulled across his chest and the evident mound in the front of his tight, faded jeans. Hell, I should have made a quip about the dress code, but knowing Aslan, he’d twist my words somehow until it looked like I was unable to function, too hot and bothered by his laidback clothing.
His ego needed no stroking.
“We should let them marinate in their flop sweat a bit longer. Do you have a desk somewhere?” he asked.
I gave him a look that said he was an idiot. He wore a stupid grin like he knew he was getting under my skin.
Once the pot was full, I poured our coffees and found milk in the fridge. We kept a few packets of Sweet’N Low at the back of the utensil drawer, so I dug one out and added it to my mug.
“You should take some Advil or something,” he said. “Your headache will come back. You’re still working on no sleep and pure caffeine.”
“Whose fault is that?”
There was no more than a skeleton crew working at this time of night, but Aslan lowered his voice and leaned closer. “Hey now. Don’t blame me. I thought a good orgasm would help you get some shut eye. It’s not my fault you wasted it calling that dick fuck face jerk asshole.”
I tried not to laugh, but a snort escaped unbidden. “Dick fuck face jerk asshole? What are you? Ten? Those are some nasty playground words.”
“Just saying.”
“I’ll take Advil. Happy?”
“It’s your head.”
We ended up at my desk in the bullpen. The place was desolate. One computer was aglow in the back corner, but whoever had been working on it was nowhere to be found. They’d also been eating fish if the lingering scent in the air said anything. My stomach roiled at the stench, and I tried to ignore it.
I dropped onto the chair at my desk, exhausted, and found the bottle of Advil I’d stashed in a drawer. I took two tablets with a sip of coffee as Aslan admired the mural of missing people plastered all over the wall beside my desk. There were hundreds more buried in file boxes or hung at other detective’s stations, but the ones I surrounded myself with were the cases I’d been assigned to over the years. The ones I’d never solved. They were the faces that infiltrated my dreams at night, calling me a failure.
For every new person I hung on the wall, a small piece of me died inside. The photograph of Mathieu burned a hole in my pocket. The last thing I wanted to do was add his picture to the mix. Considering it made me sick. The job slowly sucked the life out of anyone with half a heart. Dad had warned me when I’d gotten the promotion to detective, but I’d inherited his stubbornness and determination, so it was inevitable I would follow in his footsteps.
The wall wasn’t strictly children. Like I’d told Aslan before, men and women, young and old, vanished without a trace every day. What was worse, sometimes they turned up months or years later as corpses. Their pictures got taken down, and their files got shipped off to Aslan’s side of the building. They went from a missing person to a homicide case.
He knew it, and I knew it.
Neither of us said it out loud.
“I think this would break me. I don’t know how you do it.”
He was staring at the image of Bethany Swanson, a six-year-old little redheaded girl who’d gone missing two years ago, taken from her school where she’d been waiting in the yard for her mom to pick her up. With dozens of parents around, picking up their own kids, it was staggering to find out no one had seen anything. What made Bethany’s case worse was that her abduction had taken place during a riotous political scandal, so she didn’t get nearly enough media coverage. Most Torontonians had never heard of her and never would. I wanted to believe Bethany was out there somewhere, alive and well, but odds were, she’d been killed within hours or days of her abduction.
Before Aslan glimpsed the one missing person poster I didn’t want him to see—the only one that wasn’t technically my case—he turned his back on the wall, shuddering. His color wasn’t good as he drank deep from his coffee mug and sat on the corner of my desk with his back to the photographs.
“So,” he said, gaze raking over the empty bullpen.
“So.”
That was the moment when the night caught up with us. We had Mary Ellen and Eyan Bisset sitting in two separate interview rooms. We had a hidden and fully equipped nursery in their basement with evidence it had been in use. We had potential ties to a piece of ceramic artwork left at a crime scene where another baby had gone missing years ago—in the same city where our couple had resided at the time. We had an ex-prenatal nurse, ongoing infertility issues, and a caustic relationship with the family of the current missing child.
But what we didn’t have was any clue where Mathieu Paquet was.
At half past one in the morning, we separated, both of us taking an interview room.
Eyan Bissett had his elbows propped on the table and his face buried in his hands when I entered. He lifted his head enough to see who it was, then lowered it again.
“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Bissett? Water? Coffee?”
He shook his head.
I sat across from him and waited. A middle-of-the-night interview wasn’t ideal, but with a clock ticking and a baby missing, we didn’t have the freedom to make the couple sweat it out until morning.
Eyan remained disengaged, face covered.
“I want to make sure you understand why you’re here. You have not been formally charged, but we are holding you for questioning. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence and several unanswered questions we’re hoping you can help us with. The faster we get through this, the sooner we can move forward. Do you understand, Mr. Bissett?”
At first, I got no reaction. A minute passed, then Eyan pushed himself upright and leaned back in his chair, body sagging, eyes weary and red-rimmed. “Yes, Detective. I understand. I’m here because I want to clear up a misunderstanding. I had nothing to do with my nephew’s disappearance. I have nothing to hide. Ask your questions.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re willing to help. Before we begin, I’d like your permission to record the interview. It’s standard practice and has no bearing on whether I feel you are guilty or innocent. It’s a tool we use in place of taking endless notes. It will help me focus on the task at hand so we can be done faster. Nothing more. There’s a camera in the corner over there. You’ll see the green light indicates we’re recording. May I continue?”
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Can you state your name for the record?”
“Eyan Laurent Bissett.”
“And how old are you, Eyan?”
“Thirty-three.”
“How long have you and Mary Ellen been married?”
“Ten years.”
“Ten. How did you meet?”
“In university. She was finishing a nursing degree, and I was starting my BA in accounting.”
“So Mary Ellen is older than you?”
“Yes. A few years. She’s thirty-six.”
“What university?”
“McMaster.”
“In Hamilton?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s my understanding your wife took a job in the prenatal unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton when she finished school. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did she enjoy her work?”
“At first, she enjoyed it a great deal.”
“Explain.”
Eyan’s body seemed to lose energy. He folded forward again, leaning on the table, picking at a mark that wasn’t there. “We got married when I finished my BA. We’d been dating three years. It made sense. It was time. Mary Ellen wanted to start a family right away, so we tried to get pregnant after the wedding but were unsuccessful. After a year with no luck, we underwent testing to see if it was something medical, but nothing appeared to be wrong. The doctors told Mary Ellen to stop stressing and keep trying. The longer she went without getting pregnant, the harder her job became.”
“I can understand that.”
“No, Detective, you can’t. Please don’t try.” It was the first time Eyan’s tone changed since we’d started the interview.
I paused, watching him. He was pale, but a rosy tint colored his cheeks. Anger at my comment. When I didn’t immediately speak, he filled the silence.
