The Grifter
Chapter 7

Of all the things Frankie could use as a weapon, she’d never thought lipstick would make the list. But between the dark red she’d slicked over her mouth and the criminally short merlot-colored dress hugging every inch that it touched, she was pretty sure she’d qualify as at least semi-dangerous. She’d had to resort to YouTube tutorials to get the whole smoky eye/fake eyelashes thing done, but she had to admit, the result was pretty, albeit far more dramatic than her norm. The one drawback was that the long sleeves of her dress were skintight and the hemline barely covered her butt, neither of which offered any leeway to hide a weapon. But Frankie had been able to get a three-inch blade into the belt slung over her h**s, so, overall, not a total loss.

Slipping her burner phone and some cash next to the fake ID in her teeny-tiny purse, she grabbed her keys and headed for the door. She was meeting Shawn at the precinct in twenty minutes, and she’d allowed herself just enough time to get there so she wouldn’t have time to overthink things.

Like the way working with Shawn all week had been so easy, especially when they’d gone in the field to talk up his CI. Like the way her heart flipped upside down when he leaned over his desk to show her something in the case file and he got close enough for her to smell the crisp scent of the soap he still used, the same as he did eight years ago. Like the way her other, more southerly bits got involuntarily hot and sooooo deliciously bothered whenever he looked at her with that steady, brick-fortress stare, and damn it, she couldn’t afford to lose her focus, here.

They had a killer to catch. She had reality to get back to.

Shawn was an island. Any emotions he’d felt for her had died a quick death on the day Mike Mattigan had shredded her shoulder with the same hunting knife he’d used to gut the owner of that house he’d broken into. Frankie would do well to remember that.

No matter how damp her panties got at that dark, s3xy stare.

Taking a deep breath of chilly night air, she slid into the driver’s seat of her trusty Prius and plugged in her personal cell phone, calling up a soundtrack of soft jazz. She blamed Bailey entirely for her Nina Simone obsession. From their very first NA meeting, he’d promised that jazz could calm even the worst troubles. Frankie had certainly brought enough of those to the table to give poor Nina a run for her money at the time, but it hadn’t taken long for her to get hooked on the artist’s smoky, poured-honey voice and hypnotic notes of the piano that accompanied it. She had to admit, she relied on music to calm her more often than not. There were far worse things to be addicted to, though—Frankie sure knew that by heart—and by the time she pulled up at the Thirty-Third, the music had turned her limbs fluid and evicted the stress from her shoulders and spine. Frankie parked in the lot next to the building, which was far emptier on a Saturday night than a weekday, and made her way to the equipment room on the main level, where she’d promised to meet both Shawn and Capelli. Her heart tapped out a brisk rhythm that kept time with the clack of her block-heeled booties.

It did triple-time as she caught sight of Shawn standing by the desk at the back of the equipment room.

Okay, but really. She was human and hadn’t gotten laid in an ice age (thanks, work). It wasn’t her fault that he filled out his black pants as if they’d been custom made for his strong h**s and muscular thighs, or that his dark gray button-down shirt clung to his shoulders and biceps as if they were a frigging life raft and the material was a half-step away from being lost at sea.

“Wow.” Capelli’s eyes widened behind his black-framed glasses. “Detective Rossi. You look—”

“Fine,” Shawn interjected, sending Capelli’s mouth into a barely-there smirk.

“I was going to say different.”

Frankie yanked on her bravado, and she yanked it on quick. “You two really know how to flatter a girl.” Trying her best to mirror Shawn’s blank expression, she looked at him and said, “Are you ready?”

He lifted his clean-shaven chin in a nod, and Capelli jumped in with the pleasantries. “Since you two are just doing recon tonight with no planned meet-up, you won’t need a whole lot of gear. Still, we do like to keep track of you, just in case. We’ve obviously got the GPS in your burner cell, but as a precaution”—he held up a tiny, button-shaped transmitter—“this panic button will not only track your location, but will send a distress signal to all nearby units if you activate it. Just press and hold it for three seconds if you run into trouble. May I?” He gestured to the thin silver watch circling her wrist.

“Oh. Sure.” Frankie extended her arm. Capelli’s touch was entirely efficient as he cradled her forearm in one hand and attached the panic button to the side of her watch with the other, testing the signal before nodding.

“You’re all set, and Maxwell’s got a matching button on his watch, as well. We’ll have a patrol unit two blocks from the club for as long as you’re both there, just as a precaution.” Dividing his gaze between her and Shawn, he asked, “Who’s driving?”

“I know the neighborhood,” Shawn said by way of calling dibs, and Frankie shrugged.

“Fine by me.” The passenger seat would give her a better chance to take in her surroundings, anyway.

Capelli handed over the keys to their pickup truck. “Have fun, kids.”

The guy was so serious, his crack at humor made Frankie laugh. “Don’t wait up.”

“No worries, there. I’ll re-inventory the panic buttons on Monday. Just park in the garage when you get back and leave the keys in the lock box,” he told Shawn.

God, his dark blue eyes revealed not even an ounce of emotion. How had she once been able to read him like a headline? “Got it.”

Palming the keys, Shawn spared her a tiny glance, tilting his nearly shaved head toward the exit. Frankie didn’t wait to move through the door and head down to the garage. Getting into the passenger seat of the pickup without flashing the universe was a bit of a trick, but she managed well enough, and a minute later, they were heading out into the depths of Saturday night.

“You want to review covers one more time?” Shawn asked after the darkness had settled into the corners of the truck.

Frankie lifted a shoulder. She’d long since committed every detail to memory—Isabella and Hollister had quizzed her until Frankie Burton’s background had become nearly as reflexive as her own. But if Shawn wanted to do the dance… “Sure.”

They did a straightforward back and forth to confirm their knowledge of not only their own covers, but each other’s. But then, Shawn threw her for a loop. “We need to talk about boundaries.”

“Okay.” Frankie lifted the second syllable up in question. “What kind of boundaries?”

“Yours.” He stared through the windshield for a beat, then another before adding, “Shawn Pritchard and Frankie Burton are set up as a couple.”

Oh, God. Oh, God, she’d been so focused on the Alfie/Beck/drug ring part of this that she’d missed the connection of their covers completely.

But Shawn clearly hadn’t. “I need to know your boundaries, Frankie. Once we go into that club—”

“We need to sell it one hundred percent, I know.” She took a breath and used it to cement her resolve. “So, let’s do whatever we need to.”

He shook his head. “Look, you’re not wrong. If we don’t want to blow our cover, we do need to be convincing. But I’m not going to put you in an uncomfortable place to do that,” he said quietly. “Not even to catch Beck. That’s not how I work. So, I need you to be specific. Tell me exactly what you’re okay with and what you’re not. Where I can touch you. When. I need to know exactly where your lines are.”

“Oh,” Frankie breathed. It was the first thing he’d expressed in an entire week that had come within a nautical mile of an emotion, and damn it, her heart tripped. “Thank you for being considerate of my feelings.”

Just like that, he returned to iceberg status. “This has nothing to do with feelings. I’m just doing my job. Establishing clear boundaries is SOP, not to mention smart. I’d do it with Isabella or Hale if we were partnered on an op, too.”

Oh, ow. Muscling past the pinch in her chest, she said, “Fine. I’m okay with you touching me but not groping me. A hand on my shoulder or lower back, an arm around me, all of that is fine. Dancing is in my comfort zone as long as we’re not shrink-wrapped to each other. No k!ssing, obviously.” Not that they hadn’t a billion times, but, God, that might as well have been a century ago. Back when he’d had actual feelings rather than a slab of ice for a heart. “And please don’t touch my face.”

Stupid, that one. But she needed to concentrate, and if he did something that intimate, even under a guise, she’d turn into a great, big casserole of hormones.

Shawn’s brows tugged down by a tiny fraction, a move Frankie would’ve missed entirely if they hadn’t just passed beneath a streetlight, but it was the only sign of his surprise. “Understood.”

“What about you?” she asked, and this time, his shock was more obvious.

“What about me?”

“You think consent works in one direction?” Frankie arched a brow. “I’m not exactly keen on making you uncomfortable, either. We won’t work well that way.”

He paused. “Fair enough. Your rules are fine for me, too. And neither one of us leaves the other one’s sight for any reason. Good?”

“Good.”

They spent the duration of the ride in silence that might as well have been spray-starched. Frankie practiced the meditative breathing that Bailey swore by, yet she’d only ever been able to make work for her about seventy percent of the time, scanning their surroundings through the passenger window until they pulled up to a low-slung building with no windows and no charm. A neon sign blasted the word BANG! in bright blue letters, illuminating the concrete façade with a cold glow, and Frankie did one last visual sweep before clicking out of her seatbelt.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

Shawn joined her on the sidewalk, his body close enough for her to notice but not so close that she felt crowded. Having him at her nine felt safe—he’d always been a damn good cop—and by the time they reached the entrance to the club, her nerves had settled into alertness and adrenaline.

Right now, she was Frankie Burton. Party girl. Here for a good time.

Here for Beck.

“Welcome to Bang, pretty girl.” The bouncer, who had a chin like a brick and no neck in sight, gave her a slow up and down look. “You ready to have some fun?”

“Always.” She kept her smile coy but her eye contact strong, and the bouncer bit.

“Your man going to behave?” he asked, sliding a disdainful glance in Shawn’s direction, and even though Shawn returned it with a top shelf scowl, Frankie laughed.

“I f*****g hope not. But he won’t cause any trouble for you.”

Looping her arm through Shawn’s and blowing the bouncer a k!ss, she walked into the club. The place was one step away from darkness, with only a few strategically placed lights by the floorboards and bar and a dim, battery-operated light on each table. Semi-circular booths lined the far wall, private enough to hide all sorts of things Frankie didn’t want to contemplate. Not that half the people in here were bothering to cover up the pills and powder on their tables or their groping hands below decks, and Frankie’s heart twisted beneath the snug material of her dress. She was a Vice cop. She’d worked over a hundred drug-related cases since becoming a detective, and seen plenty of the stuff after she’d gotten sober. There was a visceral gut-punch to seeing people actually use, though, and damn it, she hadn’t expected to be so up close and personal with it right out of the gate.

“You good?”

The word was barely a murmur, low and steady in her ear, and something inexplicable made it ground her. “Mmm hmm.”

Steadying her breath, Frankie steered them toward a table on the opposite side of the club from the dance floor. It was central enough to give them a good vantage point of both the bar and the bathrooms, not to mention offering plenty of opportunity for them to be noticed by anyone headed to either destination, which was the whole point of their being here tonight.

She did a covert one-eighty of everything behind Shawn, while he did the same over her shoulders. “Negative on Leo or Alfie,” she said softly under her breath.

Shawn nodded. “Here, too. But it’s still early.” He signaled a passing waitress and ordered a scotch, neat. Frankie manufactured a smile and added a club soda with lime. The drink could pass as a vodka tonic to anyone who’d put eyes on them, but as an addict, she didn’t consume alcohol, no exceptions. Impaired judgment wasn’t on her agenda, especially when she was on a job, and double especially when she was sitting across from her dark and s3xy ex.

Speaking of which…

“I thought you hated Scotch,” she murmured as the waitress sauntered to the bar.

“Shawn Pritchard doesn’t. Anyway, it’s easier to dump a drink with no ice in it,” he said, his eyes flicking downward. “I’ll try and steer clear of your shoes.”

“Thanks,” Frankie said, and meant it. She took a minute to do her due diligence, as Shawn had advised in one of their prep sessions this week, noting exits and reading body language and cataloguing the locations of the bartenders and security staff. But since there was nothing to do now but wait until Alfie showed and hope he’d notice them in the good way, they might as well kill time with conversation.

“So, we haven’t really had a chance to talk about anything other than work this week,” she started, but Shawn stonewalled her with a barely-there shrug.

“Nope.”

“Your co-workers seem really great,” she tried again.

Another shrug, this one more listless than the first. “Yep.”

Okay, so Frankie knew they had to be careful what they said on the off chance they were overheard, but come on. No one was anywhere near them, and they had to make themselves look like a couple. He couldn’t throw her a frickin’ bone, here? “How long have you been at your current position?”

Shawn’s eyes glinted in the low light of the club. “A while.”

The waitress arrived with their drinks, and Frankie waited until the woman was out of earshot before placing her elbows on the table and leaning in toward him, bringing their faces as close as she dared. “Okay. I get that you don’t want to be besties, and I respect that. I do. But would it really kill you to have a friendly conversation with me?”

Something sparked beneath his stare, but just for an instant before he said, “That’s not what we’re here for.”

Frankie’s temper, which was a tenuous thing to begin with, snapped. “We can’t do what we’re here for yet, and we’re going to be bored sh!tless if we just sit here waiting. Plus, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re supposed to be a couple. That usually involves speaking to one another.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he bit out. She stared at him, waiting for him to continue until the silence became so strained that he had no choice. “But we can’t really talk about work.”

“So, let’s talk about something else,” she said. “I’ll even let you pick the subject.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Oh, for the love of… “Let me get this straight. You’d rather sit here in total silence than have a non-work-related conversation with me? You seriously dislike me that much?”

“I don’t dislike you at all,” Shawn said, blinking as if he were shocked to hear the words. Hell if that didn’t make them bookends. “Look, I…I’m not trying to be a d**k, okay? I’m just not sure how to do”—breaking off, he gestured between them—“this. With you.”

Frankie’s pulse stuttered. “What?”

“Our history is complicated, Frankie.” He lifted his glass to his mouth, letting the amber liquid touch his lips for show, and God, the rough edges of his s3x appeal had only grown with time. “I know how to talk about work with you. Everything else is…I don’t know. Personal. It gets in the way.”

A tart smile lifted the corners of her mouth without her brain’s permission. It was either that or cry, and she’d never been much of a crier. “Still overthinking things, I see.”

“I don’t overthink things,” he argued, turning her smile into a flat-out laugh.

“And I don’t let anything get in my way. I don’t need to know all your secrets, here. It’s just small talk. Watch, I’ll start.” She thought for a moment, then went with, “I ran a marathon last year.”

“You ran 26.2 miles. Willingly.” His doubt might as well have been scrawled on his face with Sharpie, but Frankie nodded.

“I did. I hate running, it’s true. Or I did,” she amended. “Until I discovered that it’s freakishly therapeutic. Plus, I’m stubborn enough to muscle through pretty much everything in my path, so…”

“Now that, I believe.”

His mouth twitched with the tiniest movement, but oh, it was enough.

“See? Not so bad, is it? Nothing imploded. The world is still turning on its axis. And, oh, added bonus—neither of us is going to expire from unadulterated boredom,” Frankie said.

Shawn grumbled, but didn’t clam up. “I guess.”

She traced a finger around the rim of her glass, and f**k it. She wasn’t a hold-back-your-feelings kind of woman. “Look, you’re not wrong. We do have history, and I’m not really sure how to do this, either. But maybe, since we’re here and we have a job to do and all, we can just figure it out together, one minute at a time.”

For a minute, nothing but music pulsed between them, and damn it, Frankie should’ve known he’d stonewall her again. For Chrissake, he’d locked her out ages ago.

But then, he stunned her into place in true Shawn fashion, with just one word.

“Maybe.”