17. “Whatta Man”
SEVENTEEN
“WHATTA MAN”
(SALT-N-PEPA/EN VOGUE)
A t Zipps Sports Grill, we didn’t even make it to Jayden’s table before our dreams of cultivating a cop informant went up in flames.
First, Shanti’s cousin was gorgeous. Tall, lean, his skin a couple of shades darker than hers, beautiful bone structure. And we knew who he was immediately, because when he first laid eyes on her, he smiled, and he had two (two!) dimples.
Then he spied the rest of us, the smile died a fiery death, he shot straight in his chair, shook his head and bellowed, “ No fuckin’ way! ”
We all stopped dead.
Everyone in the bar looked at him.
He paid them no mind as he jumped out of his chair and stormed to Shanti, which meant he stormed to us all.
“Are you serious with this shit?” he demanded of Shanti.
“What shit?” Shanti asked innocently, and I could tell she was perplexed at his volatile response, as were we all.
Then we weren’t when he eyed Raye, Luna, Jessie and me.
“We got a bulletin on you,” he stated.
Uh-oh.
“The entire Phoenix Police Department got it,” he continued.
Uh-oh!
“With pictures,” he went on.
Eek!
“And you are not dragging my cousin into your shit,” he concluded.
“Listen, Jayden—” Luna tried to play it cool.
“Fuck no,” Jayden cut her off. “Are you high?” His eyes went over her head. “Are you high?” he asked again.
We all turned around.
Cap and Gabe were standing there.
They’d followed, but they hadn’t followed close. My guess was, they were close now because we had a tall, angry, fit man in our faces.
“No,” Cap drawled as an answer to his question.
“You know better than to let your woman do this kind of shit,” Jayden declared, aiming this at Cap.
Uh-oh!
Raye’s face went hard, and we all tensed.
But it was Shanti to look out for.
Her voice got soft. “Excuse me?”
Jayden looked down at her. He was married, he had a mother, he obviously had female cousins. I didn’t know what other females were in his orbit as he was growing up until now. What I did know was that he heard Shanti’s tone, took one look at her face and realized he’d just messed up huge.
Thus, he was a whole lot calmer when he said, “Do you know what these women are into?”
“I know they found fourteen missing women when your department wasn’t even looking for them,” Shanti retorted.
Woo.
Zinger!
“I also know they made it so a crew that was rustling up about three gang wars on top of abducting homeless people to use them as forced labor in their drug operation was shut down, and I don’t know if you all were even doing anything about that,” Shanti kept at him.
We’d just met Jayden (kinda), but still, at the expression on his face after she delivered that, we all scooted back a step.
Shanti, however, did not.
“So, you were saying?” she asked.
“They got lucky,” Jayden bit off.
“Do I have to bring up Elsie Fay?” Shanti retorted.
A muscle in his jaw bulged.
“You can get lucky once. Even twice.” Shanti didn’t let up. “But three times? Brother, you’re a cop. You know that isn’t right.”
Jayden didn’t speak.
He knew that wasn’t right.
“Now, a man got dead. Trevor Clampitt,” Shanti continued.
“His last name was Clampitt?” I whispered to Willow.
She nodded.
That seemed to fit him somehow.
“And you remember Kev.” She gestured to Willow.
Willow gave him a short, awkward wave and said a short, awkward, “Hey, Jayden.”
Jayden jerked up his chin to her and muttered, “Yeah, I remember that guy.”
Well, it seemed Willow had been invited to Shanti’s family’s shindigs, and she’d taken Kevin along.
“We’re broken up,” Willow blurted.
“That’s good,” Jayden stated firmly.
She’d definitely taken Kevin along.
Willow bugged her eyes out at Shanti.
“Trev was Kev’s best friend,” Shanti shared with Jayden.
“And you think you can get what out of me…exactly?” Jayden asked his cousin.
“It’d help if you could tell me if the cops found anything when they searched Trev’s apartment, or if they knew what they were looking for or what Trev was into, considering, after whoever killed Trev did him, he went to Harlow’s place.”
Now she was gesturing at me. When Jayden turned to me, I also did the short, awkward wave.
Shanti kept going.
“And they tossed that because she’d had a kind of fake date with Trev that night, although she didn’t, she was supposed to be having a fake date with Kev.”
“A fake date?’ Jayden asked.
“That isn’t important,” Shanti said.
Jayden’s lovely brown eyes narrowed, making them still lovely, but also scary. “So you want info from me, but you aren’t offering full disclosure in return?”
I could see this wasn’t quite fair.
Shanti could too.
“Okay, so Kev was stealing stuff from women he met on dating apps,” Shanti said.
Bad idea.
Jayden looked mad again.
Or mad der .
We all scooted back another step.
This time, when we did, Willow made a strange noise, so I looked to her to see her cheeks aflame.
I then looked beyond her to see she’d bumped into Gabe and was now butted up against his tall, built frame. It was then I saw Gabe’s rugged, gorgeous face seemed carved from stone, but he had a hand curled around her waist.
Interesting .
Jayden brought my attention back to him by demanding of Shanti, “And you didn’t tell me?”
“We were in the midst of catching him in the act when Trev showed,” Shanti explained.
Jayden stared at Shanti.
Shanti stared at Jayden.
They kept doing this.
We all waited.
Finally, Jayden said, “I’m not your guy.
I do not like you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing.
I want that on the record.” His gaze went through all of us.
“And in case you don’t get this, you try to bring another officer into your fold as your man on the inside, let me save you the trouble.
No one is gonna help you because we all think you’re lunatics. ”
“Well, that isn’t very nice,” Luna mumbled.
Jayden raised a single brow Luna’s way.
After I got over thinking that was ridiculously hot, I had to admit maybe we were a little crazy.
But we weren’t lunatics.
I mean, now that Javi was in my life, and his mom had mental health issues, was it even okay to call anyone a lunatic anymore?
I’d have to ask.
Luna’s parents dealt with a lot of disenfranchised people in their work with the homeless, not to mention, they were proud progressive liberals. They’d know all about what was politically correct.
I’d ask them.
“And I’m telling Aunt Tandi you’re into this shit,” Jayden threated.
“Go ahead,” Shanti said breezily. “Mom already knows.”
Jayden scowled at her.
“Thanks for being such a great help with us solving a murder or something,” Shanti said as she turned and hustled us toward the door.
Cap and Gabe fell in behind us.
Willow asked Shanti under her breath (but she still did it incredulously), “Does Miss Tandi know you’re an Angel?”
“Hell no. Mom would lose her ever-lovin’ mind,” Shanti replied. “But maybe Jayden won’t say anything if he thinks she already knows.”
“Yikes,” Willow said.
“Uh, yeah,” Shanti agreed.
This made me want to meet, at the same time afraid to meet, Shanti’s mom.
We all piled into our cars with Raye saying, “I texted Jinx. She’s meeting us at Titus’s.”
I hoped we were going to get an update about her accountant.
Cap and Gabe got into the Jeep, and we all rolled out.
We were well under way when it happened.
“What the…” Raye, who was driving the Sportage, started, her eyes to the rearview mirror, then she finished, “ Hell! ”
She slammed on the brakes.
My seatbelt bit into my chest as my head thrashed forward and back.
Cars around us swerved and honked.
“What’s going on?” I asked as she whipped us into the left lane.
“Call Luna. Tell her to circle back.” Then suddenly she was screaming, “ Circle back! Circle back! Someone just forced Gabe into a right turn! ”
I got out my phone and then nearly dropped it when Raye swung a uey in the middle of the street, more cars swerved and honked at her, regardless of the fact that, in Phoenix, a city that refused to shirk off the mantle of the Wild West, this maneuver was pretty standard.
She raced back the way we came.
Jess answered Luna’s phone, and I put it on speaker.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Some—”
I stopped talking because I had to lean with the car and try not to scream, because Raye cut a left turn at high speed right through traffic.
More tires screeching, more horns blowing, but by some miracle, we made it through.
“ What the fuck is going on! ” Jess shouted.
She’d seen us.
“Someone cut off Gabe and Cap. Forced them into a right turn,” I explained. “We’re following them.”
Willow’s hand went between our seats from the back, her finger pointing.
“There they are!” she cried. “They took another right.”
“Circle back,” I said to Jess as Raye’s phone started ringing.
She dug it out and tossed it to me.
I caught it, looked at it, and it said Caveman Calling .
Okay, that took it to another level. Seriously, she was really pissed about that caveman stuff.
I took the call, again on speaker, and said a shaky, “Hey, Cap. You’re on speaker.”
“Do not follow us,” he ordered. “Go straight to Titus’s.”
“Fuck that!” Raye yelled.
“Honey, listen to me,” Cap said. “We’re closest to his place. Titus knows we’re coming. He’s preparing. We’re gonna lead whoever this is there and do a takedown. Go to Titus’s.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Raye asked.
“Would I do that?’ Cap asked back.
“If you thought it would get me safe, yes!” she shouted.
“I’m not doing that. Go to Titus’s,” Cap said in a brook-no-argument tone.
“Why are they after you guys?” Raye demanded.
“I’ll ask them that when I have them hogtied on the floor in Titus’s garage. Now go to Titus’s, get your tasers out, but stay out of the fuckin’ way when this shit goes down.”
He didn’t let Raye respond. He disconnected.
“Shit, shit, fuck !” Raye screamed, punctuating each word by slamming the heel of her palm on steering wheel.
“Calm down, girl,” Luna cooed through the speaker on my phone. “You got precious cargo.”