Slade didn’t bother responding and quickly went about setting up his laptop. “I think I got something you guys will be happy about. Well.” Slade glanced back and forth between them, taking in their stoic expressions then muttered, “Maybe not happy, but this is important.”
“What?” Meridian asked, reaching for a pair of chopsticks.
“God and his team found an eyewitness.” Slade nodded.
Ex paused from rumpling the aluminum containers to make sure he’d heard correctly.
“Is that what they call Godfrey?” Meridian quirked a midnight brow.
“I know, right. Cops always go by last names but he goes by God I guess for short. At first I thought a guy who looked like that and calls himself God would have a bit of a complex, if you know what I mean.” Slade chuckled and spun the computer screen around to face them. “But, I’ve been following him and his team while y’all were gone and those men barely sleep, they barely socialize outside of each other. They live and breathe Atlanta PD blue. And they’ve been going at it nonstop day and night with the homicide detectives on Evan’s case. And their determination looks to have finally paid off.”
“Where is this?” Meridian asked, with his gaze on the screen.
He was sitting in one of the chairs around the dining table with a container of plain white rice in his hand. He used his chopsticks to pick up a piece of shrimp from his entree on the table and put it into his mouth. After he swallowed, he dipped his sticks into the gummy rice next. Meridian had the most ridiculous quirks. He never mixed his food or allowed it to touch. Most people dumped the meat and vegetables on top of the rice, but his partner was the only person he knew that ate his plain spaghetti noodles first, then the meat sauce after. Ex felt a weird twitch in the corners of his lips.
He quickly turned his head away when his partner glanced in his direction, perhaps feeling his eyes on him, his mind too. How was Meridian so relaxed over there, casually eating his dinner? Was his body not still vibrating from what’d just happened twenty minutes ago? They’d kissed. Meridian had put his mouth on him, pressed against him, then slid his hot, slick tongue—
“Ex,” Meridian growled.
Ex blinked back to reality, then tried to think of what Slade had just been saying. He couldn’t believe they were having a briefing and his mind had been somewhere else, someplace it shouldn’t have been.
He avoided facing Meridian, not wanting to see his look of concern. He knew he was behaving so far out of character that he might’ve appeared to be two entirely different people. Behaving and doing things that were going to get them erased. And he was dragging Meridian into it as well. He knew there was nothing he’d deny him, so Ex had taken advantage of that.
Slade started again. “I was saying that God, his lover, and his enforcers were—”
“I think he probably prefers to be called Lieutenant Day, or God’s partner.” Ex frowned. “Not God’s lover.”
Slade huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I can just finish this, please. My roast duck is getting cold. Now. God and his partner, husband, friend and confidante, Lieutenant Day, were out canvassing with two of their enforcers on Lakewood Avenue. I shot this from the back lot of the Boys and Girls Club.”
Ex finally sat in the chair next to Meridian. His partner handed him a plastic fork—because he knew Ex thought it was pretentious to use chopsticks—and the carton of chicken fried rice. They watched God and Day, and the other two detectives who had a hard time resisting each other after work hours, in full task force mode and shaking down some young guys outside a fuel station. Slade was too far away for the video to have sound, but Meridian was able to read lips, and so far he said God wasn’t getting anywhere. Just issuing threats.
Ex couldn’t believe how hard Godfrey was working on his brother’s murder. Almost as if he was taking it personally. Godfrey and his team shouldn’t even be involved in the assignment any longer because it was a homicide case now, regardless that it was most likely done by a drug gang on Godfrey’s most wanted list. Like him and Meridian, they were operating outside of their jurisdiction to right a grave wrong.
Ex was losing his appetite the more he watched the police get nowhere with their questioning. It was terrible how these cowards covered for gangs that were killing innocent people and ruining lives. He set his half-eaten food on the table and traded it for a bottle of water. Hadn’t Slade mentioned that they were gonna be happy from watching this? And something about an eyewitness.