After dinner was over—a Catalan beef stew whose recipe, Gloria announced with a playful grin toward the end of the meal, included unsweetened baking chocolate—Sutton decided to stick around for a bit.
Just over four years ago, when he’d started working with Ortiz, Gloria had insisted that Sutton come over for dinner. She’d wanted to meet her husband’s new partner, wanted to get a sense of the man who she had heard had worked as a cop his entire life and who had recently gotten divorced. Sutton kept putting it off until finally he broke down and went one night, and damn if he hadn’t kicked himself afterward for not going sooner.
Benito’s family was almost too perfect. Gloria was delightful, the children were polite and adorable, and the food was amazing! Gloria attributing it to the fact her abuela had spent almost her entire life in the kitchen and that she’d forced Gloria to help her make those meals when she was a girl and so some of it had obviously stuck.
Sutton had expected it to be a one-time event, but then weeks later Ortiz told him that Gloria wanted to have him back for dinner, that maybe they could make it a regular thing. The truth was, Benito had later told him, Gloria felt bad for Sutton, knowing he was alone with no family in the area, and hated to think he spent his evenings at home in front of the TV picking at a microwaved Hungry-Man meal.
At first Sutton had declined, not wanting to put them out, but Ortiz had assured him he wouldn’t be. After a while, the kids warmed up to him and always gave him hugs when they saw him, and for the first time in a long while he felt like he was part of an actual family.
Which was why at first Sutton hadn’t wanted to bring Ortiz into the hotel scam. Things had been going well so far but there was no guarantee things would be going well forever, and he didn’t want Ortiz to take the risk. But then he’d learned about how much debt the family was in—Gloria having needed to cut back at work to take extra care of the children—and so Sutton had floated the idea to Ortiz one day, throwing out hypotheticals to gauge interest, until he’d decided that the man was trustworthy.
And Ortiz had seemed trustworthy this entire time until late last night when they were standing over Ryan Fisher’s body and he started talking about being dirty. It was then Sutton realized he needed to keep a closer eye on his partner, and why, with all the shit that was going on, he’d decided to make time for what had become their biweekly Saturday night dinner.
Now it was almost nine o’clock and the three of them sat around the dining room table—Sutton and Ortiz and Ortiz’s wife—while the kids had gone to the living room to watch TV. Sutton and Ortiz each had beers, ice-cold bottles of Red Stripe. Gloria had wine, and she stared down at her glass as she slowly shook her head.
“I don’t know how you do it.” Her voice low so that the children wouldn’t overhear. “First, Benito gets sucker punched by that thug you picked up yesterday, and then this new murder case . . . it’s so gruesome.”
Sutton didn’t say anything, just nodded in agreement, remembering how he had tried to shield Lisa from his work at the start. But no matter how hard he had tried, she had still read about the murders, especially when they were big cases. And then because he had never talked to her about it, not even to vent, she had gotten angry because she felt he was keeping things from her. He had had this conversation with Ortiz several times before, about how you needed to put up that wall, to protect not only your family but yourself, though it didn’t seem the young man had followed that advice.
Ortiz, sensing that Sutton wasn’t going to answer, reached over and squeezed his wife’s hand.
“I’ve told you, you shouldn’t worry about my work.”
“How can I not? It’s not like it’s happening in another state, or even another city. This is where we live, Benito. This is where our children live.”
“Yes, but this stuff happens everywhere.”
“His wife and son,” Gloria said quietly, shaking her head. Then she shivered, as though a frozen finger had just run down the length of her spine. “We live in such a messed-up world.”
No arguing with her there, that was for sure.
Nobody spoke for a minute or so, and then Gloria finished off her glass and asked if anyone would like another drink. After she’d disappeared into the kitchen, Sutton and Ortiz exchanged a glance, and while Sutton couldn’t read his partner’s look 100 percent, he knew the gist.
He shook his head, just once, noting that he hadn’t heard anything back yet. Two hours had passed and still no word. Sutton wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad news.
Ortiz glanced toward the kitchen, then toward the living room, before leaning in to whisper.
“You don’t think he left, do you? That he came for what he wanted and just ghosted?”
Doubtful. It still bothered Sutton how much Walker—not the guy’s name, no, but he couldn’t think of him any other way—had known about the whole operation. Only . . . that wasn’t entirely true, was it? He had known of the operation, yes, that much was clear. Somehow he’d gotten to Ryan, who must have told him about Allister, and then . . .
Ortiz voiced Sutton’s thought, just as Sutton was thinking it: “Where the hell is Olivia?”
Sutton glanced past him toward the kitchen, listening to Gloria shut the fridge. He kept his voice low and quiet.
“I don’t know. But let’s not talk about this right now, okay?”
Ortiz started to open his mouth to say something else when Gloria breezed back into the dining room. She set down two fresh bottles, kissed her husband on the cheek, and then smiled at Sutton as she reclaimed her seat, wineglass now partly full with red.
“How’s your tummy?”
Sutton, smiling as he patted his stomach: “Just fine.”
“Benito told me about how you’ve been having issues. I tried to make sure the food wasn’t too spicy, but, well”—another playful grin—“I don’t know how to make any other kind.”
“Honestly, it’s fine. As long as I have a Pepcid before I eat, I’m okay.”
“The doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong?”
“Well, the working theory right now is a stomach ulcer.”
Gloria shivered again.
“This job is so stressful, I’m not surprised.”
Sutton smiled, not sure what to say to that, when he felt his phone buzz, two short vibrations signaling a text message.
Eugene, he figured, feeling his heart rate tick up as he snaked the phone out from his pocket. But then his heart practically seized when he saw it was the number he had called earlier today.
A single text message had been sent.