Penance: A Chicago Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hurley like a family title. And the fixers – the city lifers, on and off the payroll – guys who had lines into everything, who could pick up the phone at their summer places over on the Michigan shore and conjure up votes from thin air or graveyards.
    Got to the point where it had been time to go for a while, both of them still hanging in.
    “Hey, Dickey Regan at the Sun-Times says to say hello,” said Johnson.
    “You talked to Dickey?”
    “I heard you were friends. He gave me the Great White stuff.”
    Lynch shook his head and chuckled. “Asshole.”
    “He also told me you were a good person for a cop. Said you had better things to do on St Paddy’s Day than get shit-faced with the Emerald Society and plot to undermine our constitutional protections. That’s pretty much a direct quote, by the way.”
    “Yeah, well, Dickey and I go back. You can tell him he’s OK, too. For a press weenie.”
    Johnson finished her wine. Played with her hair a little, like she wasn’t used to it being short. Leaned back in the booth, stretched. “God, four glasses of wine. I knew I shouldn’t have driven. Now I’ve got to drive home.”
    “As a police officer, I would advise against it. I can get a unit to run you home.”
    Johnson laughed. “Just what I need, covering the cop beat. Some uniform spreading the word he got strong-armed into playing taxi for me.”
    “We can go to my place for a while, get you some coffee.”
    “Inviting me up for coffee Lynch? What’s the matter, don’t have any etchings to show me?” That sly smile again.
    “Just an offer in the interest of public safety, ma’am. Although I do have this extensive collection of Seventies album covers.”
    “Except I don’t think you should be driving either.”
    “Don’t have to. I live upstairs.”
    “Really?” There was a little tone in her voice; not sarcasm. That smile again.
     
    “Still like my schmoozing?” Johnson murmured into his neck as they clinched inside Lynch’s door, both of their coats and four shoes on the floor by their feet. Lynch had untucked her turtleneck and slid his hands up her back.
    “I knew you had ways of making me talk, Johnson.”
    “If you’re going to keep undressing me, you’re going to have to call me Liz.”
    “OK, Liz.” The turtleneck came over her head. Black bra. “Isn’t this the time when we’re supposed to disclose our sexual histories in the interest of public health?”
    “Why?” she asked. “Is yours long and varied?”
    “Wife died in ’86. Did some tomcatting around for a few years,” he said. “Only been back in the pool a handful of times since, though.”
    “You better have been wearing your trunks,” she said.
    “Always wear my trunks.”
    “I was divorced fourteen months ago,” Johnson said. “Dipped my toe in here and there, but haven’t been doing laps for a while.”
    Lynch’s hands ran back down her back to the waistband of her slacks, and then to the front to the buckle of her belt.
    “You like to swim?” he asked.
    She pulled Lynch’s sweater over his head. “I finished second in the state in the 400 IM in high school.”
    “I can only dog paddle, but I’m vigorous,” said Lynch. “You gonna pull me out if I get in too deep?”
    Johnson’s slacks dropped to the floor. Her hands ran down Lynch’s chest and began to work the front of his jeans. “I can do better than that,” she said. “I can give lessons.” His jeans dropped. She ran a finger up the long, white welt on the right side of Lynch’s ribs, and then kissed the round, puckered scar under his left collarbone.
    He unhooked her bra, and she pulled back for a second to let it fall down her arms.
    “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” said Lynch. She smiled again, even better than last time.
    There was a moment later, Johnson on top, rocking, neither of them rushing it, the dim light through the blinds falling in gentle curves across her breasts, when Lynch felt something break and shift inside