Page 73 of Falling For You

"Son, do you consent to us pulling that interview recording?"

Terrence nodded. "Yes, sir."

Zeus turned to one of his detectives. "Get the company on the phone. I want the recording and the timestamps within the hour." He looked at Elliot. "Sergeant Handler, I'll take it from here."

Elliot left without a word.

I stood in the middle of the bar. The counter where Gus dried his glasses. The table where the crew sat every Friday. The wall where our photos hung. Daphne's flowers on the tables.

I'd been trained for this. I'd walked into rooms with bodies on the floor, worked the scene, gone home and come back the next day. I had protocol for everything.

I didn't have a protocol for this.

CHAPTER 29

Flowers

ANDY

Everyone on the block came to say goodbye to Gus.

I recognized most of the faces. The old man who watered his lawn at six every evening. The couple from the vintage shop on the corner. Regulars I'd seen at the counter, in the booth by the window, on the sidewalk out front on warm nights when Gus left the door open and the music carried.

Gus's kids had flown in. All three of them. His son, his two daughters, their families. His youngest had booked a flight from London the night she got the call. Gus had introduced us at Christmas, and they were exactly how I'd imagined them. Warm, easy with each other, proud of their father in a way that made him pretend to be embarrassed. He talked about them so much I felt like I'd known them long before I shook their hands. He kept their photos behind the register next to Birdie's, and every holiday they came home to him because they wanted to.

Selena was in the front row, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Terrence was beside her with his glasses off and his eyes swollen. Jeremy sat in the second row with the crew, Travis quiet for once.

"Every time we came home to visit, Dad would introduce us to someone new." Gus's son stood at the front. His voice was steady but his hands weren't. "'This is my boy,' he'd say. It didn't matter that I was forty. He'd walk us around the bar like we'd never been there and tell us about every single person in the room." He paused. "We used to ask him to come live near us in New York, Chicago, or London. He always said the same thing. 'My people are here.'"

Daphne was inconsolable. Her face was swollen, her eyes red, her whole body folded into whoever was nearest. She hugged Terrence and he held her. The flowers that decorated the room were from her shop. They were the same ones she'd been bringing to Gus's every week for as long as I'd known her. Now they were on his casket.

Wyatt held my hand the whole time.

After Zeus took over the scene, Jeremy and I drove to the firehouse. Wyatt saw me from the bay and walked straight to me and held me without saying a word. We sat with the crew for almost an hour. Nobody talked. Knox made coffee that nobody drank. Travis sat on the bumper of the engine with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

Knox was the first to break the silence.

"What's going to happen now?"

"Zeus Alexander is leading the investigation," I said. "He's the best detective in the department. If anyone's going to make sense of what happened, it's him."

Knox nodded. "You should tell him about Lockwood Development. They've been coming around trying to get Gus to sell the space."

I looked at Wyatt.

Knox answered before he could. "He didn't want to involve you. Said you were police and it wasn't your problem to deal with."

"How long has that been going on?"

"Months. Gus told them no every time but they kept coming back."

A development company pressuring a bar owner who just got killed in his own bar. That wasn't nothing.

"I'll pass it along."

Travis looked up. "Make sure they don't just close the file, Walsh."

I couldn't promise him that. I was a patrol officer. The case wasn't mine. I didn't have the authority. But the whole crew was looking at me, and I couldn't say no. I looked at Jeremy. Then back at Travis and nodded.