Chasing Justice (Gay Detective Romance Novella) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Other Books by the Author

  About the Author

  Chasing Justice

  © 2015 by Corynn Crawford

  Cover art images, © Can Stock Photo Inc. / stokkete

  and © pixabay.com / PredragKezic

  Cover fonts © Franklin by Noah Kinard and Ostrich Sans by Tyler Finck

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The file contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and is licensed for private individual entertainment only and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.

  The material in this document is intended for mature audiences only and is inappropriate for readers under 18 years of age.

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  About This Book

  Nothing seems to be going right for New York City Homicide Detective Luke Everett. His wife of twenty-two years has left him, he’s having problems controlling his temper on the job, and his current case has been stalled for months.

  Things change when he’s paired up with Deputy U.S. Marshal Eddie Brock, who arrives from L.A. seeking help tracking down a murderer Luke was never able to put in prison.

  Eddie seems like Luke’s complete opposite in every way: an easygoing smart-ass for whom indulging in life’s pleasures—including men—takes top priority. But when their search takes them undercover at a gay club, Luke discovers first impressions can’t always be trusted, and he finds himself falling for Eddie despite every instinct of his conventional cop persona telling him otherwise.

  This 22,000-word gay romance novella features mature content, no cliffhanger, and an HFN ending

  Chapter 1

  The slapping sound of his leather dress shoes echoed through the alley as he struggled to keep up with the man he was chasing.

  “Stop!” he shouted, “NYPD!”

  Dodging plastic garbage bags and dumpsters with the awkward grace of a middle-aged cop who had been doing it for years, he hopped over a row of cardboard boxes and narrowly missed turning his ankle when he landed.

  “Goddammit, T.J., I’m too fucking old for this!” he yelled.

  Detective Luke Everett wasn’t prepared to be chasing someone down today; he’d been at a felony arraignment hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court wearing his best suit and tie when he’d gotten a call from a CI that the witness he’d been looking for had been seen. He immediately hopped in his unmarked squad car and sped to the location.

  Everett was working a murder of a known drug dealer which had been stalled for months because no one wanted to talk, despite the fact that it happened on a crowded corner in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Word on the street was that the dealer’s friend, T.J. Cobb, had witnessed the whole thing. Of course, T.J. found it in his best interest not to come forward.

  Unfortunately for Luke, the second he pulled up to the curb outside the bodega where T.J. was standing, the kid took off running.

  So now here he was ruining the best shoes he had chasing a knucklehead who didn’t have the balls to be a man and step forward to speak up for his dead friend.

  The end of the alley opened into a small area of concrete surrounded on all sides by apartment buildings. There was a chain link fence blocking off a narrow walkway through one of the buildings, and T.J. ran right for it.

  “No you don’t!” Luke bellowed, catching up to him just as T.J. had grabbed a post and was preparing to vault over. Luke snagged the back of his shirt and yanked him down, then purposely bounced the kid’s face against the fence.

  “What the fuck?”

  “That’s for making me run, T.J., you little shit. Careful or you might trip coming out of the alley.”

  “I ain’t gonna—”

  Luke smacked T.J.’s head against the chain link again.

  “I said be careful.”

  “Damn, man.”

  “We need to have a talk about Buddha,” Luke said, holding T.J.’s hands above his head so he could do a patdown.

  “Buddha dead, man.”

  “No shit. Everyone said you saw what went down,” Luke said, going through T.J.’s pockets.

  “They lyin’.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true, T.J. I know you’re scared the killers might come after you—”

  “I ain’t scared of nothin’.”

  “You might change your mind when they send you to Rikers for possession with intent,” Luke said, pulling a baggie of what looked like heroin from the front pocket of T.J.’s jeans.

  “That’s not mine.”

  “I just need to talk to you,” Luke sighed, handcuffing him. “Your boy Buddha is dead. Don’t you care?”

  T.J. shrugged.

  “You think about it,” Luke said, escorting him back the way they came up the alley, “and maybe we’ll pretend we never found you holding.”

  Luke keyed his radio and let the squad know he was on his way back.

  + + + + +

  Precinct headquarters was a typical stone mid-rise positioned right in the middle of the block. It probably would have blended with the rest of the apartment buildings in the area if not for the prominent flag flying from a bracket attached below an exterior window on the fourth story.

  The squad room was a completely open area surrounded by interview rooms on one side and offices on the other. A narrow hallway led to the offices of the higher ranking officers. Small windows let in a little sunshine in the morning, but for the most part the flickering fluorescent lamps overhead lit the space. It was claustrophobic and almost dungeon-like, but familiar, like a comfortable pair of ugly shoes.

  He was still amped up from the chase, so after putting T.J. into an interrogation room, he decided to change out of his suit and into workout clothes he kept in his locker. The precinct had a sizable exercise room, plus an area with bunk beds they affectionately named the “crib,” for when detectives were working long hours and needed to crash.

  Deciding on the free weights to work off his aggression, he loaded the weight plates onto the curl bar, locked them on, and went to work on his biceps. Luke was stout and barrel-chested, and loved the challenge of testing himself. He may have been closing in on forty years old, but he could still keep up with even the youngest guys at the squad. If only he could get his hair to stop thinning as well.

  He was doing steady reps when Beth walked in.

  He’d been assigned Elizabeth Mills as his partner about six months ago in the middle of an interdepartmental shuffle. She was intelligent, funny, and tough as hell. Luke found a comfortable rapport with her almost immediately, and that familiarity led to them sharing a kiss during a stakeout a few weeks ago, right around the time Kathy had left him. He’d instantly regretted it, and everything had been awkward between them since then.

  “I saw T.J. down in the box,” she said, sitting down on the lifting bench next to him. “Did he put up much of a fight?”

  “No, but he ran. I got a little angry.”

  “You know you were warned about your temper.”

  “My temper’s fine,” Luke huffed, bringing the bar to his chest.

  “Is that why you’re doin
g curls in the middle of the day?”

  Luke merely grunted in answer.

  “What’s going on with you lately?” she asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “You’ve been distant. Angry. It’s not like you at all.”

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind, I guess,” he said, continuing his reps.

  “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “I’m working through it.”

  “God, you are so full of shit, Luke,” she said. “You’re going through a rough time and keeping it all bottled up inside. We’ve barely talked since that night of the stakeout.”

  “What’s there to say? The kiss was a mistake. I’m still married to Kathy.”

  “You’re separated,” she pointed out.

  “It’s only been a few weeks.”

  “Luke—”

  “Bethy, listen,” he said, putting down the bar. “That night was a moment of bad judgment between us. Things are…complicated. We both agreed that was the case. It was just a kiss. You and I need to get past this if we’re going to continue working together.”

  “I don’t need to get past it, Luke. I need to know where we stand.”

  “We work well together, Beth. I don’t want to fuck that up.”

  She sighed deeply. “All right, I get it. Don’t shit where you eat.”

  “Are you pissed off at me now?” Luke asked, going back to his curls.

  “No, asshole, I’m not a sixteen-year-old teenager for Christ’s sake,” she said, kicking at his foot with her shoe. “I’ll get over it. But you need to start using your words more, and stop walking around here scowling and taking out your frustrations on suspects.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What about the staff psychologist? She might be able to—”

  “I don’t need a shrink,” he said, cutting her off.

  “It might help, you stubborn son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe I’ll think about it.”

  “Talking to someone might release some of that pent-up frustration,” Beth said. “Although, now that I think about it, a good fuck can cure that too.”

  “Beth—”

  “Oh, stop. I didn’t mean me, necessarily. But you don’t know what you’re missing.” She stood and shook her cleavage at him.

  Luke laughed. “If we weren’t working together—”

  “And if you weren’t still married,” she finished for him.

  “Yeah. Maybe. But you and I both know the work comes first, and nothing gets in the way of that.”

  Elizabeth groaned. “I’m calling bullshit on that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Right. Until you find someone cuter and blonder than me and bang her instead. Which I wholeheartedly advise, by the way.”

  “Not possible,” Luke said, smirking. “Although I do have a thing for blondes, no one’s cuter than you.”

  She smacked him on his arm. “You’re such an asshole.”

  “I am. And don’t you forget it.”

  “So…are we good?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “Always.”

  “Then you won’t freak out at me when I tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “When you’re done here the captain wants to see you,” Elizabeth said, making her way to the door.

  Luke tossed the bar down onto the padded floor with a thud. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that when you walked in?”

  “I’m giving you a chance to calm down a little before talking to him. I know how you are.”

  “What’s this about?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. But there’s no rush. Shower. Change. He wants to meet with me first.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t worry, you may be an asshole, but I’ve got your back.”

  Luke watched her leave, wondering what the captain had in store for him now.

  + + + + +

  He knew Beth was right. He’d been irritable and distracted these past few weeks, trying to deal with the stalled case with Buddha while navigating attorney paperwork every night when he got home. He was on a short fuse, and he was struggling with it. He’d even put his fist through the living room wall at home in a moment of rage.

  After showering and changing into a fresh shirt, he made his way back into the open squad area and his desk. He unfastened his holster from his belt and placed his gun into the drawer.

  The years Luke spent working Homicide had given the grungy, worn-down squad room a comfortable feel. The white board listing the names of current murder victims, written in different colored markers to differentiate between open, solved, and cold cases, covered an entire wall. A cork board propped up against a file cabinet—which had remained like that because no one could be bothered to hang it— was filled with various mugshots and wanted posters. The squad’s ancient coffee pot with the chipped rim burbled quietly to itself in the corner. Sometimes, Luke thought, being amongst the death and violence felt more like home than his house with Kathy and the kids did.

  But Luke wouldn’t trade the Homicide atmosphere for anywhere else. And that included his co-workers.

  Chase and O’Flanery were the old school detectives who looked at every case with a critical eye and a permanent frown. They’d been partnered for more than fifteen years, and their relationship had changed somewhere around Year Five from that of homicide detectives to a married couple.

  “What did I tell you about leaving your coffee cup on my side?” Chase whined at O’Flanery. “Do you want me to shoot you?”

  “You’re going to put me out of my misery for having to work with you? Please, Mother Mary, make it so!”

  The rest of the squad’s detectives always laughed at their antics, and they were lovingly put up with because their case closure rate was almost ninety percent.

  Before Luke could even start on T.J.’s paperwork, Captain Walton came up to him.

  “Luke, I need to see you in my office.”

  O’Flanery and Chase gave each other knowing glances.

  “What did he do this time, Captain, hang a suspect up by his thumbs?” O’Flanery asked.

  Luke scowled at him. “Why does everyone think I’m the hot head?”

  “Because you are,” Chase said.

  “I’m sure you two have roughed up a suspect on occasion,” Luke said.

  “Not since they made us stop doing it,” O’Flanery said.

  “Very funny.”

  O’Flanery laughed. “Damn, he’s easy to rile up.”

  “You better watch he doesn’t beat your ass,” Chase said mockingly.

  Luke sighed, knowing that while O’Flanery and Chase were purposely trying to get under his skin, they were right. He was having trouble controlling himself lately. Like Beth had mentioned to him, he had been warned, but hadn’t been officially reprimanded. He had his captain to thank for that.

  “I’d like to help, Captain, but I have a witness to talk to,” Luke said to him.

  “I know all about the witness,” Captain Walton said, “and how he somehow smacked his face against a chain link fence.”

  O’Flanery and Chase snickered to each other.

  “Shut up, you guys.”

  “You have anything to say about it?” the captain asked him.

  “That in the process of chasing down my witness to a shooting that happened in plain sight in the middle of the day, said witness tried to scale a chain link fence and was subsequently apprehended with a notable amount of heroin on his person.”

  “Was that before or after you hit him?” O’Flanery asked.

  “I didn’t hit him. His face kind of…bounced against the fence a little. He’s fine.”

  Chase and O’Flanery burst out laughing.

  “Walk with me,” Captain Walton said.

  He and Luke crossed the squad room and walked down the hallway leading to the captain’s office.

  “You told me you had a handle on things, Luke,” the captain said. “I’m star
ting to see things I don’t particularly like.”

  “I know,” Luke admitted.

  “I don’t want to see you losing control. You could fuck up your whole career over some skel.”

  “I’m distracted.”

  “Is it because of Kathy and the divorce?”

  “Among other things,” Luke said, not wanting to bother the captain with the rest of his problems, like the fact he hadn’t seen his kids in weeks, or that Kathy moved into her own apartment, or that he was completely alone in their family home in Queens he had worked so hard to make perfect, or that he and Beth had kissed. Shit, he was a ball of nerves lately.

  “Elizabeth is going to be taking over Buddha’s killing case.”

  “Captain, you can’t take me off the case! I’ve been going at that hard for the past month. I finally have the break I need if I can get through to T.J.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Elizabeth will be able to find out if he knows something.”

  “But my CI told me he was standing right next to Buddha when he got shot. He has to know who did it,” Luke argued.

  “Elizabeth is more than capable. See what she can get out of him.”

  “I guess I have no choice, right?”

  “No, there’s something more pressing that has come into the office this morning,” the captain told him.

  “More pressing than a murder committed in broad daylight a few blocks from an elementary school?”

  “Believe me, you’re going to want to hear what he has to say.”

  “Who’s ‘he’?”

  “Come on,” Captain Walton said to him. “Let’s go sit down in my office.”

  Chapter 2

  To Luke’s surprise, there was a man sitting to his left as he entered Captain Walton’s office. He was poured—rather than just sitting—in the leather chair, his body slumped in exhaustion.

  He was long and lean, with blond hair that brushed the nape of his neck in loose, unkempt curls. Sharp eyes followed Luke as he walked in, taking measure of the detective. He was only slightly younger than Luke, although years of what looked like hard living seemed to have age him prematurely. A weathered leather jacket, jeans, and scuffed boots added to the man’s rough look, making him seem like he’d just had a motorcycle between his legs.