Page 16 of Beyond the Badge: Crew

“I guess—”

“What do you want for it?”

“I don’t—”

“Five hundred?”

“A week?” Fletch asked.

“A month,” Crew answered.

“A month? That’s highway robbery.”

“All right. I’ll ask her if she’s interested and let you know.”

“I didn’t agree to five—”

Crew hit the End button on his phone and hung up.

A text came through as he was heading upstairs and when he got to the top landing, he glanced at it. It was a picture of Fletch’s hand flipping him the bird.

With a grin and a shake of his head, he punched in the code and stepped inside group one’s headquarters.

He frowned when he saw Torres standing close behind Cabrera with one hand on the back of her chair as he leaned over her shoulder, speaking Spanish as they looked at the computer screen.

“How’s the wife, Torres?”

Torres glanced over at him. “Spicy as always.”

“Is that report you’re reading in Spanish?”

Torres gave him a toothy grin and straightened. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

Crew’s nostrils flared. Of course it had to be because he picked up the scent of coffee and not because of his annoyance. He spun on his boot heel and headed over to the coffeemaker, finding a half of a carafe on the warmer. He poured himself a cup and, on his way back to Cabrera, he stopped dead and stared at the conference table.

A box of donuts sat in the center.

“Who brought these?” He flipped open the top, searched what remained, found a glazed donut and clamped it between his teeth.

“She did,” Torres said, tipping his head toward their newest task force member. Still wearing a shit-eating grin, the plant manager headed over to the desk used for transcribing wiretaps.

Cabrera glanced over her shoulder, trouble with a capital T filling her dark eyes. “Morning, sir.”

His step stuttered and he caught the donut before he almost spewed it out. “Crew is fine.”

She turned in her seat to face him. That was when he noticed she wore another suit today.

“You don’t have to dress up. We’re pretty casual around here.”

“Sounds good, boss.”

His jaws snapped shut on the donut causing a chunk of it to land at his feet.

“You never gave me the code. Someone had to let me in.”

“Yep,” he said around a mouthful of glazed donut.

“I let her in this morning and gave her the code,sir,” came from Warren Reynolds, a corporal with the state police. This morning he was assigned to work with Torres and listen to “dirty talk.”

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