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  I waited until he finished. “Hi, Da.”

  He turned and flipped his protective glasses up onto his head. “Hullo, you.”

  My smile turned watery. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “You could never.” He set down the wood and sandpaper and came around the workbench to hug me tight. He let go. “Bah, I’ve covered you in dust.”

  “That’s the least of my problems.”

  He didn’t take the bait. Instead he picked up the spindle and began to sand. “How was your date?”

  “Awful and wonderful.”

  “What’s he like?”

  I brushed the powder-fine dust off my chest, thinking. “Us,” I said finally. “He’s like us.”

  “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” he said in a thick brogue. “Then stay the hell away from the lad.”

  I grinned. Everyone did when Da went all-Irish. “Easier said than done.”

  He smiled back and his eyes softened. “Maybe I was a wee bit hasty putting you on contract. How about you make your mother happy? Sign up for law school and I’ll give you the summer off.”

  “Law school’s never going to happen.”

  “You’ve suffered a mighty disappointment. Don’t discard a bright future out of hand.”

  “What are you saying?” The unfairness of it all hit me like a baseball bat to the chest. “I don’t have what it takes to be a cop?”

  “I’m not the one saying it.”

  “Oh no?” I could feel my lizard brain scrambling out from beneath its rock. “You’re glad I’m out.”

  “I’m not crying in my beer if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Maybe you think I should take Cash up on his offer. Be some lame-ass meter maid?”

  Da looked down the length of the spindle, rotating it. “Mightn’t be a bad interim job for the summer. Take some of the shine off the fantasy you’ve created.”

  Try the world I’ve grown up in.

  He raised the sandpaper again. Touching up perfection. “Dealing with the public’s resentment, oceans of paperwork . . .”

  Holy cat! There it was, like a diamond ring in a gumball machine.

  I’d ticket my way into reinstatement.

  Blood pulsed in my ears as I fought to keep the delight from my face. “Fine,” I said, somehow managing to keep my voice paper-flat. “I’ll be the best damn meter maid you’ve ever seen.”

  “You do that, luv.”

  Chapter 5

  I trotted down the stairs, the house still mostly dark at five thirty. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail, a hard knot of resentment burning in my belly. I’d grab a PowerBar to eat on the way to St. Mary’s.

  Thank God for Hank. And bleacher stairs. Cash met me in the hallway, finger across his lips. He crouched and motioned for me to come toward him. We snuck around the back side of the kitchen. Mom and Flynn were at the dining room table.

  “He’s thirty-one,” Flynn was saying. “Seven years older than Maisie. Christ, he could be her—”

  “Brother? Uncle? Cousin?” Mom flipped the pages on two separate briefs she had spread out on the table.

  “Mom. An ex–Army Ranger? And who knows if that’s even true? His records are inaccessible. Age-wise he’s at the physical apex of his career. So you tell me. Why is he training guys in some dump of a gym?”

  My mother took a precise bite of poached egg and arugula.

  “Mom,” Flynn said. “You can’t let Maisie go out with this guy. He has a house worth about 1.2 million, no mortgage, and only token credit card purchases. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

  Cash turned to me. I waved him off.

  “He sounds fiscally responsible to me,” Mom said. “Your sister’s a grown woman and can date whomever she pleases. I see no reason to overreact.”

  “He has at least three vehicles, multiple gun licenses—”

  “Nor do I believe brotherly concern constitutes a legitimate reason to run Mr. Bannon through the system.”

  “I ran him through the family sources.” Flynn sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Like Maisie should have had the sense to do in the first place.”

  “Who says she hasn’t?” Mom set her knife and fork across her plate. “Your sister is devastated at losing her place at the Academy. And while I gently reveal to her that law school is indeed her destiny, I’d appreciate it if you kept your big muddy feet off my clean floors.”

  “Fine. But—”

  “And while we’re on the subject, Flynn McGrane, perhaps if you focused more of your energies on your own love life, your father and I would finally get the grandbaby we so richly deserve.”

  Cash curled up in a ball behind the couch, shaking with soundless laughter as Mom continued to give it to Flynn. I left him there and went to St. Mary’s to run stairs.

  Ernesto Padilla, my usual partner and best pal since elementary school, was waiting for me at the edge of the field, drumming his hands on the surrounding chain-link fence. A good-looking Latino, he was short, lean, and whippet-fast. I could almost hear Nicole’s voice in my head: “Skin the color of a Kraft Caramel, just begging to be licked.”

  I hadn’t seen Nicole in over a year. I missed her—just like all my former friends who were girls. But it was always the same. One visit to my house and they fell in love with one or more of my brothers, who either dated and dumped them or never had any interest in the first place. One more reason arrow-straight Ernesto was my best friend.

  Hank was at the far end of the football field, running through knife blocks and parries with the rehabbers. Hard cases. Different from cops. Different from criminals—at least the ones I’d been exposed to. These guys were soldiers, living at the next level of violence. Totally focused, Hank didn’t so much as glance in my direction.

  “Hey, chica.” Ernesto punched me in the arm as soon as I got within reach. “Hank told me you’re back. What happened?”

  “I’m out. Don’t ask,” I said darkly.

  “Ah—fuck ’em.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.” I stretched my sides. “So, pally. Cheer me up. What’ve you been up to?”

  He pulled down the corner of his shorts, exposing a scorpion tattoo curled on his hip bone. “Check it. My new ink.”

  “Fierce.” I eased my iPhone from my jacket pocket. “Hurt much?”

  “Hell, no! I’m weak? Is that what you think?”

  “No. I think your mom’s gonna be pissed.”

  He looked up in surprise, and I snapped a picture on my phone. “Shit! You better not!”

  I took off running down onto the field, zigzagging as I yelled over my shoulder. “Sending it right now.”

  He tackled me at the knees, knocking me to the ground, the phone flying from my hand into the grass. Ernesto scrambled over my legs, picked it up, and started scrolling to delete his picture. I rolled onto my back laughing.

  Across the field Hank gave a short, sharp whistle through his teeth.

  Ernesto gave me an arm up, and I dumped my jacket and phone as we hustled to the bleachers and joined the other mutts, the half-dozen or so young guys pretraining to be Rangers, on the stairs, waiting for Hank and the rehabbers to join us.

  No sign of anything from Hank. Not a wink or a smile. Not that I could have seen anything through the blacker-than-black sunglasses he wore.

  Stairs. Obstacle course. Basic cals.

  I busted it out, as mad as a hornet in a rainstorm, beating guys I’d barely been able to keep up with, finishing only just behind Hank and one especially scary rehabber.

  Afterward Ernesto and I lounged on the bleachers. “So, what you gonna do?” he said. “You’re more than qualified for armed forces, state trooper, U.S. Marshals.”

  “Failing the psych review is pretty much the ultimate blackball. Anything else I’d even consider is pretty much shot to hell.” I cracked my neck. “Except maybe the fire department.”

  “Nah.” Ernesto pulled a pack of smokes and a lighter from his jacket pocket. “All thos
e fire boys do is work out and chase women. It’s all about the hose.” He lit the cigarette and took a single long drag. “Be a paramedic.”

  “Like you?”

  “Eight-hour shifts, plenty of action, overtime, and speed. It’s fun and every now and again you go home feeling kinda saintly.”

  “I’m not giving up,” I said. “I’m going to be a cop.”

  “How?”

  “I figure a stint in an enforcement-style job might be enough for reinstatement.”

  “As what? A mall cop?”

  “Shoot right for the stars, don’t you?” I laughed. “I’m aiming at something a little less glamorous. Parking enforcement.”

  “As in meter maid?”

  I nodded.

  Ernesto rolled his eyes, stubbed his cigarette out, and flicked it beneath the stairs. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  I clasped my hands behind my head and lay back on the riser. “It won’t be forever.”

  He hooted with laughter. “That’s what they all say, chica.”

  A shadow fell over us. Hank, holding a body-sized gear bag. “Pads and I are hitting the range. Want to ride along?”

  “I didn’t bring anything,” I said.

  “I’ll spot you.”

  “Shotgun,” called Ernesto, already trotting down the stairs to Hank’s G-Wagen.

  “Have an extra cap on you?” I said.

  Hank unzipped a side pocket on the rucksack and flipped me a ball cap with “Army” embroidered across it. “Keep it.”

  “Thanks.” As we walked to the car, I adjusted the band and pulled my ponytail through it.

  “Nice hustle today, Angel Face,” said Hank. I glanced up, but he was looking straight ahead.

  We got to the truck. Ernesto leaned across the hood, pretending to sleep. Hank unlocked the doors by remote and opened the rear passenger door for me before stowing his gear in the back.

  Ernesto waited until we reached all the way to the end of the parking lot before screwing with me. “Heard the news? Our little girl’s gonna grow a curly tail and suck the public teat.”

  “Thanks a lot, Ernesto,” I said, wishing Hank wasn’t in the truck so I could tag him in the back of the head. “It’s not a career choice. Just a means to an end.”

  “Ah, chica. Keep telling yourself that. Joining the Traffic Enforcement Bureau’s worse than making a deal with the devil.”

  Hank tipped his sunglasses down and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Once you’ve paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.”

  “Kipling? So uplifting, sensei.” Ernesto put his hands together and gave a deferential bow to Hank before he turned around in the front seat. “Listen up, Little Grasshopper. Dig the well before you are thirsty.”

  I stuck my foot under Ernesto’s seat and kicked hard.

  Twenty-five minutes later, geared up, and Glock’d, we stood at the end of the shooting lanes at The Second Amendment. “You chupas done warming up?” Ernesto slapped three five-dollar bills on the counter behind us. “Three rounds. I choose first.”

  I reached my hand into the inside pocket of my gym shorts for my emergency twenty. Hank put his hand on my arm. “I got it.”

  Ernesto whistled as Hank anted up.

  “Don’t know why you’re bothering, Pads,” Hank said. “Merely an exercise in futility.”

  “Yeah? We’ll see ’bout that. Twenty shots at twenty-five feet.” Ernesto waggled his brows. “Closest grouping.”

  Nothing feels as good as shooting a gun. Ear-numbing blasts—even when doubled up with plugs and muffs—and the faint acrid hint of propellant in the air beat a mani-pedi anytime.

  We pressed the buttons and the paper targets zipped up the line to meet us.

  Too close to call. Ernesto swept three of the fives off the counter anyway.

  My turn. “Accuracy. Single shot. Fifty feet.”

  Ernesto nicked the bull’s-eye lower left. Hank dead center. I got up, ready to pull a Robin Hood and shoot through the same hole. Hank smiled at me and, like some dorky puppy, I pulled right. Goddamn it!

  “Shit, chica! Just ’cause he spots you a couple bullets, you don’t have to let him win.”

  “Quit crying,” Hank said. “Fifty feet. Twenty rounds. Combo scoring, time and accuracy.”

  Ernesto danced in place. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.”

  “Opposite hand,” Hank said.

  Ernesto groaned.

  “God, you’re such a show-off,” I said.

  It didn’t take long for Hank to clean our clocks. We spent the rest of the hour burning through ammo. I rode shotgun as we drove back to St. Mary’s, Ernesto lounging in the backseat, singing loudly to Lynyrd Skynyrd. We dropped him off at his pickup and drove to my car at the lot on the other side of the football field.

  Hank put the SUV in Park, turned the radio down, and twisted in his seat to face me. “Traffic Enforcement?”

  I nodded and readjusted my ball cap. “Civil Service. Hard to find something more unpleasant.”

  Hank cocked a brow. “A college degree in criminal justice.”

  “And a meter maid on Monday.”

  His mouth twitched. “I’ll pick you up Friday at eight. To celebrate.” He got out of the SUV, came around, and opened my door while I sat immobile in elation. “I’m heading out to Cali this week. On business.”

  “Oh yeah?” What kind of business? “Don’t get too much sun.” I climbed in my car. “Thanks for today, Hank.”

  He winked and shut my door. I put the key in the ignition.

  Well, that was . . . anticlimactic.

  Hank rapped on the window. I zipped it down. He leaned in, caught my face in his hands, and pressed his mouth to mine. Searing and sweet. “Friday night. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  It was going to be the longest five days of my life.

  I knocked on Cash’s open door.

  He lounged in his beanbag playing Xbox. “Yeah?” he said, not looking away from the enormous flat screen.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  Fingers tapped the controls double-time. “Uh-huh.”

  I went into his room. Two years older than me and he lived like a seventeen-year-old TV star.

  There was an aura about Flynn, Rory, and Da. Hard and forceful, they were cops through blood and bone. Cash was equally intense about work, but somehow surfed along on a playful happy-go-lucky wave of man-boy. The fact that he didn’t wear his cop on his person was what made him such a standout asset to Vice. If I hadn’t seen Cash in action on a ride along, I’d have never believed it.

  I crossed the room, pulled the drapes aside, and opened the window.

  “God dang it.” Cash hit the remote. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying not to pass out from the stench of AXE body spray and Doritos.”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny. And it’s Brut, by the way.”

  “That’s like . . . grandpa cologne.”

  “Which is why it works so well. The girls already have a built-in fondness for the smell. They just don’t remember why.”

  “Speaking of girls,” I said.

  “No, no, no, Clarice. And you were doing so well,” he said in a passable Hannibal Lecter. “You were courteous, you had been receptive to courtesy, you had established trust . . . Oh wait, you hadn’t.” He punched Pause, tossed the remote down, and started throwing hand signs. “Busting in my crib, yo. Messin’ wid my concentration. Knockin’ my stank.”

  I flopped down on the bed and folded my arms across my chest, refusing to pay attention to him. Cash lasted all of forty-five seconds before he bounced down next to me, landing on his stomach.

  “Is your offer still good with Jennifer?” I asked, with barely a tinge of shame. Hank knowing had pretty much neutralized the cringe factor. It was way harder to be an idiot in front of Hank than my brother who actually was an idiot.

  His dark eyes widened and for a moment, he actually did look seventeen. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “No.”
/>   He rolled onto his back and we lay there, staring at the ceiling. “Jaysus, Maisie. There has to be something less . . . less humiliating out in the great wide world. I mean, even working at the movie theater would pretty much at least ensure you wouldn’t be running into slags like Tommy Narkinney every day.”

  “Will you do it?” I rubbed my eyes as though I were tearing up.

  Cash cleared his throat. “Yeah, well. Maybe I wasn’t serious.”

  “I am.”

  “Jennifer’s kind of a pain in the ass. Which is why I’m cutting her from the team.” He yawned and cracked his knuckles. “Ah, well. I suppose I can hold off for another week.” An evil smile spread across his face. “But it’s gonna cost you.”

  Chapter 6

  Jennifer Lince of the Traffic Enforcement Bureau was a slight and sharp-faced white-blonde, attractive in a repressed schoolteacher sort of way. Her fishbowl office was pin-neat; the only objects on the sleek Herman Miller desk were a closed laptop, in and out trays, and an eight-by-ten frame facing her.

  She stood up and offered her hand to me like a trained poodle for one of those weird girly handshakes. “And you must be Maisie. How nice to finally meet you.” She pointed at the two red fabric chairs in front of her desk. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down, leaning a little too far forward on the way to catch a peek at the picture on her desk. Cash grinned back at me from the silver frame.

  A million bucks said he had no idea his face was on her desk.

  “I must say I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Caiseal. He’s been as elusive as the Invisible Man lately. Then three calls last night.”

  My brother. The master of subtlety. “Uh . . . yeah, he’s pulling double shifts at the station. It’s just that Cash is—”

  “Cash?” she asked sharply and pulled a manila folder marked Interviews from the in tray.

  “Cash, short for Caiseal,” I said.

  She stared at me, unblinking.

  What is her problem? “You know, like when people call you Jenny?”