“Fine,” Javi said. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
The frustrated noise Ergobah made was probably meant for her ears only. Javi pinched his lips in annoyance.
“Deputy, this is a federal investigation. I need that evidence for a case that involved an attack on a sheriff’s deputy. Can you get me the evidence or not?”
There was a pause and the sound of quick typing.
“It’ll be with you tomorrow,” Ergobah said. “But this is an old case. I can’t guarantee what state it will be in.”
“I didn’t ask you to. Just get it here.”
Javi hung up. He put the phone down and tuned into the tail end of Cloister’s conversation.
“I know you’ve been looking for anyone who was there that night.” Cloister leaned over the back of the couch to rub Bourneville’s ears. She huffed and rested her chin on her paws, her eyes on Cloister as he started to pace again. “It’s this man in particular I want you to keep an eye out for. I’ve scanned a picture and sent it through to you. He’s older now, grayer, and he’s grown a beard. When I saw him, he was wearing a gray jacket, sweatpants, and a dirty blue T-shirt. I know that fits lot of the homeless people around. Just let me know if anyone thinks they see him. Thanks.”
He hung up and cursed under his breath as he scrubbed his hand over his face.
“It’s not your fault,” Javi said.
Cloister gave him a wry look. “That’s not your usual line.”
For some reason that stung, perhaps because it wasn’t entirely unfair. It wasn’t as though Javi couldn’t hear himself when he jabbed at Cloister, but most of the time, he could justify the sharp words. Cloister wasn’t supposed to care about him.
It was just that he hadn’t realized it worked. He swallowed the urge to apologize, to say something soft, and drew back instead. It was easier to close himself off, to commit to the offense instead of the regret.
“Maybe it’s usually your fault, then,” Javi said. “Or you need to spend more time with people who’re nicer.”
Cloister looked puzzled. “Like who?”
Put on the spot, Javi couldn’t come up with anything. The obvious answer was someone who was kinder, someone who liked dogs, someone who would take him out on his birthday.
Someone else.
“Someone you’d trust,” Javi said. His voice sounded stiffer than he wanted, almost unfriendly as the words squeezed out between all the things they weren’t going to talk about. It wasn’t how he wanted to sound, but the words twisted as his temper crawled up from where he’d shoved it the other day. “Someone you could accept help from without thinking they were… what… trying to manipulate you?”
Cloister scowled in frustration.
“That’s not fair,” he said. “It’s not about you. I just…. I’ve always taken care of myself. Made my own food, patched up my own cuts—”
“Arranged your own birthday party?”
The halfhearted no-win trap Cloister had set for him—go on a date or be a dick—was one of the things Javi wasn’t going to mention. What was the point? Javi had worked his irritation out on Joel’s paperwork and in snide comments to the impervious Collins. Once he had, he could admit it was just bad timing.
Except apparently not.
“That wasn’t about you either,” Cloister said.
“Flattering,” Javi said dryly. “But it would be more convincing if you didn’t care when I stood you up.”
Cloister looked raw for a second. He swallowed hard and ran his tongue nervously over the soft curve of his lower lip, as though he’d finally been pushed hard enough to confide something. It made Javi’s stomach twist with the sudden panicked desire to take it back. He didn’t want honesty, didn’t want to actually have to deal with—
“You still have some spare sheets?” Cloister asked stiffly. He wiped his hand along the back of the couch. “If it matters that much to you, I’ll crash here. Okay?”
It made no sense to be frustrated that Cloister had done what Javi wanted him to do only a second earlier.
Asshole.
Javi wasn’t sure which one of them he meant with that. Maybe both. He stalked off to grab spare bedding from the drawer in the bedroom and tossed the neatly folded squares of crisp white linen onto the couch. It made Bourneville jump and look around.
