Page 55 of Beware of Dog

The detective gave Shep’s cut a once-over, subtler, but more astute than the officer’s from before. She needed to get him behind a closed door, and fast.

She straightened, took a tight grip on Bryce’s sleeve, and dragged him in the direction of Melissa and Rob’s nosed-together desks.

“Whoa! Okay, slow down.”

She didn’t.

Rob was at his desk, on the landline, and did a double-take as they approached.

Melissa arrived behind her chair, holding a steaming mug, and her brows lifted. “Thanks for coming in, Bryce,” she said, mildly. “And Cass. And Shep.” Her brows lifted a fraction higher when she got to him. “I don’t remember requesting a joint interview.”

“You didn’t.” Cass pasted on her widest, fakest smile. “Bryce called me this morning because he was starting to have doubts, and Shep”—she tipped her head in his direction—“heard me agreeing to come provide moral support.” She willed Melissa to understand.

Melissa looked at Shep, at Cass, Shep again, and the next glance she shot Cass said she knew exactly what was happening. “Rob?”

“Yeah.” He stood, and extended an arm toward the cushier meeting rooms. “Come on, Bryce, and we’ll get some paperwork going, okay?”

Cass shot Bryce a thumbs-up when he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

As they wove their way between the sea of desks, Rob’s arm going companionably around Bryce’s shoulders, Melissa turned to Shep, expression hardening, and jammed a finger toward the nearest conference room.

He stared her down and didn’t budge.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cass muttered, threw up her hands, and led the way. Inside, she went around to the far side of the table and plopped down into a chair.

Shep loitered near the door, doing his best Arnold inTerminatorimpression.

Once she’d shut them in, Melissa glared at him. “What is your problem?” When he didn’t answer, she turned to Cass. “What is his problem?”

“He’s having some sort of malfunction because I spoke on the phone with a classmate. It was rather charming at first, but now it’s just ridiculous.”

Cass didn’t know how she’d expected Melissa to react, but she hadn’t thought she would display such alarm: wide eyes, a paling face, a sharp turn of her head Shep’s direction. She advanced on him, drawing her small frame up as high and as tense as it would go, finger aimed at his chest. “What did you do?” she snapped. “Did you hurt her?”

The accusation was the tool that finally cracked Shep’s façade.

His brows flew up, and then his shades followed; he shoved them up into his hair and goggled comically down at Melissa. “What?” His voice was strangled, alarmed, too-high, and hilarious. “Did Ihurt her? Do you have brain damage?”

This whole morning was proving flattering in the extreme for Cass.

“Doyou?” Melissa shot back. “You’re parading around a police precinct flying colors. My captain’s breathing down my neck about being compromised, and in waltzes you, making my life more difficult.” Her Mississippi accent thickened when she was pissed off, and it was out in full force now.

Shep spread his arms. “Well, that’s what you get when you have a stupid-ass dalmatian for a boyfriend.”

“Oh no. No, this is not my fault. My dalmatian has a sliver of discretion, meanwhile you’re allergic to it, apparently!”

“Guys,” Cass tried. This was quickly swerving from funny to Shep-says-unforgiveable-things-to-a-brother’s-old-lady territory. “Guys, come on.”

“If you would do your goddamn job—” Shep started, and his voice was getting harder again, the leash slipping off his anger.

Cass smacked the tabletop. “Guys!”

She thought it meant something that Shep was the only one whose head turned toward her. Melissa folded her arms and stared daggers through the side of Shep’s face. But Shep didn’t see her, didn’t care; all of his attention was fixed now on Cass, staggering in its intensity.

It took her a moment to find the appropriate words. She thought she shouldn’t be blamed for her tongue-tied state; whowouldn’tbe while on the receiving end ofthatsort of look? In the moment before she smoothed her expression and came out with something soothing, she thought Shep saw straight through her. That he knew exactly how affected she was, and that, beneath the funny, and the flattering, she was wholly out of her depth when it came to handling the way he felt about her.

Finally, she said, “None of this is helping. Melissa.” It took considerable effort to break eye contact with Shep. “I tried to come alone.” When Shep snorted, loudly, she added, “I didn’t want to come at all, but I was afraid Bryce might not show up if I didn’t tell him I’d meet him here.”

Melissa turned to her. “Yeah. He’s squirrelly.” She frowned. “But how the hell do you know he’s our witness?”

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