Page 84 of Her Name in Red
I adjust my grip on the steering wheel. “Maybe he's grabbing dinner?”
But he passes the restaurants, the bars, the movie theater. Each turn takes us deeper into the part of town where streetlights are either broken or never existed in the firstplace. Buildings with boarded windows line the streets, graffiti marking territory boundaries more effectively than any map.
“The fuck is a detective doing in Crow's Corner?” I mutter, referring to the nickname for this neighborhood. Even the patrol cops travel in pairs here.
Maren's eyes gleam in the darkness. “Something he doesn't want his colleagues knowing about.”
I slow down as the detective's tail lights disappear around a corner. When we follow, his car is parked half on the sidewalk outside a building with a flickering neon sign that just readsGIRLS.
“Well, well,” Maren's voice has a lilting quality that makes my skin prickle. “Our straight-arrow detective has some extracurricular activities.”
“This changes things.” I kill the engine but leave the keys in the ignition. “No cameras here. No witnesses who'd talk. We could do it tonight.”
She turns to me; her face partially illuminated by the distant neon. “Better than our original plan.”
“No one's going to look twice at another body in this neighborhood,” I say, already reaching under my seat for the gun I keep there. “Especially a cop. They'll blame gang violence, drug deal, whatever.”
The detective gets out of his car, looks around nervously, then hurries inside. He's not wearing his badge or gun—at least not visibly.
“What do you think he's doing here?” I ask, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel.
Maren shrugs, but her eyes are alive now, calculating. “Could be a CI meeting. Could be getting his dick wet. Could be buying something he shouldn't.”
“Could be all three.”
That gets me a snort.
We don't have to wait long. Forty minutes later, the detective stumbles out, shirt buttoned wrong and hair mussed. He's alone and looks like a man with a guilty conscience.
“Showtime,” Maren whispers, her hand already on the door handle.
She's already out of the truck before I can even open my door. I follow, my footsteps nearly silent on the cracked pavement.
The detective fumbles with his keys, dropping them with a curse. Perfect. I'm on him before he can bend to retrieve them, one arm wrapping around his throat while the other pins his right arm behind his back.
“Don't make a sound,” I growl into his ear as he struggles.
Maren appears in front of him, her smile a slash of white in the darkness. “Detective. Fancy meeting you here.”
His eyes go wide with recognition just as I tighten my grip. He's not a small man, but fear makes him clumsy. I drag him backward, toward the narrow gap between buildings while Maren retrieves his fallen keys, tossing them playfully in her palm.
Once we're deep enough in the alley that the streetlight can't reach us, I slam him against the brick wall. His head makes a satisfying thud, and he groans.
“You know,” I say conversationally, keeping my forearm pressed against his windpipe, “I'm starting to think alleys are our special place. It’s like our very own date night.”
Maren's laugh echoes off the brick walls, genuine and delighted. It's a sound so at odds with what we're doing that the detective looks even more terrified.
“Oh my god,” she gasps between fits of laughter, doubling over. “It's true. It's so fucking true.”
I can't help grinning at her reaction. Even now, with a man's life literally in my hands, making her laugh feels like winning the lottery.
“I'm a romantic that way,” I say, adjusting my hold as the detective tries to twist free. “Always taking you to the finest establishments.”
Her laughter dies down, replaced an intensity I've come to crave. She steps closer to the detective, her head tilting slightly as she studies him.
“You've been asking a lot of questions about me,” she says, voice soft and dangerous. “About things that happened last year, this year, a month ago. You’ve got a hard-on for me.”
“I'm just doing my job,” he manages to get out, his voice strained against my forearm.
