Page 151 of Nothing More

Melissa lifted her head when he was halfway across the room, spotted him, and said, “Shit,no. Absolutely not.”

He kept walking, until he was close enough to murmur, “I need to talk to you.”

“And I need to not be seen talking to Lean Dogs in the middle of my precinct,” she hissed back.

“Five minutes,” he insisted. “And I’m not flying colors.”

Her gaze flicked down to the front of his plain leather jacket, mouth screwed up into an angry twist. Her nostrils flared, but she said, “Five minutes.” Spun and marched deeper into the room, toward the mouth of a hallway.

“You need me?” Contreras asked.

“No,” she said, without glancing back, and Toly went after her.

In an empty conference room, she shut the door and kept her hand on the handle, whipped toward him and said, “Look, it’s not smart for any of you guys to be hanging around here right now. Raven didn’t incriminate y’all in any way, but–”

“Wait.” Prickle of uneasiness down his arms. “What about Raven?”

She frowned. “You haven’t talked to her yet? She came in about a half-hour ago. You just missed her. She wants to move the case along, and changed her mind about cooperating with us. Officially.”

A high, barely-detectable whine kicked on in his ears, like a radio turned all the way down. “What do you mean ‘officially’?”

She gave him an impatient look. “The lab contact who ran the samples for me off the record got caught by her boss and had to come clean, which means my boss knows I submitted forensic samples off the record. Raven agreed to come forward about the ear and the finger and cooperate with detectives – Murder, in this case. I won’t be handling it, obviously.”

Obviously. A roll of her eyes, quirk of her mouth.Obviously. The whine in his ears got louder, accompanied by a tightening of his lungs.

He wanted to snarl at her.

He forced his face to stay impassive and said, “You told her to come in?”

“No.” Her face did something strange, then; got all locked-down and secretive, gaze withdrawing, lips compressing. “She stopped by anyway. It was a coincidence, but a helpful one.”

His pulse was going thud-thud-thud, regular as a bass drum in a driving rock song. “Why did she stop by?”

Melissa’s expression closed off even more; there was something she’d decided not to tell him, and she was prepared to fight about it. “She’s your girlfriend, you should ask her about it.” Before he could ask anything else, she said, “Raven didn’t mention the Dogs at all, and the DNA points straight to the bratva. Y’all should be fine, just…keep clear for a while. Heads down, like you’re doing.” Sharp gaze, though.Are you doing it? Is your head down?

He swallowed roughly. “Yeah. Right.” He brushed her hand off the door handle and let himself out, her gaze boring a hole into him from behind.

~*~

Raven did call Maverick, to make a request, and to inform him of Tenny and Reese’s findings. He’d been understandably troubled, voice heavy with a note of Disappointed Father. “I should have seen something like this coming,” he’d said on a sigh. “Well, yeah, come on up, then. If he gives you hassle, let me know and I’ll talk to him.”

She stood now at the safehouse kitchen island, drinking a glass of water when she wanted wine, Toly’s note on the fridge behind her –at gym– glowing neon at the corners of her vision. A glaring neonlie.

Across from her, Cass sat slumped on a stool, temple propped against her hand, scrolling glassy-eyed through something on her phone.

Raven said, “I was thinking…” and pushed a cheerfulness she didn’t feel into her voice. One so forced and false that Cass glanced up from her phone, brows furrowing. “That it would be nice to do something Christmassy.”

Cass stared at her a long moment, before she deadpanned, “Christmassy.”

“Yes. You know: holly jolly, deck the halls, here we go a’ wassailing.”

She frowned. “You don’tdoChristmassy. You don’t even say it.”

“I’m saying it now.”

“I had to force you to get a tree.”

“No one forces me to do anything, darling. You made a convincing case, and I acquiesced.”

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