It was the face of someone who’d had a lot of practice at taking abuse and not reacting to it. Javi didn’t know what it said about him that he filed that away for later. Good or bad, he did it anyhow.
“Anything to say?” Frome asked.
Cloister shifted for the first time and lifted his chin slightly. It was his first reaction to escape the controlled reserve that kept his face still and his hands relaxed on his bicep.
“No,” he said. “Sir.”
Irritation dragged Frome’s cheeks into flat planes. “Insolence doesn’t cover up your mistakes, Witte. Thanks to you we’ve wasted time looking for that boy in the wrong place.”
That jab caught something raw, although Javi wasn’t clear if Frome noticed. Cloister narrowed his eyes for a second and then relaxed again.
“Sir.” It was inflectionless.
“On the other hand,” Javi interrupted, “it’s thanks to him that now we know we were looking in the wrong place.”
He didn’t know why he suddenly felt the urge to defend Cloister. It couldn’t be the slow simmer of lust. It hadn’t stopped him from writing Cloister up that time he told Javi to go fuck himself. And the effort didn’t get him any thanks either, just a grunt from Frome and a brief, closed-off glance from Cloister.
“Should I send the phone you found on to the lab?” Frome sat down behind his desk. He wiped his forehead and blotted the sweat into his hairline.
“Not yet,” Javi said. “I think it will be more use here for now. Do you want to sit in on the interview, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Frome said. “They already have a relationship with you. Introducing me will only muddy the waters.”
What hemeantwas that the fallout might come back on him, and he’d rather aim it at the FBI. Javi didn’t mind—he preferred to remain in control of the investigation—but he wasn’t fooled either.
“Can I borrow Deputy Witte?” he asked.
“You can keep him,” Frome said. He pointed across the table at Cloister. “Be what Agent Merlo wants. Say what he wants. Do what he wants. If you go off script, I’ll put you on administrative leave for the rest of the case and assign the dog to Kent.”
Javi had to clear his throat and try not to be distracted by a variety of enjoyable scenarios he could set up with those orders. There were more pressing issues, but it wasn’t every day a professional acquaintance hit your personal kinks quite that sharply on the head.
“He just needs to present the evidence,” Javi said. “They know him. Lara knows that he’s been out looking for her son and, right now, she’s going to have a more positive reaction to him than she will to me. So I want to take advantage of that.”
Cloister frowned and shifted in his chair for the first time. The cheap plastic creaked under him and caught on the seams of his jeans. “I don’t do interrogations,” he said.
“What did Ijusttell you?” Frome asked him sharply. “You want to clear your ticket, find this boy? Do what the agent tells you.”
It would be counterproductive to smirk, but it was hard not to. Javi nodded to Frome. “I’ll go and speak to them now. Until we know more, though, I still want to bring Reed in for a formal interview. Any luck with that?”
There was something in Frome’s scowl. Javi supposed it could have been frustration at not being able to produce the Retreat’s owner, but he thought it was more disappointment that Javi still wanted to pursue that line of the investigation. The parents or brother taking the fall was a lot more politically convenient.
“Not yet,” Frome said. “I’ll let you know when we do.”
Javi left him to follow up with that and stepped out to the hall with Cloister on his heels. He glanced down. The leg of Cloister’s uniform was fuzzed with dog hair but missing the dog.
“Put your better half in her kennel?”
“She’s in her run,” Cloister confirmed. Or corrected. He frowned and screwed bar-straight brows together over his crooked nose. “I’m not comfortable doing this interview.”
“Good,” Javi said. “It’ll make you more sympathetic. Just remember what your boss told you and do what you’re told.”
He probably enjoyed saying that more than he really should have, but the feeling faded quickly as he turned his attention to the unpleasant task at hand. It was never easy to interrogate a minor in front of their parent—even less so when you knew them.
“Just stay quiet until I ask you to say something,” he told Cloister. Giving him a dubious up and down, Javi twisted his mouth wryly. “Just try and look less like you want to punch someone.”
Cloister sighed. “You ain’t playing to my strengths here.”
The dust-dry flash of humor was brief, but it caught Javi off guard the same way the scar-splattered tattoo on Cloister’s ribs did. It was the hint that there was more to him than the aggressively simple presentation. Javi resented having to know that.
