Excerpt of Glass Houses by Stella Cameron

The next sucker who told Aiden Flynn, detective NYPD, to get a life was dead meat.

Lightning crazed the night sky over Hell's Kitchen and kept a man praying for thunder…and rain, rain, rain. Why didn't it rain, dammit? And why had he agreed to babysit Ryan Hill's orchids? And why didn't he just quit now that Detective Hill had gone AWOL after his upstate vacation with dear ol' Dad? Oh, sure, Dad was too sick to be left alone. Probably needed help in and out of the indoor pool at the mountain estate Ryan liked to brag about.

Ah, hell, the suffocating air, or lack of it, was mangling his nerves. Troth was, curiosity kept him coming upstairs from his own apartment to tend plants belonging to a guy he didn't like. Curiosity and competition. His own orchids would do as well as these if he had the equivalent of a greenhouse rather than a couple of lousy, make-do cabinets he'd rigged himself.

Living on the top floor of the building, where an old but sturdy wall of windows wrapped over several feet of sun- sucking roof space, Ryan D. Hill's (never mention that the D stood for Douglas) oncidiums bloomed, one plant after another. Currently, umber and cream blossoms cascaded from small forests of spikes on two Shad Baby specimens. Aiden's oncidiums hadn't produced one bloom, ever.

His cell phone beeped discreetly. What did it say about a man when he was grateful his phone rang? He flipped the instrument open, jabbed at it with his thumb, and said, "Yeah?"

"Vanni here."

"Finally. That heap of electronic junk you put together for me is on the fritz again."

"So?" For a boy from a good Italian family in Brooklyn, Vanni Zanetto tended to be short on the words.

"I've got things to do tonight--"

"Places to go?" Vanni said, dead flat. "People to see? Sure, I know. Enjoy. How's my dog?"

"Boss is just fine. And he's my dog. Don't change the subject. That damned computer turns Greek on me. No kidding, not a moment's warning, and everything just translates into Greek. Looks like Greek to me, anyway. I'm spending my time getting out and getting in again."

"Lucky guy. Congratulations. Is she a good looker?"

Vanni could be too quick to live. "Save that," Aiden said. "But make sure your mama doesn't find out what a dirty mind you've got. Just get over here and work your magic, buddy."

A sigh wafted, long and theatrical, across the distance between them. "Mama was askin' about you, Aiden. She's got another nice girl she wants you to meet."

"Have you met her?"

"No, but--"

"Sure, I should trust your mama again. I haven't forgotten Milly the garlic-lover."

"So what's wrong with liking a little garlic?"

"Vanni, the woman had to be using the stuff as body lotion. She might even have been substituting garlic rubs for showers--how the hell would I know?" He felt guilty for knocking Milly. "Hey, she's a nice girl, just not my type of nice girl, okay?"

"But this new one--"

"Will you come fix my computer, partner? It'll take me all night to do it myself."

"You'd never manage it yourself," Vanni said.

"I'll let that pass. I gotta get online if I'm going to get any sleep. You know how cranky I am if I don't get any sleep before I go on duty--and you're the one who'll have to listen to me."

"Hey, Aiden old buddy, why don't you hop in your beloved pink panther and get over here? We could chop in at Sully's and--"

"Pink pony." By accident or design, Vanni couldn't seem to get Aiden's favorite wheels, his mint-condition '67 pink Mustang, fight--or any car in his beloved collection. "I'm not going anywhere but online. Thanks, anyway."

"Dammit, Aiden." Vanni's temper wasn't hard to arouse. "When are you goin' to quit foolin' around with people you know you'll never meet, and get out in the world?"

"I'm out there every day. It doesn't have much to recommend it."

"Listen, I'll say this slow and quiet," Vanni told him. "Just see how slow and quiet I can be. That's because I care about you. I worry because you're living some sort of surreal existence with a bunch of virtual pals. You do it because you feel safe with 'em. They'll never ring your bell in the middle of the night and ask if you want company, or expect you to make some sort of move on 'em."

"Vanni--"

"Let me finish. You're lonely, but you're scared shitless of commitment."

Aiden felt his temper begin a bum. "You just stepped way over the line. And where's the woman you've committed yourself to, huh?"

Vanni delivered another world-class sigh. "We're gonna talk. Later. And there's nothing wrong with Italian girls. I'll get there when I can--but only 'cause I want to visit Boss." He broke the connection.

"Nice Italian girls," Aiden muttered, not that he hadn't met wonderful Italian women, but he was allergic to being fixed up by or with anyone.

Ryan D's grow lights were all functioning perfectly, his fans oscillating nicely. Too bad.

On a fancy teak and sleek stainless-steel desk with the curved lines of Scandinavian furniture, sat Ryan's computer monitor with its impressive twenty-one inch screen. Beneath the desk on a conveniently wheeled trolley was his computer tower. Aiden couldn't recall how many gigabytes the miraculous hard drive boasted, nor how much memory Detective Hill

repeatedly mentioned. If Aiden didn't know better, he'd wonder about his own memory, but he knew himself too well, and was well aware of the less-than-generous habit he had of forgetting what was either unimportant or annoying.

There was Ryan's machine--undoubtedly in perfect operating condition and faster than anything Aiden got to use, while one floor down the "bargain" beast Vanni had assembled groaned and refused to come to heel.

Aiden approached the big screen in its luminous blue case. Who had ever even seen a luminous blue case on a computer monitor? The keyboard was one of those two-part jobs, one for the left hand and one for the right hand--also blue. Large enough for most people to curl a whole hand around, the mouse occupied its own miniature Oriental carpet.

Which led to another question: With all of his money, why did Ryan D need to bother his fetid little brain, and his delicate sensibilities, with the business of being a homicide detective? Maybe, rather than having to look after his now-sick father, Ryan had finally twigged to how unsuited he was to life among the unsavory. Maybe he would never come back at all.

A guy could hope.