Page 12 of Cyn

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Nora cleared her throat.

Cyn glared at her friend who met it unflinchingly. Finally, Cyn rolled her eyes. “Fine, he did kill someone, but that was only because he was protecting me.”

“He has a bit oftendrefor Cyn,” Devil said.

“A bit,” Six muttered, making it clear it was more than a bit.

“What was he doing here last night?” Nora asked.

It was actually kind of nice being here with these women. All he had to do was sit back and let them ask all the questions. Cyn shot him a look, and he gestured for her to continue as he leaned back and took another sip of coffee. It was damn good coffee.

“Uh, well, when I got home, there was a body propped up against my gate. A man wearing full Army formal dress with an overcoat draped over him. He was already dead when he was placed against the gate. Meleak brought him,” she said.

“Staged him,” Nora chimed in.

Cyn inclined her head in agreement.

“Any idea why?” Devil asked. “I know he feels a special kinship with you, but it’s a long way to Massachusetts from Somalia.”

“A bizarre mating ritual?” Six suggested. All three women looked at her. “What?” she said, throwing up her hands. “We all know how he feels about Cyn.”

“He doesn’t want to marry me,” Cyn said. “Though I will grant that he feels protective of me in a not-exactly-fatherly-or-brotherly way.”

Addressing him directly for the first time, Nora asked, “Do you have an ID on the body?”

He inclined his head and set his coffee mug down. “His name is James McElroy. Private James McElroy, formerly stationed in Djibouti. He was killed in a training accident last week and was transported home two days ago. His body disappeared from Logan Airport the day before yesterday.”

The women shared a look that held a meaning he wasn’t privy to. He wanted to ask, but instinct told him to back off. If he pushed too hard, it wouldn’t be him up against Cyn. It would be him up against all four women, and he didn’t like those odds.

“How do you know it’s this Meleak guy?” he asked.

Cyn pulled out her phone, then brought up a photo that she showed to the group. Almost nothing was visible of the man but a small glimpse of the space between the end of his glove and hem of his coat. Against his dark skin, a black tattoo—or part of one—was visible.

“How do you know that’s him?” he asked again, sitting back.

The women shared another look, but this time, Nora answered. “It’s the tail feathers of a hyacinth macaw. Cyn is named after the flower, of course, but the hyacinth flower wouldn’t be a very good tattoo for a man like Meleak.”

“Your full name is Hyacinth?” he asked. The fact that a Somali pirate had more or less tattooed Cyn’s name on his arm was the bigger issue, but he didn’t quite feel prepared to deal with that—or the visceral anger he felt over it. He wasn’t entitled to the anger, but he felt it nonetheless; a weird sort of possessiveness he hadn’t experienced before.

“Not anymore, and if you call me that, you’ll not live to regret it,” Cyn said, throwing him a not very pleasant smile.

He inclined his head but decided to keep that knowledge stored away for use at a later time. “I’ll need the video of Meleak,” he said.

“You won’t get anything off it, and the only reason I know it’s him is because I know him better than I’d like to,” Cyn said.

He didn’t love the sound of that, but he didn’t doubt her. If there had been any better image of the man that confirmed his identity, she would have shown them that.

“Regardless, it would look weird if, in my investigation, I failed to collect video footage of young James McElroy being left at your doorstep, so to speak.”

Cyn held his gaze for a long beat, then slowly nodded. “I’ll email it over. You have the same email as your uncle?”

“This is going to get confusing,” Nora said. “Between the two Joes.”

“New Joe and Old Joe when it’s not obvious, that’s my vote,” Six said. “All in favor?” All the women raised their hands. Great. At least “New Joe” was better than “Young Joe” or “Joey,” which was what they called him at home.

“I need to get back to the puppies,” Nora said, sliding off her stool. “It was nice to meet you, Joe,” she said. Sometime in the past thirty minutes, they’d skipped all formalities, and he’d gone straight from Chief Harris to Joe. The least he could do was return the favor.

“You, too, Nora.”