Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

“I guess.”

“Hey, long as we’re down here, let’s hit Morry’s. I’m so hungry I could eat the crotch out of a leper’s undies.”

“Morry’s? So you can get a Polish?” Kate, consistent with her psychopathic workout regimen, didn’t eat fast food if she could help it. The body’s a temple and all that.

“For your information, Detective,” he said, “I wasn’t going to order a Polish sausage.”

“No? Then what? A chef salad? A yogurt parfait?”

“I was thinking a double Polish.”

“I don’t know how you can think about food, anyway.” Kate’s knees were bobbing, her feet playing a constant beat in the footwell of the Tahoe. She was nervous. She couldn’t get this stuff out of her head.

“I gotta keep up my strength so I can vigilantly fight crime,” said Billy.

“Doesn’t anything ever get to you?”

Billy looked over at her. He knew Kate pretty well, but he wasn’t used to seeing this side of her. She was an ass kicker, an adrenaline junkie, and a damn fine-looking one at that. The vulnerable thing played on her a lot differently. For some reason, it seemed to flip a switch inside Billy, make him view her as a completely different person.

Don’t start, Harney. Don’t even start. That was one time.

“We’re gonna be fine,” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

She let out a bitter laugh. There was a lot in that single grunt, maybe more than he could read. It wasn’t always that simple, she was saying. It didn’t always matter that you were right. You could still be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Kate. No bullshit. That’s a promise.”

She turned to him. They made eye contact. It was brief—Billy didn’t want to lose control of the Tahoe on these brutal streets—but meaningful.

Not again, Harney. That was one time.

It was pretty great, sure, but it was one time.

He looked at her again. She was still eyeing him, this time with a lot in her stare.

Okay, the sex was mind-blowing, I admit.

“We keep our secrets, don’t we, partner?” she said.

Billy nodded.

“I didn’t enjoy seeing those eyes that prosecutor was throwing your way last night. I got a little jealous.”

“She’s a shark.”

“Yeah, but last I checked, you like swimming in deep water.”

“A little danger can be fun,” he said.

“It can be,” she said. “Especially over the lunch hour. Before we’re expected back.”

No, Harney. Absolutely, positively not.

“Take our mind off things,” he said.

“Right.”

“Therapeutic and such.”

“Exactly. You up for a little therapy?”

Billy changed course, found Lake Shore Drive, sped the Tahoe up toward the Belmont exit.

Kate owned a condo in a building off Lake Shore Drive in the Lakeview neighborhood. It was no more than seven hundred square feet, but it had a killer view of the lake. Today the view was probably beautiful, the lake so serene and majestic—but how would Billy know? He didn’t look out the window. They were at it the moment they entered the apartment. He threw off her body armor, pulled up her sweater, unbuttoned her blouse, and ran his hands inside, feeling lace.

Then she was naked, that hard athletic body, her skin radiating heat, sweat on her face, her tongue violent inside his mouth, her breath a powerful mint. She took over from there, her mouth on his nipple, sucking so hard it hurt, then lowering herself to her knees and removing his underwear with her teeth. She didn’t need to rev him up any more than he already was—his rpm’s were well into the red—but she spent some time down there anyway, her hand caressing the undercarriage, her mouth working the throttle, and goddamn it, he was out of car analogies—

He pulled her to her feet, spun her around, and threw her against the back of the leather couch. It was how they taught him to do an emergency takedown at the academy. She liked it, being bent over the couch, pushing her rear end up against him with an approving, kittenish hum. “Gee, Officer, whatever are you going to do to me?”

This wasn’t normally Billy’s thing, but what the hell. He landed his open hand on her butt, a good smack.

“Is that the best you can do?” she said. “I’ve been a very bad girl.”

Well, okay—in for a penny, in for a pound. He spanked her again, harder.

“Spank me again.”

That sounded like a good idea, so he complied.

“I’m placing you under arrest,” he said.

“Then I better spread my legs. So you can check for concealed contraband on my person.”

Well, sure, that would be standard protocol.

So he checked, probing between her legs as she let out a low moan like none he’d ever heard.

Dear Penthouse: I never thought this would happen to me…

For good measure, he bent down to make doubly sure she wasn’t concealing a weapon. She liked that even more, breathing like an animal in heat as he worked his tongue. At this point, she wasn’t concealing a single thing.

“Officer,” she said, “I think you need to fuck me now.”

Eighteen

WELL, THAT was interesting.

Billy looked up at the ceiling in Kate’s bedroom. He was so drained and sore that he wasn’t sure he could even get out of bed. He knew Kate was a volleyball player and martial-arts aficionada, but he had no idea she was an amateur gymnast, too.

And he got to be the pommel horse.

“Just this one time,” she said to him.

“Definitely. Never again.”

“Makes things too complicated.”

“No question about it. Glad we agree on that.”

He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither of them kept a straight face.

“Seriously,” he said.

“I’m serious, too.”

And then the simultaneous buzzing of their cell phones, an unwelcome alert. Last time they got text messages at the same time, they were being hauled into the state’s attorney’s office.

Billy checked his phone. Fuck, he thought.

“We are so fucked,” said Kate, reading her phone.

“Now partner, don’t leap to the worst-case—”

“We’ve been summoned to the supe’s office, Harney. You think this is good news?”

He didn’t. All the way on the drive, Kate threw out one theory after another, rehashed the whole incident, tried to discern the various motives of the various players in the story. Billy didn’t bite. Whatever it was going to be, it was going to be, whether they predicted it accurately or not. He’d learned long ago that when bad news was going to come, it was going to come.

They waited inside the superintendent’s suite while Mr. Big Shot was in his office behind a closed door. When the door opened, Amy Lentini peered out.

“The superintendent will see you now,” she said, not even pretending that she didn’t enjoy it.

Superintendent Tristan Driscoll was in uniform—God only knew why; maybe he wanted to pretend he was a real cop today—and seated behind his desk.

“Detective Harney, Detective Fenton.”

He didn’t ask them to sit, so they didn’t.

“You’re being placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the completion of the state’s attorney’s investigation.”

Kate dropped her head. Billy didn’t move.

“Surrender your badges.”

Kate seemed to be waiting for Billy.

“It was my arrest,” said Billy. “Not Kate’s. Take my badge. Don’t take hers.”

Driscoll peered at him, his eyes narrowed. “Surrender your badges,” he said.

“I’ll surrender it to a cop,” he said.

The superintendent turned his head, as though he didn’t hear right. “Are you suggesting that I’m not a cop, Detective?”