Page 161 of Beware of Dog

Devin shrugged off his façade and took off his glasses. Polished the lenses with the tail of his shirt while he swapped a half-apologetic, half-assessing glance between the two of them. “I tried to, but neither of you answered. I thought I’d drive out and make sure you were okay.”

Cass folded her arms. She was still pissed, because you couldn’t get runaway spooked like she’d been and smooth your ruffled feathers down in a matter of seconds. “Youdrove outfromTennessee?”

“Oh no.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, and the sunglasses into the neck of his shirt by an earpiece. “I was in town, and thought I’d see if you wanted to join me for an early dinner. When you didn’t answer, I picked up groceries instead. Who likes shrimp?”

~*~

They doused the shrimp in spices and grilled them up with the pineapple and tortillas Devin had brought, and ate tacos atthe umbrella-covered patio table by the pool. To neither of their surprise, Devin made a mean margarita.

“Not that it’s not, uh, great to see you,” Shep said, finally, licking a stray fleck of salt off his lower lip, “but whyareyou here?”

Cass was impressed that Shep had held out on asking the obvious for this long, and tickled to the point of hiding a smile in her margarita glass by the uncharacteristic diplomacy with which he asked it.

Devin grinned, quick and sharp, but thankfully didn’t laugh.

Somehow, despite the odds, he’d earned Shep’s respect. Cass didn’t want him to squander it.

“Well.” Composed again, Devin wiped his fingers with a napkin and reached for his glass; he curled his fingers loose around the stem and contemplated the condensation trickling down its sides. “I don’t suppose you’ve been checking up on the news back in New York the last two weeks?” He lifted his brows.

“Nah,” Shep said, and that was true.

They hadn’t been checking social media, nor Googling anything relating to the case. In fact, save responding to texts and calls from Raven and her mum, Cass hadn’t touched her phone; she’d only had to charge it once since their arrival.

But just because they left town and hadn’t been keeping up with the goings-on back home, it didn’t mean the gears of gossip had stopped turning. Considering she’d dropped a massive bomb via her interview, followed up by a doorstep interview from Jamie and her parents, and then holed up in Raven’s flat for two weeks before flying to Key West. Even before they left, Raven had snatched up the remote and changed the channel every time Cass landed on the news.

“No need to watch that!” she’d sing-songed, and put it on cooking, or home reno, or reality housewife trash programming.

Now, Cass shuddered and set down her taco when she thought of what must be flying around the social circles in New York. Worse: at her school.

Devin nodded, and sipped his drink. “I thought not. And that’s good. But.” He lifted a finger off his glass. “It’s time to rejoin the real world, I’m afraid.”

“Damn.” Cass drained the last of her drink and tried unsuccessfully to talk down the juddering of her pulse. “Okay. Right. But you came all the way down here to tell us that?”

His smile was of the I-know-something-you-don’t-know variety that always sent Raven and Walsh into paroxysms. “I came to tell you what to expect in person. And keep you from spiraling on the way back.”

“I’m not going to spiral,” Cass bluffed.

Devin and Shep sent her near-identical looks.

“Don’t gang up on me. I don’t like this atall.”

Their responding smiles matched.

“Piss off, both of you,” she said, but couldn’t hold back her own smile.

~*~

Devin had brought a packet—an actual physical, printed-out packet of papers—as if she was an agent he was prepping for an op. It contained news stories, headlines, official police statements, and more social media chatter than she wanted to see, but which she pored over like she was studying for a test.

The police made it clear that the Blackmons had been entangled with the Tres Diablos gang, and all the forensic evidence found at the scene, including prints, powder burns, ballistics, and phone and bank records pointed to an alliance gone wrong. A Diablo had been picked up trying to flee the city, and he’d confessed that the gang had been hired both to intimidate the Simpson family, and to kill Cassandra. Cassandraherself and the Lean Dogs were not considered suspects in any capacity.

Once she read that, she had to stop and put her head down on the table a moment, relief shaking through her like an earthquake.

“Yeah,” Devin said, and patted her hand. “Take a beat. Everything’s fine. Everythingimportantis fine, love.”

That was very true.

Next came the social media pages, and those were less definitive. In the way of all scandalous happenings, the trial-that-would-never-happen and the fate of the Blackmons had reached far beyond those directly related to the involved parties. Opinions were split. About half the keyboard warriors expressed dismay at the Blackmons’ actions, and some even said they were glad they were “out of the picture.” The other half painted Cass and Jamie as lying villains trying to frame an innocent boy for rape. Some of those claimedCasshad been the one to hire the Diablos.

---