Espresso Shot

“Clare, I’m really freaked about this.”

“I know you are, but listen, even if this killer was after Breanne, this person’s not going to know who was shot for a while. I mean, the shooter’s going to stay low for fear of being caught. And the authorities aren’t going to release Hazel Boggs’s name to the press until her family’s been notified. That gives you a few days to work with Soles and Bass. They can pursue leads, see what turns up. And before you know it, your wedding day will be here, and you’ll be getting Bree out of town. You’re flying off to Barcelona for the honeymoon, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Matt sighed, hung his head. “I’m still freaked.”

I nodded, tried to look supportive. Despite his strong feelings, however, I really doubted he was right. Matt was stressed-and paranoia was never a long trip from that state. After a good night’s sleep, he was bound to see things differently.

By tomorrow, the detectives from the Sixth would probably have Hazel Boggs’s shooter in custody, a murder weapon impounded, and an assistant district attorney drooling over an open-and-shut felony case. Then maybe Matt could rest easy, realize he was wrong, and finally start enjoying his last few days of bachelorhood.

In the hearth across the room, the feverish crackling had slowed. The flames that had been burning so strongly when I’d first come upstairs were now slowly dying. Rising, I gently suggested to Matt that we table this discussion and head downstairs. Then he could help Gardner behind the counter, and Dante and I could begin taking free coffees out to the New York police and fire personnel.

The long night was about to get even longer and-like I’d told my overworked baristas-morning came too early around here.

SEVEN

NINETY minutes later my body had exhausted every last molecule of caffeine, and I was ready to drop. With the lights finally out downstairs and Matt tucked into his old guest room down the hall, I pulled my chestnut hair free of its barista ponytail and changed into the softest garment I owned-no, not a pashmina nightie-an oversized Steelers football jersey.

When I was a little girl, growing up in Western Pennsylvania, my father ran an illegal sports book in back of my grandmother’s grocery. Naturally, the Pittsburgh teams were his bread and butter. But that wasn’t the reason I wore the shirt. My grandmother believed in signs, and she’d become convinced that Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception during the Steelers playoff with the Oakland Raiders was some kind of miracle. So she gave me the football jersey with Harris’s 32 on it and said if I slept in it, I would be protected.

Yeah, I know. To the typical modern-thinking urbanite, this notion would be waved away as ridiculous, a joke, some kind of psychosis. But Nana grew up in a remote Italian village where curses were more common than slip-and-fall lawyers, and things not seen carried at least as much validity as earth and sky. To her, the malocchio wasn’t some quaint old-world notion. The evil eye was very real, something to be actively warded off.

Growing up in an American suburb, I didn’t have nearly the same level of imagination as my grandmother, but I wore the jersey to humor her-until I grew out of it. When I was seventeen, preparing for my freshman year of fine arts studies, she bought me a brand-new one. It was the last one she gave me before leaving this life, and it’s the one I still wear. Its edges are frayed now, its logo massively faded, but I wouldn’t trade the threadbare talisman for a truckload of Himalayan cashmere.

Yawning like a sleepwalker, I swung my legs beneath the covers of the mahogany four-poster, but I didn’t turn off the bedside lamp. Not yet. Despite the fact that my eyes were practically closed, I couldn’t shut them completely until I heard one last voice.

I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and speed-dialed the second number on my list (the first was my daughter’s). Holding my breath, I listened as the electronic pulses made the connection I’d been aching for all evening: one ring, two-

“Hi, Clare.”

“Hi, Mike.”

“Nice to hear from you, sweetheart…”

I closed my eyes and smiled. Mike and I had been friends for well over a year before we’d become lovers. Now his deep voice felt as familiar and protective as my timeworn night-shirt.

“Sorry I’m calling so late,” I said, “but I wanted to say good night…”

I actually wanted to do more than that with Michael Ryan Francis Quinn, and I wanted it to start with kissing. Some men treated the act perfunctorily, as nothing more than a speedy prelude to other things. Not Mike. The man’s kisses were sweet and lazy and exploratory. When we were alone, he took his time.

“You in bed?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“So what are you wearing? Or not wearing?”

Mike’s voice had slid down even further-to a provocative level of growl that seemed to touch parts of me right through the phone line. I swallowed, ready to reply, when I heard a strange man chuckling suggestively in the background.

“Okay, Sullivan, just shut up and drive.” Mike’s voice was muffled, his hand obviously covering the phone. Then he was back. “Go ahead, sweetheart, I’m listening…”

I rolled my eyes. “Mike, I’m not giving you phone sex if you’re still on duty.”

“Not even a little dirty talk?”

“No. And I can’t believe you’d suggest it with a colleague in the car.”

“Sullivan’s not a colleague. He’s a pain in my neck, not to mention a lousy driver.”

“Awwww…” Sullivan called, presumably from behind the wheel. “Love you, too, Lieutenant.”

“Eyes on the road, Sully. One more fender bender, and I’m personally revoking your license. So…” His voice was now talking to me. “How was your night?”

“Highly caffeinated.”

Mike laughed. “I heard there was a shooting on Hudson. Did you know about that?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I had a front-row seat for it.”

“What?”

“I was with the girl who was killed.”

Mike swore. “Christ, Clare, why didn’t you call me sooner?!”

“Things got too crazy around here. You have your own work, and Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass were assigned to the case. They were really helpful, too. But I’d still like to talk with you about it, if that’s all right?”

“Of course,” Mike said. Then he fell silent a moment. “You okay? Do you want me to come over?”

“I’m fine, and as far as you coming over… You do remember what we discussed last night, right?” I’d already warned him about Matt’s using the apartment’s guest room.

“Yeah, I remember. Doesn’t mean I like it any better.”

“Well, he’s only here until Saturday, and then he’s out of my living space for good. After the wedding ceremony, he’s officially handing me his key.”

“Then I guess you and I better make sure that wedding takes place.”

Mike’s tone had turned hard, but I couldn’t blame him. He had never trusted Matteo Allegro, and the feeling was mutual on Matt’s part. Since their first meeting involved guns, handcuffs, and an interrogation (in this very apartment, come to think of it), I couldn’t blame my ex-husband, either.

The thing Mike Quinn really disliked, however, was my living situation. As the owner of this multimillion-dollar West Village town house, Madame had given both me and her son the legal right to use the duplex (rent free, thank you very much).

The arrangement hadn’t mattered when Quinn and I were just friends, hanging out at the espresso bar, talking about his cases. Matt had used the guest room infrequently, no more than one week a month when he wasn’t traveling. But after Quinn’s wife left him and we started dating, things got complicated.

Quinn refused to put up with my ex-husband barging in any time he liked, so I made the sane and logical decision to move out. Thankfully, Matt proposed marriage to Breanne and moved out first. Problem solved (apart from this week, anyway).

“Matteo’s really not that bad of a guy,” I said. “Once you get to know him better, you’ll see.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, really. He turned down a chance to go to Scores with his pals tonight. And for once he didn’t attempt a pass at me. I wouldn’t say he’s a changed man, but I do think he’s willing to make some adjustments in his lifestyle to see that his second marriage succeeds. I know it’s important to him.”

“Enough about your ex-husband. When can I see you again?”

“After Matt’s wedding on Saturday.”

“That’s too long, Cosi. Come over to my place tomorrow night.”

“I wish I could, but I have way too much to do this week. And by the way, Lieutenant, didn’t you tell me the next six weeks are going to be pretty hairy for you?”

Ten days ago, Mike had been assigned to step in for a detective lieutenant on medical leave. The man had been overseeing a special experimental task force. As Mike explained it to me, prescription drug abuse along with an increased availability of heroin and opiates were resulting in a rash of overdose fatalities in the city. CompStat identified the pattern, and Mike’s captain at the Sixth had proposed a special task force.

The small unit of detectives Mike was now overseeing combined his past expertise in homicide as a precinct detective and narcotics as an anticrime street cop. Nicknamed the OD Squad, these detectives were tasked with investigating any drug overdose within New York ’s five boroughs, lethal or not, and documenting the victim’s sources, whether legit or not. It was a complicated tour of duty that involved liaising with medical professionals, DEA agents, and New York ’s Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.