Needs, Wants and Other Weaknesses (The New Pioneers Book 6) Read online

  Needs, Wants and Other Weaknesses

  Book Six of The New Pioneers

  by Deborah Nam-Krane

  Amazon edition | © 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author.

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  http://writtenbydeb.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  The Pit

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dedication

  For everyone who doesn’t turn away

  The Pit

  The first time she'd bought someone, it had been as a favor.

  She was fifteen and he was twenty-one. She'd seen him when she was hanging out in Harvard Square, near the train station: The Pit, as everyone called it. Things were different then; you could stroll over to someone you didn't know and start a conversation. People mingled more, and in general, things were more interesting.

  Or was she more interesting?

  She saw Kyle the second time she showed up. He was tall, thin, and gorgeous. She hadn't met too many African-American skater dudes before that. Not that there were that many African-Americans in her hometown or at her private school... But the novelty hadn't been why she couldn't wipe that stupid schoolgirl grin off her face. Cruelly, he came over to flirt with her, but only for a few minutes. Just as she started working up the courage to flirt back, he left.

  When she came back, her skirts got shorter and her lips got redder. She cut her hair into a bob with bangs that her mother said made her look like Louise Brooks, whoever that was. It didn't make any difference. He didn't come over again, and she wasn't going to make a fool of herself.

  She couldn't stop talking about him to her friend Alison. After several weeks, Alison rolled her eyes. "Then do something," she finally snapped.

  "Like what?"

  Alison shrugged. "You've got money, and what do you want to bet he could use some?"

  She did a double-take. "What?"

  "Oh, come on," Alison said, brushing hair out of her face. "My older brother and his friends do it all the time."

  "But," she said slowly, "I'm a girl. He's a guy. Guys don't—"

  Alison shook her head impatiently. "Money is just like English nouns: gender neutral. And, yeah, guys do." They giggled and walked to their next class, and she was content to forget all about it.

  A month later, she was mugging for someone's camera when she heard Kyle talking to one of his friends.

  "My roommates said if I don't pay them my back rent by the end of the week, I'm out."

  She leaned back on the concrete bench. "Kyle?" He turned around and she smiled. "I think I can help you with that."

  Of course she could. She could afford that and the hotel room at the Park Plaza for two days. She could afford room service, and she could afford a bar tab from nine-thirty in the evening until two in the morning. And because he knew he was being paid for more than just sex, she knew she didn't have to worry about him flirting with anyone else. For forty-eight hours, she was the most fascinating woman he'd ever met.

  The tip itself was enough to pay his rent. He gave her a long kiss goodbye when she dropped him off in the hired car, but it didn't leave her wanting more. She'd gotten exactly what she wanted, even if she couldn't put into words what it had been.

  She'd thought she'd be humiliated if people knew what she'd done, but it was quite the opposite. Both of them seemed to enjoy the reputation they earned from it: Kyle was that much hotter, and she was that much more...powerful.

  She would never tell her parents what she had done—no one was that powerful—but she did tell Alison, who immediately made sure every upperclassman knew about it. Now she found she smirked when she walked down the halls, and she liked the way people winked at her when she did.

  Three weeks later, a senior she'd always admired came up to her. "Are the rumors true?"

  She slammed her locker shut. "Every one of them."

  The older girl nodded. "Maybe I'd like to meet this guy."

  She did not miss a beat. "It's going to cost you."

  "So I thought."

  She called Kyle that night. She didn't want to flirt first, and she didn't have to. She had a pretty good idea that he had gone through all of the money she'd given him. She was right.

  He laughed when she told him that someone wanted to meet him. "Am I your boy now?"

  She smiled and leaned back in her bed. "One of them."

  She gave Kyle the money two days later, then winked. The feeling wasn't sexual now, it was better.

  More people wanted her services, and Kyle put his foot down. "Help me out," she demanded. "Don't you have any friends?"

  They went to Au Bon Pain a few days later so she could look over the merchandise. The blonde in dreads was the only one as good-looking as Kyle, but two others would work. "And what about girls?" she asked when they left.

  Kyle laughed. "Not a problem."

  It had all been so easy, and in those days, it had been...fun. When had that stopped? Everyone became desperate. It happened so slowly that she hadn't noticed until people were dying or dead. It offended her that such things would touch her. She wanted out.

  She'd never be completely out now; she would always have a reminder. But that was more precious to her than she'd allowed something to be for more than twenty-five years. She liked now to believe in fate; maybe everything had brought her to this. It wasn't her fault that her happy ending would look so different than everyone else's, was it?

  Chapter One

  2012

  Captain Baptiste had forced Detective Robert Teague to sit down, and halfway through the lecture had stood up. Robert did his best not to react as Baptiste spoke. Baptiste needed to get things out, and if he wanted to keep his job, Robert was going to let him.

  "And did I mention unethical as well as unprofessional?" Baptiste continued. "You proposed going undercover so that you could get close to the victim's daughter—not so you could screw her!"

  Robert swallowed. He couldn't help it. "Sir, that wasn't part of the plan—"

  "Do not say 'it just happened,' okay?" Baptiste bellowed. "Because that's high school bullshit. You are a detective; these things do not just happen!"

  Robert blinked. "Sir, with all due respect, I closed a fifteen-year-old cold case."

  "Congratulations," Baptiste spat. "You were the beneficiary of a number of lucky breaks. And if I read the report and the witness statements correctly, it was some son-of-a-bitch reformed party boy that figured it out—right before he got
shot!"

  "Captain, Miranda Harel and Michael Abbot both tried to be heroes. There was nothing I could do to stop it."

  "It's bad enough that these civilians did a better job putting this case together than you did; they didn't call you to tip them off because you had breached their trust, first by screwing the nineteen-year-old victim," he shouted, "and then by outing her extremely well-connected aunt. I wouldn't have called you either!"

  Robert couldn't handle it anymore. "Are you firing me?"

  "No," Baptiste said with a scowl. "And you want to know why? Because one Zainab Oginabe-Kensit wrote a long and detailed letter in your defense. And it was delivered to the commissioner herself by her fiancé, who just happens to be the son of the woman you humiliated and the cousin of the girl you bedded." Robert was frozen as Baptiste glared at him. "It makes me wonder: what could you have possibly done to make her overlook all of that?"

  Robert sat up straighter. "Nothing that would have any bearing on the investigation."

  "Un-fucking-believable!" Baptiste pointed at Robert. "Does it have anything to do with a phone call I got from a Chief of Ds in Virginia about an arrest made two weeks ago?"

  When Baptiste caught you, the best thing to do was to own up. "Sir, he's a rapist. I just told an old friend to keep an eye on him."

  "And then arrest him for something he didn't do?!" Baptiste was on the verge of turning purple. "Tell me how I can look at the past three months and not think you've been trying to get yourself fired?"

  Robert could not pretend. "You know what that case meant to me."

  Baptiste put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. "I know what that case meant to your father," he said after a minute. "I know he tanked his career because of it."

  "And he died with that accusation hanging over his head."

  "Which would not have happened if he hadn't been stalking the original victim! I worked with that man for eighteen years before he imploded, and I’ll tell you this: if it hadn’t been that case, it was going to be another case. Jesus, Bob! You've spent so long trying to one-up him, you had to turn around and be him. Okay, congratulations. You solved his case and didn't lose your job. You done now?"

  Robert endured Baptiste's stare for ten seconds before he blinked. "No, sir," he said. "I am not done."

  "Good. Are you ready to get back to work? And I mean real work, not this cloak and dagger bullshit."

  "Yes."

  "Good. Because I've got work."

  ~~~

  Six Years Later

  The young woman sat in the chair at Robert's desk. She turned around as Baptiste and Robert approached, then quickly stood up. She was pale; not exactly fair, but her face lacked any variation of tone. Her hair color was equally nondescript, a mousy light brown was what Robert thought of first. Her eyes were more interesting, he thought as they darted quickly from Baptiste to him: light brown, with flecks of yellow. And smart.

  "Ms. Brewster, thank you for waiting. This is Detective Robert Teague, he's going to handle your complaint."

  "Oh, Detective," she said nervously. Robert thought she should have flushed, but she didn't. "I didn't realize this was going to be so important."

  "We take all our complaints seriously, Ms. Brewster." Baptiste nodded to Robert. "I'll just leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything," he said to the young woman as he left.

  "Please sit down," Robert said. She smiled shyly, then sat. She was not tall, but not short. Average height. She was wearing a baggy plaid shirt and loose jeans. She wasn't heavy, at all, but her slouch made it difficult to tell what her body shape was. "Ms. Brewster—I'm sorry, what's your first name?"

  "Anne," she said softly, looking away. "Anne Brewster."

  "Nice to meet you, Anne," Robert said. He smiled, but she looked down. "So what can we do for you today?"

  Her chest heaved. "He won't leave my friend alone." She bit her lip, then looked up. "And he's hurt her before."

  "Okay," he said, putting up his hand and nodding. "Who is your friend and who is this guy?"

  She closed her eyes. "Her name is Maria Gomez, and his name is Alberto Ramon...and he's a pig!"

  "Let's start at the beginning,” he said gently. “What did he do?"

  "He pimped her out last year." She looked disgusted. "He beat her, he threatened her mom and her little brother, and he made her screw different guys, like, ten times a week."

  Robert shook his head. "Those are very serious charges. You're just here to report a stalking?"

  Anne waved her hand. "No, no, no. She finally got away from him a few months ago. He was arrested and convicted, but he made a deal because it was his first charge. I can't believe they let scum like him out. Maria still got a restraining order, but now he's not even letting that stand in his way."

  "Are you saying you saw him violate the restraining order?"

  Anne nodded quickly, relieved. "Yes! He went right up to her house and rang her doorbell. He's not supposed to get within five hundred feet of her or her house, but he did because he doesn't care."

  Robert started typing into his computer. "Alberto...Ramon? And the complainant was...Gomez? Got it. Maria." He read through the details quickly. She was eighteen and he was twenty-five. Charges of pimping, assault, battery, and intimidating a witness. Why did this guy get a deal? Temporary Restraining Order granted and renewed. "When did this happen?"

  "This morning," Anne said with difficulty. "Maria and her mom were at work and her brother was at school. I passed the house on the way to work, and there he was at her door."

  "Did he see you?"

  She shuddered. "Yes. And then he laughed. He's such a creep."

  He looked at the screen and typed. "Did you call work?"

  "What?"

  "Did you call work to let them know you'd be late?"

  "Oh my God." Anne fumbled for her phone and dialed. "Hi, it's Anne. I know, I'm supposed to be there. Look, I'm sorry. I had to go to the police. It's a long story." She paused. "Do you need a note? Yeah, whatever, I'll be done here soon." She hung up.

  Robert looked at her. "Do you need a note?"

  "What?"

  "Your boss didn't seem to care that you needed to see the police."

  Anne scoffed. "No, he just didn't believe me. People make up stories all the time."

  "Would it be helpful if I drove you in?"

  The question startled her. "No, please. My boss isn't a fan of Boston's Finest, and if he sees you, he'll just come up with an excuse to fire me anyway. A note is fine."

  Okay... "Sure. So, back to Ms. Gomez. You're sure she wasn't home?"

  Anne nodded fast. "I called her to make sure as soon as I got him to leave. She wasn't home, and neither were her mother or brother. But she started crying when I told her and saying that he was going to hurt her again, so I said I'd go to the police."

  Robert raised an eyebrow. "What did you say to make him leave?"

  Anne looked away, but not before he saw a self-satisfied smirk begin on her lips. "I told him I could scream really loudly if he touched me." She shuddered. "And then he told me I wasn't his customers' type before he left."

  "Be very grateful for that," Robert said softly. She laughed, and he smiled. "Alright, Ms. Brewster. I'll have the desk sergeant write you a note for your boss. Give me a call if you have any trouble with that, and if Mr. Ramon bothers you, okay?" He handed Anne a card.

  Anne took it and looked at it nervously. "But you're going to talk to him?"

  "As soon as I can find his last known address from his probation officer," he said with a reassuring nod.

  Anne sighed with relief. "Thanks, Detective."

  Robert smiled. "Go get that note, and tell your boss that we're the good guys, okay?"

  She looked at him and swallowed. Those were very nice eyes. "You've got it," she said softly, then turned and left.

  ~~~

  Alberto Ramon's probation officer laughed roughly when Robert called him. "Cocksure son of a bitch," he muttered as
he dug out Ramon's address. "After the lucky break he got...what the hell was he thinking going to her place of residence?"

  "That he could get away with it," Robert said dryly. "You going to revoke his probation?"

  "As soon as we're off the phone! You going to pick the little prick up?"

  "Yessirree," Robert said.

  Everyone needs to make a buck, Robert thought as he drove to Ramon's address, but no one should do it off of someone else's back.

  A dark-haired woman about forty-five answered Robert's knock. She sighed before he showed her his badge. "Alberto, get over here now!"

  "Ma, what the hell?" A tall, muscular man in a baseball cap came to the door. His clothing was casual, but they looked on the expensive side. Obviously, he cared about how he looked. Yeah, of course.

  "Are you Alberto Ramon?"

  Alberto stuck out his chin and smirked. "Who's asking?"

  Robert took out his badge and ID. "I'm Detective Robert Teague. Are you or are you not Alberto Ramon?"

  "Jesus Christ," his mother said. "Yes, obviously. What do you want?"

  "Ma, shut the fuck up!" Alberto said, losing his cool.

  "Alberto Ramon, you are under arrest." Robert got out of his handcuffs and slapped them on Alberto's wrists.

  "For what?!" Alberto exclaimed.

  "For violating a restraining order against the girl you beat and pimped out last year."

  "I am so sick of you, Alberto!" his mother screamed as Robert walked Alberto to his car. "You made a deal, and you promised me!"

  "I didn't go anywhere near that bitch!"

  "Whatever," she muttered as she slammed the door.

  "I didn't go near that bitch!" Alberto repeated.

  "You have the right to remain silent," Robert began. So please use it.

  ~~~

  "You already picked up Ramon?" Baptiste asked a few hours later. "I'm impressed."

  "Uh huh."

  "Don't give me that crap," Baptiste said wearily. "It's a routine complaint and you made good with it. In my day, they called it doing it your job."

  "Ramon has been shouting since I arrested him that he didn't violate the restraining order."

  Baptiste smirked. "Oh, what a surprise. Not like we see that happen all the time."