“Hey, if they’re not tough, they’ve got no business being a detective in Major Crimes,” Declan pointed out. He had no patience with weakness of any kind and a police officer displaying those traits was worse than useless, no matter how charming this partner could be on his own.
“Yeah. Well, go easy on whoever the new partner they send up is. The department’s only got so many detectives to go around.” Hollis put his hand out to Declan. “It’s been an experience, Declan. Keep in touch—and let me know if you ever want to start keeping regular hours. I’m sure the old man can find something for someone like you.”
Declan supposed that was meant to flatter him. It failed, through no fault of his well-intentioned about-to-be-ex-partner. “Not me. I like things to be unstructured,” Declan told him. “Listen, I’ll buy you a drink after hours—provided something else doesn’t come up.”
Hollis nodded. “You’re on.”
The acting lieutenant for Major Crimes stuck his head into Declan’s tiny cubicle. “Hey, Cavanaugh, we got a call just now. Some officer got shot inside his own house.”
“Domestic dispute?” Declan asked, saying the first thing that came to mind. He was already reaching into the drawer for the weapon he’d placed there.
“No details yet, just that another one of our detectives went to check on him and found the body in the living room. Check it out. And when you come back, come see me. We’ve got to look into getting you a new partner now that this one’s making a break for it.” He jerked a thumb in Hollis’s direction.
“Just making plans to live the good life, Lieu, just making plans to live the good life,” Hollis told his superior innocently.
“Yeah, well, come tell me that in six months,” the lieutenant said. He stopped listening to the exchange between the two men the moment he turned away from them and headed back to his office.
“Looks like he’s not going to be throwing you any farewell parties,” Declan quipped. “Guess it’s all up to me—if I can find anyone who knows who the hell you are,” he added with a laugh.
Hollis could only shake his head. But he knew his limitations. Knew, too, that he might have very well invited a viper into his home space. With this in mind, he shook his head and proclaimed, “Nice, Cavanaugh, real nice.”
Declan spread his hands wide, accentuating his innocent shrugs. “Hey, I just tell it the way I see it, man.”
“Give my condolences to your new partner,” Hollis called after him.
Declan nodded, then stopped short of the doorway and made a prediction as he shrugged into his jacket. “You’ll be back.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Cavanaugh,” he chuckled, heading in the opposite direction. “You’ll get old, waiting.”
Declan shook his head. Had to be some kind of an epidemic, he decided. Some kind of a bug that was inducing people he knew—including his own siblings—to abandon their single existence, an existence that was highlighted by freedom and a myriad of choices in all directions—just to be yoked to another person, presumably for life.
And while he had to admit that he really liked and got along with the people that his brothers and sisters chose to become their “other halves,” the very hint of marriage, at least in his case, sounded far too much like a prison sentence, he thought.
And that was definitely not for him.
Copyright © 2014 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
ISBN-13: 9781460325858
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Copyright © 2014 by Lindsay McKenna
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