“What happened?” an older guy who lived across the hall from Connor asked. “And what’s with the trash can?”

I gritted my teeth as I gathered soaked towels to take them to my laundry room. “All I’m saying is this, if you hear my neighbor yelling tonight . . . just know that he’s getting what he deserves.”

The guy jerked his head back before continuing to pat dry my throw rug. “The guy I’m across from?”

“The very one,” I hissed.

He shook his head and huffed. “You’re saying this is because of him? I don’t buy it. That guy is the quietest neighbor I’ve ever had, and isn’t he law enforcement?”

My face drained of expression as I stared at him. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean for me right now? I grew up with him. Pranks are kind of a phase we go through every now and then.”

He just continued with shaking his head. “Just doesn’t seem like that kind of guy.”

I wanted the guy to leave, but he was helping me dry my apartment. So instead of responding again and being snotty, I just walked back to the laundry room and threw the towels into the washer.

Once we were done, I went to Connor’s apartment, but wasn’t surprised to find him gone. I figured he was at work, with how long he’d been off. Part of me was happy that there had been a prank at all. A very. Very. Small part, mind you. Because that meant that whatever weirdness had been going on between us was, hopefully, ending. But I was absolutely livid that he almost gave me a heart attack as I’d sat on my toilet, and then flooded my apartment.

Shit just got real, Connor Green. I’m going to enjoy pissing you off.

Connor

PICKING UP MY phone off the desk, I glanced at the screen and didn’t give it a second thought when I saw PRIVATE NUMBER. I always had informants calling from blocked numbers, and since my partner, Detective Sanders, and I were getting nowhere fast with a homicide that wasn’t adding up from two nights ago, they were expected and wanted.

“This is Detective Green.”

“I’m interested,” the deep voice said.

“Excuse me?” I grabbed for a pen and pad of paper, and waited for the voice to start up again.

“I’ll call you ‘Daddy.’ ”

The hell? “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.” I pressed END and stared at the screen for a few seconds before shaking my head and putting the phone back on my desk.

“Who was that?”

I looked over at Sanders and shrugged. “No clue. Okay, every lead we’ve gotten has been a dead end. Let’s review the footage from the store again, look at all the ­people who entered after him and left before or right after he did. Let’s get all the cars we can see from the outer cameras, and make sure they all match ­people who were accounted for in the store.” I loosened my tie and ran a hand through my hair. “I need more coffee first, want some?”

Sanders looked over at me like I was stupid. “We’ve been at this for almost thirty hours. What do you think?”

“That you need to get your own damn coffee if you’re going to be a bastard, gramps. I got called in same time you did, I’m just as tired as you are, and I’m just as lost about this case as you are. Don’t be a dick to me because we’re not getting anywhere,” I snapped and walked over to the coffee station.

Sanders and I were complete opposites, but when we worked together, we were damn good. To have a case that left us completely clueless was frustrating for both of us. We needed to go home and get some fucking sleep before we tore into each other.

The victim had been shot three times as he’d exited a store in a nice part of the city. He lived alone, and nothing had been stolen or happened to his house before or after the shooting; he still had his wallet with all his money and credit cards on him, and he had no ties to gangs or drug trafficking. No witnesses saw him get shot, but the way it was done was like someone was getting revenge, or sending a sign. And where he’d been standing was out of range of the outside cameras. All his immediate and extended family lived in the Midwest and couldn’t believe what had happened when we’d called. According to them, and everyone he worked with, he was the nicest guy and kept to himself. I’d been sure we’d find something when we tore apart his apartment, but there’d been nothing. We’d just finished going over his phone records when my phone rang. Other than work and family . . . there was nothing. Murder was what I faced with my job; more often that not, it was gang or drug related. But these cases where the victims were completely innocent were something that just tore you apart. The need to solve them intensified, so you could give the family some kind of peace.

After getting both Sanders’s coffee and mine, I walked back over to our desks and handed him his. “Come on, let’s go review the footage again.”

Two and a half hours later, Sanders and I were more frustrated than we’d been before. There was nothing, and in the large gap between outdoor cameras, there were multiple lanes the shooter’s car could have gone down, but none had gone through both cameras at the right timing. We were getting ready to do a press briefing with news outlets about what had happened, asking for help and any information, before we called it a night, when my phone rang again.

I practically lunged for my desk, hoping for some kind of information. But it was a call much like the one I’d received after we’d finished going over the phone records. Different voice—­this one actually had a number—­and, unfortunately, he tried to keep the conversation going as he kept calling me Daddy. When I ran the number through the system, it came back as a pay phone, and I was left even more confused . . . and seriously fucking disturbed. But I was so drained, discouraged from the case, and pissed off for the victim and his family that I couldn’t muster the energy to want to figure out what was going on with the phone calls.

When I got home, taped to my door was an envelope with the words “Bro, have you seen this? They’re everywhere!” scrawled across it. I pulled out the brightly colored paper as I looked up and down the hall for anyone who might have left the note, unfolded it, and did a double take when I saw my picture blown up on it. Across the top in large, bold writing was SWM LOOKING FOR SBM WHO WILL CALL ME DADDY. IF INTERESTED, CALL ME! SMOOCHES.

Honest to God, below my picture was my cell number.

Too far. Too far. Too fucking far. I wasn’t breathing, and the hall was spinning around me. My hand shot out in front of me to grip the frame of my door as I took deep breaths in and out until I felt like I could stay standing again.

When I hadn’t been at work, or when I’d taken breaks to clear my head from the case, I’d been miserable thinking about how Maci and I still hadn’t talked. I hated thinking about her marrying that self-­entitled douche, and yet, I still couldn’t make myself do anything about it, because I knew I should leave her alone. Cassidy had ruined me for half a year, and even she hadn’t consumed me like Maci was.

I don’t know why everything suddenly changed between us, and I don’t know why I’d never noticed her. It’d been a week since she’d brought me out of the Cassidy-­haze. And it didn’t matter that it’d only been a week, or that half that time had been us pissed at each other. Those seven days had somehow felt like years of torture as I kept myself from her. But then she goes and pulls this shit? I flipped through my keys until I found hers and stormed into her apartment, already yelling before I even found her back in her bedroom.

“You’re messing with my career! Maci, don’t you get that? I’m a detective, ­people on the streets know me, there are a lot of law enforcement who will see that picture and know it’s me!”

She sat up and a soft smile crossed her face briefly before she could hide it and give me a puzzled look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t have time for your bullshit!” I slapped the flyer down on her bed near her feet and alternated pointing between it and her. “Where did you put all of these? You need to go take them down! You really think this is funny?”

That coy smile was back and she crossed her arms under her chest as she shrugged. “Actually, yeah, I did kind of think it was funny.”

“You went too goddamn far today! I’m done dealing with your shit.”

“Really . . . you’re done? Then why do you keep playing this game with me, huh?”

I grabbed at the flyer and threw it toward her. “This isn’t a game, this is my life!”

She threw her hands up before folding them under her chest again. “What the hell is with you tonight? The whole thing is a joke, I didn’t actually make a bunch of flyers! I just made the one; the two guys who called you are my friends. It was all just a joke! They’re the ones that helped me make it and put it on your door. You need to calm down, do you really think I would do something like that to you?”

My chest moved up and down rapidly as I took quick, hard breaths through my nose. “Yeah, I do! Why the hell wouldn’t you do that? You’ve been a fucking pain in my ass for the last week . . . for most my life.” I closed my eyes, cracked my neck and shook my head before turning to leave. “All of this, we’re done. Both of us,” I called over my shoulder.

“So when a prank sucks for you, we’re done. But you can do them with no consequences?” she asked, and I heard her feet hit the hardwood floor behind me. “You flooded my fucking apartment yesterday!”

“I’m just done, Maci. Done with this, done with you.” The more we did this . . . the more I interacted with her . . . the more I would want her. She was marrying someone else. I couldn’t keep doing this.

“I’ve known you most of my life, we’re neighbors . . . you’re just going to act like I don’t exist now?”

Scrubbing my hands over my face after I unlocked my door, I pushed it opened and started taking all my gear off my belt and slamming it down on the kitchen table. “I don’t know, maybe. Look, I got called in a day early on a case that is killing me, it’s been a long thirty-­six hours, I’m fucking exhausted, just give me some time alone without dealing with one of your pranks. And swear to God if there’s something in my apartment, you better tell me now.”

“There’s nothing, and seriously, sue me. All I wanted was for you to come back to life. Like I told you, you were a zombie a week ago, is it wrong for me to want to change that? What even happened to you?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

“Why won’t you just talk to me? Tell me what happened half a year ago, and tell me about the case. This isn’t like you, maybe it’ll help to get it off your—­”

Turning quickly, I put a hand to her chest and took two long steps until I had her pinned to the wall. “I said it’s none of your goddamn business! Stop pushing for something you have no right to know! If you want to talk so fucking bad, why don’t you tell me why the hell you’re going to marry that douche even though I know you don’t want to. You don’t even want to be with him, Maci, I know he doesn’t do anything for you.”

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and her eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you to say that I don’t want him or that he doesn’t do anything for me? Why the fuck do you even care?”

“Because I’ve had to listen to you moaning his name! I’ve had to listen to you pretending that what he’s doing is working for you.”

“And it is!”

“Do you moan louder to piss me off? Does he know that show you’ve been putting on is more for me than him? I swear to Christ if I have to hear you say his name one more time, I am going to lose my ever-­loving mind.”

“Why? I have to listen to your whor—­”

“Because the name you’re moaning should be mine!”

Her gray eyes blinked rapidly and she licked her lips. “W-­what?”

“I guarantee you, if it were me inside you . . . the noises you’d be making wouldn’t be faked or forced . . . fuck, Maci, you wouldn’t be able to stop them from happening even if you tried.”

I closed the distance between us and brought my mouth down onto hers. A high-­pitched moan sounded from her chest, and her arms came up around my shoulders, bringing me closer. Cupping her face in my hands, I traced her bottom lip with my tongue and bit down when they parted on a gasp.

“Don’t marry him, Maci,” I whispered into her mouth.

“I’m not.”

Pulling back, I looked at her and watched as her eyes fluttered open. “You’re not?”

“Of course not.”

I searched her eyes and breathed a “Thank God” before claiming her mouth again.