Page 51 of Beware of Dog

“Bryce. Bryce Wells.”

Huh. She hadn’t known his last name.

Cass pushed her covers off and moved, careful of the upper bunk, to sit on the edge of the mattress. “Okay, Bryce. Why are you calling at six-forty-five in the morning? And how did you get my number?”

“Uh…my friend gave it to me,” he said, which was vague, and not reassuring, and probably a lie. “Okay, that’s a lie,” he said, sighing. “Sig left his phone unlocked and I texted it to myself.”

“And then deleted the text, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Of course. Like any part of this phone call was somehowexpected.

“Okay,” she said, rubbing grit from her eyes. “Why six-forty-five?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want my roommate to hear me, so I snuck out to the roof.”

That explained…not a lot.

Cass yawned and got to her feet. “Hold on. I need coffee if I’m going to have an actual conversation.”

“Okay,” he said, readily, eagerly.

The sunrise smoothed soft, sherbet colors across the walls of the living room, and turned the bland box of the flat almost pretty. She didn’t like waking up, but this was a lovely time of the day to be awake. A time for quiet thinking, and strong coffee, and fresh canvases ready for paint. She shuffled into the kitchen, put the phone on speaker, and got down the coffee grounds.

“I didn’t wake Jamie up, did I?” he asked, voice tinny and crackly in the close confines of the kitchen. “Sorry.”

“No, she’s not at the dorm. And neither am I, for that matter.” She wasn’t offering further details. “It’s fine.” She scooped the boring old Folgers that Shep always bought into the boring old water-stained machine, added water, and switched it on.

“Oh,” he said, and paused, giving her room to say more.

She took the phone off speaker, put it back to her ear, and leaned back against the counter so she could watch drops of water cut pathways through the orange-glow condensation on the living room windows.

“What’s up?” she asked. She sounded tired, and impatient, but there was nothing to do about that until the coffee was ready.

Again, he hesitated, and the cynical, club-raised part of her wondered if it was genuine, or if he was trying to endear himself to her through feigned anxiety. He took an unsteadybreath. “So…Detective Contreras called me last night and asked if I could come in this morning and give my official statement, for the record, right? I’m supposed to meet with the D.A.’s office and talk about testifying. And I said, ‘Sure, okay, cool.’ And then ten minutes later, Sig called me.”

Forget the coffee: Cass was suddenly wide awake. “Coincidence?”

“That’s what I figured, after I got done having a heart attack. I tried to play it cool. ‘Hey, man, what’s up? How’s being out on bail?’ You know, just fucking around with him, like normal. But he was, like, spooky. Real serious.”

“Does he know you talked to the police?”

“He didn’tsayhe did, but he asked me if I knew whether anybody had talked shit about him with the cops. He said, ‘I have no idea how this could have happened. Do you?’”

“Shit. He knows.”

“Yeah. And he…Cass, he talked about you. He said some really shitty things. He was really worked up, but, again, spooky. Really calm, butreallypissed off. He kept saying this was all your fault.”

“How could it be?” she asked, heart pounding.

“He said…” She could hear that he was wincing, his tone apologetic. “That the NYPD was corrupt. That the Lean Dogs controlled them. And that you were a Lean Dog.”

She sighed. Really, she’d expected this, but had hoped they’d never have to address the elephant outlaw in the corner. She turned around to take down a mug and pour herself some coffee. “First off, I’m not a Lean Dog. Women don’t patch into the club.”

More silence. He likely hadn’t understood a word of what she’d said.

She elaborated: “Women can’t be members of one-percenter motorcycle clubs, Bryce. I’m not a Lean Dog.”

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