Page 37 of Shield
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” I said with a sluggish lift of a shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about anyone before. It scares the living shit out of me, Mack.”
He sighed, then nudged me in the side with a bony elbow. “Now you know how I feel about Elena.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” I’d teased him pretty hard the first two years they’d dated. When things had gotten serious, and he’d proposed, I’d been even more of a sarcastic twit. “I don’t know what he sees in me, to be honest. I’m a rundown cop. He’s a fucking superstar athlete. He has kids, and a house, and green plants on stands in the windows. I got nothing like that, and yet, when he kisses me…”
“Okay, yeah, I don’t need all the gory details of gay butt stuff.” He stood and looked down at me, his freckled cheeks rounding into a warm smile. “I’m glad you found someone. Fuck knows you needed something good and pure in your life.”
My cell vibrated, and I answered the call. “Winwood.”
“Hello, Officer, this is Gemma. I’m Joe’s sister.”
“Gemma, hey. Is everything okay?”
She exhaled noisily. “He’s doing well. Some of his memories are coming back; he seems steadier, wants to go back to work. Can you believe that?”
Yeah, I could. “He’s dedicated.”
“Yeah, well, he said something that I wanted to tell you, and it didn’t make much sense at first, and I don’t want to bother you.”
I flicked the phone to speaker and held it between me and Mack. “Go on?”
“He said that the photo from the board had bank passwords on the back, something he used to do to keep it secret. Does that make sense? I mean, I get he shouldn’t have done that, but it is what it is.”
“Passwords. Okay.”
“He said Heloise knew where they were, that you needed to talk to her.”
“Thank you.”
“He also said it didn’t matter about those passwords, because he thought he’d spotted errors in the bank statements, so he’d changed them all.”
Fuck. He’d changed codes; Heloise had been locked out? So she couldn’t do her skimming? Well, that explained the break-in, if Periapsis was looking for replacement passwords.
“Thank you, Gemma. That’s very helpful. We’ll come in at some point and get a full statement.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
I ended the call, and Mack and I exchanged knowing glances. “Passwords, eh? Cops 1, Heloise 0,” Mack observed.
“Yep.”
He fist pumped, then grinned at me. “You hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Cool, I’ll go get us some burritos from down the street.”
“Sounds good.”
I watched him jog off as the sun warmed the top of my head. I sighed as a flickering memory of last night with Oliver played out in my thoughts. I was free now to date him openly, if he still wanted that kind of thing. Fuck knew what I would do to win him over. My knowledge of romantic words and deeds was zero. I’d probably fuck this up before it even had a chance of really taking off, but in for a penny… as the old folks say.
I yanked my phone out of my front pocket. A gum wrapper fell to the sidewalk, then blew away in a gust of hot air. I dialed Oliver’s number, my gut a mishmash of anxiety and excitement.
“Hey,” he said after picking up.
“Hey yourself.”
“You sound raspy. Are you getting a cold?”
