Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,71
on the case.”
“That’s not for you to decide, really.” I stretched my legs out, trying to ease the ache in my knee. “Arthur Brinkerhoff wanted to find out who killed his wife, and his granddaughter gave me a buck as a retainer. I’m on the case whether you want me here or not. So see if you can cut me loose, O’Byrne, so I can get back to doing the job and hopefully not get my head shot off while doing it.”
Sixteen
“YOU SURE you’re up to this?” I asked Bobby as the elevator trundled its way up, dinging loudly as we passed each floor. “I mean, you were stabbed, dude. And my brother’s not too fond of me right now.”
“It’s a flesh wound, Princess,” he said, wiggling his arms loosely. “Look! All limbs are still attached, and even if they weren’t, I’d Black Knight hop after you ’cause I can’t trust you to stay out of trouble if I’m not around. Look what happened at your office. And as for Ichi, he and I had a long talk about this. The two of you need to talk that out. And I get it, he doesn’t like violence, but I hate people getting away with shit even more. I’ve been your backup for years. Not going to stop now.”
“Probably should make you a partner,” I muttered, pressing the top floor’s button once more just to give me something to do. “For all the shit you go through, you should at least get paid for it.”
“Yeah, McGinnis and Dawson Investigations doesn’t have a good ring to it,” he rumbled back, a slight flush washing over his cheeks before disappearing as quickly as it came up. “Tell you what—you buy all the food and we’ll call it even.”
“I’ve seen you eat. I’d rather give you a paycheck. At least that way, I won’t go broke,” I muttered as the doors slid open. “Since O’Byrne can’t get me into the room with Ivan, she said I could try for something out of their neighbor, that Watson guy. She’s already made a pass at getting him to talk, but he ducked and dodged her.”
“Watson’s an old-school cop,” Bobby grunted, following me out of the elevator. “Might not like seeing a woman with a badge.”
“That was how she saw it,” I agreed. “You know how those guys are. She’s hoping we’ll have better luck with him. I just don’t know what he can give us. Hell, I’m not even sure what we’re doing now. For all we know, it starts and ends with Ivan killing Adele to begin with, and we’re just chasing our tails.”
“That how you see it?” Bobby stopped short, lifting his eyebrow. “Because my gut says Ivan’s just a tool and someone else is cranking the wrench.”
“I’d agree. We just don’t know why or who.” Taking a quick skim down the hall, I spotted Watson’s apartment, and farther down, the Brinkerhoffs’ place at the end of the expanse. “Let’s see what he’s got to say. Then we can do a quick look at their place. If we see anything that jumps out at us, we can tell O’Byrne.”
The hallway was carpeted in standard industrial-grade gray, but there were little touches of personality along the walls, most notably niches with flowers on shelves and bright splashes of color accenting the cut-ins where ornate mirrors hung above the arrangements, bouncing light about. Despite being windowless, the hall was wide enough not to feel claustrophobic. If the doorman who’d shaken us down for our IDs after we came into the glass-wrapped lobby wasn’t a sign of an upper-class clientele, the wide-enough-to-ballroom-dance hallway was a clear indicator the people who lived in the building had money.
“How does an ex-cop afford this kind of place?” Bobby glanced up and down the hall. “Prime neighborhood. Underground parking.”
“You made some big bucks investing in real estate when you were a baby cop, and I almost got my head blown off by my partner, who’d been tagged by his police-assigned therapist as a danger to society, and they hushed it up,” I reminded him, nudging Bobby in the shoulder to keep moving. “Neither one of us is hurting for money here, Dawson. For all we know, he invented a new type of air in his garage during his off time. Maybe managed a boy band or two.”
“Yeah, there’s that. How do you want to play this?” Bobby fell into step next to me, bumping me aside after we reached the door.