Page 9 of Long Way Down

Given the way she lied to him, it seemed only fair.

“Why’d you come to my place?” she asked, as they reached her door and she unlocked it. She didn’t invite him in, but neither did she tell him to get out when he followed her into the foyer and leaned down to unlace his boots.

“I was in the neighborhood, and I wasn’t gonna stick around there and ask for some ice. You got ice, by the way? I figured you did ‘cause you’re always making those smoothies, all healthy and shit.”

She dropped her bag on the table in the foyer, toed off her ankle boots, and headed for the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went. When the table and floor lamps clicked on in the living room, she paused a second, struck by the knowledge that her place wasn’t much bigger than the apartment where Lana Preston had been raped tonight. Similar layout, too: the kitchen bar running along behind the couch, her TV on a stand over by the wall by the bedroom door. A small space filled with inexpensive furniture; she’d cozied it up with blankets, knit throws tossed over both arms of the sofa, and another folded over the back of the recliner.

She was glad, suddenly, of Pongo’s presence, the thump-thump of his boots in the hallway and his dramatic, vocal yawn as he walked into the room, socks scuffing over the floorboards, scratching idly at his stomach.

He shouldn’t have been here, for a variety of reasons, but his presence pushed hard at the memories that had swelled in at the corners of her mind, ready to fill in the gaps of what Hannah Searcy had told her; ready to twist the tableau in Lana’s living room so that it smelled of honeysuckle and fresh rain.

Pongo lifted his good eyebrow. “Dix?”

“I’m getting ice,” she said, and turned to do so. By the time she had a handful of cubes bound up in a dish cloth, he’d made himself comfortable on one end of the couch – the place where he usually sat. Closest to the door, leaving the spot by the end table, and the lamp and remote control, free for her. He’d, as usual, kicked his feet up on the coffee table and sprawled back, relaxed and unbothered…but he always deferred to her, without comment, when it came to dealing with the lights, or the TV, or any of the kitchen appliances. He always saidgot any beer?But never helped himself. Would tell her a game was on, but didn’t channel surf for it on his own.

She wasn’t sure what to make of that; it was just something she’d noticed.

“Thanks,” he said, when she handed over the ice.

“You need something to drink?” She was remembering her Southern manners, she told herself; it wasn’t that she didn’t want to be alone right now.

“What are you having?”

“Water.”

“That’s fine.”

She dropped the remote in his lap and went to get two glasses. She refilled the ice tray as she did, and debated doing something stupid – she debated asking him if he’d heard about any new sickos through his club channels. She never would have considered him a useful source of intel aside from drug deals and turf war shit before…but after the club take-down of Waverly and his ilk, she was rethinking her estimation of the Dogs. It was only practical, she reasoned: Pongo was good in the sack, yeah, but he could be useful in other ways, too. He was using her; she might as well use him for more than sex.

When she sat down next to him, water glasses on cork coasters in front of them, she saw that he was mindlessly flipping through channels.

“Was I right?” he asked, ice pressed to his face.

She frowned. “About what?”

He twisted his upper body so he was leaned back against the arm of the couch, facing her, half of his grin concealed by the dangling edge of the towel. “Were you off doing important detective shit when I texted?”

“Obviously.”

His grin stretched.

“Yeah? You liking Sex Crimes? Bet it’s more exciting than talking to working girls with Detective Blockhead.”

She frowned. “You know it’s Morris.”

“I know his head’s shaped like a Raisin Bran box,” he said. “But it’s better, right? You’re like, saving the world or whatever, like you always wanted, yeah?”

Her frown deepened, and her pulse gave a little kick in the pit of her stomach. “Who says I want to save the world? I certainly didn’t.”

To her horror, his expression softened. No, no, soft wasbad, especially coming from him.

His voice softened, too, the bastard. “You didn’t say. I could tell, though.”

It was a not-small effort to keep her breathing steady; to keep her tone calm and frosty when she said, “You can’t tell shit.”

He’d never been put off by her unpleasant personality. His head cocked to the side, and he said, “No. You…it’s like this, right? There’s different reasons people get into law enforcement, same as everything else. Some people like the power trip. Some have gota lotof aggression they wanna channel in shitty ways. But there’s people who really do think they can make a difference. That’s you.” He pointed with his free hand and then reached over to pick up his water glass, like he hadn’t just smiled right through every wall she’d ever put up and picked her apart like it was nothing, as effortless as getting himself punched in a bar. “Oh, don’t make that face. You can be prickly as a cactus if you want, but you wanna help people. You don’t care about hours, or benefits, and you don’t get your rocks off collaring some douchebag. That’s why you swapped to Sex Crimes, yeah? You wanna get hold of the sickos and make sure they can’t hurt anybody again.”

He took a noisy slurp of water afterward, and smacked his lips in satisfaction like a little kid. He had no idea how devastatingly accurate his words had been – or that they’d landed in her gut like a depth charge.

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