Chapter 3 #5
Caleb eyed the coffee cup already in Sebastian’s hand and then put the two cups he had on the edge of the desk out of Sebastian’s reach.
Sebastian thought that was just rude. He was perfectly capable of drinking them both before either of them could get cold. It was like Caleb didn’t even know him.
Caleb pointed at the files he’d brought with him. “Two of those need a signature. One is for your first court visit today, and the last one is a new case that Cora said to say ‘you’re welcome’ for.”
“Great,” Sebastian muttered. He had no idea if she hated or loved him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Hunter cleared his throat. “Are you two done?”
Caleb shrugged and shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “For now. What’s going on? It always worries me when you’re here.”
“You should be worried,” Hunter said. “Sebastian has really put his foot in it this time.”
“That is a gross exaggeration.” Sebastian picked up a nearby ruler and used it to stretch out further and slowly coax the tray of coffee towards himself.
“What does that mean?” Caleb asked. He moved the tray further away without looking. “And how is that different from every other day of his life?”
Sebastian sat back in his chair with a huff. It was so hard to find good help and good caffeine suppliers. “Excuse me. Whose side are you on?”
“He’s on a murder investigation suspect list.”
Well, at least that answered the question he’d had earlier. “Okay, but I bet I’m way at the bottom,” Sebastian said. If he was being seriously looked at, he would have been in cuffs already, or Quinn and Grady would have forced him to go straight down to the station without letting him walk away.
“Sure,” Hunter agreed. “But the list only has one person on it, so that quantifier isn’t in your favour.”
Of course it did. “The body was only found two hours ago. Give them some time,” Sebastian said defensively.
Caleb pursed his lips and perched himself on the corner of Sebastian’s desk. “A dead body.” It sounded like a statement, but Sebastian knew it was a question.
“No, a drunk one,” Sebastian said facetiously. “Why would it be a murder investigation if someone wasn’t dead?”
“What are you doing about it?” Caleb asked, looking at Hunter, having apparently decided to ignore Sebastian now.
“I’m not going to be able to bury this one.”
“Then what good are you?” Caleb said acerbically.
“If Sebastian knew how to keep it in his pants, he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”
Sebastian thought that was an unfair statement. This was the first time he’d gone home with someone in over six months. “Hey, I—”
“You picked up someone last night?” Caleb interrupted. “I thought you were just going for a drink.”
Hunter held up two fingers. “Two people.”
“Seriously?” Caleb sounded impressed, and Sebastian was done with this conversation.
“It wasn’t intent—”
“What does that have to do with murder?” Caleb frowned. “Did one of them end up dead?”
“ No!”
“Do they know you have a connection to the victim?” Hunter asked.
“Oh, can I speak now?” Sebastian said sarcastically.
“As long as you only open your mouth to answer the question.”
“No, they don’t.” Sebastian scratched behind his ear and then picked up his glasses, fiddling with them instead of slipping them back on.
“I… There’s a lot of history with the detectives assigned to the case, and I knew if they knew, I’d be arrested on the spot.
” It was more complicated than that. Just looking at Quinn and Peyton standing together had turned everything on its head.
Sebastian felt like he was still trying to regain his equilibrium.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, please tell me it wasn’t Donehue and Hughes,” Caleb said.
Sebastian wished he could say it wasn’t. He wished it more than anything. Add Riley Sinclair into the mix, and he’d been fucked from the start, and not in the way he’d enjoyed the night before.
“Your luck fucking sucks, Seb.”
He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. It had sucked most of his life. Maybe it had all started the day his father had abandoned him when he’d been nine years old and left him alone to raise his two younger siblings without letting their toxic mother infect their happiness with her poison.
“Is this the cop you were involved with when you were at university?” Hunter asked.
“I’m not answering that because I really don’t want to know how you even know that.” Had Hunter plucked out his entire history? He and Quinn had been over for almost a year when Hunter had cornered him and offered him a deal that he hadn’t been smart enough at the time to refuse.
“Information is my job,” was all Hunter said.
“Whatever we were, it’s been over for a long time.” Sebastian had thought they’d been building a life together, or the possibility of one. He’d been wrong.
“Hmm. Ex-boyfriend and current hook-ups, all in one room. I bet that was fun,” Hunter said.
“Don’t forget about the dead body,” Caleb said unhelpfully.
“Well, your luck is worse than you think,” Hunter drawled.
“I’m so glad you’re here and helping me feel better,” Sebastian said.
“Is this bad luck part of the reason you can’t wave your magic wand and make it go away?” Caleb asked.
“Precisely.”
“I thought solving problems was your speciality,” Caleb said, his face a mixture of judgement and challenge.
“Normally, yes.” Hunter looked right at Sebastian, and for the first time in his life, Sebastian wanted to turn away from it. “There are over five million people in Sydney, and you chose those two?”
“I’m assuming you’ve seen what they look like.” He was hoping at some point that this conversation was going to end.
“Turned by a couple of pretty faces, Sebastian?”
Sebastian glared. “My plan was to get laid, not get married. They were hot, they were into me, we went home. It doesn’t always have to be more complicated than that.”
“Do you have pictures of them?” Caleb asked Hunter curiously.
“No, he doesn’t,” Sebastian growled. He didn’t care if Hunter did; this was not the time for show-and-tell. And Will and Peyton weren’t ogling material. Not for Caleb, anyway.
“How do you know all this?” Caleb asked.
“One of the cops makes thorough notes,” Hunter said, shrugging.
That had to have been Quinn. Grady didn’t seem the diligent type. Sebastian pulled his laptop close and wiggled his mouse to get the screen to turn on. It didn’t sound like they needed him to participate in the conversation, and he had a lot of work to do.
“And you just look through police databases all the time?” Caleb asked.
“How is it you think I get my information?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Can we move on, please?” Sebastian said testily. He was beyond done with everything about this.
“Why are the two people he slept with relevant?”
Hunter’s eyes were dark and intent as he said, “Let’s start with William McMahon. Ignoring the fact that he’s the older brother of Harry McMahon—”
“Wait. The famous tennis player?” Caleb asked.
“Yes,” Hunter confirmed. “William is a Tactical Operations Unit officer with an impressive career record, considering he’s only twenty-eight years old, and he leads his own team. He’s also being closely looked at by Canberra to become an instructor for their specialised training courses.”
“Why?” Caleb asked, his brows furrowed.
Sebastian wondered if they’d notice if he just slowly slunk in his chair until he slid off and disappeared under the desk.
“He’s young, he’s idealistic, his personality is a great match, and he’s talented.”
“Okay, well… I mean, that’s not so bad? At least you didn’t go home with an asshole cop?” Caleb said, giving Sebastian an encouraging look.
Sebastian appreciated he was trying to find a silver lining here.
But he still wasn’t even sure why they needed a silver lining.
This sudden interest in his sex life was disconcerting.
Hunter seemed more concerned about them than the fact someone that Sebastian had defended less than a year ago had turned up dead.
“Oh, I’m not finished,” Hunter said.
Sebastian groaned and dropped his forehead onto the desk with a thud. He had so much work to get done, and this gossip session was not doing him any favours.
“There’s more? Seb, why can’t you just go home like a normal person and not find yourself embroiled in a murder?”
“It was on my bucket list,” Sebastian deadpanned.
“Peyton Sinclair was quite interesting to research,” Hunter said.
“Interesting, how?” Sebastian said flatly.
“Interesting that anything to do with him was hard to find.”
“Even for you?”
“Military firewalls are far more difficult to get through. And he’s buried deep.”
“I don’t want to know,” Sebastian said. He would prefer his day not get worse, because it wasn’t even eight in the morning, and he already wanted to throw himself off a bridge.
“He’s an ex-special forces soldier. An Army commando to be exact. Highly decorated sniper with a kill count that would make you cry.”
Sebastian just groaned louder and squeezed his eyes shut. Kill count? Why was this happening to him? He’d just wanted to get laid.
Fuck, is that what that insignia meant? He should have looked more closely at it. Was being distracted by two men intent on wrecking him reason enough for not paying attention? He decided not to ask.
“That’s the good part.”
“I think I need to sit down,” Caleb said.
“You are sitting down,” Sebastian mumbled.
“His older brother is Riley Sinclair, senior sergeant detective.”
“I knew that already,” Sebastian said. Walking out to find not just Quinn, but fucking Grady and Riley in the same room, had given him heart palpitations.
Sebastian had been friends with Riley a long time—almost since his long-ago ill-timed meeting with a baby-faced detective that had shredded him from the inside.
Riley had been a big part of Sebastian’s eventual fallout with Quinn, and while his friendship with Riley hadn’t ended, it was something they had kept hidden because there had been enough nails in the coffin at the time.