“I dunno. Maybe.” Melissa ran a hand through her hair again, yanking at tangles, gaze half stony, and half defeated. “We’re trying to come up with some kinda bullshit story he’ll buy that won’t land us totally in the shit. You won’t get in trouble,” she added, bitterly. “It’s not your ass on the line here.”
“But we thought,” Rob said, tone more diplomatic, “you might be willing to help us out.”
“Come forward, you mean. Say it was me who got the bits in the post and that I wanted to keep it quiet.”
“We stillcankeep it quiet,” Melissa said, “even if it’s on the books. We work with celebrities, you know, and we can be discreet.”
“It’s not mycelebrityI’m worried about,” Raven muttered, and gave into the urge to pace down the length of the table. She shot a glance over her shoulder at Melissa. “It’s more a question ofinfamy, and it’s one you should be worried about also, given your boyfriend’s occupation.”
“I know, I know.”
“I would have gone to the authorities straight away if the Dogs weren’t tied up in this,” Raven added.
“Iknow.” Melissa pulled out a chair and flopped down into it with a huff. Dropped her face into her hands. “Fuck.”
“See?” Shepherd said. “This is why you never get involved with cops.”
“Shut up, Shep,” Raven and Melissa both said at once, and then locked gazes, quietly surprised at the similar track of their thoughts.
“The important thing,” Rob said, hands on the table, leaning forward so he was between them, “is for us to decide together, and get on the same page.”
Raven sent him a narrow look, and caught a glimpse of Melissa doing the same.
He lifted his hands, palms out. “I get that these aren’t normal circumstances. There’s…Dogs…to consider.”
“I can and do act as my own person – I’m me first and foremost. Businesswoman, agent, designer. I don’t consult the club when I make decisions.However. I will not do anything to knowingly hurt my brothers or their club. It’s why I didn’t come straight to the police with this fingers-in-the-post business to begin with.” She turned to Melissa. “I know that you’re involved with Pongo, and I don’t think you wish to get him in trouble–” She held up a finger to stall the protest that formed on the woman’s face. “You’ve not been with him that long, and you come from a very different world. You live on the other side of the law, and I imagine you’re still adjusting to that. Second thoughts, nerves, are only natural. You don’t want to lose your job.”
Melissa folded her arms. “It’s sounding an awful lot like you’re saying I’ll get spooked and rat out my boyfriend to my captain.”
“I’m saying it’s a lot to ask of someone, protecting the club.”
She was a petite woman, but the lift of her chin and the angry gleam of her eyes could have sent many a lesser opponent running for cover. Which wasn’t all that fair on Raven’s end: they weren’t opponents.
She forced herself to soften outwardly. “Melissa, I’m not trying to sa–”
“I know,” Melissa sighed, shoulders slumping, gaze sliding away. “I get it,” she said, defeated. “I’m the new chick, and I’m a cop. I know that nobody trusts me.” She flicked a glance Shep’s way, and he made no comment. Beneath his surface-level asshole veneer, Raven knew there lay a genuine asshole, and a mean one at that, full of typical club prejudices. She didn’t trust him to be alone with Melissa; at the very least, he would make a good show of trying to scare her away from the club, whether through threats or salacious come-ons was anyone’s guess. Maybe both. The thought softened her further.
“Alright,” she said, “I’ll lodge an official complaint with your department. It’s not exactly a secret who my brothers are, if anyone cares to go digging – but I don’t think they will. The DNA will point to the Russians, and to cases in which the boys aren’t officially involved.”
Behind her, tone gone cold, Shepherd said, “You need to check with Mav before you say anything to anyone.”
She turned to him and fired off her frostiest, most superior look. “I’ll call him – I’ll do it right now – andinform himof my intentions. If Ghost Teague has a problem with it when he finds out, forward all his calls to me and I’ll sort him.” Back to Melissa. “Let’s get our story straight, then.”
Melissa’s eyes widened, as though she didn’t quite believe Raven was cooperating. Relief turned up the corners of her mouth in the smallest, most fragile of smiles. She nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
~*~
Toly kicked around the apartment for an hour or so; made himself a snack when he got hungry; loaded and started the dishwasher. Then he went down to the garage to get his bike.
As he climbed the steps to the police precinct where Melissa Dixon worked, it struck him that he’d never been inside a precinct like this, and so wasn’t prepared for the sharp, unhappy twist in the pit of his stomach. He paused when he reached the double doors, old wood that probably dated back to the early 1900s, trimmed out fancily and set with etched glass. Guys like him passed through these doors and didn’t go back out of them again; were shoved headfirst into the back of police vans out a side exit somewhere.
Behind him, footsteps rapped on the concrete, and someone said, “Move it or lose it, buddy,” heavy Brooklyn accent.
He went in.
His goal was not to speak to anyone and reveal his accent, and, lucky for him, there was a board on the wall to the side of the desk sergeant’s bulletproof plastic setup that displayed departments and corresponding floors. Sex Crimes was on two. He skipped the elevator in favor of the stairs, as old, creaky, and wooden as the front doors, and tried not to meet the gaze of any of the plainclothes detectives or uniformed officers coming down the other way.
The bullpen was all pushed-together desks and ringing phones. He spotted Melissa’s pale hair straight away: she was on her feet and shrugging into her jacket, a man across from her doing the same. Her partner, Rob Contreras, who he’d met briefly during the whole serial rapist business a couple months before. They were clearly on their way out; he’d caught them just in time.
