“An old friend,” she says at last.
Bishop’s shadow stretches as he steps closer. “Who?”
Her lips curve. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “You know I don’t hand those out.”
“How do you know them?” My voice drops lower.
“We have an understanding.” The words roll off her tongue like mercury—smooth, slippery, poisonous.
An understanding. Like when she disappeared for three weeks and came back with a black eye and a new Porsche. Or when the chief of police suddenly dropped his investigation after Coco sent him a birthday card.
“What kind of understanding?” Bishop’s presses.
“The kind that benefits both sides.” Her fingernail taps against crystal. Tap, tap, tap.
“You trust him?” Bishop asks.
Coco’s gaze flicks back to him, quick as a snake. “I trusted the job.”
“But not your source,” I murmur, tucking the admission away.
She tilts her head, one manicured fingernail tapping against the rim of her glass. “I wouldn’t have brought it to you otherwise.”
I roll my neck, the vertebrae popping in sequence. A vein throbs at my temple, matching the pulse behind my eyes. “Someone knew exactly where we’d be.”
“Honey.” She lifts her glass, ice clinking. Her lipstick leaves a perfect crescent on the crystal. “Did it occur to you that someone missed something? Maybe Sableine wasn’t as…” Her gaze flicks to Bishop. “Cleancut.”
Bishop’s shoulders square. “I walked Sableine myself.”
Coco’s eyes narrow a fraction. The corners of her mouth tighten, then relax into something practiced. Her gaze slides to me, pupils contracting in the low light. “And you?”
The air between us changes temperature.
“What about me?”
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift. Just watches me like she’s counting my heartbeats. “You were there too.”
I hold her stare, jaw locked. The silence stretches.
Her mouth curves as she lifts her glass again. “I’m just wondering,” she murmurs into the rim, “if you were distracted.” The ice in her glass circles once, twice. “Since you so rarely do recon with your brothers.”
Bishop shifts his weight—half an inch, no more—his shoulder angling toward mine. I don’t blink. Don’t swallow. Keep my breathing even.
Coco lowers her glass, perfectly manicured nail tracing its edge. Her smile softens into something maternal, but her eyes remain fixed on mine like a predator tracking wounded prey. The nail tapping against crystal echoes in the silence between heartbeats.
“Just wondering, honey,” she says, voice dripping like poisoned honey, “does your brother know that you’re trying to steal his girl when he isn’t looking?”
The pool filter’s hum fades first. Then Bishop’s breathing beside me. The scrape of a chair leg against concrete as Coco shifts her weight. The salt-chlorine air. All of it dissolves until there’s just her face across the table, that smile still fixed in place, and her question hanging between us.
I recognize the glint in her eye—the one that says she’s found a pressure point.
My mouth pulls sideways, teeth pressing against the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.
“Funny,” I murmur. “I was thinking the opposite.”
Coco’s left eye twitches, the corners of her mouth pulling downward. I’ve seen this exact expression countless times. She laughs—a dry sound like nails over a chalkboard. “Oh, honey.”
The two syllables land like a slap.
