Jo slid off the exit and merged with street traffic. “Are you and Elle still together?”
“Yes, why are you asking?”
“Curious. I saw Kayla from Records eyeing you up last week.” Jo loved messing with Sullivan, and nothing pushed his buttons than when she tried to set him up.
“First, I am very happy with Elle.”
She slapped his shoulder. “Way to go, partner.”
He rubbed his shoulder as if she’d wounded him. “Second, and most importantly the last time you had any say in my love life, I ended up handcuffed to a bed.”
“Oh, I remember that.” Jo winced and chuckled. “Wasn’t she called out—”
“No. One of her friends texted her to meet them at a club, and she thought it’d be hot to have a naked man handcuffed to her bed waiting on her.”
“I don’t remember that part.” It irritated her that someone had done that to her partner, but since she’d been the one to rescue him, she could laugh at his predicament. “I think I still have the pictures on my computer.”
“You swore you deleted them.”
“No, I’d never swear that. I might have promised not to use them against you, but seriously, Sullivan. I would never delete something like that. It always comes in handy to have blackmail.”
Sullivan’s mouth flattened into a narrow line. “I’ll remember that. Probably a good thing I still have those pics of when Arabelle projectile vomited the green peas on you.”
Jo gasped. “You did not keep those?”
“You mean the green bits all over your hair and face? Of course I kept those. Tit for tat, partner.”
She laughed. “And that’s why we make such a good team.”
“You know most people would say we’re too much alike and we make a horrible team.”
“Meh, screw them. Our success rate blows that statement out of the water.”
Jo knew some had wanted her and Sullivan separated after the Skinned debacle from last year. But she had too many contacts to ever allow that to happen. It didn’t hurt that they’d solved the damned thing and many other cases. Even though they thought a lot alike, they worked like a well-oiled machine.
Sullivan cleared his throat. “Anyway, Elle and I are still going strong, so I don’t need you to set me up.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Because I heard from your mother that Elle threw a dictionary at you after a Boggle game.”
“That doesn’t count. It was a valid word—”
“Not in the English language.”
Sullivan snorted. “Then they should’ve stated we weren’t allowed to use Spanish slang.”
“Your mom said Elle threw a lot of colorful Spanish slang as she left.” Jo grinned. “And that she’s not called you in a week.”
“So I screw up sometimes? She’ll come around.” Sullivan shifted in his seat. “Besides, I think Elle and I could be next with the wedding bells. We’ve been together for over a year now, and just because she thinks I cheated at a board game, it won’t break us. She’s got a fiery temper that is quick to burn out, but she loves me like Rhys loves you.”
“I’m happy for you.” Jo slapped Sullivan’s shoulder again. “As for her forgiving you. We’ll see, but as you told me last year: don’t let the argument fester. You need to get on those knobby knees of yours and beg her to take you back with flowers or something. Otherwise, Arabelle and your mom will put you in the doghouse.”
It would be great if Elle and Sullivan became permanent. Jo had been worried after Sullivan’s wife died, Arabelle wasn’t even a month old when she lost her mother. The second she’d set eyes on him, he seemed to be lower than a storm-darkened sky.
Pulling into the crime scene, they were met with the Crime Scene tech.
“We didn’t need you two. Your guys are wrong.”
Jo had seen the tech before on the Gravedigger case, but she couldn’t remember his name. Her eyes narrowed on Detectives Jones and Brown.
“It’s a robbery?” She asked Sullivan as they walked up the broken sidewalk to the drab gray concrete porch.
“Yeah.” Sullivan shook Jones and Brown’s hands.
“Rayburn, you need to tell this guy there are two shooters,” Jones said. He was the more relaxed of the two with a rumpled brown suit, button-down blue shirt, and generic blue tie. If anyone mentioned cops and donuts, it brought to mind Jones since the man loved donuts and fast food.
His partner, Brown, on the other hand, looked like a cross between a disapproving librarian and a high school principal. The charcoal gray suit was starched to within an inch of its life. She’d always wondered how the man walked around without breaking his clothes.
“Let me look at the scene then we’ll talk.” She moved past everyone and stepped into the small house.
“She’s going to side with the Tech,” Brown whispered to Jones, but Jo heard them.
“Not if the tech’s wrong,” she replied, not allowing them to get away with talking behind her back. “I’ll back my team up if they’re right, Brown. You know this about me no matter our small rivalry before.”
“She’s right,” Jones added. “She might piss us off, but she’s always fair.”
She tuned them out when she heard Sullivan talking to them. His distraction allowed her to take in the scene.
The room was a dingy green. She could tell at one time it’d been bright and full of life but time had worn away. Smoke hung heavy in the stale air, trapped in the faded brown carpet and clinging to the drapes and walls like a specter.
A squat plaid brown, black, and white sofa and love seat faced what had to be the space the television had been. It had been a big screen based on the smoke stain around the wall it had hung from a perfect rectangular outline. She skirted around the lounge chair the man was sprawled in, his sightless gaze seeming to follow her. The
