Behind him eight people crowded into the landing: Sandra and Lucrezia from Clan Bouda, both combat operatives; Russell and Amanda from Clan Wolf; two guys I didn’t know; Derek, the third employee of Cutting Edge; and my lawyer, Barabas.
“If this is a lynch mob, you didn’t bring enough people,” I said.
“You don’t answer your phone,” Jim said. His voice was at odds with his face: his face said “bone-breaker,” but his voice said “romantic ballad singer.”
“I crushed it.”
“Why?” Barabas asked.
“I was having relationship issues,” I told him.
Derek grinned. He used to work with Jim before joining Cutting Edge. At nineteen, he had been almost arrestingly handsome, but then some monsters poured molten metal on his face. We had killed the fuckers, but Derek’s face never healed quite right. He wasn’t disfigured, but he was scarred, and he looked like the type of man you would not want to meet in a dark alley. I’ve seen him walk into a bar and stop the chatter with his face alone.
Jim, Derek, Barabas, and two combat boudas, not counting the other guys. Either they expected me to put up a hell of a fight, or something heavy was about to happen.
“Can we come in?” Jim asked.
And see Raphael’s handiwork? Unfortunately, telling the Pack’s chief of security to shove off would have been extremely unwise, not to mention counterproductive to my investigation. Great. The shapeshifters gossiped worse than bored church ladies. Before tonight the whole Pack would know about Raphael’s stunt. “Of course.”
I watched them file into my apartment. The two boudas nodded at me in passing. This was interesting.
The eight shapeshifters spread through my living room and kitchen and suddenly my apartment seemed too small.
“I thought Raphael had moved out,” Barabas said.
Remain calm. “Actually, we never lived together in my place. I lived at his,” I said. I would not bite Barabas. It wouldn’t be right.
“He was back here last night while she was out,” Jim said. “Him, and a large moving truck.”
“Oh.” Barabas thought about it. His eyes lit up. “Oh!”
Slapping my lawyer was not in my best interests either. I turned to Jim. “You put a detail on my apartment?”
“The second you became a target,” he said.
Well, that just took the cake. I tilted my head. “So good of you to let me know, cat. I’d hate to mistake my babysitter for a threat and accidentally shoot him.”
Jim blinked. Ha! I had managed to surprise the spy master.
“So these are new furnishings?” Barabas said, his face pure innocence.
“Don’t tempt me, Barabas.”
The two bouda women made big eyes at the portrait of Aunt B on my shelf.
“Lovely decorations,” Sandra offered and bit her lip, obviously straining not to laugh.
“Yes, the way the light here plays on Aunt B’s face is very nice,” Lucrezia added.
“Fuck you, Lucrezia,” I told her.
Sandra groaned and the laughter burst out of her mouth. She doubled over. Lucrezia dissolved into giggles.
By tonight, not just the Pack, but the shapeshifters in Canada would know what Raphael had done to my apartment. I would murder him.
I crossed my arms on my chest and turned to Jim. “Is there a reason for all of you coming here?”
“Yes,” Jim said. “Why do you have your computer on the kitchen table?”
“This is a long conversation.”
“I have time.”
We sat down at the kitchen table and I briefed him on last night while Derek made more coffee for everyone. I explained Anapa in broad terms, the Bone Staff, the volhv, and the knife. At the end, Jim nodded at the computer. “Kyle, see what you can do with that?”
A beefy guy who looked like he bent steel rods for a living sat down at the computer, opened a small briefcase, hooked up some box with blinking lights to the tower, and his fingers started flying over the keyboard. He winked at me, still typing without looking at the keyboard.
“Gloria has no fingerprints on file,” Jim said. “No driver’s license, no city permit for her shop, nothing. She just showed up one day and set up her trinket bazaar.”
“And nobody cared because it was White Street?” How did he know all this?
Jim nodded. “How can I make your life easier?”
If we didn’t have an audience, I might have hugged him. “Gloria and her friends likely murdered Raphael’s people. First, I need to canvas White Street and the Warren and shake some information out. How often was she at the shop, who came to visit her, when did she leave, what did she drive, where she went, and so on. Basic legwork. Second, I need to establish Anapa’s whereabouts.”
“You still like him for this?” Jim asked.
“There’s something weird about him. I have a gut feeling that he is up to his ass in this mess, but he probably wasn’t working with Gloria. Third, I need a ritual knife expert. I left a message for Kate, so that should be taken care of if I can tear her away from Curran’s side for five minutes.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jim said. “I’ll check in with you as soon as we know something.”
Someone knocked. This was my day for visitors apparently.
“Hold on,” Jim said and nodded at the door.Derek walked to my door. I heard it open and then Derek’s voice said, “Come in, Detectives.”
Barabas hid behind the wall in the kitchen.
Collins and Tsoi entered my living room. Two uniformed officers followed and Derek brought up the rear. The cops stared at the shapeshifters. Jim and Company stared back.
“What are all of you doing here?” Collins finally asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” Jim kept his voice calm.
“We need to speak to Nash,” Tsoi said.
“By all means,” Jim said. “We won’t be in the way.”
“We’d rather do this down at the station,” Collins said.
“Is my client under arrest?” Barabas said, stepping out in plain view.
Collins grimaced. Tsoi rolled her eyes.
“You didn’t have to jump out like a jack-in-the-box,” Collins said.
“But I know how much the two of you love surprises. I’d like to see the warrant, please,” Barabas said.
Collins locked the muscles on his jaw.
“No warrant?” Barabas smiled.
Tsoi was looking around the room, doing the math. Ten shapeshifters vs. four cops. Suddenly everyone’s face turned grim.
“All this would go away if you cooperated,” Collins said.
“We’re willing to cooperate, if we get full disclosure on the antique dealer case with access to evidence,” Jim said.
“Not happening,” Tsoi said.
“Your call.” Jim shrugged.
Collins turned and walked out.
“This isn’t over,” Tsoi said and left, the two uniforms in tow.
Nobody said anything until Sandra at the window announced, “They are getting into their cars.”
“I told you,” Jim said to Barabas. “I know Collins, he’s a reasonable man.”
Barabas sighed. “But I was looking forward to a fight.”
Suddenly things made sense: somehow Jim had discovered the cops were coming to pick me up, and he’d brought his posse over to keep them from taking me off.
“How did you know they were coming?” I asked Jim.
“I have my ways.”
“You bugged the PAD station.” Sonovabitch. If he got caught, there would be hell to pay.
Jim smiled without showing his teeth. “Something like that.”
“They are under heavy-duty pressure from above to solve the case,” Barabas said. “People with snake fangs made somebody in the mayor’s office really nervous. Almost makes me wonder if they know something that we don’t and they want to put a lid on this whole thing as fast as they can. The plan was to pick you up and sweat you a little for information. We can’t let them do that—you have things to do and there is no reason you should be wasting time in their interrogation room. Since your phone was out, we decided to show up before they did.”
“We take care of our own,” Lucrezia said.
But I wasn’t their own. Well, not officially. And yet they had come here to back me up. I looked from face to face and realized they would do it again and I would do the same. In their heads, I already belonged.
Wow.
For once in my life I didn’t have to hide who I was. They had my back and that was that.
Half an hour later everyone filed out of my apartment. Kyle took the computer with him. On the way out, Sandra stopped by me. “Aunt B wants a word. Today at ten at Highland Bakery. She said not to be late.”
The gentle paw of the Bouda alpha. “I’ll be there.”
Jim was the last to exit. He paused at the door. “I’ve got the legwork. My people will do the background and they’ll dig up whatever dirt Anapa has.”
“Aha.”
“I know Collins. He is competent and thorough. When you leave your apartment, you’ll have a tail. I need you to do nothing for twenty-four hours or so. You know how the game is played: you’re the lightning rod. Lead them around, don’t lose them, go have lunch with Aunt B, visit a market or something. Be anywhere but near Anapa or White Street. Let the cops concentrate on you, so my people can work in peace. You can use a day off anyway. You look like hell.”
“You’ll spend your life a bachelor, Jim.”
“Stay away from White Street.”
“Fine, I got it.”
I hustled him out the door and locked it. I had phone calls to make.
At eleven o’clock I walked through the door of Highland Bakery wearing black pants, a black shirt, my steel-toed combat boots, and crimson lipstick. It matched the new me much better. My clandestine police escort conveniently parked right across the street.