And like everything Kincaid did, there was no purchase to call him on it.
“It will be good to see her again,” Javi said.
Something must have shown on his face or slipped into his voice, because Kincaid looked smug as he leaned back. He twisted around and scratched the back of his neck.
“I just wanted to give you the good news in person,” Kincaid said. “Is there anything else on your end? If you need my help with anything until Tracy gets there, you just have to ask.”
Thenowas right on the tip of Javi’s tongue, but that was what Kincaid expected.
“Actually I want to do a cognitive interview with Deputy Witte next week,” Cloister said. “I’d appreciate it if you sent one of our analysts down.”
There was a pause, and Kincaid laughed. He always admired it when someone surprised him.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll see when one’s available and let you know. Take care, Agent. You don’t have many friends down there. If you alienate the lieutenant, it won’t go well.”
After an exchange of empty platitudes, Kincaid hung up. Javi leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer. He wanted to slap it off the desk. He wanted to pick up the ugly, welded-bullet paperweight he’d inherited from Saul and throw it through the plate-glass window, but he’d just have to explain and invoice it in the morning.
He did pick up the welded paperweight, but he just weighed it in his hand. Saul had claimed—or maybe just lied—that every bullet in the brass ball had been fired at him, and one of them was from his wife’s little Smith & Wesson. All of that, and then he had to go and die of a heart attack.
“I could have used you alive, old man,” Javi said to the emptiness. “Just for another year. Even if you had retired, I could do with someone to talk to about this.”
Tracy Joel. She hated him, and he couldn’t blame her, but that was a problem for another day. Javi deposited the heavy brass ball on the desk and pushed his chair back.
There might not be any whiskey left in the office, but there was definitely a bottle at his apartment.
THE LOCALnews outlets seemed more interested in “San Diego County sheriff’s deputy injured in hit-and-run” than the “while looking for injured tourist,” but that would change. Javi flicked the window on the tablet closed and slouched down in the black leather chair positioned in front of the loft’s long plate-glass window.
He liked the view but not for the restaurant opposite. The harsh illumination from newly installed streetlights was strong enough that Javi would see the upturned chairs on the tables and bad art on the wall. Although on nights when he got home while it was still open, the Mexican/Thai fusion did look interesting. Rather, Javi liked the view for the memory of Cloister’s body leaning against the glass, the tight stretch of tanned skin over broad shoulders as he braced his arms and the dim, shadowy reflection of his face caught in the glass as Javi fucked him.
Usually that imagery pulled Javi’s hand down to his cock, but tonight his brain refused to hold on to it. It splintered into old bad memories and bad new ones.Bloody wads of gauze. Bruises stained over honey skin.
“Javier.”
Javi grimaced and took a drink of whiskey. The cold bite of it against the back of his throat jolted him out of that train of thought. Joel was a problem for another day. He needed to focus on the fact that he’d managed to sell Janet Morrow’s case as being his business just as he realized the case looked like a dead end—no witnesses and no evidence till they got the report back from the lab, just a half-dead girl in a hospital bed and a criminal who was desperate enough to assault a deputy as he tried to make her all dead.
She had to have known them, if not personally, then at least enough to identify them.
Javi took another drink of whiskey and lifted the tablet. He flicked back through his emails to the curt note Tancredi had sent with the sheriff’s report—dates and times of her flights, the booking with the Hampton, and a pending search warrant for a two-generation-old iPhone.
He propped his bare feet up on the footstool—black leather sticky-hot under his feet—and sent her a sparely worded question about Janet’s luggage. If Janet’s emergency contact was a design-school professor, it seemed unlikely that she’d have traveled across the continent with only one outfit.
The apology for his curt behavior on Friday made it to five words. His thank-you for letting him know about Cloister’s injury to eight. Javi deleted both of those before he sent it. He might owe her asorry, but the best thank-you would be if he didn’t say it. Joel would be more likely to take to Tancredi if she wasn’t friends with Javi.
He rubbed his dry eyes as he went back to the sparse report. It didn’t seem like Janet Morrow had left much of a trace on the world, not as Janet, anyway. Once Galloway ran her through the system, they might have a better idea of where she’d been before.
The rap of knuckles against his door interrupted him halfway down the page that detailed Janet’s injuries. Galloway had already given him the rundown at the hospital, but the less-graphic clinical language of the surgical report sounded more damning. It was a relief to put it down.
Javi peeled himself out of the chair and padded over to the door. He flicked the monitor on, and the camera caught the long sprawl of Cloister’s body against the wall outside, his head tilted back and his old gray T-shirt plastered to his body with sweat. It was a good camera. Javi could see every shade of blue and yellow that spread up into Cloister’s hairline.
He still wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, but he opened the door. Bourneville sat on the stairs between Cloister’s feet. A heavy twist of drool-wet rope dangled from her mouth, and she thumped her tail briefly when she saw Javi.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asked as he leaned against the jamb.
Cloister rolled his head to the side and opened one eye. In the dim light, the iris looked more gray than blue. “Nearly two,” he said. A wry smile twisted up one corner of his mouth as he opened his other eye to look Javi up and down. The flash of unabashed appreciation on those harsh features, as always, caught Javi somewhere uncomfortably raw. “You don’t look like you were asleep.”
“Hardly your area of expertise.”
Cloister snorted. “Fair enough.” He pushed himself off the wall with his shoulders and scratched at the scruff of gilt stubble on his jaw. He flicked his gaze over Javi’s shoulder and then back to his face. Something settled behind his eyes, and he shrugged. “Sorry. I just saw the light on and thought I’d run something by you. I should have called first.”
