Page 30 of Nightfire

And, damn it, whatever it was, it could wait. Mike was having a real good time and he didn’t want to leave Chloe’s side.

“Can it wait, Bill?” Mike didn’t even bother disguising the impatience in his voice.

Bill frowned. “No. it can’t. And I’m about ten minutes ahead of an arrest warrant. This is a favor I’m doing you, Keillor, damn it, so you can get your ass on out there, right now.”

Bill never swore in front of ladies, never. He must be under massive stress.

Then Mike focused on what he said. “Arrest warrant?”

“Yeah.”

Sam and Harry were on their feet, chairs shoved back, suddenly bristling with aggression. Nicole and Ellen and Chloe looked shocked.

Aware that something was wrong with the adults, Merry ran to her mom and threw her little arms around Nicole’s expanding waist. Gracie woke up and started crying. Chloe tried to hush her but it wasn’t working. She transferred the little bundle into Ellen’s arms.

The entire table was beautifully set, the food steaming, up until a minute ago immensely inviting. A table of celebration. Now the sharp smells of food rose in his nostrils like a fog and made him nauseous. The celebration was entirely ruined.

What the fuck?

“Now, Keillor.” Bill’s voice was flat, command in it.

Mike didn’t obey because this was a command situation—for the first time in his life he had no command structure at all, and he found he liked it that way—but because this shit was fucking with one of the best days of his life. He wanted this—whatever this was—over, now.

Some kind of mistake had been made and it had to be straightened out, fast.

With an exclamation of impatience, Mike strode into Sam’s living room, indicated that Bill should take one of Sam’s big comfortable armchairs and he sat down on the edge of the sofa, at right angles.

A moment later, Sam sat next to him on the sofa and Harry on the armchair next to Bill’s.

Bill raised his eyebrows. “You okay with this?” he asked Mike.

What a dumb-ass question. “Yeah. They’re my brothers. I don’t have anything to hide from them.”

Kelly nodded, pulled out a notebook. He was the last holdout among the detectives, most of whom took notes on iPads or their cells.

Kelly flipped back a few pages, looked up at Mike. “Where were you last night?”

Mike froze. Christ, last night? Sam and Harry looked at each other, then at him. “Ah, I went out.”

Kelly’s jaw muscles jumped, gray eyes cold and frosty. He let the silence hang there. Mike knew better than to give that answer, he was a former cop, after all. But all of a sudden, for one of the few times in his life, he was ashamed of his tomcatting ways. Sam and Harry had been at home with their wives and daughters while he’d been in a dive, drinking too much and picking up a crazy.

He was too old for this, he suddenly realized. No more bar-hopping. It was a depressing way to drown his problems, and anyway the problems were right there with him, the next morning. Together with a hangover and a burning desire to get far away from the woman he’d been with.

Mike gave a heavy sigh. “Okay. I went out around eleven, drove down to Logan Heights, drank a few shots in a couple of bars.”

Kelly had his notebook open on his knee, but he didn’t look down. “Ending up at The Cave?”

“I don’t remember,” Mike began, when suddenly he did. He flashed on the big, broken neon sign over the filthy window, THE AVE. “Yeah,” he sighed. “The Cave.”

“You picked up a woman.”

What the fuck business was it of Kelly’s? What—he’d suddenly become the sex police? “I don’t see what business that is of yours.”

“What was her name?” Kelly’s voice became even colder.

Jesus. Her name? If Mike were capable of blushing, he’d blush. If she’d told him her name, he didn’t remember it. He’d been way too drunk.

He shrugged.