Outburst by R.D. Zimmerman Page B

case. I haven't cut you out of anything, Todd, and—”
    “But—”
    “You fucked up, no two ways about it.”
    Okay, so maybe he had. And in the back of his mind he'd known it when he was doing it, too, just as he'd known it would come to something like this. Right. Taking his spoon and twiddling it between his thumb and forefinger, Todd had known Rawlins would have a shit fit. The trouble was, Todd had been willing to face the consequences, absolutely so.
    “I didn't call you,” said Todd, putting it all out on the table, “because I didn't want you to say no.”
    “Which I would have.”
    “Rawlins, something's rotten in Denmark.”
    “No shit, Sherlock. A cop was killed.” Rawlins looked right at Todd with those big, deep, disarming eyes. “Listen, a couple of things happened this afternoon that you don't know about yet.”
    “Like what?”
    “First, my partner's mom died.”
    “Neal Foster's? Wow, I'm sorry.”
    “Well, it wasn't unexpected. She'd been sick for a long time. What that means, though, is that Foster's gone for the next week or so.” Rawlins shrugged. “Consequently, I spent the better part of the afternoon arguing with Lieutenant Holbrook.”
    Todd had wondered if it would come to this, an official conflict of interests, and he bent forward and rubbed his eyes. “He wanted to pull you from this because of me, right?”
    “Exactly.”
    Holbrook knew all about them, of course. Hell, it was only last month that he and his wife had had Rawlins and Todd over for dinner. So how, wondered Todd, had Rawlins stopped Holbrook from assigning this case to someone else?
    “Presuming the case is still yours, what did you have to do? What kind of price did Holbrook make you pay?” asked Todd.
    Rawlins shrugged. “I have to sleep at my house, you have to sleep at yours.”
    “What?”
    “A separation of sorts. After dinner tonight we're supposed to talk only in a formal setting.”
    “Oh, great.”
    This, he knew, wasn't going to be easy. Or fun. Except when one of them was working through the night on either a story or a case, they'd hardly been apart since they first met.
    “Shit.” Trying to make light of it, with a shrug Todd said, “Well, then we're just going to have to figure out real quick who killed Forrest.”
    “No kidding.” Rawlins took a deep breath. “There's one more thing, which is actually the main reason Holbrook is letting me keep the case. As it turns out, he thinks I might have some connections or insights into this that the other guys wouldn't. Which is to say, you were right—Mark Forrest was gay.”
    “What? You're kidding?”
    “Nope. And that info's for public consumption too—we got it from the park police late this afternoon. Apparently Mark Forrest was out as a gay cop and had been since the first day he was hired.”
    “Do you realize what that means, Rawlins?” said Todd, leaning forward, unable to squash his excitement. “It means that there could in fact be a gay serial killer out there—after all, that guy who was killed last month was also shot in the chest. It also means I was almost certainly set up. I don't know why, but it's pretty damn clear that I was. And we both know that whoever killed Mark Forrest is going to be watching everything I say. Actually, there's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to get some kind of reaction from the killer.”
    “Shit, you're trying to get yourself hurt, aren't you?” Rawlins put his elbow on the table and bowed his forehead into the palm of his left hand. “Todd, don't you see you're being used to get as much media exposure as possible?”
    “That's my point—I don't want to give him exactly what he wants.”
    “Do you know how pissed off that's going to make him?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Todd, what are you trying to do? Turn this into something bigger than it is? Are you going for another Emmy?”
    The anger whooshed through him, but he sat quite still. No, he wouldn't deny it. Not at all.
    “Rawlins,