5. Ronan
Chapter 5
Ronan
R onan dragged his gaze from Jenny’s back when his cell beeped with a text: Out back, dickhead . Then a loud booming voice called out from the alley, “Fancy meeting you here.”
Ronan almost smiled—might have under other circumstances. But Jenny’s tight eyes had burned their way into his brain.
It wasn’t the trauma of seeing a corpse that had affected her—she hadn’t seemed fazed by the body on the floor. But her eyes kept flicking to the alley as if she expected that someone might come running in to murder the rest of them.
Had she seen more than she was letting on? Jenny clearly knew the dead man. She’d come back here to see him, hadn’t she? He’d been sitting in the stage area when Brittany had come to collect her. No one had followed Jenny from the main room.
Ronan’s thoughts shifted as his partner ducked inside the building. Five-five, with a broad, flat face, dark eyes, and brilliant red hair, he looked more like a grown-up Chucky doll than a detective.
Patrick Kearny had been Ronan’s best friend for the last eight years. Besides the chief, he was the only person that knew who Ronan really was. And though Paddy didn’t understand why anyone in their right mind would walk away from billions and a cushy desk job, he accepted Ronan’s passion for the work. And protected him more than he should.
“Detective Kearny,” Ronan said. “How kind of you to stop by. Got another pair of booties?” He gestured to the blue plastic sleeves his partner was slipping over his shoes. His partner’s name was Patrick, but Ronan had always called him Paddy at the man’s request—the Irishman had a strong brogue that vibrated your eardrums.
Paddy passed him a pair, then kneeled beside the body. “Aw, shit. Jason Mercer,” he said. “Handsome devil, isn’t he?”
Ronan blinked. “If you like tall and blond and… with a penis.”
Paddy snorted. “Nah, that’s what the chief called him the last time I brought him in— Handsome Devil . I arrested him for petty theft. Last I heard, he’d turned informant, but I can neither confirm nor deny that off the top of my head.”
Ronan drew his eyes back to the body. Six stab wounds— six . “If that’s the case, this might be payback—that many wounds is overkill. Anyone know he turned rat?”
“We’ll look into it,” Paddy said. But he didn’t sound convinced.
“Why else would an informant wind up stabbed to death in a strip joint?” That wasn’t really the question Ronan wanted an answer to. He wanted a reason to give the bartender a pass. Wanted a reason to believe that she wasn’t involved in this—any other explanation. As it was… she’d likely been kissing the man when someone had snuck up behind him and shoved a blade into his heart.
Paddy righted himself and stepped nearer to Ronan. “He was a thief first and foremost, so my guess is that he intended to rob the joint. It’s a Wednesday night, so not the highest cash day, but it’s also less crowded. Fewer witnesses.”
“The witnesses I have, the owner and the bartender, didn’t say anything about robbery—no one asked them for money. They say they heard him arguing with another man, but by the time they came out, Jason was dead, and anyone else was gone.”
“Maybe he was arguing with… a partner?” Paddy shrugged, but his dark eyes remained skeptical. “I’ll run him through the system, see who pops as a recent associate.”
“Either way, it’d be damn weird to kill him here, disagreement or not.” Ronan narrowed his eyes at the bloodstains on the floor, the tacky crimson glinting dully in the jaundiced overheads.
“I was thinking the same,” Paddy agreed. “They had to be here for something besides stabbing the shit out of each other.”
Paddy clearly hadn’t noticed the lipstick. He would—it would be in the forensic reports. But whatever had happened in this room, Ronan didn’t believe Jenny had killed Mercer in cold blood. She didn’t have enough blood on her to have done the deed herself. Same with her asshole boss—if Waylon had done it, he’d be covered head to toe in evidence.
Yet their demeanors were suspicious. Both had refused to meet his eyes—they looked guilty as hell. And there was no way things had gone down exactly as they’d said. Either those two were somehow complicit, accomplices in the murder itself, or they were protecting someone.
“You think the boss has his girls too scared to talk?” Paddy asked, reading his mind.
Ronan shrugged. “Maybe.”
Paddy didn’t know it, but Ronan was well aware that Waylon bullied his girls into holding back information from the police. That was one of the reasons Ronan had never been able to pull a search warrant—no women willing to go on record. Waylon held onto their tips each night and refused to pay any dancer who displeased him.
“It’s also possible that they really didn’t see the guy. The back door was open when I got here. Mercer didn’t put up much of a fight, so the assailant could have been in and out within a minute.”
“Maybe the bartender was blowing her boss in the office, and they don’t want anyone to know,” Paddy said, gesturing to the office door, and Ronan’s hackles rose.
No. Not her.
“Why would they hide that?” Ronan said instead. “She’s not underage. And I doubt he cares about an HR violation for getting a blow job from a bartender.”
Paddy’s eyes darkened, serious. “How did you get here so fast, anyway?” he asked, voice softer now. This time, his eyes held no hint of the joviality he usually wore like a mask, especially at horrific crime scenes. “Were you…” He glanced at the door to the main room, his meaning clear: Were you watching the women on the poles? Are you stalking someone… again?
Paddy leaned his face nearer to Ronan’s and whispered, “You know this shit gets you into trouble. You get caught up again?—”
“This isn’t like last time.”
But it was. A different club, sure, but not a dissimilar series of events. Nearly a year ago now, he’d seen a girl with sad eyes and a scar on her left arm that tattooed flowers did not completely cover. A man had grabbed her in the parking lot and pressed her against a truck. Ronan had beaten the shit out of him.
It turned out that the man was her boyfriend—the encounter had been fully consensual. Anyone might have made the same mistake, but Ronan was still considered a loose cannon. He wasn’t even sure why he still had a job. Because he was a Duffy? Maybe. Which wasn’t really fair.
Ronan swallowed hard. Paddy’s point was valid. Being in this club was a risk, but he’d known that from day one. And he’d kept coming, anyway. Because of her .
Paddy was still watching him. “If it’s not like the last time… what is it like?”
“Let it go,” Ronan said, turning to the entry to the main room.
“I’m just trying to understand, brother. You can have any woman you want. I don’t know why you come to these?—”
“We have witnesses to interview,” Ronan fired back, stepping through the swinging door, hoping that would be enough to shut his partner up.
But when he glanced back, Paddy’s brow remained furrowed. Suspicious. “You’ll need a better story than that when this gets kicked up to the chief. He ain’t going to let the fact that you were here slide, and?—”
“He was walking by,” a female voice said from their right, and they both turned.
Jenny blinked; her cheeks flushed. She’d reapplied her lipstick—flawless now, not a smudge. Her hands were clean, too.
Shit . How had he let her do that? He should have followed protocol. Bagged her hands. Kept her exactly where she was. What was wrong with him?
You’re obsessed with a woman who works in a strip club, Ronan, a voice whispered in his head. You’re just like your father.
His ribs constricted, heat stabbing at his throat.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, stepping closer, her eyes on his. “I just wanted to say thank you—for coming in when you heard me screaming. To think what might have happened if you hadn’t been walking down that alley…”
“What might have happened?” Paddy shifted around Ronan, positioning himself between them, his head cocked.
Uh-oh.
“If Detective Duffy scared the killer off, does that mean the killer passed him on the way out?” He glanced over his shoulder at Ronan, a look that said, I know you’re lying—you need to talk to her, get your fucking stories straight.
She swallowed hard. “I… maybe he went out the front? I mean, I didn’t see him,” she amended. “I just heard footsteps—scuffling, a thud, someone running off. I came out and started screaming. Suddenly, the detective was there.” Jenny shrugged. “It’s all a little fuzzy, but… I’m grateful.” She reached out and gently squeezed Ronan’s arm, then turned on her heel and headed back to the clique of dancers huddled near the stage.
Ronan stared after her, his arm tingling where she’d touched him despite the circumstances.
Insane, Ronan. You’re insane. A horny stalker, that’s all you are.
But what the hell was she doing? Was she trying to… protect him from having to admit that he was already here at the strip club? His gut said yes, and his instincts were usually right, but…
Huh . She was perceptive. The chief wouldn’t love it that one of their own had been drinking whiskey and stuffing bills into G-strings while their killer slid a blade between Jason Mercer’s ribs six times . And the chief definitely wouldn’t appreciate that Ronan had broken protocol, letting the woman who’d been kissing the victim just moments before—or maybe even during—the attack wash away potential evidence.
He was a real piece of work. Paddy was right—he needed to get his shit together.
He couldn’t afford to be this stupid. Couldn’t afford to be blind to everything except a woman he couldn’t have. Couldn’t afford to protect her either, not when she might have conspired to kill a man.
No matter how much he wanted to.