Page 1145 of One More Kiss

Chapter4

I was at least calmeda bit by the time we pulled up in front of Deena’s apartment building. Not so calm that I was ready to stay in the truck while Graham did his job, but calm enough that I wasn’t going to immediately assume that Deena Jax was involved in the tortoises, or in anything that might have happened to Al Fishbein. She moved animals for a living. She was involved with all sorts of shipments on some level. A suspicious scheduling coincidence didn’t mean anything without actual evidence.

We stopped and got out, and Graham looked over at me. “If you can be more level-headed about this than me, you should go up first. Just tell me how to find it.” Even though we’d stopped, he was still white-knuckling the steering wheel, and his jaw moved back and forth, clenched so tight he had to be doing a number on his teeth.

A new swell of emotion rose up through the anger and fear. Concern. Graham was pretty cool and collected, at least so far as I’d seen him, but there was clearly at least some of that which was a front. A facade. He was not quite okay with this whole situation we found ourselves in.

That, more than anything else, cut through my remaining reservations. He needed a spotter? I could help just about anyone in need, my own anxiety be damned. “I’ll send a message if I need you to come up.” I hesitated for a second, then reached up into his hair, drowning in that citrus and rosemary smell that exuded from him. Was it some remnant of his shampoo, or was it his cologne, or did the handsome bastard just mist it out of his pores? “Little pinch.” I pulled a single strand of his dark curls out of the mass, then pulled quickly so I didn’t drag out the pain.

He showed no response to the pain, but I was close enough up to him that I saw the tiny hairs on his neck rise up, the skin turn to goosepimples. My mind fogged briefly, caught up in the proximity, a sudden desire to reach out and feel the texture of that skin, the heat there where his neck flowed into his shoulder and beneath the neckline of his shirt.

I pulled back, ignoring all the more animal impulses currently coursing through me. There were actual animals at stake. There was a man at stake. My hormones and fruitless fantasies could wait. Handsome copper of indeterminate sexual orientation was unlikely to even be interested in me. I’d do a hell of a lot more than get some goosepimples if someone yanked my hair out of my scalp, and that was a much more reasonable assumption than some involuntary reaction to my mere presence or proximity.

I slipped his single strand of hair into my breast pocket, then got out. “She’s on the top floor. There’s an elevator this time. I’ll make it clear where to go if I end up needing you to come up.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready. Be careful.”

That was the plan, anyway. I just nodded to him, then headed inside. My guts were twisty and uncomfortable in the lonely elevator ride up to the top. I really didn’t know what I was going to be walking into. Was I meeting up with friendly business acquaintance Deena Jax? Or was I going upstairs on my own to confront the kind of monster who would smuggle endangered tortoises and…maybe hurt Alan Fishbein?

The lurch of the elevator signaled the stop, and as the doors slid apart, I took a right. Deena had always had a standing invitation for magical animal sellers to stop by if she was in town, but it felt somehow wrong for me to just walk in like this. Wrong, but the only option.

I took the right out of the elevator doors, and was immediately met with an impressively tall figure. A brassy-skinned woman with a dark bob haircut, with a winged boa curling around her arms and shoulders.

“Lakshmi?” I kept my voice quiet, but loud enough to get her attention.

She turned and assessed me from behind those pince-nez that she still definitely didn’t need. But her stoic demeanor had completely vanished. She looked visibly angry, her eyes sharp and dark. “I realized it about two minutes after you two left.”

“And you beat us here?”

“Cops can’t speed. I can.” She looked over me, behind me. “Officer Handsome couldn’t make it?”

“If Deena’s involved in something, you think EGW knocking on her door’s going to make her liable to stick around and chat?”

“I guess not.” She shifted in place, then lowered her voice even further. “Could she have really hurt Al?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m here to find out.” And we couldn’t procrastinate any longer. I strode past Lakshmi and rang her doorbell, taking note of her actual apartment number in case I needed to message Graham. And God, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The door opened quickly. Deena was a middle-aged white woman, with hair dyed a stunningly artificial blonde. Her hips were wide beneath her slacks, and she had a broad smile on her face as she glanced across the two of us. “Well, to what do I owe the pleasure, and…when did Laskshmi Patel of all people decide to be sociable?”

“Happenstance.” I covered, since she still seemed angry. “Heard from Peggy Fishbein that you were in town, and I ran into Lakshmi in the elevator.”

I watched, waiting for some kind of response, hoping I didn’t get one. Maybe it was heavy-handed, but throwing Peggy into the mix, letting her know that Peggy knew she was in town, it had the best chance of anything I could think of to—

There.

I tensed up because Deena tensed up. Her pupils widened and she glanced quickly to either side at the mention of Peggy. My stomach twisted and froze into an icy knot. She couldn’t be part of this. She couldn’t be responsible. Maybe she just knew something and was scared? Maybe I was reading into things.

“Did you see Alan?” Lakshmi inserted herself into the door frame, pushing Deena back inside by sheer force of will and utilization of space. “You were meeting up with him for the birds of paradise, right?” It wasn’t even barely concealed rage in Lakshmi’s voice. Which confirmed one thing: I wasn’t imagining what I’d seen. Lakshmi had been angry, but held back. Then Deena reacted to the mention of Peggy and she was off to the fucking races.

I pushed in behind Lakshmi, closing the door, but leaving it cracked so Graham could make a quick entrance if necessary. I also snapped and put up some minor soundproofing. I’d picked it up when I got into the business, kept it up on my walls so the neighbors didn’t have to deal with the sounds of the menagerie, but it was useful now, when this conversation didn’t need to be overheard.

“Alan picked up the shipment this morning. Nice to see him.”

It was really sad. She wasn’t able to sell nonchalance at all, but damn was she trying. Her voice was too tight and sharp and nasal, and her hands had immediately gone up in front of her chest for protection, to pretend at innocence, but very poorly.

Deena lowered herself onto the couch and crossed one leg over the other. “You seem more upset than usual, Lakshmi. What’s going on?”

I could feel Lakshmi’s anger absolutely wicking off her body, so I stepped in. We both had reason to believe Deena had involved herself in this bullshit, but Lakshmi’s approach would probably involve a lot more screaming and intimidation and a lot less information gathering than I would prefer, given the situation.

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