Unplugged Read Online Free PDF

got bills. And stacked!” She shook her head, in admiration or disbelief. It was hard to say. “They got a Russian gal at the Czar that can spin hula hoops on her—”
    “Just file the damned report,” I snapped.
    She looked patently offended and snorted through her nostrils. “Aw right, but you ask me, your man is gone permanent.”
    I might have sputtered a little. “He is not my man.”
    She shrugged, gave me a lazy glance, and waggled her head again. “Hey. You’re probably better off without ’im.”
    “He is not my man,” I repeated.
    “Well, then your”—she smirked and etched quotations in the air—“ acquaintance is gone. Them dancing girls has butts tight as apricots and—”
    I thumped the counter with my fist. “I don’t give a damn how tight their butts are or—”
    “Is there a problem here?”
    I recognized the voice immediately. It permeated my consciousness like a double shot of Absolut. I froze, hoping I was wrong and wishing I could ooze into the gray, industrial carpet beneath my feet. I waited a moment, but no oozing occurred, so I turned slowly.
    “Lieutenant,” I said, and there he was. Jack Rivera, in all his officious glory, his dark eyes deadly and his expression as hard as his ass.
    “Ms. McMullen,” he said.
    We stared at each other. It hadn’t been too many weeks ago that we had done more.
    I cleared my throat. He scowled.
    “What are you doing here?”
    I pursed my lips and refused to fidget, but it was hard looking at him without remembering the sound of tearing clothing. His, not mine. They don’t make men’s shirts like they used to. “I’m filing a missing persons report,” I said.
    “Yeah?” His gaze never shifted from mine. “Who you missing?”
    I gave him a tight smile, letting him know that everything was going peachy and that I neither appreciated nor needed his help. “I was just giving that information to your secretary here.”
    “Oh?” He slowly shifted his midnight gaze to the aforementioned secretary. Maybe he thought that if he turned away I was going to pull out my Taser and zap him between the eyes. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.
    “One Jeen Solberg,” Sadie said, and gave a breathy hmmfing noise and a head bobble. “She ain’t even a relative.”
    His scowl deepened. Rivera doesn’t have a wide range of expressions. “J. D. Solberg?” he said, still not looking at me.
    “That’s what she says.”
    “She say where he went?”
    “She says—”
    “She’s right here,” I said, just managing to unlock my gritted teeth.
    He turned toward me as if less than thrilled to remember my existence, then seemed to sigh internally. “I’ll take care of this, Sadie,” he said.
    “Fine by me,” she snorted, and shuffled off.
    The station room was cluttered with desks and dividers, but staff members were few and far between. Apparently, they didn’t let little things like murder and mayhem interfere with their weekends.
    Rivera stared at me. His brows lowered a little. His lips twitched. A nick of a scar sliced the right corner of his mouth. I’d noticed it the first time I met him. Even before I noticed that he had the behind of an underwear model and the attitude of a Neanderthal.
    “Come into my office,” he said, and turned away.
    I considered refusing. But Elaine’s forlorn expression popped into my head and I followed him dutifully.
    A moment later he was closing the door behind me and seating himself on the far side of his desk. He motioned toward the opposite chair. His sleeves were folded back from his hands. His wrists were wide-boned, his skin the color of hazelnut coffee.
    I sat down on the edge of my chair and tried not to remember the last time we’d been together. He’d been wearing old blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt stretched tight over his nonexistent belly. He’d smelled almost as good as the egg foo young he’d brought in those sexy little Chinese take-out boxes. “So you can’t find your techno