Amil, Wendy and Isla stared at them, then at each other.
Johnny let out a breath. “Better not, right, Sarge?” He looked across at Isla, who was doing a terrible job of hiding a grin behind her hand.
She regained her composure and waved the comment away. “Oh, go for it. I’m over uniform regs. If HQ wanna crawl up my chuff about some nail paint, then they can come here and process one hundred and fifty adult social care referrals first.”
“Wow,” Taylor replied. “Who is this new rule-breaking, risk-taking sargie sitting in the room with us?”
Isla smirked and looked back at her screen. “Maybe I’m taking a leaf out of your book, PC Campbell.”
Taylor opened his mouth to reply, but found that all the wind had been knocked out of his sails. Not in a bad way. In a really exciting, walking into a surprise birthday party kind of way. He felt his ears warm, so he looked at the floor to stop himself from saying something embarrassing.
When he looked up again he found Johnny smiling at him. “Sacramento Sunrise, please,” he said, the smile growing into something that almost looked like… pride.
“S-sure,” Taylor replied, clearing his throat and pulling open his desk drawer. He rummaged around until he found the pinky orange colour.
“Oh,” Isla said, just as Johnny pulled up a chair to sit opposite him. “Well that is interesting.” They all looked at her. “As well as the concoction of wine, prescription pain meds and… lawn fertiliser, our friend Sylvester the Molester had trace amounts of Luxuriadioxypyrovalerone in his system.”
Amil gasped, apparently understanding what the fuck she had just said, because to Taylor it sounded like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
“Love Dust,” Amil replied. “Do we know if it’s the same strain as what’s been making the rounds in the city? What about Ru? Could it have been the same type used on him?”
Isla shook her head. “It could well have come from the same distributor, but dealers cut their drugs with so much different shit we’d never be able to stand up in court and say it came from the same source.” She took a breath, eyes returning to the screen. “And here we go again. There’s another message from the forensics bureau telling me Sylvester’s a match for Reuben Atkinson’s rape case.” She rubbed her temples and exhaled. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told them he was in prison.”
Taylor unscrewed the lid from the paint remover and began rubbing it across Johnny’s nails with a cotton pad. His hands were warm, even in the air-conditioned office, and Taylor found himself running his thumb over his knuckles just to feel the way they popped a little beneath his touch.
“Ouch,” Johnny whispered, but didn’t pull away.
“Does he have a son?” Wendy asked, looking up from her phone. “Perv like that probably has loads of illegitimate kids running around.”
Isla shook her head. “They’d be too young. And anyone in his family that might have a close enough DNA profile like his father and sister are either dead or also in prison.”
Taylor rolled a crick out of his neck. He didn’t understand shit about DNA profiles or blood testing, but listening to them talk felt like he was in an episode of CSI. It was one of the only things he’d enjoyed about their old job in Major Crime.
“What about an evil twin? One nobody knows about,” Taylor said, laughing to himself as he applied the first coat of Sacramento Sunrise to Johnny’s nails.
Isla hummed. “If only it were that simple. You know, I would love to chuck every single one of Reuben’s attackers in prison. In the end we only found two out of the five. Tam Burk and Felix Maginty. Vile cunts.”
They all looked at her, then at each other as though theywere speaking some silent language. Taylor liked that—being part of the joke and not the butt of it.
“Sorry,” Isla said, blushing as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
Amil nodded but didn’t look up from the computer. “I agree.”
CHAPTER 17
MAMAN
Johnny
“Ew,gross. Gross, gross, gross! This is DISGUSTING!” Gabriella shrieked, throwing both hands in the air so Kumba dough flew everywhere.
Johnny grabbed her arms to stop any more of the sticky, sweet goop firing up the walls and all over the wood-slat blinds. “For goodness’ sake,” he said, plunging both of her hands into the ceramic bowl and holding them there. “Stop that.”
“This is amazing,” Clementine said, standing at his other shoulder. Her face was filled with awe as she stared at her own hands—also covered with dough—and held them out as though she was dual-wielding infinity gauntlets. “The enzymatic breakdown, the gelatinisation process, it’s… it’s beautiful!”
She looked as though she was experiencing some kind of culinary rapture, so Johnny left her to it.
“Don’t make me, JP. Please, please don’t make me knead it, I’m begging you! It’s like massaging a slug on steroids.”
