He waves me over with two fingers. “North.” He says my name like he’s tasting it. “Shoots, brah, it’s been a minute.”
“Chief.”
“Sit down, you’re making me anxious standing like that.”
I flop down on the opposite couch. Back straight, forearms on my thighs.
“You look good,” he says. “Surf life treating you?”
“Well enough.”
“Heard you been doing the luau work.” He grins, wide and genuine and slightly unhinged, which is the particular quality that makes him more dangerous than men twice his size. “The great North, fire dancer. Your ancestors would be confused, yeah?”
“My ancestors would be grateful I’m not in prison.”
He laughs. “Fair. Fair.” He picks up a glass from the side table, something amber, doesn’t offer me any. “So what brings you to my door, seeing as you made such a production of walking out that door before.”
“Business.”
“Everything’s business.” He tips his head. “You want something. People only come to me when they want something.” He studies me with an intense stare.
I pull out my phone. Bring up the photo Luca took at the garage, the tracker sitting in his palm before he put it in the drain. I turn the screen toward the chief.
He leans forward. Squints, then enlarges it with two fingers.
The room is very quiet. I’ve been tracking him in my peripheral version since I sat down.
“That’s ours,” the chief says. He sits back, completely neutral now. “Where’d you find that?”
“On a vehicle belonging to someone I know.”
“And you want to know why?”
“I want to know who called it in.”
The chief sets his glass down. Stands up, slowly, and walks to the desk in the corner. Opens the notebook. Pages through it with one finger, unhurried, while nobody in the room speaks or moves. He finds what he’s after, and he doesn’t turn the notebook toward me.
“Adelaide Merrick,” he says.
Something cold moves through me.
He closes the notebook, turns around. “Grew up in Whispering Grove. Brother’s a bounty hunter.” He walks back to the couch and sits. “Surprises me that it’s you standing in my room asking about her and not him.”
“He doesn’t know yet,” I answer.
“Mm.” The chief glances my way, a thick eyebrow arching. “Who is she to you?”
“Someone I’m helping.”
He grins too widely, and I hate when he does that because everything is a game to him. “The great North, helping someone, just like that. Walking into my place after all this time, calling in airtime, all for helping someone. That’s unlike you.”
I swallow back the frustration. “I need to know who put the contract out.”
“You know I don’t give that up.” He spreads his hands, almost apologetic. “Rules, brah. Same rules you operated under when you were working contracts for me. Client privacy, take it to the dirt. I never broke it for anyone.”
“I’m not asking for much.”
“You’re asking for everything.” He leans forward, elbows on knees, voice deeper. “What you’re asking costs me a client relationship, my reputation for discretion, and potentially a messy conversation with someone who paid good money for a service.” His eyes are flat and steady. “That’s not nothing.”
