Safe (Law & Order) Read online

  “You are mine. You have always been mine,” Quentin gasped back at her. “Oh,

  damn Briony, it’s so damn good! Never leave me, baby. Swear it!”

  “Never.” As if she could! Her whole body was consumed with tremors that graduated into

  quakes as Quentin drove her over the edge again and again. She came so hard, and so

  long, so many times, one orgasm drifted into another, until that was all there was.

  “Yes, Bri, baby, milk my cock!” Quentin encouraged, pulling their bodies tightly

  together. “Fuck yes, baby, I’m coming!”

  “Inside me!” Briony demanded, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere, but saying

  it anyway. “Come inside me. Please, Quent, I need it, need you.”

  Oh sweet Lord have mercy, she could feel it! She felt the hot splash of his orgasm

  deep in her womb, triggering another delicious ripple deep inside her.

  “Quent! Oh, God Quent!”

  Her head was spinning. If it hadn’t been for his unbreakable hold on her, she

  would have fallen over. She felt consciousness slowly slipping away, and she went

  gratefully.

  “I love you, Bri,” she could have sworn she heard Quentin whisper as she drifted

  off to sleep. Chapter Five

  “I, I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’, man,” Tom-Tom sputtered against the rush of the air

  conditioning. “I dunno nuthin’.”

  “The fact he said he didn’t know anything means he knows something,”

  Richards said, leaning against the two-sided mirror. He shrugged.

  “Where the hell did you find this shit for brains?” Quentin asked, scowling at the

  scrawny, crack addict. Pupils were round, too damn round, and the dark swallowing

  up almost all of the green of his eyes. Damn it. Should let him dry out and detox in a

  cell, but knowing this gang, they’d kill him in prison. They wouldn’t let that happen.

  Not before they got a confession.

  Tom-Tom had been small time crime forever, but he snitched about all kinds of

  criminal activities to keep himself from doing seriously long stretches of jail time.

  Credibility issues rained all over this poor bastard.

  “You trust him?”

  Richards again gave his one shoulder shrug. “Yeah. The unis picked him up over

  at Michael’s Bar. Bunch of that New Orleans motorcycle gang hung out there, and

  pimped out a bunch of the barflies for profit.”

  “Why the uniforms grab him? Drugs?”

  “Not this time,” Richards said with a small grin. “I put out an all points bulletin

  on him. He’s a person of interest. Seems he pawned some of Briony’s missing jewelry

  over at Samson’s Pawn Palace. Idiot used a fake name, but Samson don’t want no part

  of what happened to Bobby Ray being solved, you know. In exchange for us not pressing charges about the purchase of stolen good, and because of you, Samson gave

  him up. Cake.”

  Quentin nodded. The person in interrogation room four had morphed in his

  mind into a big pile of shit, not a human being to be respected. This scum bastard had

  Bri’s jewelry. Pieces of gold and silver that had touched her skin, that she’d put on with

  her soft, beautiful hands, and this, this cockroach had the fucking nerve to touch them?

  Sell them to some cheap fucking pawnshop? For what? To feed his next high? He

  shuddered as the vision of him ripping the head from Tom-Tom’s body crashed

  through him.

  No, Tom-Tom didn’t kill anyone, let alone Bobby Ray. Too fucking stoned to

  remember his own name most of the time, hence the moniker, Tom-Tom. The stupid ass

  always stuttered his name out when asked. Not a true stutter, but his crack soaked

  brain couldn’t quite put the letters together and his first attempt at giving anyone his

  name was followed up with another attempt. Tom-Tom.

  “…So, the unis snagged Tom-Tom. He’d been hanging out there, collecting dust

  in the corners over at Michael’s.”

  Quentin nodded again.

  He heard Richards, loud and clear, but his partner had known him long enough

  to know better than to expect a discussion about it. There wasn’t any need to converse.

  None at all.

  Tom-Tom was going to tell him what he wanted to know. “I figured we shake him and see what falls off,” Richards said lazily and pushed

  off the wall. The manila folder in his hand made a short wave before being extended

  out to him. Props were good for suspects. It also gave Quentin something to do with his

  hands besides wrap them around Tom-Tom’s throat.

  “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  He followed Richards, strolling into interrogation room four with the calm ease

  with which he did everything. Quentin had watched Tom-Tom shoot up in his seat,

  wide eyes skating between him and Richards.

  “Oh, so what is this shit? Good cop, bad cop?” he pointed first to Richards and

  then to him.

  Everyone always thought Richards was the good cop. His attention to details

  made him absolutely lethal, but on the surface, he seemed as right as rain and as calm

  as a millpond.

  Looks deceived.

  Most criminals didn’t learn that before they confessed something important to

  Richards in fear of Quentin’s fast right hook. Not that he ever had to use it on a suspect.

  The threat alone propelled others to talk.

  “No,” Quentin said, more than aware of the ice spiking through each of his

  words. “He’s bad cop and I’m gonna-kick-your-ass-cop.”

  Tom-Tom giggled like an eight-year old girl before really meeting his eyes.

  What he saw in Quentin’s blank face must’ve scared him because he fidgeted in

  the hard metal seat. “Mister, uh, Smith, I am Agent Richards.” Richards slid in, smooth as butter,

  “You want to tell me about Briony Beauchamp?”

  Though he framed it like a question, Richards didn’t give any hint that he didn’t

  expect an answer. Quentin walked by Tom-Tom’s chair, barely a breath from touching

  the junkie, violating the hell out of his personal space. He stood behind him.

  Sandwiched between Richards and Quentin, Tom-Tom didn’t know who to watch out

  for, so he kept his eyes on Richards.

  “I, I dunno who that is,” Tom-Tom said, and giggled again. He’d folded in on

  himself. Arms crossed, legs shaking as they rattled against the chair’s side, Tom-Tom

  scratched idly at the lines marring his ghost-pale skin.

  “You sure?” Richards asked as if Tom-Tom had said the weather called for rain.

  He rubbed at his chin and peered at the cockroach with an expression of an

  exterminator. “Think on that one and give it another go.”

  “Now!” Quentin exploded, making Tom-Tom shoot out of his seat.

  “Jesus! You tryin’ to kill me?” he squeaked, large eyes on Quentin, his skeletal

  hand over his heart.

  Quentin held up the folder and grinned that cold smile that said he held all the

  cards to Tom-Tom’s future. If he had his way, Tom-Tom wouldn’t have a future that

  didn’t involve a 5 by 6 box and a shared toilet. Rehab didn’t work for people like Tom

  Tom, who were addicts because they enjoyed the shit too much. Tom-Tom had lost

  everything a person can lose, and still, he got cracked out every damn day.

  Richards kept on in that same leveled tone. “Briony Beauchamp?” Tom-Tom tore his eyes from Quentin and slowly sat back down. “I dunno who

  that is
, I told you.”

  Richards nodded in Quentin’s direction. Tom-Tom swallowed so hard and loud,

  it echoed in the room. Slowly, as if in a horror movie, he turned to look over his

  shoulder. Quentin kept the greasy smile, the one he reserved just for slime, on his face.

  He shook the folder and the papers inside it ruffled a bit.

  Tom-Tom closed his eyes, giggled, and swallowed again. When he turned back

  to Richards, he gasped and rubbed his hands on his tattered jeans. After hugging

  himself, he shook his head and said, “Listen man, I, I don’t know her, honest.”

  “Who said it was a her?” Richards asked, his hands in his pockets.

  “A name like Briony?” Tom-Tom chucked. “Fuck yeah, that’s a chick.”

  “Chick? A chick?” Quentin boomed off the wall. He snatched Tom-Tom’s chair,

  spun it around so hard, the bastard nearly fell out of it and got right up in his face. So

  close the spit flying from Quentin’s rage fell all over Tom Tom’s face. “You fucking shit!

  She’s not some chick. You tell me right now what the fuck you know, or you’ll never see

  sunlight without the fucking shadows of a chain link fence and barbed wire. And then,

  you get to be someone’s chick for a long fucking time!”

  “Agent Beauchamp,” Richards said so quietly the air conditioner almost

  drowned it out. “Please excuse yourself from the room.”

  “No.”

  “Agent Beauchamp,” Richards repeated, using the same quiet voice. Quentin kicked Tom-Tom’s chair and bolted out of the room like a hurricane. He

  quickly stepped into the neighboring room and took up his spot behind the two sided

  mirror. Now that he’d rattled Tom-Tom’s cage, Richards would extract the information

  they needed. The good cop, bad cop scenario worked with most suspects, as long as

  they didn’t realize that was the plan being ran. There weren’t new schemes

  interrogation, just new ways to present them.

  “Beauchamp? That guy’s last name is Beauchamp?” Tom-Tom squeaked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like the, uh, like the uh, ch-, uh woman.”

  Richards nodded.

  “Isn’t that like illegal or something? He, he being in here with me?” Tom-Tom

  asked, straining to see through the sliver of window if Quentin had really left the area

  or was just outside the door.

  “Illegal? No,” Richards answered with the same smooth tone of a guidance

  counselor or a good shrink.

  “But, shit, he nearly took my head off about that, ch-, uh, woman.”

  “Which woman?”

  “The, the Beauchamp one,” Tom-Tom exclaimed, his voice raising an octave

  higher on one. “Shit, I can’t believe that’s him. Him!”

  He appeared to be muttering to himself, and not really talking to Richards.

  Didn’t matter, a confession was a confession. Someone had been talking about Quentin and Tom-Tom had heard it. What?

  What the fuck had Bobby Ray gotten himself into that involved Bri? Quentin slammed

  his fist into his open palm, but confessions took time. Trust had to be established, and

  then, only then, would the suspect give any information to the cop. Richards had a gift

  with getting people to trust him. Damn guy should’ve been a shrink.

  “I won’t be able to keep him out of here forever,” Richards said with a soft shrug.

  “If you don’t talk to me, my superiors may bring him back in here. He is better at this

  than I am.”

  Quentin smirked.

  Tom-Tom’s eyes bucked and he shot out of the chair. “No, hell no. I want you.”

  And then to the two-way mirror, “Don’t send him in here! I’ll talk to Agent Richards!”

  Richards gave him an apologetic shrug.

  Beads of sweat littered Tom-Tom’s forehead and made his extremely white skin

  seem pasty. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and shook it hard. He wiped his

  face with his hands and again rubbed his damp palms on his pants.

  “Ain’t you gonna tape this or record this or something?” Tom-Tom asked,

  looking around.

  “We are,” Richards said, but didn’t elaborate on the camera’s recording. So small

  most suspects didn’t even realize it was in the room, every interrogation was recorded.

  Quentin couldn’t stand it. He opened the door of the observation room and

  banged as hard as he could on the door to interrogation room four.

  “Richards, my fucking turn!” he roared, though a wide grin was on his face. “All right, all right. I was at Mike’s and this gang came in. A bunch of them out

  of New Orleans, you know they got the thing where they sound funny.”

  “An accent.”

  “Yeah, that. Well, uh, I don’t remember, but they were plenty pissed about

  someone fucking up the supply.”

  “Supply of what?” Richards asked, again so softly, Tom-Tom had started his next

  sentence before he realized a question had been asked.

  “Cocaine, whatcha think?” Tom-Tom scoffed. “Fucking cops don’t know shit.”

  “You are so right. Fill me in.”

  “’Aight. So, Donny Chestnut, he’s in charge, said this guy owed him a fucking

  ton of money. Fucker snorted a lot of the merchandise, you get me? You don’t snort the

  profits, Donny said. So, couple days later, fuck could’ve been weeks, the guy comes into

  Mike’s one night, begging and pleading for Donny to give him more time to get the

  money.”

  Richards nodded.

  “Donny don’t give him no chance. Gives the guy to Friday or some shit.

  Anyway, this fucker tells Donny, he can have his wife. You believe that shit? His wife!

  Donny tells this dude, he ain’t got no interest in more fucking whores, you know.”

  Quentin growled.

  He’d written Bobby Ray off as a bastard, a turd, a fucking waste of DNA, but a

  slave trader? That ranked below low. He wanted to dig that fucking asshole up and kill

  him all over again. “…So, this is the funny shit,” Tom-Tom chuckled, eyes shiny with tears. “That

  dude tells Donny his wife can fucking make up the money he owes him by fucking.”

  “How so?” Richards asked, and the hard edge bricked in the question.

  Tom-Tom missed it.

  “You know? Fucking. This dude damn sold his wife to Donny. All the money

  this dude owed the Don, his wife would make up on her back, on her knees, hell, in her

  ass!”

  Richards stood up slow and deliberate and locked the door.

  “Whacha doin’?” Tom-Tom asked.

  “Saving your ass from a beat down,” Richards quietly explained.

  Quentin scrambled out of the observation room and banged against the door.

  “Open this fucking door, Richards!” Quentin saw only red; fury stained

  everything. “Right now!”

  Richards stepped away from the door and looked at Tom-Tom.

  “If you want to survive to get high again, you need to tell me everything, dates,

  names, and then go work with our sketch artist.”

  “Man, I ain’t doing shit.”

  Richards touched the lock.

  “You sure?” Chapter Six

  Bobby Ray should be singing a Hallelujah, Amen chorus while roasting from his

  perch in hell, because there was nothing Quentin would have liked more than to kill

  him at this moment. It was a damn good thing Richards had picked him up this

  morning and was now driving him home; he might have killed somebody. The red haze

&
nbsp; that marred his vision didn’t appear to be going away. If he could have dug up his

  brother and killed him all over again he would.

  “Take me by the cemetery,” Quentin growled, belatedly realizing his partner had

  probably done him a huge favor by locking him out of the interrogation room felt

  immediately contrite. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  “No problem,” his partner replied smoothly. “I don’t pretend to understand

  what you’re feeling, but I know you. She must be one hell of a woman.”

  “She is.”

  That was why he couldn’t go home like this; he didn’t want to scare her. Briony

  has been through enough. As soon as Tom-Tom spilled his guts, Quentin was on the

  phone ensuring that Briony was safe and sound in the home he had bought for her. He

  knew she had been out shopping to replace some of things that had gone missing, but

  he knew due to her pigheaded reluctance to spend money he gave her she probably

  didn’t get much. He had planned on taking her shopping for all the things she hadn’t

  bought for herself this afternoon. Now he wasn’t so sure he could let her out of the

  house. Hell, he didn’t want her out of his sight. Quentin could feel the tension radiating from Richards as soon as the slowed to a

  stop in the stately cemetery where Bobby Ray had been laid to rest. Like every other

  cemetery in the great state of Louisiana, some of the graves dotting the well manicured

  lawns sported offerings to the dead, charms to keep the dead in the grave, and even

  voodoo gris-gris mixed in with small statues of saints, flowers and candles. Someone

  had even planted magnolias all over one grave, which was oddly beautiful – the stark

  white, delicate petals against the dark green of the lawn.

  He had paid to have Bobby buried next to their parents. What a waste of time and

  money, Quentin scoffed looking down at his brother’s grave. He wasn’t the least bit

  surprised to find some sick shit had left a freebase pipe right there on the damn grave,

  along with a mason jar filled with some kind of clear substance. Quentin would bet

  dollars to donuts it didn’t contain water.

  What a sorry waste of a life. Bobby Ray had been a cute, precocious kid, but not

  really bad. Not until that summer between junior high and high school. Somehow, the

  kid had gotten it in his head he would always be second best to his big brother, which