Page 47 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
From my desk, Twist gave a little mewl. “Should I eat the furry thing?” I turned to look at her, because what furry thing? Had I accidentally brought a rat back with me from Broken Dreams? I hadn’t thought so, but?—
“She’s been distracted by the little rat dog, too,” Davin added. “Keeps watching it like maybe it’s dinner.” He looked over at Twist, unimpressed. “But I’ve seen you eat, and that tiny thing isn’t nearly enough for your dinner.”
Rat dog. Like a rat terrier? I looked around, and it took me a while to finally realize both Twist and Davin were indicating the man and woman on the bench. Because there, in a basket the woman had in her lap, was an adorable little Yorkie, complete with a red and green plaid bow on his collar.
“No eating the Yorkie,” I agreed with Davin. “Hardly any meat on a Yorkie, plus they’re super cute, and usually pretty smart. We don’t eat people we can have conversations with.”
I worked hard to ignore the fact that I had never met a chicken or a cow, but if I did, I could probably speak to them. That didn’t give me nightmares at all, except, you know, all through my childhood. After many sleepless nights when I finally confessed the problem to my mother, she’d gone drastic, getting livestock banned from her neighborhood and demanding my teacher remove all information about related subjects from my curriculum.
I wasn’t sure it had helped, but it had been nice that she cared.
“So what do you think they want?” Davin asked me, dragging me back to the conversation about the siblings on the bench outside.
I turned to look at him, then at the couple, and back again. “Let’s ask.”
“What? You can’t?—”
Before Davin could say another thing, I was slipping out the door, heading right over to the bench they were sitting at.
“—important, Amelia, but this matters to me. It’s—” the man was saying, sounding like every character in one of those classier-than-you BBC period shows. He broke off from what sounded like an impassioned plea as I approached them. I didn’t force my way in, just slid onto the bench next to them, and that was enough. A second later he was turning toward me asking, “I’m sorry, can we help you?”
“Oh, I hope so.” I waved at the shop, which—damn, that looked downright professional from this side. All I could do for a moment was stare at my office.
Fuck me, I was an adult.
That didn’t sound so great, honestly.
“Sir?” a soft voice asked in that same posh British accent. The woman.
“That’s me,” I said, pretending I hadn’t gotten entirely derailed by looking at the front of my office. “I’m the Knight. Flynn Knight. And you two clearly wanted to talk to me. Or my partner.”
“I want to talk to you,” a voice said, and I frowned at the two of them because neither had opened their mouths. Before I could tell them their ventriloquy skills were impeccable, the voice continued, “I was here for an appointment about renting the shop next door, and some Irish guy turned me away. He?—”
“He’s my business partner,” I told the guy. “So whatever choices he makes are law here at Knight and Daywalker. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do with these two. Inside. Bye.”
He still didn’t catch a clue and leave, so I turned to the pair and their dog. “Inside?”
Looking stunned, he nodded, and stood to follow.
Her? She looked a little smug. The dog barked a few times, my internal translation giving me something that sounded positively obscene, but it seemed to scare off the skeevy guy, who did indeed stink of meth.
Who the heck was afraid of a Yorkie?
There were probably good reasons to smell like that, but in the moment, I couldn’t think of a single one, let alone one that I’d want to live with in a neighbor. Davin’s instincts had said no, so no it was. Plus stopping randos who were just trying to walk on the beach was weird.
“You want me to take him down?” Suzy asked me as I headed for the front door, and when I looked, her eyes were still trained on skeevy guy. Damn, I wasn’t even sure what he’d actually done, but everyone seemed to hate him.
I decided to err on the side of caution. “Only if he tries to come in without permission.”
She nodded and continued watching him.
I got the two people and dog inside, and motioned them toward a set of chairs up front. Waiting area? Did security offices have waiting areas? Did security companies even do what we did, combination tech and investigation? It seemed weird to me.
Whatever. “Hey, so, me Knight, him Daywalker.”
“Davin Byrne,” my partner corrected.
“What’s up?”
