“Luck?”
“Well, you can come with me.”
“I agreed to a birthday party and a wedding.”
“Those are requirements to prevent me from beating up the old woman.”
“Stop saying that.”
“But the Ice Party will be a blast. You gotta come.”
“No thanks. Islanders game.” He looked at his watch. “I better go. First real day of work tomorrow.”
“Good luck and be careful. I honestly don’t think those bears were here for me or mine.”
And he knew she was probably right.
Cella watched the bear head toward his truck. Tommy came out of the house and stood behind her.
“You want me to follow him?”
“Just make sure he gets home okay. I’m not sure who those guys were that Ennis and the boys dealt with.”
“No problem.”
“Bring Kevin or Liam with you.”
Her brother nodded and walked off, and Cella went back into the house to help her family finish the cleanup.
But before she returned to the backyard, she pulled out her phone and speed-dialed a number.
“Yeah?”
“Smith. It’s Malone. We may have a bigger problem than we realized with BCP.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Knowing she had a busy day ahead, Cella woke up early. She took a quick shower and dressed. Once done, she pulled up the leg of her sweatpants so she could tape up her knee, deciding not to think too much about how it already hurt when she hadn’t even worked out yet.
She was just finishing when her daughter walked in. There was a knock first, but barely. It was more like one fluid movement. Kind of a knock-open thing.
“Morning, baby.”
“What’s going on?” Meghan asked, closing the door behind her.
“Be specific. You know I hate vagueness.”
“Fine. So you want me to believe you’re actually dating that bear?”
“I am for the time being,” Cella muttered, pulling down her pants leg.
“I don’t see what the big deal is, Ma. Cousin Petey has an RV dealership.”
Cella’s head snapped up, her hands curling into fists.
After a moment of mutual staring, Meghan laughed. “I’m only kidding.”
Letting out a breath, Cella fell back on the bed. “Do not do that to me!”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you a heart attack so early in the day.”
“Just don’t get caught up in this craziness.”
“I don’t mind the craziness.”
“How can you not?”
“If it bothers you so much, Ma, how come you get caught up in it?”
“I’m trapped by circumstance, baby. You’re not.”
“And poor Detective Crushek?”
“He’s ... being a very good guy.”
“He is a good guy. So be nice to him.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because he’s a thoughtful, calm, well-spoken nice guy—that’s not really your type.”
“Maybe I’m going a different way this time.”
Meghan laughed. “Yeah. Right, Ma.”
Cella stood, took a couple of steps to make sure she’d taped her knee up right, then went to her dresser and picked up her brush. She could see her daughter in the mirror, standing by the door, her hand on the doorknob.
“Now what’s wrong?” Cella asked, facing Meg.
“Have you told him about what you do?”
“No problem there. He’s a huge fan. Not of me, but at least of your grandfather.”
“No. Not hockey.” Hand still on the door, she turned her body toward her mother. “Your other job. Does he know about that?”
“He’s a cop, baby. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Shouldn’t be and aren’t are two different things, Ma. He’s like proper town sheriff and you’re covert ops. He may not be okay with that.”
“That’s not my problem. I just wish you didn’t have such an issue with what I do.”
“I just worry about you. But then I remember ... you’re the best, right?”
“Yeah,” Cella answered honestly. “I am.”
Crush sat at his new desk, at his new job, at his new precinct. And he was bored. Really, really bored.
Was this to be his life? Sitting around? Waiting. Even MacDermot hadn’t come in yet. Apparently she had flexible hours. Must be nice.
It seemed their being partners wasn’t a done deal yet. It was—get this—“up to MacDermot.”
Up to MacDermot? She got to make the decision whether they’d be partners? And yet she hadn’t?
Crush didn’t know whether to be disgusted or hurt. Just two more years until he hit his twenty years ... would he make it? He didn’t know anymore. A month ago, he would have thought he’d make it to his thirty years before even thinking about retirement. At least. But now. Sitting here?
“Hey!”
Crush looked up. MacDermot stood across from him. Smiling. Holding coffee. Having worked with MacDermot in the past, he didn’t remember her being much of a cheery person before noon. Someone got laid this morning.
“Here.” She placed a large Starbucks coffee on his desk. “Your hair looks good. Now ... you busy?”
He looked around to emphasize he was just sitting here, then looked back at MacDermot. He didn’t say anything. The beauty of MacDermot? Apparently he didn’t have to say anything.
“Then come on.” She walked off and Crush sighed, picked up his coffee, and followed.
Cella put on her practice clothes and headed out to the rink. If any of the rookies showed up for the coaching she’d offered, she figured she could work with them for a couple of hours, then get in her own practice before heading out to meet her mom in Midtown for her first meeting with Blayne and her whole gang of wedding trouble. Getting Cella’s mom hadn’t been as hard as Cella had feared once she told Barb it was the fiancée of the very wealthy Novikov who needed her help, then her mom was all over it. Still, with the involvement of a grizzly sow and an O’Neill She-lion, Cella felt she should at least go for the initial meeting. But, first, practice.But when Cella walked out onto the ice, she stopped, her mouth dropping open a little. She’d expected the rookies, and even then only one or two. Most of the guys had day jobs, getting their extra training in when they showed up for practice during the week. But all the rookies were there, and the second string. About twelve guys in all.
Reed skated over to her. “There might be more tomorrow.”
“More?”
He shrugged. “I only told a couple of guys, but the information spread pretty fast. Sorry.”
“No, no. It’s okay. I’m just surprised.”
“You shouldn’t be.” Skating backward, he winked at her. “Well, tell us what to do, Coach.”
Figuring she could still meet her mom, but that her own training would have to wait, Cella motioned the rest of the guys over.
“Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Dez MacDermot knocked on the door again.
Okay, so maybe working regularly with Lou Crushek wasn’t the best idea for her. Gentry had been pushing it since Dez’s last two partners had transferred back to their old units. According to the first one, Jerry the fox, the reason he’d left was, “MacDermot is fuckin’ crazy. I wouldn’t work with her again if you put a gun to my head.” Seemed a little bit of an extreme reaction to one bad incident involving a rocket launcher. Everybody got out alive, didn’t they? So what, exactly, was the problem? And she’d always felt she’d work best with the canines, yet they didn’t follow orders the way well-trained dogs did.
Then there was Joanie the cheetah, whom Dez left alone with Cella and Dee-Ann in an interrogation room while she went to get a soda. Gone from the room ten minutes, tops. But by the time she got back, Cella had the cheetah pinned to the floor, basically throttling her with those always-bruised fists, while Dee-Ann was going through Joanie’s purse for no other reason than, “Just curious what a cat keeps in a purse.”
Needless to say, Joanie ran back to her old precinct.
So Gentry had once again brought up Crushek. “He’s a bear. You’ve worked with him before. He’s a bear. Smith and Malone can’t just pin him to the ground, nor does he carry a purse because he’s a bear... .”
And it had sounded very reasonable to Dez. Hey. She was flexible. After living with a man who sported a mane and a constant sense of entitlement, Dez felt certain she’d do great with a bear. Based on what she’d seen on Animal Planet documentaries, they were real easy to get along with as long as you didn’t leave food lying around and didn’t startle any females with cubs.
Now, however, Dez was starting to think she’d been wrong about all that. Or, at the very least, she shouldn’t have assumed that grizzlies and polars were just different-colored versions of each other. Because, man, was Crushek a cranky asshole!
“Are we just going to keep standing here and knocking?” he suddenly demanded, making Dez grit her teeth. It was the trick she’d learned in the Marines so that she didn’t pull her gun on people who irritated the shit out of her. “We have a warrant,” he needlessly reminded her.
“Yes,” she replied, trying not hiss like Cella sometimes did. “But maybe you haven’t realized where we are—”
“You mean Staten Island?”
“Yes,” she said again. “A street in Staten Island populated completely by bears.”