JAVI ASKEDa passing deputy to escort Lew Utkin out. He wasn’t sure Lew would have actually left otherwise. Then he headed for the bull pen. There were four deputies at their desks and two teenagers and a biker sitting on the bench against the wall. The biker had his arms crossed and his eyes closed. It could have been a front, but Javi thought the man was actually catching a nap.
The missing-in-action blond Javi was looking for was the deputy sitting in the back-left corner under the window. Cloister had the courtesy to look embarrassed when he realized he’d been caught. He scrabbled at the desk and grabbed hopefully at the scattered paperwork with his big scuffed-up hands.
“I told you I wanted you to sit in on Lew Utkin’s interview. Not”—he plucked one page from Cloister’s hands, glanced at it, and hitched an eyebrow in pointed surprise—“expense claims for dog food and vet bills?”
Cloister scratched the back of his neck. The black sleeve of his T-shirt slid back from the hard bulge of his tricep. It was more distracting than a few inches of skin should have been.
“Bon hurt her foot finding the phone. Better safe than sorry,” he said.
“Until Frome tells you different,” Javi reminded him. “You’re mine.”
Something dark slid under those words, thick and heated and demanding. More than Javi meant to put into his voice. He bit the inside of his cheek in annoyance. Someone sniggered. It was probablylouder than expected, from the way it choked off, and almost welcome as an external irritation to aim his temper at. Javi clenched his jaw hard enough to pulse pain up into his skull, and he breathed in. Before he could settle on a response, Cloister jabbed his middle finger in the direction of the snicker. Its source was, Javi discovered as he turned around, a meaty-looking young man with fading acne scars and the look of a high school athlete.
“He knows I’m gay, Collins,” Cloister said. “So now you just look like an asshole. And in front of our ticket-dodging guests.”
Without opening his eyes, the biker snorted.
Meaty young Collins squirmed in place for a second, then muttered something that might have been an apology and hunched over his desk. His neck was flushed dully red all the way up into his scalp, visible through his close-cropped hair, and the pen scratched industriously at the paper. Javi allowed himself the spiteful thought that he was surprised the jock could read. He would have been even more cruel, but it wasn’t the time.
“I’m not telling you to do things for the sake of hearing my own voice,” he said. “So leave the expenses and come with me. I’ve finished with Utkin, but I need you to run some other errands….”
Cloister scowled at the “errands” snark but did as he was told and pushed himself out from the desk. Apparently the dog had been under there with his knees. It scrambled out after him, panting gently. Javi rolled his eyes. It was like having a chaperone, but he supposed the dog had been useful so far.
“Is its foot all right?” he asked as she padded out of the room with them.
“Her,” Cloister corrected him. He reached down absently and ruffled the pricked ears. “And she’s fine. She just got jabbed by a bit of wire, and I wanted to make sure it was clean.”
Out in the hall, Javi glanced sideways at Cloister.
“So I really am the only one who didn’t know you were gay?”
Cloister shrugged. “Pretty much.” He hesitated and dropped his hand to Bourneville’s head again. “I should have been there to speak to Utkin. I’m sorry.”
As apologies go, it was unremorseful, blunt, and to the point—rather like Cloister in that way. It was annoying that Javi still found both of them appealing.
“Nobody likes notifying the next of kin,” he admitted. After a second he went on, the memory of Utkin’s blank “why” in his ears. “To be honest, I wonder if he’d have been happier not knowing. He could have kept that 10 percent chance that she’d run away for a new life somewhere. In that situation I don’t know if I’d want the truth.”
Cloister didn’t say anything. The silence dragged on long enough that the moment passed, and Javi cringed, not sure why he’d exposed that much of himself. He swallowed mortification—it was dry and sandy—and tried to change the subject.
“Maybe he—”
“It’s not 10 percent,” Cloister interrupted. His voice was low. “With no body, parents are 90 percent sure their kid is still alive—maybe living a new life, but more likely hurt and afraid. It’s still grief, but you’re afraid as well.”
This time it was Javi’s turn to not know what to say. It felt as to the point as the apology, and it was too honest for him. It was easier if Cloister stayed big, blond, and fuckable, with nothing as inconvenient as feelings. Discomfort itched under his skin, and instead of asking Cloister who he’d lost, Javi veered back onto safer ground.
“Next time I have to deliver bad news, I’ll lead with that,” he said because apparentlyassholewas his go-to safe space.
Bourneville whined and stuck her nose into Cloister’s hand, her tongue pink as she licked his fingers because she was more emotionally mature than Javi. They reached the doors, and Javi shoved one open, his irritation making him thump it harder than he needed to. It was still warm out, but the winds had finally dropped. There was a dampness in the air that hadn’t been there before, and it was softer on the throat as you breathed in.
“Right now I want you to go and talk to the Hartleys. Let them know we aren’t looking at Billy anymore. It’ll come better from you,” Javi said. “Take the phone with you—the techs haven’t managed to unlock it yet—and get it opened. However the phone got there. Find out what Billy is hiding and who he’s protecting.”
“Why me?”
Javi glanced down at the dog pressed devotedly to Cloister’s leg. “Dogs like you. I bet children do too.”
“He’s not a child. He’s a teenager.”
“Same difference,” Javi said. He shrugged. “Of course, if you’d rather, you can come with me to the records office to go through the property register. I want to see who used to live in that house we found the bodies in.”
