Page 21 of Be Ours

“Well?”

“No, sir,” I grunt. “I walked in, they started shooting. I returned fire and advanced on their position until I had them all.”

“Wow!” Kip laughs. “Captain America over here!”

I don’t say shit.

“And how is Tanner doing, Bishop?” Chief Millbrook says pointedly.

“He’s good.”

“You’re still friends.”

At least until he started kissing Cora Kenner, I mutter inside my head.

“Yes, sir.”

“That security business of his is doing great I hear,” Kip smiles.

“He’s done well, yes,” I say thinly.

“Loretta Kenner is a client, right?”

I frown. I could lie, but why? And besides that, if he’s my friend, why wouldn’t I know that?

“She is.”

Millbrook shrugs. “And he wasn’t there to check on the property with the alarm having been tripped?” He smiles. “I mean I know his gun was there,” he says thinly. But I don’t flinch or blink.

“I called him from the scene when I arrived and didn’t immediately see any signs of forced entry. He was going to run some diagnostics on his end to check for loose connections or something.”

I resist the urge to smile smugly. Hell, not bad, double-0-Bishop.

Kip laughs. “Well, seems I won’t be hiring him to watch my house if he doesn’t even show up!” Millbrook chuckles along with him. I keep my face neutral and unblinking.

“One last question, Bishop.”

“Sir?”

“You have any idea why Soldados de los Muertos was on Loretta Kenner’s property with guns?”

I shrug. “I don’t. Not yet at least. I just came back in to look at the evidence.”

“Tom, I think you should bring Tanner McCoy in here to—”

“But who knows?” I smile widely. “You know how rich people sometimes have a hard time avoiding guns and cartel drugs.”

I look pointedly at Kip. He smiles back, but I know he’s thinking about putting one between my eyes.

“Anything else, Chief?”

“That’ll be all, officer,” he grunts. I nod, turn, and walk out of his office.

Tom Millbrook executing a guy. Jim Curren setting up cartel drug deals with the Chief of Police. And now Kip Clausterman getting real interested in official police business. I growl to myself.

When something stinks, there’s usually shit. When everything stinks, it’s officially hit the fan.

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