Page 1144 of One More Kiss

And then she started talking. “I got the tip from Roddy Jameson. I don’t know where he got it from. He certainly doesn’t have the clientele to move birds of paradise, singularly or in that kind of mass. He thought I might, but I’m trying to move out of familiars as much as possible.” She downed the rest of her measure of scotch, then poured another little bit. “Reliable seller. Alan and I have both used Deena Jax for years.”

“We’re familiar with Jax. Has to show the port agents her papers all the time.” Graham jotted down some information anyway. “Do you know anything else about the shipment or the transaction?”

“All I know is Deena wanted to offload them to someone else. Apparently it was too much for her to handle, and she had an eye on a better shipment that she was keeping very close to the vest. Wouldn’t tell Roddy or me anything about it.”

As she said it, Graham’s spine stiffened, and I did my best to control my breathing and not give any kind of tell.

Graham scribbled rapidly, then nodded and rose. “Sorry for interrupting your day.”

“I’m sure you’re not.” She was quickly sliding back into her normal, brusque demeanor. She raised her legs up to stretch across the divan with her Bruichladdich. “Rhodes, I won’t forget that you brought Game and Wildlife to my apartment out of the blue.”

“And I won’t forget that I spent sixty dollars on scotch that you didn’t even share with me.” It was the best response I could come up with out of my shock and worry. Then I followed Graham out.

It was a long walk back to the ground level and out into Graham’s pickup truck, and all that time, it was pure silence. Silence and heaviness, which was all crammed into the cab of the truck as we piled back in.

Finally, Graham spoke very quietly. “What are the odds that Deena Jax was involved in smuggling those tortoises?”

I blew out a long breath, the end shuddering as I tried not to totally freak the hell out. I didn’t want to say one way or another, even though both of us were clearly on the same page with this, having the same ideas. Deena was one of the main importers operating out of Australia. Everyone west of the Mississippi had worked with her at some point.

If she was responsible for this, that threw suspicion on every other transaction that she’d been involved with. It was a whole storm of emotions burning through me. Shame was front and center. Had I moved something illegal that I got from her? Even if I didn’t intend it, didn’t mean any harm or know any better, the thought of anyone buying contraband animals from me was stomach-churning. Sickening.

But in the undercurrent, fueling everything, was a rage. Anger and horror clashing at the thought of anyone smuggling those poor creatures, knowing full God damn well what people would do with them. My stomach churned for a whole new reason, thinking about the fate awaiting them. The fate that may already have befallen them.

“Hey.” Graham’s voice cut through, and his rough hand slapped into my shoulder, fingers squeezing down tight. “I’ll take you back to the shop. You did plenty.”

That snapped all my focus into the moment and off of how I was feeling. “I don’t know if Deena might be involved, but it sounds suspicious as hell. And if she is involved in this in any way, she’s going to bolt at the first whiff of EGW coming her way.”

“I’ll manage.” He tensed and removed his hand from my shoulder. “It’s my job. You’re a pet shop owner.”

“I’m a pet shop owner who has a good rapport with Deena Jax, and who plans to get Alan Fishbein back to his wife. She’d be the one who knows about him, and it sounds like she might have her hand in sending an endangered species off to its death.” Saying it out loud flared the rage up over the shame and fueled my mouth to keep running and running. “And if she’s willing to move Wallsman’s like that, then who the fuck even knows what else she’s offloaded over the years? How many endangered species or contraband animals has she sold to God knows what fate or purpose? She inherited her whole business, and her warehouse down at the port, and her fucking apartment. It was all her dad’s before hers, and were they involved in the same bullshit? Who knows?”

I stopped to catch my breath and Graham turned the engine over. “You know where her apartment is here in town?”

Still trying to offload me. But I wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t fight EGW. If he wanted me to stay out of things, I could only put up a fuss. I couldn’t actually change anything. So I caved rather than waste both of our time. “She has a place just off the port where she stays until she can get back to Sydney. I don’t know the address off the top of my head, but I’m sure I could track it down.”

“No need. You want to come with, right?” He pulled out onto the street and started making his way south, toward the port. “You want to see this through, let’s see it through. But if things get rough, you listen to me. We don’t know if Jax is involved, but if she is, then we also don’t know what she’d be willing to do to keep herself safe. Cornered animal and all that.”

The rage stayed put, a pit in my stomach, but it at least cooled enough that I could function. I was staying on for the moment. I could figure out what the hell, if anything, Deena had to do with any of this.

And if she’d been involved in something happening to Al Fishbein? I couldn’t even think about it, couldn’t imagine that headspace. But I had every reason to believe that would be ugly. Everyone in the community liked Al. And not everyone in the community was particularly nice or level-headed.

And boy oh boy, was I ever the kind of person willing to gossip about who might have fucked over who. I could get word back to the less-level-headed among us.

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