Read Boys in Blue 03 - Dangerous Distraction for Free Online Page B

Derrick asked him.
     
“No.”
     
“Look at him. This is killing him, too.”
    Derrick had a point. They’d followed David all morning on the pretence of finding where he got his leads. Nate had argued that if David were withholding information about their investigation, they could follow the dropped threads and make a break in their arms case.
    David had done what he said he’d do. He’d followed up on his lead. Then he’d done something he hadn’t confessed to. Something which made David’s investment in the case that much more reliable. He’d thrown himself under the bus for an informant.
“He took a hit for his rat at the expense of his own reputation,” Derrick said, his words mirroring Nate’s thoughts.
     
Nate shot him a sour look. “I know.” His fingers released the cotton material as he wiped his palm on his leg. “Protecting an asset protects his interests,” Nate reminded his partner.
    It spoke to David’s distractibility that he hadn’t noticed Derrick and Nate tailing him since David had left the precinct. They’d followed him to the rendezvous point, then to the parking lot of the police department. They watched when David called Nate, dropped his forehead on the wheel, wiped his eye when Nate turned him down, smacked his hand on the dashboard, and sat back again, his chin tilted up in defeat.
    Even from this distance, Nate could see David’s Adam’s apple work and his chest rise and fall with quick, unsatisfying breaths. You learned a lot about someone’s character watching how they behaved with others. How they behaved in their quiet moments.
“It kills me when my wife cries.”
     
“He’s not my wife,” Nate snapped. “David doesn’t want to be my anything. He just wants sex.”
     
“I don’t think so.” Derrick blinked solemnly at him.
     
“Fuck!” Nate slammed his fist into the door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Whose side are you on?”
     
“Yours, partner. I always have your back, even when you do stupid shit like let the man you’re crazy about walk away.”
     
Derrick’s and Nate’s pagers went off.
     
“It’s Director Chiltz .” Derrick looked at Nate. “We have to go, but I won’t say anything if you need to take a few minutes and stop your investigative lead over there before he enters the building.”
     
“Let’s go.”
     
“Are you sure?” “No. Let’s go, anyway.”
     
Derrick shook his head. “For a smart guy, you’re a moron.”
     
“Hey, if I’m worth the fight, David won’t take no for an answer.”
     
“You’re worth the fight,” Derrick said, gently.
     
“Thanks. Shut the fuck up and drive.”
     
* * * *
    David wasn’t taking no for an answer. He needed to find his nerve, but he wasn’t staying away. Okay, maybe he was staying away for a little while, but it was only because he had a job to do, a job which entailed lots of paperwork and phone calls. A job that, if he did it right, meant he’d be seeing Nate pretty soon with some evidence. He wanted that evidence sharp when he did see Nate so David didn’t look like a love-struck idiot.
But that was the only reason he hadn’t called Nate back.
     
Really.
     
Had nothing to do with rejection.
     
David went to his desk where the case file he’d been working still loomed in his inbox. Steph wandered over, her arms loaded with papers.
     
“Hi, Rook. How’d the stakeout go?”
     
“It went.”
     
“So…coffee?” she asked, hopefully.Her cheeks pinked.
     
“Oh, right.” Shit .
    He’d been so caught up with Nate that he hadn’t thought about telling Steph he wasn’t interested. Approaching him in the middle of the floor with the department around him, she must have thought it would be impossible for him to turn her down. Which it was. Add to it the pressure of knowing Nate was out and wouldn’t consider a relationship with David since he wasn’t, meant having coffee with a woman counterproductive to snagging the man.
“You told me to hold the thought. So…”