Hush - Anne Malcom Page 0,105

is gonna do nothin’ but give you a migraine and waste your night.” Eric paused. “And I think you have better things to do with your night.”

Maddox looked up because of the knowing behind his partner’s tone.

“What do you think I have to do that’s better than solving the murder of a prominent doctor, with a wife, albeit an unfaithful one, and a daughter?” Maddox challenged him with more hostility in his tone than needed.

He hadn’t been sleeping because he was frustrated. With not just this case, but with Orion’s. All of the women had spoken of men coming and going, having “regulars,” making it sound like more of a business than anything.

Which it was. The two gatekeepers were drug addicted lowlifes. They lived mostly in squalor, but the basement underneath the house was sprawling and spotless. They had found out the original builder of the house had been paranoid about the cold war and nuclear fallout, so he had built an entire second house underneath the small, two-bedroom one.

The Cold War never happened though, and what was meant to save a family damned many girls.

He was failing this doctor’s family and he was failing Orion. And, on top of it all, he was falling in love with the damaged, broken woman who was nothing like the girl he had kissed ten years ago. That night he’d seen her in person two fucking months ago haunted him. He saw something inside of her, something that scared the shit out of him. Something that intrigued him, because it awoke something dark inside him too.

Eric did not react to Maddox’s anger. He was used to him being a miserable bastard. Eric continued on even keel no matter what was going on. It was working wonders for April, who was finally getting her life together. Maddox wondered what Orion had to do with that.

“Now I know it’s morally questionable to get involved with a victim, and you know I have a deep respect for the rules,” Eric said. “But I also know that the situation with this particular woman is different. Exceptional. I don’t believe in girly shit like fate, and romance, I’m too much of a cynical old cop for that.”

Maddox snorted at the “old” part of that sentence. Eric was the same age as him, but in a way, he was right. The fucker was an old soul.

Eric didn’t acknowledge the snort. “I’m a cynic, but I’m not blind. Orion is more than a victim. Fuck, looking at her, that label doesn’t fit. She has no one, Maddox. No family, except you and April. The two of you . . . it’s dangerous. I’m gonna tell you to tread fucking lightly. Not just because of what she’s been through, that goes without saying. But because of your history. You’ve carried her with you all these years. That’s why you haven’t had a woman in your bed for longer than a night, no matter what you tell yourself.”

Maddox stared at his partner who was the brother he never had. He was his best friend. Eric knew about Orion. Maddox went to Thanksgiving at his house when he lied to his parents and said he had to work. But they did not have deep and meaningful “talk about your feelings” conversations like this one.

Eric came from a family of cops. His dad had just retired and was well respected in the force and the community. His grandfather had been one of the first black cops in St. Louis, speaking English as a second language. The Baptistes had emigrated from Haiti two generations ago, coming to the country with nothing but the clothes on their backs and generations of slavery and atrocity fresh in their minds. They promised to honor their people in this new land.

Eric was fluent in French because his father was determined for his son to hold on to his past, his heritage. As did all of his sisters, one of which was a beat cop.

His sisters doted on him, which made him sensitive and good with women. Too fucking sensitive, it seemed. They’d never gone this deep with their conversations before. It was an unspoken agreement between them, not to be honest about how deep a toll this job really took. You couldn’t get too introspective about that shit. It’d ruin you.

Maddox’s first instinct was to get mad. Defensive. His fists clenched in preparation for just that. Eric was probably half expecting it. But fuck, he was tired. Tired of