suspects are twenty minutes away, with no alibi. Yeah, we’re all about to end up in orange jumpsuits, trying not to get shivved by the top dogs in the exercise pen.”
“Look on the bright side, Con,” Loki said cheerfully as they filed out of the room. “Maybe the dedicated and hardworking individuals who run our police department will have abandoned their donuts and arrested the bastard already.”
She sighed in disgust. “Orange really isn’t my color.”
*
Half an hour later, Braun’s plans of vengeance stuttered to a screaming halt. He peered through the windshield from his shotgun position at the patrol cars parked haphazardly over the street, blue lights flashing. Three of them, which told him something bad was going down.
“We sure this is the right place?” he demanded of Atticus.
“That’s the house. My sources don’t fuck things up.”
Connie piped up from where she was sulking in the backseat. “What the hell do you do, Atticus?”
“All manner of bad and sinful things, Connie. You don’t want to know. Shit, they’re cordoning off the place. That’s not just the cops arresting him; someone’s dead in there.” A blue sedan cruised passed the truck, pulled up behind one of the marked units. “Bet your ass that’s a homicide detective.”
Sincerely pissed, Braun ground his teeth as two men exited the vehicle in plain clothes. Both middle-aged. One with a neatly trimmed beard, the other smooth-shaven. “What the fuck? This can’t be a coincidence.”
Atticus tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “Want me to go find out?”
Connie snorted. “Like they’ll tell you anything about an active homicide, if that’s what it is. They’re legally bound not to discuss these things. Maybe we should just be grateful they’re not here to investigate us.”
Atticus glanced over his shoulder. “There’s legally bound and then there’s professional courtesy. Wait here, I won’t be long.” Moving far too fast for a beast of a man, he slipped out of the truck and strolled, bold as brass, down the sidewalk.
“Professional courtesy? I didn’t know he was a cop!” Connie spluttered.
“He’s not,” Loki said easily, kicking back as best he could in his seat. “Atticus is a jack of all trades, has his fingers in every pie imaginable. You need information or someone to kick the shit out of a bad guy, that’s your man. All on the side of the good and righteous, Connie, before you get your G-string in a knot.” He snickered. “Guess you could call him a white knight, galloping across a barren wasteland with his cock swinging like a sword.”
Braun choked on a laugh despite the knowledge slowly sinking into reality. The noises the Mistress made were akin to an old tea kettle left too long on a stove top. “Careful, lad, you’re confined in a very small space with a woman who tortures cocks and balls for fun.”
“I’ll die a happy man, remembering this look on her face.”
“Stop it, all three of you.” Stuck between the bickering pair, Jasper glowered at both Loki and Connie. “You’re Dominants, for God’s sake. Anyone would think you’ve just been released from kindergarten.”
On the sidewalk, Atticus had caught up with the two men, hailing them with a friendly lift of his tree trunk arm. They turned, assessed him, then the bearded one grinned in recognition. “Goddamn it, does he know everyone?”
“Told you,” Loki replied with a grin and a wink for Connie. “Atticus is the Wikipedia of people.”
As Connie snarked back at him, Braun narrowed his eyes and wondered if it was too late to learn how to lip read. Bearded cop was engaged in serious conversation now, while the smooth-faced detective had carried on walking and had reached the uniformed officers unravelling tape around the front of the two-story house.
It didn’t appear to be a bad neighborhood. It certainly wasn’t what Braun had expected in a crime boss's choice of home. They weren’t quite on the outskirts of the city, but far enough the rurality was beginning to creep in.
This particular street consisted of eight large properties, all double-story, with a good expanse of garden. Plenty of trees, bushes, greenery to give it the illusion of rural living.
The big difference between here and Bodie’s apartment was the people. Even now, lights were flicking on behind closed curtains, and people came out of their houses in their robes or, in the case of one or two men, just jeans. Drawn to the blue lights swirling patterns over their windows, sucking them in like moths.
No one had even bothered to twitch a