“No, it is! You like him, and you don’t want to, and you were a bitch to him, weren’t you?”
Shep twisted around in his seat, gaze turning eager as he glanced between them. “You like who now?”
“Not you,” Raven and Cass said together.
His face fell, and he turned back around, muttering to himself as the driver put the Rover in gear and pulled away from the curb.
“Keep your voice down,” Raven whispered. “We’re not talking about this now. I did nothing, and he was reassigned, and this is the way things are, now.”
Cass rolled her eyes dramatically and flopped back against the seat.
Raven resisted the urge to do the same. Nicholas had worked magic on a quick tailoring for an off-the-rack suit for Shep – who looked much sharper in black on black, with a little product in his hair courtesy of the glam team – but nothing could be done about the man’s personality, which appeared to be that of a sexist bar fly crossed with a temperamental retired boxer. If he could be trained, it would take time, and far more patience than Raven possessed at the moment.
She rested her temple against the cool window glass and watched the buildings slide past. Was Toly out there? Perched on a building like Spiderman, watching them through binoculars?
Or maybe, she thought sourly, preparing to spend his evening with some club woman who would coo over his hair and piercings, and wriggle into his lap, and not force him to wear a suit, or stand silently against the wall, or–
She cut that line of thought off forcefully. Bugger Toly. She wasn’t attracted to bikers anyway. And she certainly wasn’t attracted to men who treated her like a chore to be pawned off on someone else.
~*~
Pongo texted Toly with an address that proved to be a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant sandwiched between a shoe store and a liquor store, and which Toly knew offered the tastiest Mongolian beef he’d ever had. The kitchen dominated one long wall, and was noisy, full of shouted Cantonese, the hiss of hot woks, the clang of oven and fridge doors, the thunk of knives on wooden cutting boards. Steam boiled throughout the place, fragrant and warm, and the contained chaos of it all provided a certain degree of privacy; the high backs of the booths helped, too.
Toly strolled in, unwrapped his scarf, and headed for Pongo, leaning out of a booth and waving like a moron.
“Hey, man, over here,” he called, in unnecessary redundance.
“I saw you,” Toly said, and slid in across from him. “Everyone in the restaurant saw you.”
There was already water, a teapot, and teacups on the table, along with crispy wonton noodles and a plate of steaming garlic teriyaki wings.
And Detective Dixon, seated in the corner beside Pongo, blunt nails clicking against the white china cup she cradled between both palms. She bristled with nerves, and not because of him, he didn’t think.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet,” she said, the moment he was seated. “I didn’t want to discuss this over the phone.”
“Who’s with Raven?” Pongo asked.
A waiter hurried past. “Something to drink, sir?”
“Tea’s fine,” Toly said. “And I’ll have Mongolian beef.” When they were alone again, he said, “Maverick sent Shepherd.”
“Oh. Fucking yikes.” Pongo made a face that his old lady echoed. “What did you do to get pulled? You musta fucked up bad if he put Shep on her.”
Toly said, “It was my idea.”
Pongo’s gaze went wide. “Your idea? You let yourself get replaced by Shepherd? What the hell, man? Her brothers are gonna flip their shit.”
“Then maybe one of them should come and babysit her.” He didn’t snap, per se, but his tone was…short. “I have better things to do.”
“Maybe Raven will be good for him,” Melissa said. “God knows she won’t put up with his bullshit. Still.” She shuddered, then visibly gathered herself. “Okay, well, I certainly think someone needs to be watching her at all times. DNA results came back on both samples.” She pulled out her phone, tapped the screen a few times, and then slid it over. “I had my girl at the lab erase the searches when I was done. I have screenshots, but, hopefully, there’s no record that the samples were ever run. The first one is the…first sample. You can swipe right to the second.”
He noted that she didn’t sayfingerorear, and approved of the discretion.
She lowered her voice, a bare whisper that caused her to lean half-across the table, and explained what he was reading from the PD database. “It’s looking likely that the ring is the real deal. The print from the – sample – it was found on belonged to a legal immigrant from Poland named Antonina Ostrowski. She entered the US on a work visa in 2016. Worked as a nanny for the Liebowitz family on the Upper East Side for two years before they moved to Florida. I already called and asked them if they’d had any trouble with her, and they said no, that their daughter loved her, but that she didn’t want to leave the city when they did. Next, she worked for Alicia Newsome.”
“Who reported the ring stolen last year,” Toly said. “When Antonina disappeared.”
“Yeah. Clearly, she had some help disappearing. Analysis shows she was killed and put into cold storage for an indeterminate amount of time before the – limb” she took a sip of tea, looking a little pale – “was removed.”
