Sweet Justice Page 2

  Maria had no chance of winning, but she didn’t want to skip out on a team-building experience on her first day of employment. She had nothing to prove to Wyatt. He knew her limitations… mostly.

  By the time they finished signing all the paperwork, Isaac and Massey had cleared out with the equipment, leaving it on a dolly downstairs beside a white van.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Wyatt said as they walked to the obstacle course. “It’s all in good fun, and no one will think less of you if you don’t want to participate.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Maria said, not sure if that comment was more for Wyatt or herself. She hated having the injury, but she refused to back out of a friendly wager. And who knew, maybe she’d surprise herself. She’d worked with weights. She’d worked up her stamina for running. But she hadn’t yet pushed herself the way an obstacle course would.

  She had a lot to prove.

  More to herself than anyone out there watching.

  At the obstacle course, Massey had switched from his wheelchair to his crutches. Isaac stood nearby, taking the money for friendly side wagers, egging everyone on. Gil and Jericho would face off first on the course. Apparently, not even being on paternity leave could keep him from a little friendly competition.

  “Get him, Dad!” A six or seven-year-old kid sat in the grass, not too far away from the start, next to a baby’s car seat on the ground with a light blanket snuggled around a sleeping baby. How the baby could sleep with all the laughter and good-natured ribbing, Maria would never know.

  “Stay with your sister,” Gil said. “This will only take a couple of minutes.”

  The kid rolled his eyes. “Duh.”

  Still, Gil caught Geneva’s eye, and she nodded, indicating she’d keep an eye out as well.

  Gil walked over, ruffled the dark mop of hair on top of the kid’s head, and approached the starting line. Wyatt raised an arm as he took a stopwatch out of his pocket. “On your mark…”

  Jericho and Gil dropped down like they were in the starting blocks, grins on their faces. Jericho wasn’t a small man, but Gil was the type of big that made other big men look small. Jericho playfully shoved Gil in the shoulder a fraction of a second before Wyatt dropped his hand. Gil didn’t falter.

  They tore off in a sprint, over the rows of belly busters, across the easy balancer, under the belly crawl, over the inclining wall, through the monkey bars, swinging over the water hazard, and finally to scale the vertical wall with the climbing rope.

  Everyone else hurried down the side of the course, cheering the men on, not caring who won. Gil gained headway when he could sprint, surprisingly fast for a man of his size, but Jericho outperformed him on the areas requiring more upper body strength. That was where his relatively smaller frame allowed him to excel.

  On the last obstacle, Gil hit the vertical wall first, but Jericho scrambled over it like a monkey, dropping down to the raised platform on the other side and jumping the few feet to the ground, sprinting across the finish line a step ahead of Gil.

  They both bent at the waist, catching their breaths, sweat rolling off their bodies even as the night caught a chill. The little boy came running down with the biggest smile on his face, not caring that Gil hadn’t won. “Daddy!”

  “You were supposed to stay with your sister.” Gil’s head popped up, catching the boy in his arms, his eyes immediately traveling down the length of the obstacle where he’d left the baby. He found Geneva walking up the course with the sleeping baby on her shoulder.

  “I hope it was okay,” she said. “I told Jack I’d watch the baby.”

  “It’s fine.” His son jumped down, and Gil took his daughter, his hands engulfing the little girl. The gentleness Maria witnessed by this hulk of a man had the back of her eyes stinging.

  Ohmygod. She needed to get back to work and bury herself in a case if the sight of a man holding his baby made her want to cry.

  All that time off work was making her soft.

  You know there’s nothing wrong with having emotions, right?

  Maybe not, but being in a male-dominated profession, she’d learned to bury hers deep under a thick layer of cynicism and sarcasm.

  Cassie and Geneva raced next, having trouble getting through the course not because they didn’t have the strength but because they couldn’t stop laughing and badmouthing each other.

  “Go, Cassie!” Massey hollered, waving a crutch in the air. “You go, girl,” he added when she sprinted through the finish line as Geneva came over the top of the climbing wall.

  Maria glanced back at Massey, then a few feet behind him where Isaac stood, his attention on Massey.

  Isaac caught her watching, his face flushing red under the vapor lights. Man, if only Finn looked at her the way Isaac looked at Massey, all lust, need, and hunger.

  Maria glanced away, feeling like she was intruding.

  “Can I talk to you a minute?” Gil’s good humor had vanished.

  At first, Maria thought Gil was talking to her but realized he was looking straight past her. She turned. Isaac stood with his hands on his hips, and a what’s your problem? expression on his face. He stepped into the grass as Gil bore down on him with the baby nestled against his neck. His voice a harsh whisper as he took Isaac aside.

  Cassie and Geneva walked by, giving each other a high five. Wyatt clapped Maria on the shoulder, jogging backward toward the starting line. “You and me next.”

  It wasn’t like she wouldn’t take her boss up on the challenge. But she wouldn’t go easy on him either. If he wanted to win, he’d have to work for it. She grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  He pointed down at her feet. “Your shoe is untied.”

  She squatted to tie it. With everyone walking back to the start, she couldn’t help but overhear Gil and Isaac’s hushed but heated conversation.

  She caught Isaac’s words in the middle of a sentence. “… I don’t know what’s going on in that thick skull of yours or what you think of my prowess when it comes to men, but I can assure you even I can’t turn someone gay.”

  “Damn it, you know that’s not what I meant,” Gil ground out, the baby starting to fuss on his shoulder.

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “Maybe it would be better if I took this case with Massey. I—”

  “You’re on paternity leave. And that’s beside the fucking point. You don’t think I can keep my work and private life separate. You don’t think I can maintain boundaries,” Isaac’s voice rose above a harsh whisper catching the attention of everyone at the start of the obstacle course, though they were probably too far away to hear the words.

  Maria hurried up and double knotted her shoelace to give them their privacy, though they didn’t seem overly concerned about who heard.

  Then Isaac’s voice dropped again as he leaned in and added, “You don’t think I know that Massey isn’t into guys. I know that. I’m fine with that.”

  “You say that now. But you’re going to be holed up with him for—”

  Maria started walking away, and Isaac’s voice rose higher.

  “Fuck you. And fuck the fuck right off.”

  Isaac went to brush by Gil, knocking into his other shoulder as he passed, startling the fussy baby awake. The baby started crying.

  Gil patted his daughter’s back. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Isaac.”

  Isaac turned around, giving him a double-barrel shot of the bird. “I could do without your concern.”

  Isaac strode ahead, and with Gil’s long strides, he quickly caught up to Maria as he patted his baby, talking softly to his daughter as he tried to get her to settle. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  “It was kind of hard not to. Want a bit of advice?” She didn’t expect he did, but she’d give it a shot.

  “Yeah.” His response didn’t even sound sarcastic.

  “Do you trust your friend?”

  Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, he said, “With my life.”

/>   “Then trust him to navigate whatever he’s got going on. Who knows. Maybe Massey is into him, too.”

  “Massey is straight.”

  “Massey told you that?” One thing Maria had learned was that sexuality was a wide spectrum. You couldn’t make assumptions about a person.

  “I’ve only seen him date women.”

  “Doesn’t mean he’s straight.”

  That shut Gil up. “You’re right. Maybe I should butt out of something that isn’t any of my business.”

  Maria grinned at him. “Always a good policy.”

  Gil shook his head but chuckled to himself, his baby girl squirming in his arms. Finally, Gil peeled off course and headed for the diaper bag.

  As Maria stretched her legs, she heard Gil call out to Isaac, “Hey man, I owe you an apology.”

  She glanced up to see Isaac straighten, a crooked smile on his face. “This ought to be good.”

  She headed for the starting line—too far away now to make out Gil’s words—preparing to get her ass kicked but determined to make it as close a race as possible.

  2

  At the start of the obstacle course, Massey replaced Wyatt as the official starter, leaning his weight on one crutch and holding the other one up with the tip high in the air.

  “Wyatt is embarrassingly slow on the balance obstacle,” Jericho called out to Maria, his breathing still slightly elevated after his exertion. “You can make up time there.”

  “Hey,” Wyatt chided. “I can hear you.”

  Cassie laughed. “The truth hurts.”

  Wyatt shook his head, but his smile never faltered.

  This was what Maria had been looking for. A team. A family. One where you fight and squabble and give each other a rash of shit, knowing full well that you have each other’s backs. It may not be the joint task force she’d worked on under Finn’s command, but she’d found her new home.

  Maria believed she could make up time on the straightaways between obstacles as well. She’d been a sprinter on the track team in high school. She had after-burners when she needed them. That speed had also served her well on the streets when chasing down a perp.

  As soon as Massey dropped his crutch, she sprinted for the belly busters, a bit of a challenge for someone of her short stature, but she could jump as well as sprint, so they didn’t slow her down too much.

  Maria picked up speed before the easy balancer, scampering across the narrow log without slowing. On her right, Wyatt cussed already a few strides behind her. He lost his balance and fell off the apparatus but scrambled back on, allowing her to dive into the belly crawl before he could jump off the far end of the balancer.

  She made it through the incline wall and the monkey bars ahead of him, but barely. His superior upper body strength and wingspan through the monkey bars helped him gain on her even with her speed.

  She willed her lungs to expand faster, her legs to pump harder, ignoring the twinges in her injured quad, reminding her she wasn’t yet a hundred percent healed.

  Little Jack ran along beside them, cheering both of them on. Followed close behind by Jericho, Geneva, and Isaac with Gil and the baby. Massey pulled up the rear.

  Maria and Wyatt made it to the climbing wall at the same time. Their final obstacle. She grabbed the rope and started pulling herself up, her legs on the wall, walking up step by step. Her injured leg shook with the strain, and a shock of pain shot up her thigh and skittered up her spine.

  Her grip slipped, and she lost her footing. She caught her full weight with her hands on the rope. She slid and crumpled to the ground, burning her hands on the rope.

  She hissed in a breath. Wyatt had one leg over the wall, balancing on top. “You okay?”

  If she didn’t die of embarrassment, she would be fine.

  She put her hands high on the rope, prepared to make another attempt. She’d already lost, but that didn’t mean the race had ended. Swallowing down the gasp of pain from the rope burns, she started up the wall.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Wyatt stood on the platform on the other side of the wall and looked down at her.

  She couldn’t answer, not when she concentrated so hard, fighting against the burns on her hands and the salvos of pain shooting up her injured leg. Everyone crowded around, encouraging her climb. She hated being the center of attention. She should have quit when she’d fallen, but there wasn’t much she could do about that now.

  The muscles in her arms burned, and her breath came out in harsh, guttural gasps. As she neared the top, Wyatt reached a hand down to her. She didn’t need a hand. She would either do it under her own power or not at all.

  “Stubborn. I like that about you.” Wyatt took his hand back. His warm chuckle of appreciation washed over her as he stepped out of the way to allow her to grab the top of the wall.

  The edges bit into her fingers. She squeezed tighter, swinging her leg up to catch her heel on the top of the wall. Her heel slipped, her body swung down. She now hung from the wall by her fingertips. She didn’t have enough upper body strength left to pull herself up.

  “You’ve got this.” Wyatt’s quiet assurance gave her much-needed encouragement.

  Maria dropped to the heavily padded ground to regroup. Finally, she stood, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath and waited for the burn in her muscles to subside.

  “One more try,” Jericho said. “One more is all you need.”

  Gil’s baby gurgled in happy agreement, and everyone laughed, easing the tension. Maria straightened, wiping the sweat from her hands onto her shorts.

  “You don’t have to kill yourself,” Isaac piped in. “It’s a friendly competition.”

  Massey shot him a look.

  “What?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I never said she wasn’t.”

  That exchange only made Maria smile more. She’d just signed on with the firm, and already her colleagues were protective of her, each in their own way. Yeah, she’d known she’d made the right decision before scribbling her name on the dotted line, but this proved her instinct had been correct.

  She was where she needed to be.

  She was home.

  Determined to try one last time, with her strength dwindling, she backed up the thirty feet to the end of the water hazard and got a running start. If she didn’t have momentum on her side, she didn’t think she’d make it.

  Wyatt clapped from above. “Let’s go.”

  “Make that wall your bitch,” Massey hollered out.

  She laughed as she took off running. Momentum took her halfway up the wall before requiring more of her strength. Hand over hand, step by step, she climbed the wall, her shoulders screaming, her arms shaking, her knees wanting to lock. She caught the top edge and got a solid hook with her heel.

  “Come on, come on.” Wyatt gripped the wall as if to keep himself from reaching for her and yanking her over the wall. With one last effort, she heaved herself up, resting her upper body across the narrow top part of the wall.

  She’d made it.

  Maria rolled and let herself drop onto the platform on the other side in a controlled manner to the whoops and hollers of everybody on the ground. She laid flat on her back and caught her breath.

  Jack climbed the platform stairs. “That was awesome! Wait until I tell my friend Billy. He won’t believe it!”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said as he reached a hand down to help her up. “That was awesome.”

  Maria took his proffered hand, linking her grip with his. “Yeah, awesome.” She couldn’t hide the self-deprecating sarcasm, even though she’d been learning how to take a compliment. Sometimes she had a hard time giving herself the credit she deserved.

  He pulled her to her feet. After regaining her balance, he didn’t let go until she met his eyes. “I didn’t hire you because I thought you could beat me in a race. I hired you because you don’t give up.”

  Finn and Ronan kept their thoughts to themselves through the first glass of the
single malt as the full moon rose higher in the sky, bathing them in pale light. In the distance, a pack of coyotes yipped, and an owl hooted. Thirty yards from the end of Finn’s back yard, the ground fell away, and the shadowed ponderosa pine trees parted. In the daytime, he had one hell of a view of the Rockies. The view had been what had sold him on the property when he first saw it.

  Drinking, sip by sip, Finn couldn’t get Ronan’s words out of his head. Did Ronan think he should pack up Ali’s files and walk away?

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t think Ali was murdered.”

  Finn’s words almost came out as a dare, but if Finn were being honest, he didn’t want to take it that far. Probably because he didn’t want to hear the truth.

  Ronan twisted in his Adirondack chair and poured two more fingers of scotch into each of their glasses. “Ali was a librarian. Despite what the movies want to make you believe, their lives aren’t all that dangerous.”

  “That’s exactly my point.” Finn rested his elbows on his knees. “She didn’t have any enemies. No jealous or disgruntled boyfriend. There was no reason for someone to want her dead. So for someone to want her dead and then go to the trouble of staging it to look like an accidental drowning or suicide—”

  “Finn. They found the empty bottle of benzodiazepines on her bathroom counter. Her tox screen showed she had enough benzos and alcohol in her system to kill her even if the drowning hadn’t. With little else to go on, I can see how the detectives and the M.E. concluded it was an accidental drowning with an overdose.”

  “You think—”

  “I think that despite the shoddy work the detectives did on the investigation, they might have gotten it right.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Talk about a gut check. “They didn’t even go as far as to find out that the prescribing doctor on the pill vial didn’t exist.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time that someone got a fake prescription filled.”

  Finn swirled the drink in his glass and downed it in one swallow before reaching for a refill. He didn’t make a habit of drowning his feelings in eighty proof, but sometimes he needed it. “You playing devil’s advocate, or are you just being an asshole?”