to Oscar, who seemed to have grown a foot. “You’ve got the helm, Oz. Don’t let anything burn.”
“I got it, Dad.” That ‘Dad’ came so easily now.
As the Fraser kids swarmed the deck, Babineau preceded her back inside, touching a quick kiss to his wife’s cheek in passing.
Suburban Ken and Barbie host a barbeque.
He led the way through a House Beautiful kitchen, down the long hall to an office of the gods. Sheepishly, he waved her in.
“Quite the place,” she murmured, walking past him to take a seat on the sofa. Leather soft as a baby’s butt. “Your Lotto number come up?”
“Something like that.” He turned to lean a hip against a glossy wood rolltop, handsome features inscrutable.
“Something like what, exactly?”
His jaw tightened into a hard square. “Why’re you here, Charlotte?”
“How are you here, Alain? Some long-lost relative turn up their toes and dump a cool mil in your lap?”
“That would be my business.” She’d seen that inflexible look when he’d confront a difficult suspect in Interrogation. It usually came just before a reading of formal charges. “If you think otherwise, maybe you should leave before I forget to be hospitable. And while you’re at it, tell Showboat if I see him shadowing me again, I’ll report him as a stalker.”
She should have known better than to think a cop wouldn’t spot a cop. To cover her chagrin, she went on the attack. “What else have you forgotten to be? Suddenly you’re living in high cotton on money you got who knows where. How do you think that looks? What am I supposed to think?”
Face flushed with rare temper, he snarled, “I don’t give a flying f—"
A soft voice intruded. “We got it from Cale Terriot so we could keep his nephew safe behind high walls and surveillance cameras.” Tina remained unflinching beneath her husband’s skewering stare, no apology or shame in her expression. “And we took it because Oscar means more to us than our pride or any nasty rumors supposed friends started spreading.
“None of this was our choice. If it was up to us, we’d be cooking ground beef instead of sirloin on that rusty old kettle grill Alain’s had since his first apartment. But having this,” her hand flashed a wide, dismissive gesture, “we can sleep nights. We can shelter those who’ve no safe place to go. And we’ve done nothing we’re ashamed of.” She took a breath then concluded in a steady tone, “I think you should leave now, unless there’s something else you think you have the right to know about our lives that doesn’t concern you or anyone else at the NOPD.”
A long, taut silence stretched out.
Finally, face hot, Cee Cee muttered, “No. I think I’ve done enough damage.”
The hurried journey toward a safe escape out the front door might well have been miles. She’d just reached the edge of the front steps when that arm that had held her up when she’d had too much to drink, had curled about her when she wept over a romance not meant to be, and had bumped against hers when they stood before their peers to proudly receive commendations cinched her to an abrupt halt.
“Don’t you run out on me. Not like this. She shouldn’t have said those things.”
“She had every right, every right in the world. I’m the one who should have kept my damned mouth shut.” She stood panting wildly, emotions pooling into despised waterworks she’d blame on pregnancy.
“Since when haven’t we been able to say anything and everything to each other?” A long pause, him waiting for her to speak, her afraid to. Until he stated quietly, “I’m not a dirty cop, Charlotte.”
“I know.” She sagged against the long-familiar lines of the second-best friend she’d ever had. As Cee Cee let him lower them both to sit on the steps side-by-side, puzzle pieces that had always fit so well together, her frustration and anguish poured out. “Things used to be so easy. We did our jobs and knew who the bad guys were. We stood for justice and slept like babies after we put them away. We were the good guys who stood for our city and our brothers. Monsters were just men who bled like anyone else.”
“We’re still the good guys, Ceece. We still get the job done. You want to tell me what this is really all about?”
She took a gulping breath, wishing she could blame the thickness in her throat and runny nose on that awful cologne he continued to