Lyle’s focus on his radio died, and he goggled at the man at my back. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Kane.
“Everything okay?” he said low, just for me.
My eyes shuttered closed of their own accord, and I snapped them open and peeked up. Kane was clothed, thank the Lord, but had a skeleton crew bandanna in his fist.
Lyle had seen me with Kane in the street outside the police headquarters. Now, he had reason to associate Kane with the gang that owned this warehouse, and from Lyle’s scowl, he’d made a host of assumptions in one look.
I didn’t know what to do.
I froze completely.
Kane took the decision off my hands. He neutralised his expression, moved around me, then walked the rest of the hall, lifting his chin to the other crew member behind Lyle. “Need some help?”
I fled. Back the way I’d come and down another corridor, to a set of stairs which delivered me to the brothel on the third floor. From there, with eyes averted from the mostly naked women, no judgement, just professional courtesy, I was able to get around to the central lift and on to the seventh.
In Cassie’s apartment, I half fell into the room, breathing hard. “The police are downstairs. Where’s Mila? Convict should hide.”
My father had falsely imprisoned him for reasons best known to himself. He’d never tell me what shady shit he was into, but it was related to the Marchant case for sure.
Cassie slammed the door and leaned back on it, her eyebrows rising to meet her abundant curls. “Convict merrily invited your father in. Some guy with him demanded Mila go down for an informal interview. Voluntary attendance. I told her she didn’t have to, but she went anyway. Convict is staying with her, I think to taunt your dad. He knows he can’t touch him here.”
I exhaled, loosening some of my panic.
My mind raced over why Lyle and my father would want to talk to Mila. How they even knew where she’d be. Althoughmaybe that was easily answered. Mila and Convict were an acknowledged couple, brought together in the skeleton crew’s infamous game. Their relationship was public knowledge. If they’d tried her place first, here was the next best bet.
Everly raised her phone to her ear and answered a call. “Yes, I know. No, I won’t come downstairs. Keep your big-boy pants on.” She rolled her eyes, earning a laugh from Genevieve and Cassie.
I pictured a freaked-out Shade, being his overprotective self.
Excusing myself to the guest bathroom, I took a minute to clean up and change my underwear. I’d already removed Kane’s shirt in the lift so stashed it in my big velvet bag. Mine now. He wasn’t getting it back.
When I returned, Genevieve was on her way out the door.
“I hate this waiting around. I need alcohol. I’m going to make espresso martinis. Be right back with ingredients.”
She disappeared, leaving the rest of us in quiet contemplation. I didn’t like this at all. I had my suspicions over what my father and Lyle were here to say.
The more I thought about it, the more obvious it was.
Genevieve mixed the drinks, and we waited, the city outside the huge arched window going about its business with traffic winding through the streets and the river flowing, catching the lights of the harbour walk. Time and time again, I got lost on memories of the game Kane and I played. The man was a dangerous addiction.
Mila reappeared by the time I was one cocktail deep.
She entered the room, her face pale, and her boyfriend a dark shadow behind her.
We waited for her to speak.
“Tomorrow, the news about the bodies on theEdenwill break.”
“That’s what the cops came to tell ye?” Cassie asked.
She gave a shaky nod.
I pressed my fingers to my lips. “My father didn’t say or I’d have warned you. What did they ask?”
“It was a warning disguised as an informal interview, but also intense. I spent my formative years in boardrooms, and we saw police often for various reasons, but not like that. They looked at me very differently, like I was a suspect. It was awful.” She clutched Convict’s arm. “Is it always like that?”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t remember any but the last, but trust me, they don’t suspect you, little gangster. If they did, they wouldn’t pull that informal shit.”
