Almost Infamous (Detective Damien Drake Book 9) Read online

  Tobin was looking for something new—no, not something new, but the something new, which was a tall order in half an hour.

  But he was as determined as ever.

  Knowing that he had a tendency to lose track of time, Tobin glanced at his phone.

  “Shit.”

  He only had ten minutes before he had to be back at the truck. As desperation began to set in, Tobin’s eyes were whipping around so quickly that he could barely focus on any one thing.

  “C’mon, c’mon.”

  Just when he was about to give up hope, he spotted it: a blacked-out storefront with the name written in neon pink script above the door.

  Moxy’s.

  A throwback to the early nineties, Moxy’s was an up and coming label that Tobin remembered seeing some kids wearing at the local skate park. Born from urban roots, Moxy’s only produced one of a kind, handmade pieces, if he recalled correctly.

  Tobin didn’t even have time to look inside; he had to be back at the apartment in eight minutes.

  Two of those eight minutes were used to perfect his smile and clean the sweat and grime from his face.

  Just as he was framing the shot with his cell phone, a man emerged from Moxy’s. He was tall and thin with a shock of perfectly coiffed white hair. Dressed in dark blue slacks, a crisp white button-down shirt, and burnt oxblood shoes, Tobin breathed a sigh of relief.

  This was the place—it had to be.

  Moxy’s.

  He waited for the man to pass, admiring his gold-framed spectacles and the monochrome plaid scarf that completed his look. In his manicured fingers, the man clutched a black bag with the pink Moxy’s logo scrawled on the side.

  Tobin cleared his throat and lowered his voice several octaves.

  “Nice outfit,” he remarked.

  The man looked back, but when he saw Tobin, he didn’t smile or nod. Instead, he made a strange face and then hurried out of sight.

  “Asshole.”

  Tobin smiled once more and then loaded up his social media profile. After two deep breaths, he framed Moxy’s in the background and pressed record.

  “Lucas here,” Tobin began in a baritone voice. “Just checking in, wanting to give you the low down. This place behind me is the hottest place—no, the only place, to get all your fall styles. And you heard it here, first. I’ve got your back. Stay good, people. And remember to let Moxy’s know who sent you: The double L, Lucas Lionell.”

  Chapter 2

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Tobin broke into a jog, but the ground was slick with damp leaves and he was quickly forced to slow.

  Please be there!

  His thirty-minute lunch break had stretched to forty-five and if he didn’t find the truck soon, it would be nearly an hour before he got back to work.

  Shit!

  Tobin turned the corner and finally spotted the truck with the colorful Maldrim Movers logo painted on the side. His relief was short-lived when he saw that the roll-up rear door was closed. Not only that, but thick, black exhaust burped out of the rusted tailpipe.

  “Kevin!” Tobin hollered between deep breaths. “I’m here! I’m here!”

  But either Kevin didn’t hear him, or simply didn’t care. The truck sputtered and then Tobin heard it switch into drive.

  “No! No! I’m here! Kevin, I’m here!” he shouted, waving his hands high above his head.

  The truck began to pull away from the curb and Tobin’s eyes bulged.

  “What the fuck, Kevin! I’m here! I’m here!” he was flailing his arms like a madman now, which was difficult to do without breaking stride.

  At long last, Kevin’s bearded face appeared in the large side-view mirror.

  “Fuck, finally!”

  Tobin stopped waving and slowed, but Kevin did not. On the contrary, the man grinned and floored it.

  “No!”

  Tobin had no choice but to start sprinting again.

  My god! Please… just stop! Stop!

  Everything hurt, from his shoulders to his calves, but somehow, Tobin managed to keep up with the truck that was puttering along at a smooth five miles an hour. Just as he thought he was going to be able to reach up and grab the metal handle on the back, his left foot splashed in a puddle. The shock of cold water on Tobin’s bare ankle was so jarring that he leaned heavily on his right side.

  This normally wouldn’t have posed a problem. But, as luck would have it, his right heel came down hard on a pile of soggy leaves.

  Tobin’s arms shot out and he careened forward. Like a cartoon character, his legs pinwheeled as he tried to regain his balance, but he was already beyond the point of no return. His palms took the brunt of the impact and Tobin screamed. Instead of skidding forward on the pavement, his arms slid even farther from his body and his right shoulder popped audibly. He was in the middle of another scream when his chin whacked off the ground hard enough for him to see stars and taste blood.

  Tobin moaned and tried to peel himself off the pavement but was unable to; there was something wrong with his right arm.

  It refused to do anything but lie flat on the pavement like a paralyzed snake.

  Tobin heard a high-pitched squeal but wasn’t sure if he had made the noise or if it was the truck’s tires as the vehicle braked suddenly.

  Somehow, despite his pain, he managed to roll onto his back. Eyes closed, Tobin used his good arm to drape the now useless one on top of his soaked Maldrim Mover’s shirt.

  “I told you not to be late, boy,” Kevin said. He reached down, grabbed Tobin beneath the armpits, and hoisted him to his feet. Searing pain shot up his right side and Tobin shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Fuck—shut the fuck up and get your ass in the truck. We still have two more houses to do today.”

  Chapter 3

  Tobin stared at his reflection in the mirror.

  He looked absolutely terrible.

  His chin was scratched and even though he had applied a thick layer of cover-up, he knew that the cameras would still pick it up.

  And his right arm… there was something seriously wrong with his right arm. He’d kept it in a makeshift sling for the rest of the afternoon, but that wouldn’t play here. It took him almost half an hour to remove his work t-shirt and put on a fresh one. Slipping a jacket on top proved impossible, so he had to resort to simply draping an overcoat across his shoulders. He might have looked like some sort of modern-day Napoleon, but that was the best he could do. With one final deep breath, he opened the door to the “studio”—a simple warehouse that had been temporarily retrofitted—and stepped inside.

  A woman with small glasses and even smaller teeth led him to a well-lit room and told him that he could get prepared in there. Tobin smiled, nodded, and then closed the door. Once alone, he sucked air through his teeth and tried to relax his shoulder. He could rotate it about an inch away from his chest before the pain became unbearable.

  “Damn it,” he moaned. Still reeling, Tobin pulled three bottles out of his jacket pocket with his good hand. The first two were prescription and he tore the tops off without even looking at the labels. Then he swallowed one Percocet and two Xanax—or maybe it was the other way around—and chased these with a pill from the third bottle: over the counter extra-strength Tylenol.

  With a sigh, he closed his eyes and tried to visualize his audition. He got as far as introducing himself before the pain in his shoulder usurped his thoughts.

  Shit—I should have taken the pills before I got here.

  Knowing that it would be at least another ten minutes before the medication kicked in—he hadn’t eaten anything all day—Tobin searched another pocket and came up with a small baggie filled with white powder. He first tried to tap the cocaine onto the webbing between thumb and forefinger of his right hand, but immediately changed his mind; there was no way he would be able to raise it high enough to snort. Instead, he opted for his left hand.

  Just as he leaned forward, Tobin caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror. His medium-leng
th brown hair was parted on one side, with half pushed back and the other sagging forward just a little. Several thicker pieces hung over his brow to complete the look.

  But Tobin wasn’t satisfied.

  “No, not good enough,” he whispered, turning his head to the left. His hair was one of his better features, but it also served a functional purpose: to cover his forehead.

  While Tobin’s forehead wasn’t overly large—it was the perfect ratio to the rest of his face, something that he’d confirmed more than a dozen times by measuring—the top jutted out unnaturally, as if two horns were starting to grow from just below his hairline.

  Grimacing now from something other than pain, Tobin quickly snorted the coke and coughed.

  With his eyes watering slightly, he flipped several more strands of hair onto his forehead. It wasn’t a perfect cover-up, but he thought that, combined with the extra matte makeup he’d applied, might make the protrusions less noticeable.

  Still…

  “C’mon,” he pleaded, adjusting his hair again. The urge to rub the bumps, to try and force them down with friction alone was difficult to resist. But Tobin knew from experience that this would only make the area red and draw more attention to it. “Why don’t you—”

  Tobin instantly fell silent in response to a knock on the dressing room door.

  “Lucas? Lucas Lionell?”

  He made one final adjustment to his hair and then tilted his head at every conceivable angle in an attempt to determine the best one for the audition.

  “Lucas, everyone is—”

  “I’m coming.” Tobin cringed and softened his tone. “I’m sorry—I—I—I’ll be right there.”

  After wiping white powder from beneath his nose, Tobin started his deep breathing ritual. Normally, he would raise his hands high above his head in a power pose as he drew air into his lungs, but that clearly wasn’t going to be possible today.

  “Lucas, please, there are several other—”

  Tobin opened the door so quickly that the diminutive woman with a clipboard nearly stumbled into the room.

  Then Lucas Lionell put on his best smile, looked her directly in the eyes, and lowered his voice.

  “I’m ready, I’m ready. The real question is, are you guys ready for me?”

  Chapter 4

  “Can you move… can you move just a little to your left so that we can make sure the lighting is directly on your face?”

  Smiling, Tobin nodded and raised his chin ever so slightly to further hide his forehead.

  There were three people, three faceless individuals, sitting behind a large gray table, staring at him, two men and one woman. Tobin himself was seated in a metal chair with his ankles crossed and his incapacitated arm resting limply on his lap.

  “Thank you,” the woman continued. Despite being flanked by two men who dwarfed her in size, it was clear that she was the one who Tobin needed to impress.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The lights aimed at Tobin’s face were bright, but his eyes soon started to adjust, and he could see a folder splayed out on the table in front of the woman.

  “So, your name is Lucas… Lucas Lion-ell? Am I saying that right?”

  “Leo-nell,” Tobin corrected.

  “Alrighty then, Lucas. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you think you’d be a good fit for Savage Money.”

  Tobin cleared his throat and flexed his neck a little to make sure his voice came out the way he wanted it to.

  “Well, I mean, I have the looks, I have the personality, and I have the charisma. I’m young, I’m fit, and I can get downright dirty if I need to.” He allowed a small smile to creep onto his face as he said this last part.

  The words sounded even better out loud than they had in his head.

  “And you’re how old? Twenty-six?”

  Tobin’s smile faltered, but he quickly regained his composure.

  “Twenty-four. And a young twenty-four, I might add.”

  “I see. And Lucas, have you done any sort of acting before? I mean, this is a reality TV show, but as you probably know, oftentimes we need to re-create situations if they aren’t caught perfectly on camera the first time. And we want these scenes to be as close to the original as possible. Natural.”

  Tobin nodded. He was well aware of how these ‘reality’ TV shows worked.

  “Yes,” he replied, puffing his chest. “I’ve done two commercials and have had three modeling gigs, as well.”

  “I can see that here,” one of the men chimed in. “A ketchup commercial and as an extra in a beer spot?”

  Again, Tobin’s smile wavered.

  “Yes—but I was the main in the ketchup commercial. As for the beer one, they needed beautiful people to fill out a crowd and, why, I was the perfect fit.”

  “Ah.” There was a short pause that Tobin was unsure of how to interpret. “And you’re currently employed as a…”

  The lights were warm and now that the cocktail of drugs had started to kick in, Tobin felt sweat begin to bead on his brow.

  My make-up better hold up. It fucking better.

  But, of course, the more one thought about sweat, the more one produced.

  “Lucas?”

  “Yeah, yeah, no, I, uhh, I’m in between modeling gigs right now. Which, ha, which means that my sched is very flexible. I could easily do a two to three-month shoot, if needed.”

  “Good, good,” the woman said. Once again, the man to her left leaned over and whispered something in her ear. “Lucas, the lights are a little warm—do you want something for your forehead?”

  No amount of effort could keep the smile on Tobin’s face now. In fact, it was all he could do to keep from scowling. The woman, this producer cunt, might have pretended to care about the fact that he was sweating, but Tobin knew better.

  She was making fun of him; she was making fun of him and his protruding forehead.

  Tobin’s heart was racing now, and he could feel sweat forming not just on his face, but on his neck, arms, even his balls.

  “Lucas?”

  And that comment about his age? About being twenty-six? That was a fucking insult, too. After all, they knew his age. It was right there in the folder along with his headshots and the information about his past employment.

  “I’m fine,” he said flatly.

  Twenty-six… I’m not twenty-six. I’m fucking twenty-four. And I look twenty. Trust me, I get carded everywhere.

  Aware that he was starting to fume, Tobin took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm down.

  “Okay, sure,” the woman producer said, her tone stilted. “Now, as you know, Lucas, this is a beach-themed reality show. And while we don’t discriminate against any body type, we need to make sure that we have a good mix—a realistic mix—of people for our cast.”

  Tobin’s spirits suddenly lifted. This was the eighth audition for a reality show that he’d attended over the last two years, and he’d never gotten this far.

  Maybe… maybe she didn’t notice my forehead. Maybe she really was concerned about the sweat.

  “Of course, of course.”

  Tobin slowly uncrossed his ankles and rose to his feet. Then he gripped both sides of his T-shirt and started to lift only to freeze after just a short second.

  Oh my god.

  He’d completely forgotten about his injured arm. The drugs may have numbed the pain while sitting still, but not even the glorious pharmaceutical cocktail that he’d ingested could keep it at bay while trying to remove his shirt.

  “Lucas? Is everything okay?”

  It was the damn female producer again, nagging him, insulting him, picking on him.

  No, I’m not okay. I’ve got these two ugly-ass bumps on my forehead and a broken goddamn arm.

  “Yeah, I’m fine—I just hurt my shoulder, is all.”

  As he spoke, Lucas used his left hand to tease up the right side of his T-shirt, hoping that he could pull it off this way, as they did in commercial
s.

  He simply couldn’t manage. Just moving his right shoulder at all caused incapacitating pain to envelop that half of his body.

  “Just a second,” he said between clenched teeth. “Just one second.”

  “Lucas, please don’t hurt yourself—we’ve got a pretty good idea of your physique. And I think—”

  “Just a second,” he snapped sharper than intended. “I can do this; shit, it’s just taking off my shirt. My shoulder is just sore from—”

  But when the woman producer rose to her feet, Tobin knew that all was lost.

  “Lucas, that’s quite alright.”

  “I can do—”

  “Thank you, Lucas.”

  Tobin finally gave up and his expression soured.

  Fucking making fun of me… I can do this. I can do it.

  “Here, take my card,” the woman said, confirming his worst fear.

  Take my card was industry code for better luck next time.

  Eyes down, chin tucked to his chest, Tobin snatched the business card from her small hand. Without even looking at it, he jammed it into his jean pocket.

  “Thanks again for your time, Lucas. We’ll be in touch.”

  Tobin exercised all his willpower not to glare at the woman because he feared that a glare might lead to something far, far worse.

  After all, the pompous bitch had made fun of him, and nobody made fun of Lucas Lionell and got away with it.

  Chapter 5

  It took Tobin three attempts to slip the key into the lock of his apartment door. Part of it was that he’d overdone it with the cocaine, but he was also so furious that his vision was blurred.

  Why did that ugly bitch have to make fun of my forehead? What fucking right does she have?

  Tobin finally unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  I am good enough for Savage Money; I’m good-looking enough, I’m charismatic enough, and most of all, I fucking deserve it.

  Tobin was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t even notice his roommate walking toward him.