Quinn: Rafe, ever consider marriage?
Rafe: Like to each other?
Quinn: Sort of. I mean, everyone seems to be getting married, but I don’t know if it’s for me. Or for you. It seems… weird.
Rafe: Works for your mom and dad. Works for a lot of people. Guess it comes down to if you need to be married.
Quinn: Do you?
Rafe: I wouldn’t say no if you were asking. I happen to like doing weird with you. It’s kind of our thing.
—Lazy Afternoon on the Couch, Harley on Rafe’s Feet
THE BAYSIDE warehouse was still standing when Kane rolled up. A single light was on, a sliver of gold peeking through the slit in the curtains hung across the front windows. It was hard to believe it had only been a few years since Miki’s godforsaken terrier broke into his woodworking studio, stole a valuable piece of koa, and brought the irascible, sexy singer into Kane’s life. Climbing down from his Hummer, Kane wondered what lay in wait for him behind the warehouse’s front door. He was tired, fatigued to his marrow, but he knew he was probably going into one of the few times he and Miki would fight.
“Maybe Mick will be rational,” Kane muttered, willing his hand to turn the doorknob. He never thought of his brain as sarcastic, but the echoing laughter bouncing off the inside of his skull somehow didn’t surprise him. “Might as well get this over with.”
The living room was empty.
And so was the kitchen at the far end of the warehouse.
It was an open sight line, the long space only divided by a kitchen peninsula the interior designer enthusiastically saw doubling as a casual eating area. The long dining room table set between the nest of sectionals in the living space rarely saw a meal on it. Instead it was home to a collection of guitar parts, sheet music, and a couple of ratty tennis balls Kane occasionally found in his sneakers.
He wasn’t sure what the warehouse originally had been other than a brick structure with cement floors and sweeping arches, but now it was home. With half its space on the lower floor dedicated to the main living areas and the formal dining room now converted to the master bedroom he shared with Miki, it was comfortable, a retreat from the day-to-day business of dealing with mankind’s casual evil.
At least it was comfortable when Miki was around.
“Well, he’s probably upstairs on the roof.” Kane put away his weapon, locking up the gun he carried on his hip. Dude, Miki’s dog, was nowhere to be found on the main floor, but since the front door hadn’t been locked—something he talked to Miki about until he was blue in the face—he didn’t think his lover had gone roaming through the city. “Question is, do I take a beer with me? Or a bottle of whiskey for both of us to share?”
Kane took a bottle of Hibiki 21 with him.
The rooftop deck with its open wooden pergola and thick canopy covered the mounds of pillows forming Miki’s sanctuary. It had started off small, like most things in Miki’s life, then grew to form a shelter away from the bustle of living going on downstairs. Kane put the covering up so San Francisco’s unpredictable weather was kept off his lover’s space, and another large deck had been built by the access door, a home for a grill, wet bar, and enough seating for two baseball teams—or one Irish cop family. He’d been able to talk Miki into letting him install an outhouse of sorts, just a toilet and a sink, so no one had to go downstairs to use the bathroom, but when it was all said and done, the rooftop with its incredible view of San Francisco Bay and Chinatown was Miki’s domain.
In the couple of years Kane had called the warehouse home, he still hadn’t gotten used to its opulent view of the city. Tucked into a steep drop-off with Russian Hill on one side and a vibrant Asian community on the other, the structure’s roof was the perfect perch for an evening of night gazing. Behind them and to the right, Chinatown rarely slept. It murmured even late at night, its flashes of neon and savory aromas creeping over the rooftop’s short protective wall, but it was the view of the water and its embellishments of light that took Kane’s breath away.
He loved the city he was raised in as much as he loved the green-hilled countryside owned by the Morgans and Finnegans back in Ireland. Coming up to the roof was like seeing an old family friend his parents told him to take with a grain of salt, a familiar but intriguing personality he would never get tired of.
Much like his Mick.
But also like his Mick, the city held threads of darkness he could never seem to heal, and where in Miki he could encourage the exploration of his pain in the hopes of the singer finding some peace, San Francisco demanded he abrade its evil from its streets, taking the worst of its shadows and hopefully leaving room for its brightest lights.
The woman with Edie—a dead woman with another woman’s name on her lips—shouldn’t have died today. He’d been prepared for all sorts of things where she was concerned: extortion, blackmail, even catfishing, not death. Not murder. Even as he mentally girded himself for battle, he knew he was carrying that woman with him and would continue to shoulder her until he found out who extinguished her light.
“Let’s just hope the love of my life and the scourge of my existence feels the same way,” Kane muttered, hefting the whiskey. “Not like he didn’t know I was a cop before he signed up for this ride.”
Dude let out a halfhearted woof when Kane opened the rooftop door, but other than a bit of a thump of a tail against a paisley pillow, the small sand-colored terrier didn’t move. Miki, however, was a different story.
The fairy lights strung under the pergola’s beams sparkled a soft firefly-like glow over Miki’s tall, sprawled body. His hazel eyes were nearly obsidian under the shadow of his shaggy brown mane, but Kane could see the suspicion and anger lingering in their depths. He expected a snarl, or at least a sarcastic rejoinder, but Miki remained silent, watching Kane as he approached.
It was always difficult to reconcile himself with the fact he was in love with—was the love of—the magnificent, complicated feral creature that was Miki St. John. The lead singer of a tragic and now resurrected band had been a constant and ignored presence in the Morgan household, especially since his youngest sister wallpapered her room with Sinner’s Gin posters, so Kane knew he’d seen the man’s beautiful face more than a few times before their first meeting. It’d taken him a bit to connect the man who couldn’t control his thieving dog with the rock star plastered on his sibling’s walls, but by the time he had, Kane was pretty certain he’d already gotten hung up on the guy.
He’d never known that rock star. Instead, he knew the musician and the man with a haunting past and sad eyes. Kane was there to catch Miki when his childhood abusers were found murdered and held him up when Damien, the man he called brother, returned from the dead. They’d been through a lot in the short time they’d been together, and now it looked as if they needed to go through a little bit more.
“I brought the whiskey.” Kane held up the Hibiki’s distinctive bottle. “I’m ready for my ass chewing. But just to warn you, I might chew back.”
Moving the dog proved to be more problematic than Kane expected, and he had to get around Miki’s acoustic guitar. The singer wasn’t doing much to help him, just watching with his hooded eyes and feline-flat expression. Kane wasn’t sure what was worse, Miki’s hot anger or his cold rage. The cushions let out a puff of air as he settled into them. Then Dude decided Kane’s legs were his personal heater, and he snuggled his slightly grimy furry body against Kane’s thigh.
“So on a scale of one to volcano, how pissed off are you?” Kane asked, unstoppering the whiskey. He took a sip of it, enjoying the sting in his throat and the numbness of the back of his tongue, then swallowed. Holding the bottle out, he suppressed a relieved smile when Miki took it from him. “Are we arguing tonight or are we talking? And before we get started, where’s your brother and my cousin?”
“D and Sionn took a drive over to Half Moon Bay. Something about a grunion run, which is bullshit because it’s not time for that. Pretty sure they just want to fuck on the beach.” The swig Miki took was longer than Kane’s, and when his tongue darted out to lick the drops on his lower lip, Kane longed to chase it back into Miki’s mouth. He would’ve if he didn’t fear getting bitten. “We’re not going to argue. Not going to lie to you, I was planning on coming home and tossing your shit out onto the driveway ’cause I was that pissed, but Dad—Donal—talked me down.
“I guess I forget you’re a cop sometimes. Don’t know how ’cause you might as well tattoo a badge on top of your forehead, but I do,” he remarked in a voice so soft Kane nearly couldn’t hear him. “I think I was more scared and hurt. Because it was Edie lying there and there wasn’t anything I could do. I fucking hate being helpless. And I just guess… I needed you to do something, I don’t know what, but something. That’s not like me. I don’t need people to do things for me, but today I did. And you couldn’t. So I’ve got to get over that. Something like that happens and you’ve got to be a cop first, and Kane second. I forgot that, but Dad helped me see that.”
“So we’re okay, then?” There was a bit of satisfaction at hearing Miki call Donal Dad. Kane wasn’t going to mention it because he knew discussing some things was best done in the middle of the night while it was dark and they were in bed next to each other. Miki needed the dark to talk, an odd quirk Kane hadn’t quite figured out but was willing to accept. “If I had a choice, I would have stayed there with you, but I had faith you would take care of Edie while I saw to everyone else. I came back as soon as I could.”
“I know.” The tiny sparkles above them played with the sensual angles of Miki’s face. “When are they going to give me back the package? The cop that took my statement said they might not hand it over because there’s no proof that it’s mine.”
“It was in Edie’s possession and, well, in this case that nine tenths of the law rule makes it hers. Book said that if they can’t get it released from evidence, they will document what’s inside and share with us. Providing everyone involved isn’t an asshole and lets us. I checked in on her before I came home, and the nurse in charge said she was sleeping peacefully. She might be a bit groggy tomorrow.” He moved Miki’s guitar, sitting it gently into a stand near a post. “Did Edie tell you the woman’s name? I haven’t caught up on the reports to see if it’s in there. Planned on doing it tomorrow morning.”
His lover was a bit tense, his shoulders taut and challenging, but Kane could read the expression on Miki’s face. He needed to be held, and despite the low-grade grumbling, Miki fit into the curve of Kane’s arm, then settled against his side. Laying his head on Kane’s shoulder, Miki stared into the sky, his long lashes throwing shadows over his cheeks, and not for the first time, Kane wondered about the secrets Edie’d had in her hand when she’d been shot.
“She said it was Sandy Chai-something. Um, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention.” Miki’s mouth twisted, then he bit his lower lip. Reaching over, he scratched at Dude’s upturned belly and the dog stretched, burying his nose into the pillows. “I really didn’t want to know—about her—my mother. The only reason I went was because I didn’t want Edie to go alone. And she wasn’t going to let this go. I guess it would help if they knew who I really was, legally, you know? The lawyers made me. The state of California gave me an ID number, but I didn’t exist, not really. I didn’t have a birth certificate or anything that proved I even existed. They don’t know if I was born here or where I came from. I mean, look at me. There’s a pretty good chance I’m not even American.
“I’ve just fought so fucking hard to survive, and I can’t look at someone erasing who I am. If they take away me being Miki St. John, then what do I have left?” Miki’s voice hitched, and he swallowed. “My mother wasn’t real until today, and now a woman who says she’d been friends with her is dead and I still don’t know anything more about her than I did when I woke up this morning. All I’ve got is more questions, and a woman who I like a lot and who’s gone to bat for me more times than I can count is in a hospital because she felt like I needed to know who gave me up.”
“You have a birth certificate and a passport,” Kane pointed out, stroking Miki’s side. Hitching up Miki’s shirt, Kane found the skin beneath warm to his touch. Miki shivered a bit at the touch of cold but let Kane continue his caress. “I don’t think they can take away who you are, and if anyone tries, you know we’ll fight them.”
“Thing is, K,” Miki whispered, “I’m sick to death of fighting them. I’m sick to death of fighting me. I’m tired inside. Some days I just want to stay in bed and never go back outside. The only thing keeping me from doing that is that you wouldn’t be there with me.”
DOCTOR HORAN was a familiar, friendly face Kane usually saw over a dead body. Today was no exception. He just wished there weren’t so many dead bodies and they would catch up every once in a while at the biannual cops’ picnic. The slender, stalwart blonde was one of the best medical examiners he’d ever worked with, and over the years he’d learned exactly how to get on her good side at nine o’clock in the morning.
Armed with a venti skinny vanilla latte, a chocolate croissant, and a pound of peanut M&M’s for later that afternoon, he strolled into the morgue prepared to beg, borrow, and steal any time she might have to spare to jumpstart his case, his partner and best friend, Kel Sanchez, ambling along beside him.
The morgue was, as always, a cold, hard place to walk into. At first glance, the place was starkly professional and edged with clean lines, resembling more of a futuristic R&D think tank than the first place a corpse stopped on its journey toward its final rest. The dead were all that mattered here, and none of the staff, as far as Kane knew, cut corners when chasing down answers to questions most people hated to ask. There was a bit of the macabre humor often found on crime scenes dotting the walls and desks, little mementos reminding the living that death came for them all. He smiled at the plastic skull vase filled with pink daisies but sobered when he thought of the number of times he’d gone through the double doors at the end of the hall.
He’d started his day early, rolling out of bed before the sun thought about kissing the city’s horizon, and even the dog hadn’t been willing to go outside to go to the bathroom by the time Kane had his first cup of coffee. He’d left Dude asleep on the still warm bed and kissed what he’d hoped was the top of Miki’s head under the mound of blankets tucked against the far wall.
Kane was going to probably end his day the same way, moving aside a sleeping dog and digging Miki out of the blankets so he could kiss him good night.
“No woman is going to want M&M’s this early in the morning, Morgan.” Kel flirted with a teasing smile at one of the residents walking by. The woman rolled her eyes, obviously used to Kel’s ways, but her snort was more amusement than disgust. “Is that how you smooth things over with Miki? Candy? And it’s not even good candy. If you’d been serious, you would have gotten Godiva’s.”
“We’re in San Francisco, asshole,” Kane shot back. “It’s Ghirardelli’s here, remember? And just you watch, boyo, I know what I’m about.”
“You just think you can serve up anything you want in that look-at-me-Lucky-Charms accent of yours and you can get away with stealing the moon.” Kel sipped at his coffee, then blew at the tiny opening in the lid. “Damn, this shit is hot. I’m telling you, I called ahead. They’re stacked knees to armpits in dead bodies. There’s no way in hell we’re jumping the line.”
“A package of M&M’s says you’re wrong,” Kane replied, rattling the bag. “I don’t want anything other than verification of ID. I’ve got a name, but I don’t want to go off half-cocked in this. Not with Book holding back the DA’s office for me. He just handed me the case to piss them off, but we step wrong in this and he’s going to have our heads. We get ID verified, and then we’ll start asking questions.”
“I’ve got one question.” Kel nudged him with his elbow. “Is the case we’re working on that woman’s murder or are we going to go looking for St. John’s mother? Because my gut tells me we might be starting off with the first but we’re going to end up with the second.”
“I don’t know if he wants her found,” Kane admitted, shouldering the morgue’s door open and holding it so Kel could go by. “But if she turns up—dead or alive—that’s going to be for him to deal with. I just got to make sure he doesn’t fall apart while doing it.”
It turned out Kane didn’t have to beg. The pleasant-faced doctor stood over the woman’s body while an assistant took photos. Horan looked up when the inspectors entered, her eyes lighting up behind her face shield at the sight of either the coffee or the M&M’s. Pulling off her gloves, she strode over to the cordoned-off area where morgue visitors were allowed to stand. After tucking her gloves into her pocket and putting her face shield on a rolling stainless steel table, she took the coffee from Kane’s outstretched hand and murmured a soft litany of thanks.
“If those M&M’s and whatever is in that bag are for me, you can put them on the table next to you. And if they aren’t, whatever you want isn’t ever going to happen,” she teased. “You don’t walk into my lab with a bag like that if they’re not mine. That’s just not right.”
“They’re yours. The other’s a pain au chocolat. I brought them hoping I could get you to look at the woman you’ve got on the slab right now.” Kane set the bags down. “Bribes are still yours.”
“I don’t call them bribes, I refer to them as gifts I sometimes share with my staff as a thank you from the SFPD for jobs well done.” She eyed the M&M’s. “Except for those. The yellow bag is mine. As to your gunshot victim, she’s connected to another case that came in—or may be connected—I’ll leave it to your side of the wall to figure it out.”
Putting the coffee down, Horan picked up a tablet, then keyed in her password to unlock the screen. Kane could see the report she pulled up was only half filled, but enough was there for him to get started on digging through the woman’s life.
“I had her name as Sandy Chaiprasit, but I was hoping we could confirm that with a driver’s license or something in her personal effects. They took her purse into evidence and I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet,” Kane said, leaning against the counter, being careful not to dislodge any of the equipment behind him. “Or at least that’s the name she gave Edie Price, Miki’s manager.”
“Price was the other victim, yes?” Horan asked. “Is she doing okay?”
“Yeah, she is out of recovery and in a private room,” Kel replied. “They’re hoping to watch her for a few days, and then she can be released. I don’t know if she’s planning to stay in the city or not. Morgan here might have more information there.”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t think anyone’s talked about it, but I’d rather she stay in the city so we have access to her as we work on the case. She lives down in Los Angeles, so it’s not that she’s far, but traveling with a gunshot wound isn’t a good idea.” Kane brought his mind back to something Horan said earlier. “You mentioned you think she’s connected to another case. How?”
“Not necessarily how, but what.” She tapped on the screen a few times, opening up attachments to her unfinished report. Turning the tablet around, she zoomed in on what Kane thought was a woman’s thigh. “Do you see this? Same symbol was on a middle-aged Chinese man who was killed in an alleged robbery night before last. His was on his chest, but the same marking. Neither are well done, more like the kind of tattoo someone had done in prison or someone’s garage. Definitely not professional ink quality, and patchy.
“I would say, if I had to guess, they were done not by machine but by hand, possibly with a single needle and ballpoint pen ink.” Horan pulled up another page, putting the woman’s tattoo next to another rendering of the symbol, this one on a stretch of darker, hairier skin. “They’ve finally started to fill in the gang database with known markings. This one came up, but there wasn’t any information around it, it just referred me to the Chinatown Gang Task Force.”
“Holy shit,” Kel murmured what was going through Kane’s mind. “Do you see that shit, Morgan?”
“Do you recognize it?” she asked, turning the screen so Kane could get a better look.
“Oh yeah, I know it.” Hell, he did more than recognize it. Kane’d kissed it, bitten it, and washed soap from the muscled curve of the upper arm it sat on. He knew the taste of the symbol, or at least the one he’d been intimate with, and now more than ever, he was going to hate what he needed to bring to his own front door. “It’s the jacked-up almost-kanji symbol they put on Miki when he was a baby and the same one that was on the guy in Vegas, the dead one they lost. Jesus, last thing I want to do is pull him into something with this much death, but it doesn’t look like we have a damned choice.”