Cloister swung his black Tacoma into the curved, cobblestone-paved driveway and parked behind a row of cars. The house was long, low, and white as a seashell—one of the sprawling plantation-style buildings that supplanted the modernist boxes that used to dominate the suburb. They had a dog. Cloister could hear it barking its shrill displeasure at their arrival.
“We had sex, and you told me to sleep on the couch,” Cloister said as he turned the engine off.
“I didn’t want to get fleas in my bed,” Javi said, his voice clipped with annoyance.
“Seriously?” Cloister asked, raising his eyebrows. “So instead of commitment issues, you’d rather people think you’re a snob with a taste for rough trade? Not what I’d pick, but up to you.”
He got out of the car, slammed the door on Javi’s spluttered protest, and got Bourneville. She hopped out, shook herself, and shed a cloud of dust and hair.
“I meant the dog,” Javi said over the roof of the car. He’d taken his sunglasses off, and he folded the legs to tuck them into his pocket as he spoke. His dark eyes squinted against the sun. “Where you go, it follows.”
“You don’t like dogs?” Cloister asked.
“I like them fine,” Javi said as he gave Bourneville an uncomfortable look. Cloister was pretty sure it was a lie. “They just don’t belong indoors. That’s why we invented kennels.”
Cloister cocked his head to the side. “You didnothave a dog when you were a kid, did you?”
“We moved a lot,” Javi said. “Pets were an extra responsibility my parents didn’t want. Why?”
“Explains a lot,” Cloister said.
“No. It doesn’t.”
He didn’t sound amused, so Cloister dropped it. But if Javi madethatface over Cloister’s trailer, he’d have to take him by his childhood home sometime. Working dogs stayed in the kennels, but old dogs made the move to being pets, and his mom had bred a small pack of bad-tempered Pomeranians that chased dust bunnies like they were a wolf pack. Cloister hadn’t seen a cushion that didn’t have a layer of dog hair on it until he was ten.
His good sense jerked the reins on that because Javi wasn’t going to be around long enough to get used to the trailer. Even if he were, one mind-blowing hour against a window was not a good reason to plan a trip home to meet the parents. Not after so many years.
No falling in love, Cloister reminded himself as they walked up the drive to the shiny blue front door. No getting overattached like a stray dog shown some affection. Javi Merlo was just a hot asshole who got under Cloister’s skin, not the next ex-boyfriend he was going to disappoint.
He fell easily. It didn’t mean he was any good at it.
BEHIND THEbright blue door, Sean Stokes made them coffee. It was black and thick enough to stand a spoon up in but not nearly as bitter as the man who made it.
“So what is this?” he asked as he poured a shot of whiskey into his coffee. It was, Cloister supposed, past noon. From the backyard, Sean’s dog—a perpetual-motion spaniel—barked itself into a confused frenzy of adoration and hatred over Bourneville, who ignored it gamely from where she sprawled. “The Feds couldn’t get anything on me back then, so now you’re back for a second bite of the apple?”
Javi smiled like a shark. “Why? Is there something for me to find?”
It was hard to tell if Javi was playing up the antagonism as “bad cop” or just acting according to his nature. Cloister leaned forward to pick up his cup. The ceramic was hot against the palm of his hand.
“You’ve seen the missing kid on the news?” he asked.
Sean sniffed and leaned back against the kitchen counter. It might be past noon, but he looked like he’d just gotten out of bed in boxers and a faded T-shirt. His hair hadn’t been brushed yet, and his eyes were still bloodshot from last night’s hangover.
It didn’t look as though early retirement suited him.
“News, Facebook, telegraph poles, pinned up at Whole Foods,” he said as he drank his spiked coffee. He squinted, seemingly balancing pain and curiosity. “Only place I haven’t seen him is on the back of a milk carton. I’m sure they’ll get there, though. What’s it got to do with me?”
“Birdie Utkin,” Cloister said. A muscle clenched in Sean’s jaw and bulged under the skin at the name. “You were the detective on her case.”
The coffee was hot enough to scald, even with milk and whiskey in it. Sean drained his cup, grimaced around the burn, and set it down with a clatter in the sink.
“I was the detective on a lot of cases,” he said. He cut his gaze across to Javi. “Until the FBI got me canned.”
“The Plenty police force was corrupt,” Javi said.
“I wasn’t.”
“Yet you seem to have something to hide.”
