Page 89 of Power of the Mind

Diem’s face did a thing. It wasn’t a smile or an eye roll, but an odd mixture of pride and possibly embarrassment crossed his face. It was hard to say since he went to a lot of trouble to hide it, breaking eye contact.

“You know,” I said, switching gears, “if I take this to a detective, they’ll want to know why I need the reports. What am I supposed to say?”

Diem pressed his lips together, forehead creasing as he circled his desk and sat. He busied himself stacking the profiles, then folded his hands on top and stared at me.

Diem and eye contact was a finicky thing. Sometimes—most times—he struggled, and other times, like now, he locked on with daunting surety that made my skin come alive.

“You want to be a PI someday?”

I blinked, sat straighter, and adjusted my glasses. “Yes. Why? Are you—”

“Shut up and listen. Investigative work 101. Make connections in as many fields as possible. With authority, at the courthouse, the local jails, the city council, the school board, the hospitals, even with the fucking garbage collectors. You want as many people on the inside as possible willing to do dirty work for you. You make deals. You offer bribes. You get creative. Your connections will make or break you in this industry. If someone like me can do it, it’ll be a walk in the park for someone like you.”

I stared at Diem, who stared right back. It was the first time he’d insinuated I was or could be part of his practice. Did he mean it, or was he making a point?

When I didn’t respond, he offered me the stack of papers. “You have better connections in the department than I do. People like you. No one likes me. We need autopsy reports so I can eliminate the obvious.”

“What about your buddy Kelly?”

Diem’s jaw tightened. “I tried. Sometimes, your connections fail.”

“Did you call him an asshole?”

“Not to his face.”

“Baby steps.” I accepted the papers, pondering Diem’s words. “Is this nothing more than your creative way of getting information? Am I your bitch? Are you manipulating me, Guns? You know I have a boner for detective work. Are you playing me to get what you need?” I added a smile to dampen my jaded tone, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was right.

“No.” The eye contact vanished. Diem busied himself in a desk drawer but didn’t seem to know what he was looking for and rooted around endlessly.

“Are we partners?” I asked slyly.

Diem kept digging, a stitch growing between his brows, a flush rising in his cheeks. He blushed easily for someone so daunting and intimidating, and it was always a dead giveaway of how he felt.

“Diem?” I cooed. “Are we partners? Go on. You can admit it.”

“Get me autopsy reports.”

***

If the people in Rowena and Hilty’s files were deemedvulnerable,impressionable, orsuggestable, I was the opposite. Nothing got in my way if I didn’t let it. Case in point: Diem. But the way he’d shut down and gone into work mode today told me I would be wise to respect his need for space. Now was not the time to push the man where our nonrelationship was concerned.

He was talking. He hadn’t kicked me to the curb. In fact, the way he’d dodged eye contact and sidestepped my question about us being partners were positive things. If anyone was feeling vulnerable, it was Diem.

So I accepted the assignment and left the man to his devices—likely smoking and drinking, but we all had to find ways of coping in this mixed-up, stress-filled world. Some people overate. Others worked ninety-seven million hours a day, and people like me usually ended up at Gasoline, looking for a warm body to alleviate tension.

Usually.

Lately, the pull of a random fuck had lost its shine, and it was because of the moody, brooding giant I’d gotten involved with months ago. My stalker. A man who deemed himself unworthy. Diem’s beautiful, wounded soul had done something to me, but I wasn’t about to get my hopes up. The chances of it becoming more, of him letting me in were slim. He was heartbreak waiting to happen. The kicker? My heart was never supposed to be involved.

I went home, ate a wholesome dinner of saltine crackers with peanut butter, and made a reluctant phone call to my cousin, Costa Ruiz, a man I’d been slowly rebuilding a relationship with over the past few months. The department’s head IT guy was a reformed homophobe. We’d met for coffee a handful of times, shared stilted conversation—mostly about his kids and family since we didn’t talk about our childhood—and when we passed each other in the halls at the office, I no longer ducked my head and raced away without speaking to him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a beginning.

“Who in homicide can be bought?” I asked after we got the perfunctory hellos out of the way.

“Excuse me?”

“Okay, not bought. Bribed. Non-monetarily. Is that a word? The point is, I’m poor as shit, but I need info. Who would do me a favor for potentially little compensation? There’s a teeny-tiny off chance I have the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory in my back pocket, and I’d be willing to share.”

“What the hell are you on about?”