The Grifter
Chapter 1

In his twelve years of being a cop, Detective Shawn Maxwell had only fvcked up once. It was, statistically speaking, a decent track record. But as far as magnitude went, his mistake had been both enormous and life-altering, to the point that he’d never been able to forget a single, gut-clenching detail. The velocity at which things had gone from perfectly ordinary to pure terror. The icy crush of panic in his veins. The split-second misstep he’d never forgiven himself for, a lapse of judgment that had lasted for both a blink and forever, all at once.

And now, that horrible error was coming back to haunt him as deserved, courtesy of Francesca Rossi.

Make that Detective Francesca Rossi. A.K.A., his ex-partner.

A.K.A., his ex-everything.

Shawn sat back in his desk chair and did a mental rewind of the phone call he’d gotten from his boss, Sergeant Sam Sinclair, the night before. It wasn’t unusual for Sinclair to give him a heads up when they caught a case that would require undercover work. After all, Shawn had completed the most specialized UC training out of all the detectives in Remington’s Intelligence Unit. A bit of a natural (if he did say so, himself), he’d successfully gone undercover three times more often than any of his unit-mates. He had more seniority in the elite unit than anyone else, and—as his smarta*ss partner, Addison Hale, liked to remind him—at the ripe, old age of thirty-four, he was the oldest, too. So, when Sinclair had called him last night and popped off with, “Caught a case that requires your skillset,” Shawn had been far from shocked.

It was what his boss had followed up with that had knocked him on his a*ss.

Frankie was coming back to Remington. They were going to have to work a case together.

And nobody, including Sinclair, had any idea that he’d nearly gotten her killed eight years ago.

“Good morning, sunshine,” came a familiar female voice from the entryway of the open-concept office space, record-scratching Shawn from his thoughts. Technically speaking, the five detectives in the Intelligence Unit rotated partners on a semi-regular basis, the idea being that they should all be highly comfortable working with whichever unit-mate a particular situation called for. Sinclair had once told Shawn he’d rather run Intelligence like a versatile, well-crafted machine than a bunch of precision parts that could only work when assembled one particular way. Despite that little wisdom-nugget—and it was damned smart—natural affinities always shook out, and, much to everyone’s surprise (including Shawn’s), he had ended up working most comfortably with Addison Hale, a bubbly, extroverted, five-foot-two former cheerleader. Go f*****g figure.

“Morning,” Shawn said quietly because he said everything quietly. He and Hale were unlikely partners in a lot of ways, but they complemented each other freakishly well. Also, she was a bada*ss beneath that bubbly exterior and as dedicated as cops came, so there was that.

“I heard we caught a good one,” Hale said, her green eyes glinting with the excitement of a new case.

Taking a deep breath to offset the sudden slingshot of his pulse, Shawn settled into the composure he wore like body armor. “Yep.”

Hale snorted, making Shawn think—not for the first time—of what it must be like to have a little sister. “Seriously, dude. I know Thanksgiving was a few days ago, but are you still stuck in a food coma? Don’t hog the details. Sinclair gave you the scoop last night, right? So, spill!”

“Who said Sinclair gave me anything?” Shawn asked, his gut percolating with unease. He wasn’t a talker to begin with. Spilling the goods about this case? Pass.

“I did.” This, from James Capelli, their tech and surveillance expert, who had just walked through the door. “Sinclair sent me all the case files last night and said he was going to reach out to you since this is going to be a UC job. Didn’t he call?”

“Yeah.” Shawn purposely kill-switched the rest of the sentence, hoping the conversation would follow suit and Sinclair could just give everyone the details in their case meeting. The less he said about Frankie, the easier it would be to keep the feelings that went with her jammed into the dark hole in his chest, where they belonged.

Hale’s blond brows lifted expectantly, and so much for that. “And?”

If he clammed up again, she’d call him out on it (shy, she wasn’t), so Shawn sucked it up and went with as little content as possible.

“We’re teaming up with Atlanta P.D.’s Vice Unit to take down a heroin ring,” he said, just in time for Detective Matteo Garza to walk through the door and hear him.

“Finally, a decent case.”

The guy all but clapped his hands with glee, which anyone outside of the Thirty-Third precinct might replace both a little bit weird and a whole lot morbid. But a weapons-grade work ethic was a moral imperative in the Intelligence Unit, and with his gruff demeanor and bone-deep commitment to being a cop, Garza’s was more bulletproof than most.

“God, G. Didn’t you get enough excitement from the Nicky Bianchi case?” Hale teased.

Garza’s normally serious expression softened into something damn close to a smile at the mention of the huge case they’d wrapped just over two months ago, where he’d ended up falling for—and saving the life of—the forensic accountant who’d helped them solve the biggest money laundering case their unit had ever seen.

“Nope,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and settling in at his desk, which sat corner-to-corner with Hale’s and across from Shawn’s. “A case is a case, and if we’ve got a live one, I’m here for it. Even if, according to Maxwell, here, we’re sharing jurisdiction. Again.”

Hale laughed to offset Garza’s eye roll. “You’re never going to stop being cranky about having to work the Bianchi case with the FBI, are you?”

The edges of Garza’s mouth tugged down, disappearing into his neatly trimmed goatee as he frowned. “Uh, no.”

“Not even with the happy ending?” Hale pressed.

“Yeah, still no,” Garza said. “I’m sure this detective from…where is it? Atlanta?”—he waited for both Hale and Capelli to nod before continuing—“is great, and I’ll share jurisdiction if it gets the job done. But when it comes to letting other cops play in our sandbox? I’m just never going to be a fan.”

Shawn lifted his shoulders in a shrug, and, damn it, he hoped the move looked more casual than it felt. “She’s just coming in to make sure we don’t f**k up the investigation and lose the bust. Chances are pretty high she’ll be here in the office or doing surveillance most of the time.”

This was the one tiny comfort he’d found as he’d tossed and turned last night. Frankie was coming in to advise, to share the vast knowledge she’d collected on this heroin dealer so they could make a bust and get a bad guy off the streets. But Shawn would be undercover, posing as a grifter while Frankie and the rest of the team worked the periphery. She wouldn’t be right next to him in the field. This wouldn’t be like before. It couldn’t.

“Well, it sounds like she’s incredibly well-informed,” Capelli said, navigating his way through the bank of computers at his work station, which spanned much of the office’s far wall. The center screen on the array of six monitors above his desk lit up like the Plaza at Christmas, and good. Work. Facts over feelings. This, Shawn could do.

Capelli continued, “According to Sinclair, Detective Rossi has been tracking this heroin ring for months. Her case files are impressive. She coordinated efforts with both the APD’s gang unit and the DEA to try and bring this guy down, and it looks like she was getting close.”

He clicked through a dozen screens loaded with highly detailed notes, and Hale’s brows traveled upward.

“That’s an awful lot of time and energy to sink into a case,” she said as Garza whistled his agreement.

Shawn bit back the “that’s Frankie for you” that his subconscious had swirled up, booting himself in the a*ss for letting the thought get that close to his mouth. Bad enough that he was going to see her again. But he could not, under any f*****g circumstances, let the way he felt about it—about anything—show.

Emotions were dangerous. Especially when it came to Frankie Rossi.

Thankfully, Capelli’s hard-on for the facts made him respond quickly. “Detective Rossi does seem quite detail-oriented, which is why her sergeant sent her up here from Atlanta instead of any of her fellow detectives. Well, that, and apparently, she insisted. But this guy, Sebastian Beck”—Capelli clicked through a couple of screens before landing on a photograph of a white guy in his mid-thirties who, if his stare was any indication, was not in possession of a soul—“is now in our jurisdiction, and it doesn’t look like he’s in Remington for the tourism.”

“Oh, is this our new case?” Detective Isabella Walker walked into the office with her partner, Detective Liam Hollister, right beside her. “Please tell me it’s a good one.”

At that, Shawn had to crack the tiniest smile. “You’re two days back from maternity leave,” he pointed out. “You really want to jump into the deep end of the pool so fast?”

Hollister’s laugh was as easy as breathing. “You have met Isabella, right?”

The question was ironic, really, considering that Shawn and Isabella had been the first two cops in the Intelligence Unit, aside from Sinclair. For over a year, they’d been the only two—plus Capelli, of course.

Isabella didn’t seem to mind the welcome-back ribbing from her partner, though. “It’s not my fault you guys are just so exciting that I wanted to come back to work. Anyway, Kellan’s leave started this week, so I know Elijah is in great hands.”

At the mention of her husband and two-month-old son, her eyes lit up with the sort of warmth that only accompanied pure, deep love, and something odd fired off behind Shawn’s sternum. It took him a beat to realize that it was a memory, and Christ, he needed to lock his shit down, once and for all.

Sinclair appeared at the end of the hallway on the far side of the room, and yes, saved by the sergeant. “Morning, everyone.” After everyone on the team murmured a reply, he got right to business. “Since everyone’s here, we can get started.”

He nodded at Capelli, who turned the wall-mounted array of monitors into a case board, with Beck’s mug shot front and center. “I see you’ve already met Sebastian Beck, thirty-seven. His sheet’s about as long as my driveway. Multiple priors for drug possession, weapons charges, and assault—those are the headliners, anyway—reaching back the last nineteen years.”

“So, ever since he became an adult,” Isabella said, voicing exactly where Shawn’s thoughts had gone. “He sounds like a real peach.”

“He’s definitely a career criminal,” Sinclair agreed. “His last known address is in Atlanta, where records have him as a resident for the last decade. Atlanta Vice has him building a pretty nasty heroin ring over the last eighteen months or so, although they could never grab anything big enough to make felony charges stick. Two weeks ago, he landed here in Remington; specifically North Point, where he’s got a cousin, Alfie Landowski.”

Shawn stuffed back a g***n. “I know him from that UC case we did, what, a year ago, now, in Abernathy Park? He used to do business with the A Park Phantoms.”

“He was arrested as part of that case, but never charged,” Capelli confirmed, and a blink later, Alfie’s mug shot—which boasted a cheesy ear-to-ear grin—was on the screen next to Beck’s. “LKA on Maplewood Avenue in North Point, a few priors for drug possession, one for larceny. Nothing big enough to do time, though.”

“Sounds about right,” Shawn said. “He was pretty low on the career ladder. Small-time dealer. Not big enough to take down with the gang.” Also, a twenty-six out of ten on the Annoying AF Scale.

“Well, it looks like he’s trying to level up a bit now that his cousin’s in town,” Sinclair said. “Just before Beck left Atlanta a couple weeks ago, the APD caught chatter that he’s looking for a new market. Chances are pretty good that he’s looking to work his connection with Alfie to expand his reach here in Remington.”

Hale nodded. “That wouldn’t be surprising. So, what’s our play?”

“We’ll have to play the long game on this one,” Sinclair said, gesturing to the screen with a lift of his chin. “Beck’s smart and cautious. The only way we’ll nail him is if we put someone inside as a buyer and wait him out.” Turning to look at Shawn, he asked, “You in?”

Shawn didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

Going all in was the only way he’d make it through seeing Frankie. Yeah, it would be difficult, and no, he’d never expected to replace himself in this particular emotional blender ever again. But if there was one thing he’d taught himself over the past eight years, it was how to take his emotions out of things, especially the job. Emotions were dangerous. Unpredictable. They got people hurt.

Not an option. Shawn was a cop—a goddamned good one. He had a job to do, and nothing, not even Frankie Rossi, was going to keep him from doing it.

And then she walked into the room, her chin up and her shoulders set like she was ready for battle, and just like that, Shawn knew this would be the hardest case of his f*****g life.