Page 78 of Hey, Daddy

“You should,” he said. “Especially since it’s your partner that was found dead in her apartment!”

That was a kick to the gut.

I’d known the moment I saw the dead body’s feet in the bathroom who it was.

John loved his fuckin’ boots. He’d gotten them from his mom as a present in the military, and he hadn’t stopped wearing them since.

She’d spent eight hundred bucks on them to have them tailor-made for him, and they had a signature at the bottom of his mom’s.

The boots had been all I’d had to see to know that it was John, and the blood filling up the stopped bathtub was enough to let me know he was gone.

“You don’t think that I want answers?” I laughed, my voice sounding strained. “I would love answers, but I know that getting them isn’t going to happen when you’ve been traumatized so badly you can’t talk.”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t use your cruiser anymore, either. So I hope you find an alternate way home.”

Then he was gone, the senator following in his wake.

When I turned around, it was to find Nastya sitting up in the bed, her legs crossed underneath her, and her rocking back and forward.

When she saw me, she started to cry.

I wouldn’t pass a vibe check.

—Nastya’s secret thoughts

NASTYA

John.

John was dead.

Haze’s partner.

He’d died in front of my eyes.

It took me twenty rotations of the second hand around the clock before I worked up the courage.

“Two masked men came into my apartment,” I rasped. “One was wearing dark clothing, but there was a badge hooked to his belt. A Fort Worth Police Department badge.”

Haze’s gaze met mine and held.

The intensity in them made my heart literally stall inside of my chest.

The strange flip-flop of the organ beneath my hand took a stutter step, then resumed beating like normal.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Shasha glance at the monitor where my heart rate was being displayed.

I ripped the monitor from my finger and heard the alarming beep follow.

Dima stepped right up to it and turned it off with a few quick taps of his fingers, and I idly wondered how he knew how to do that.

He had zero medical experience at all.

He…

I realized then that I was stalling and forced myself to get back on track.

“Daniil and I were in the hallway that led to my room. He’d already done the walkthrough that cleared the apartment when the doorbell rang.” I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “Daniil went to the door. And you know how stinkin’ shitty the peepholes are. Daniil was only able to see the officer that came from the chest down. He asked for the badge to be held up to the door so he could see it, and only when he called in the badge number did he let what he thought was only the officer inside.”

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