Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            Except Rafe didn’t go inside. Blowing a kiss to Mercy, he stepped back from Liza’s doorstep, aiming a look up at Tom’s window before crossing the grassy patch between their two front doors. His knock had Pebbles barking again and Tom went downstairs to open the door.

            “Hey,” Rafe said, his eyes taking Tom in. “No offense, dude, but you look like shit.”

            Tom smoothed his hair, which had to be standing every which direction. “I’ve been working,” he said stiffly.

            “I figured as much.” Rafe pointed inside. “Can I come in or do I need to tell you stuff standing on your front porch?”

            “Oh. Sorry.” Cheeks heating, Tom stepped back to allow Rafe to come inside. “My mother would be very upset with me. Can I offer you something to drink? I have beer, water, and pop.”

            “How about a beer? Mercy and Liza will be busy for a while, so I don’t need to drive for a few hours. I can have one.”

            Tom walked to the kitchen, Rafe following behind him. “Busy doing what?” he asked.

            “Talking.” He smiled. “And talking, and talking some more. I’m thankful for Liza. Mercy needed a friend. She misses Farrah.”

            Farrah was Mercy’s best friend from New Orleans. Tom liked Farrah. She was funny and smart and had a heart like his mother’s. “I guess she does.”

            Rafe perched on a stool at Tom’s kitchen island. “Liza seemed . . . off today. Mercy was worried. I told her it was probably the shock of seeing a sniper, but Mercy had to check for herself to make sure Liza is all right.”

            “She seemed fine when I saw her,” Tom said, then winced. He could hear the acid in his own voice and wasn’t foolish enough to think that Rafe hadn’t. Sure enough, when he turned from the fridge with two beers, Rafe’s brows were lifted.

            “Do I want to know?” Rafe asked.

            Tom shrugged. “Nothing to know.” He rummaged in the drawer for a bottle opener, then flipped the caps off the bottles. “She had company when I got home.”

            Rafe looked way too interested. “Company?”

            Tom handed Rafe a bottle and drained half of his own in one gulp. It had been a long day and technically he was off the clock, so he wasn’t going to feel guilty about drinking a beer.

            He stared at the bottle in his hand, glaring. Yeah, he was going to feel guilty, because he hadn’t yet traced Cameron Cook’s e-mail. He set the bottle aside and pulled some cheese from the refrigerator. “I didn’t have lunch. Want some?”

            “It’s dinnertime,” Rafe said mildly. “Who was her company?”

            Tom took his annoyance out on the cheese, stabbing at the block with more force than needed. “Mike.” The Groper. “Some nurse she knew at the veterans’ home.”

            “Mike,” Rafe said slowly. “Well, he wasn’t there just now.”

            “Because he left.” He finished slicing the cheese and put a plate on the kitchen island between them. Time to change the subject. “Today, at your parents’ house? You looked like you wanted to say something before I left, but you didn’t.”

            “That’s why I’m here. The gang, the one whose tattoo Belmont has on his back?”

            “The Chicos? What about them?”

            “I know them.”

            Tom went still. “How?”

            “I was Narcotics before Homicide. I worked with the Gangs division.”

            Tom nodded. “I knew that. You went undercover. Took down a local crime boss.” That was no small feat. Undercover work could be emotionally debilitating, on top of being dangerous. Especially for a man as social as Rafe seemed to be. “How long were you under?”

            “Two years.” And from his expression, those had been very difficult years.

            “And you met someone from the Chicos?”

            He nodded again. “They didn’t call themselves that then. They were still Yanjingshe. Going by ‘Chicos’ was a smart move on the new leadership’s part. They were a supplier to the organization where I was embedded. This was before the big raids.”