“Fuck, Dec,” I mutter. “You uttergobshite.”
I dart past him down the street and catch Marlowe by her arm. “I’m sorry, baby.”
She starts to say something, but I silence it with a kiss and sling my arm around her. The moment she comes up for air, she whispers, “What?—?”
“Let’s go home and make up.” And just to make it clear who’s in charge, I add one more thing. “I do have a gun, and I’m aching to shoot you.”
“Dick.”
“Unstable man with the gun, Molly.”
I glance over my shoulder. Flower Tattoo is gone.
We walk back to her place, and she comes… not willingly but also not struggling. This time I don’t drop her off out front.
“Go away,” she hisses.
“Not on your life. I’m coming in.” I keep the man and the gun sighting to myself.
We go inside, past the doorman whose name is Henry, and up the elevator to her place.
It’s huge.
I expected big, but not this.
In the opulent and tasteful living room is a small poodle named Fiona based on the gold embroidered name on her bed. She eyes me suspiciously.
Animals love me, so I bend down to make friends with her when the snap of Molly’s voice stops me.
“Why are you here?”
I turn to her. “You’re not to be trusted. Tell me, does your boyfriend have a tattoo?”
“A few.” She glares. “Pet Fiona at your peril.”
“She’s cute. Aren’t you cute?” I pat down my pockets, and sure enough, there’s a small packet of treats still in the back pocket of my jeans. “Flowers?”
“Not from you.”
“Flower tattoos?”
“I haven’t looked closely enough.”
She said she asked the guy at the club about her boyfriend. The guy had a flower tattoo, and her boyfriend might, too. Maybe it means something. Maybe it can associate them to the shootout in the truckyard, link them to the missing drugs.
I want answers.
I put a treat in my hand and hold it out. Fiona takes it.
Then something hisses behind me, and I stand slowly, turning. On the arm of the sofa, a creature looks at me like it can see my soul and finds it lacking. It blinks big yellow eyes with a touch of green, and the blink emphasizes the scar that runs like jagged lightning from a half ear to the other side of its fanged mouth.
I know it has fangs because its lips peel back and it hisses again, followed by a low growl.
I look at Fiona, but her eyes are shut, and she’s now facing the delicately papered wall.
“What,” I say, pointing at the gray thing, “is that?”
“Lola,” says Marlowe, like I should know.
