Chapter 56
This wasn’t just about someone involved in one of Dom’s case like she’d first thought.
This was personal. Madison stood at his shoulder, staying quiet.
She would never forget the day she had been called to the ME's office to identify her father after he had died.
It would always hurt. To see someone like this.
She’d seen dead bodies so many times before. It was a part of the job. But this…was someone Dom knew. She knew how that had to hurt. She’d…identified three work friends herself who had been killed in the tornado a few years ago. It still hurt to this day.
"That's him. Antonio… He went by Tony on the street. He relayed information for me. We had a business relationship."
Tony.
This was the snitch Dom had talked about and to before. Madison just knew it then—the one he’d told her he’d wanted to help once.
"Your business card was found in his pocket," Daryn said. "We figured we'd start with you on the ID. He didn't have any other ID on him. Personal effects are there. He didn't have much."
Madison looked. An old cracked phone, a cigarette lighter and a pack of Marlboros. Not even a watch.
"No, he didn't. He inherited his mom’s place in Garrity, but it is pretty rough, I think. I was by there once, with Lake.”
"How did you meet him?" Madison asked. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to just wrap her arms around him. Well, she couldn’t do that. But she could be there with him now.
His outward appearance showed nothing but the big, strong guy type that she knew he thought he had to be. But she knew him well. She saw the hurt in his eyes.
Her caveman was hurting. Madison didn’t like it when he was hurting.
"Came across him years ago. In my patrol days.
He was always willing to talk for twenty bucks.
Sometimes that twenty bucks was all he would have for buying food for a week.
He didn't work real jobs. No real… anything.
He wasn't a bad guy. He just made stupid choices after…
well, meth. Meth was his drug of choice.
Before that he had a chance. He wasn't half bad.
Making stupid decisions around age nineteen, twenty. He didn't deserve this."
Daryn covered the man's body with the sheet again. "I'm sorry."
"He didn't deserve to end up like this. What do we know so far?" There he was. Mister Professional. Of course. Dom would shove the hurt away to go hunting the bad guys.
"Cause of death GSW to the frontotemporal.
Close range. But it was a small caliber, probably .
22 or .38. I'll know more after I have him on the table," Daryn said.
"For now. That's my preliminary showing.
I'll let you know more later. He's… a priority.
As soon as I get the slug out, I'll get it to ballistics.
Really can't say any more now. Do you know who should we call to make the notification? "
Dom just shook his head. "Only family he had died two years ago. He had no one. Hell, I'm probably the closest thing to a friend he had."
She was watching him. Not saying much. Dom almost felt her gaze as he drove her home.
"Shitty day."
"Yes. I suppose that would describe it.” Damn it.
He had known this was probably going to happen to Tony someday.
He’d just always half-hoped he’d find a way to help the other man.
But Tony had taken a few extreme turns after losing his mother to a stroke two years ago.
She had been all the grounding influence Tony had had in the world. But why had this happened to Tony now?
“How well did you really know him, Dom?"
He stayed silent for a moment. Thinking back to those days.
"I met him my first week on the job here after I transferred in.
Just some skinny punk urinating on my tire.
I was in the gas station taking a leak myself.
Came out, and he was no more than twenty-one, twenty-two.
Just a few years younger than I was. I'm not even sure he made thirty. "
"I thought he was in his fifties. From the way he looked."
"Meth will do that to you. We both know that.
I crossed paths with him every so often.
Hassling a bit, that kind of thing. I just sort of…
hell, honey, the city is sixty thousand, and my territory overlapped his.
Nothing more complicated than that. Just…
You see the same people sometimes. Eventually it was, hey, I'll give you twenty if you tell me what you know about this or tell me what you know about that, and we’d talk for a few minutes when he felt like it.
Eventually…he started calling me with things he thought I needed to know about.
Always…when the underdog…he had a heart.
Soft spots. I…tried to get him into rehab a few times, but it never stuck.
He was always a good source of information. "
"I'm sorry… about your friend, Dom."
Dom just snorted. "We weren’t friends. We were associates. Paths crossed. That was it."
"Of course. You know I don't believe that."
"Well, that's what the official line is going to be. Don't want any more questions than that. Not from outsiders."
"I understand that. But I am not an outsider. "
Then he was pulling into her parking lot. "Stay here. I'm going to check the place first. Keep the doors locked. You know the drill."
"You are not leaving me out here after dark while you go inside. Not happening."
"Still afraid of the night, huh, baby?"
"I probably always will be."
"I know. And you deserve so much better than that."
Madison led the way into her kitchen again.
Dom had checked in her closets and under the bed, just like she’d suspected he would.
Now she was dealing with the cat. Missy was rubbing around her legs, saying hello.
Then the cat went to him—to be picked up.
Missy liked Dom, she enjoyed rubbing all over him.
Dom usually tolerated it. Since he’d invaded her life lately and everything.
She rarely had people to her place, except her mother and Max and Charlotte.
Mostly she went out to her family’s house or to Shelby or Zoey’s or their other friends.
Mostly she and her friends hung out at Shelby’s.
There was plenty of room, and an amazing pool.
And since Shelby had recently been pregnant, they’d just wanted to keep her where she was the most comfortable.
Zoey’s place was another favorite hang-out—Madison and Charlotte liked to play with the smart house features Luc had installed to see what they could make them do.
But…hanging out lately hadn’t happened. Everyone had been so busy recently. And with what had happened…she didn’t want to think they were drifting apart, but sometimes that was what it felt like.
Madison looked at her invader. He still had that look in his eyes. He was hurting.
Madison didn’t know what made her do it, but she just walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts, whether he was your friend or not.”
It took a moment, but Mr. Tough Guy wrapped his arms around her and just held her right back.
She hated that he was hurting. Dom was more sensitive than he would ever show the world. Someone needed to remember that.
“You don’t have to be tough and strong all the time, you know. Not with me.”
His arms tightened on her. And he lifted her.
Madison strongly suspected she knew what was about to happen.
She met him halfway.
It really did feel like the world was changing right now. It just did.
He had no business putting his damned hands on her. Dom told himself that, even though he had her in his arms.
He was just thirty feet from the stairs to her bedroom.
All he had to do was carry her upstairs. He’d strip her down and show her exactly what she did to him. Remind himself that he was alive, she was alive, and all they had were the moments between them.
But he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that to her. She needed a different kind of man than he was.
He knew that.
What could he give her, really?
He pulled back. “I am not going to do this. You deserve better than me.”
“What kind of man is better than you? For real, Dom. Tell me. Because I know you. The real you.” The challenge in her words was hard to miss.
“You aren’t exactly a serial killer. You like kids and small animals.
And you would never willingly hurt me. I’m tired of the excuses.
From both of us. You…are just scared. I scare you.
So either…do something about what this is, or…
put me down. And we go back to the way it was.
I can’t keep…doing this. We both know it. So…make the decision.”
Hell. She was basically telling him she was his for the damned taking.
Dom was actually shaking as he was ready to do just that.
And then his damned phone rang. With the chief’s ringtone.
The curse escaped before he could stop it.
“Let me guess…the TSP is calling again.”
He couldn’t deny that.
“I get that. I do. Probably better than any other woman in the world. And I’m okay with it—because a lot of the time, it calls for me, too. You just…need to decide how long we are going to keep doing this weird little dance. I can’t keep doing it any longer.”