Hyde, an Urban Fantasy (35 page)

“Hello there, Officer. I’m thinking of joining your club.” He was the last person Mitch wanted to see. This made things more complicated. It wasn’t going to stop him from doing what needed to be done, but he’d have to be more careful. And didn’t that just suck.

The cop lifted both eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have thought you were a joiner, Mitch.”

The gym employee glanced back and forth, from man to man, stepping out of the way. He was smarter than Mitch had given him credit for.

“I’m always on the look-out for a place to fit in,” Mitch said.

“Don’t know if this is the place for you then.” Landon flicked his head toward the ring. “Unless you’re a fighter.”

“Oh, I’m a fighter alright. But today I’m just taking the tour. I’ll let you know if I end up becoming a member.”

“You do that.”

Mitch threw the same insincere smile back to the cop and turned to the teenager. “Continue the tour.”

“Sure.” The kid danced on his feet nervously and then led Mitch back down the stairs and into the locker room, spouting bullshit details about the benefits of membership.

Carter was standing in the middle of the empty locker room, his locker opened, stuffing his bag into it.

Mitch was on him in a heartbeat, pulling the kid’s arm behind him in a choke-hold and shoving him against the metal. “What did you do to her, asshole?” He heard a gasp and footsteps running for the door behind him. He needed answers. Now. He had maybe a minute before every cop in the place, including Landon, dragged him away. Not his most brilliant move, but his blinders had been finely focused.

Carter didn’t even fight. His body was limp and defeated before Mitch had touched him. “I didn’t do anything to her, I swear. I didn’t! Let me go!”

“Tell me what happened.” He heard shouting and feet hitting stairs. “Damn it, tell me what happened.”

“She got into . . . my stash.”

“Your stash? You little piece of shit.” Mitch relaxed his arm, gave one last brutal shove and let the guy go. “They know about it?” He nodded toward the thunderous footsteps coming closer.

“You can’t tell them! They won’t understand. Please, Mitchell, don’t tell them.”

Three cops pushed the door open, more of them steps behind. Landon was in the lead, smiling when he saw Mitch.

Carter held out his hands to the intruders. “It’s okay! We were just talking. No big deal.”

They slid to a stop, but didn’t retreat.

“Really. It’s just a misunderstanding.” Carter smiled and shrugged. “It’s a chick. But we’re dealing.” He nudged Mitch like it was a big joke.

The men took their time backing off.

Landon didn’t even pretend to leave. “I’ve seen you at the station. You’re a trainee or something, aren’t you?” he asked Carter.

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you know my friend, Mitch?”

Mitch cut in before the boy scout said something stupid. “I’m trying to get into his ex’s pants.” Both men whipped their heads toward him. “What?” He held up his hands and shrugged. “Carter was telling me what her favorite position was, and I . . . lost my head for a minute. But I found it.” He winked at the shocked detective and then knocked on his forehead. “See? Right where I left it.”

“You’re nuts, you know that?”

“I do now, Officer. Thanks.” Mitch threw an arm around Carter who was still stunned by the derailment of this conversation. “We’re gonna keep talking now, right, Carter?”

“Yes,” he whimpered, as Mitch’s hold tightened.

It was a good thing Mitch had no intention of actually deceiving the cop, because it would have been a complete failure. However, his attempt at totally confusing the guy worked perfectly.

“If you want to talk, why not do it at the station, kid?”

“No, sir,” Carter said quickly. “That’s not necessary. We’re just shooting the shit . . . sir.” The forced smile didn’t quite make it to both sides of his mouth.

“Uh-huh.” Landon walked into the adjacent shower area, keeping his eyes on them until his neck would no longer allow that much rotation. “I’m gonna be in the shower. If I hear anything funny, it should take me about five seconds to get back here.”

As soon as Landon turned the corner and the sounds of water hitting tile wafted in, Mitch separated from the kid and told him to sit with a quick nod of the head toward a long bench running along the aisle of lockers. Carter sat so hard, his ass would be bruised tomorrow.

Not the perfect place for the violent discussion Mitch planned on having, but if he dragged Carter out, he knew Landon would come up with a good enough reason to take him in. And with Eden still a wreck at his house, he couldn’t afford any delays. So he resigned himself to no beating, but the boy scout didn’t need to know that.

Mitch stood over him, keeping his voice low. “You think having that cop in the next room will keep me from pounding you, don’t you?”

“I was hoping so, yes.”

“Hope is nice. Fucking useless in this situation, but still nice. You have one sentence before you start bleeding. Make it good.” He straddled the wood slats of the bench and waited, his arms crossed over his chest.

Carter glanced toward the shower area and leaned in close to whisper. “Chastity found something she shouldn’t have. I guess she snorted some of it. Then when Eden—”

“Stop. I said one sentence.”
And my patience is a little shorter than the rope I want to choke you with.
“Eden found your dope. So what did you do to her?”

“Shhh! I’ll be kicked out. It wasn’t dope.” His eyes searched for danger, having no idea that the biggest threat was right in front of him.

“I really don’t give a shit about what you’re putting up your nose, shooting into your veins, or shoving up your ass. I care even less about whoever you want to hide it all from. What I
do
care about is why she’s sobbing in my bed right now.” Not sobbing, she wasn’t sobbing. And that was the scariest part. He was afraid she wasn’t feeling anything anymore. “So spill.”

The naughty boy scout’s brow furrowed. “You took her to your place?”

“Not the point. Stop thinking about
where
and start thinking about
what
. You have two minutes before I’ve decided where I’m going to stuff your body.” Truth was, even
he
wasn’t stupid enough to give the detective more fuel for his Mitch-burning crusade.

“Last night, after Eden . . .
you know
, I got a phone call from Jolie.”

His eyes narrowed. “Jolie called you? Why?”

“She wanted to come over.”

“Why?”

Carter shrugged, confused. “Because she wanted to see me.”

“Why would she want to see you?”

“Because we’re dating.”

Mitch’s laughter nearly threw him off the bench. “What?”

The little brat actually sneered at him, downright proud of himself. “You didn’t know?”

“You’re serious. Holy crap, you’re serious.”

Landon’s bulky body appeared in the doorway, a towel hastily wrapped around his waist, eyes suspicious. But he wasn’t wet. The guy probably wished he’d picked up his gun before hitting the
pretend
-shower he
wasn’t
taking.

Mitch didn’t care. He just kept laughing. He looked at the cop, hysterical, and pointed to the kid. “He’s fucking my ex!”

Carter’s smile fell. “Jolie is your ex?”

Shit, the guy looked crushed. Which might actually make sense when confronted with the facts: The asshole who might be swiping Carter’s girl also got to the woman he replaced her with before he did. Yeah, that had to sting a little.

“It wasn’t a big deal, Scout. We experimented with the idea for a while early on, but I’m not—I don’t—” 
Jesus, what kind of guy am I?
“I don’t commit.”

Once Landon had given them both some kind of evil-cop-eye and went back to pretending to shower, Carter asked, “Whose idea was it? To break it off.”

“It was a long time ago, I don’t remember.” Mitch actually felt guilty. Weird. He’d been totally fine with killing the brat a few minutes ago, but now he was about to lie to save the guy’s feelings? There was all kinds of wrong here. “Probably her . . . definitely her. She’s a lot smarter than I am.” That second part was probably true—Jolie was very smart. But the first part was definitely a lie. She’d understood, but hadn’t been happy about it right away. Or for a while after that.

Steam from Landon’s absurdly long shower crept out into the main locker area. Sucking in thick, humid air, Mitch searched his memory, not sure if he cared or not, but feeling like he owed the guy as much as of the truth as possible. Why bother? Because Mitch had every intention in the world of possessing the guy’s ex-girlfriend. And infatuation loves company just as much as misery does.

Jolie. Sure, he remembered bits and pieces. Beautiful girl. Still was, but they didn’t match. Like peanut butter and rockets. Sexually they were more like animals, which was fine, but he’d felt her get too attached. It was an impossible situation. He needed her to keep an eye on Hyde when Shelly couldn’t. And the mushiness she started to drench him in—being overly attentive beyond her job, touching him, dancing around with the idea of a future with him in it—was a deal breaker. Where she got the idea he’d ever be interested in that kind of relationship was a mystery.  He was 90% sure they’d only fucked facing each other a handful of times. How’s that for non-committal?

She’d taken it well. She was like that, a fine-let’s-move-on kind of girl. He respected that. He respected her. So if she decided to aim all her charms at the kid sitting in front of him, self-doubt flooding his eyes, so be it.

“She’s quite a lady, Scout. Treat her well and she’ll treat you well.”

“We’ll see,” Carter mumbled.

“Great. Don’t care. So our only problem here seems to be that I don’t know what happened after Jolie called you last night.”

“Right. She wanted to come over, but Eden was still awake, and I . . . You know how Jolie is—the word ‘no’ just makes her more insistent.”

Mitch couldn’t agree—he never really paid attention to what she did after he said no to her. So he gestured for the guy to continue.

“I thought I could leave and be back right away, making sure Jolie wouldn’t decide to swing by and with Eden there . . .”

“Let me guess. Saying no took the rest of the night.”

Carter blushed, but his glare stayed put. “Yes.”

“And the wreck of a girl at my house right now is because you don’t keep your goodies to yourself well enough, drugs or otherwise.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Mitch sat back. Something in the way Carter was fidgeting made Mitch think the boy scout was lying. Or it might have been that the guy was starting to see a possible end to his mortality. Eden believed in Carter. He was just a confused, overwhelmed, in-way-over-his-head idiot. “Fine, you can live. Primarily because you won’t have another chance to fuck up. You are not to see Eden again. Do you understand me?”

“I need her to know how sorry I am. To make it up to her somehow.”

“Start by growing up and keeping your dick in your pants when someone you love is counting on you.” He slapped him on the shoulder and stood. “How about that?”

“I need to do something for her, Mitchell. Ask her what I can do, please.”

“We’ll see, Scout. We’ll see.” Then he shouted, “We’re all done talking, Detective. Would you like to come look for blood spatter?” He left Carter sitting dejectedly in the foggy room.

After Mitch left, Eden spent the next half-hour in a huge pool of self-pity—easily imaginable due to the amount of water that had fallen out of her eyes today. She looked at the clock again. Okay, make that an hour in pathetic-hood. More than enough. As she reawakened to her mind and body, she pushed away thoughts of how her life was
meant
to be and tried to focus on how it was. She couldn’t spend eighty percent of her life dreading what Chastity was doing with the remaining twenty. She wiped her cheeks on the sheet covering her. Soft sheets that smelled like
him
.
Wait. First think about me,
then
him.