Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two (21 page)

And yeah, I felt pretty crappy about that.

I also didn’t really know how to break the impasse.

Shrugging, I inclined my head towards the mochas.

“You really don’t want these?” I said.

When I looked back at Jo, she was gritting her teeth.
 

I could tell because the muscles in her jaw stood out more than usual. She had a pretty face, in a feral, bad-ass chick kind of way. I never got a straight answer out of her as to her exact ethnicity, but Jo’s basic features reminded me of some of the people on my father’s side of the family, so I’d wondered if maybe she was part Latina, like me.
 

She had one of those faces that was kind of ambiguous, overall, in terms of where her ancestry might originate. She could have been Middle Eastern even, or Indian, like Ravi. I’d asked her once what Jo stood for, and she said “Jo” and gave me a death stare.

So yeah, I didn’t ask again.

She was armed, after all.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry I took off without a word. I really am. It was a family thing, like I said. I thought Irene knew where I was, or I would have checked in.”

“She didn’t,” Jo said, blunt.

I nodded, then folded my own arms, copying Jo’s pose without really meaning to do it.
 

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “I already got reamed by Gantry. And Irene. And I’ve not finished hearing it from them. So I guess...get in line.”

Jo’s frown deepened.
 

She moved again, reminding me only then that she’d stopped. Her steps were jerky but swift, closing the gap between the row of desks and their dingy-looking computers and the front counter where I stood. I flinched a little when she reached me––she’s like four inches taller than me, and I knew from personal experience just how hard she could hit––but Jo only snatched one of the mocha cups out of the cardboard container and took a step back.

“You’re going to need to bring a lot more mochas,” Jo muttered darkly.

I noticed she continued to give me her cop’s stare, which told me she wasn’t believing my story about family issues.

Knowing her, she’d probably already tried to check up on my story, even in the half-hour or so since she’d talked to Gantry.

I wondered suddenly, if they’d talked to Jake...while I was gone, that is. Or my parents for that matter. It struck me in the same set of seconds that I’d better keep my damned mouth shut until I’d synched up stories a little better with Gantry...along with Jake and Irene and whoever else. I knew Gantry wouldn’t have given her a cover story she could overtly disprove, but I wanted all of our nuances and details in synch, too.

As it was, my story and Gantry’s were the same...just vague.

“Yeah, well,” I said lamely. “I’ve got a case.”

Jo snorted, lowering the cup from where she’d been sipping the mocha.

“Unbelievable. Un. Fucking. Believable. You want something.”

I held up my hands. “Look, it’s not like that. I’m trying to help.”

“Sure you are. For the right price.”

“The city doesn’t sign my paychecks,” I reminded her. “I have to pay rent somehow.”

“They would if you weren’t such an asshole,” she shot back. I watched her glare at me as she took another drink of the mocha. “...It’s not like you haven’t been offered a job here before, Reyes. More than once, as I recall. So go play that violin for someone else.”

I bit my lip, not answering.

I wasn’t about to get in that argument with her yet again...not now, anyway. The last thing I needed was another lecture about how badly the Seattle PD needed good detectives...especially female detectives...and how I owed it to the city and my gender and maybe small puppies to put my talents to a real use, instead of using them to subvert the law and entrap citizens in the name of my perverted brand of vigilante justice...

...and yadda, yadda, yadda, whatever.

For a moment Jo only stood there, glaring at me, as if conflicted.

I wondered if she was deciding whether to launch into one of those lectures right now, or if she was contemplating yelling at me about something else. Abruptly, without so much as a glance in my direction, she turned on one heel and stalked back towards her desk.

I felt the implied invitation in her retreat that time, and relaxed a little.

It wasn’t exactly a warm invitation, but it was something.
 

Ravi, and now also P.J., who had joined Ravi at some point in the minutes that Jo had been glaring and snapping at me, remained silent behind Jo’s desk. Both had hung back while Jo pulled her she-alpha thing on me. Now the two of them slinked forward to claim their own mochas from the cardboard container on the front counter, moving like young lions after the head lion has finally eaten its fill.

Snatching two remaining cups off the cardboard tray, they continued to eye me up and down as they backed away.
 

They looked less angry than Jo, and more conflicted.

P.J. even gave me a sideways smile, nodding his head in greeting as that sideways smile slunk into a full-fledged grin.

“Reyes,” he acknowledged, still smiling as he lifted the cup to his lips. “You alive?”

“Jones,” I acknowledged back, giving him a returning smile. “More or less.”

“Glad to see it.”

Seeing the real relief in the tall, scarred-up and muscular ex-Marine’s blue eyes as he looked me over, I felt another twinge of guilt. Although why, really, I don’t know. It’s not like I truly was as much of an inconsiderate asshole as I was pretending to be. Pretty hard to text people when you’ve fallen through an inter-dimensional portal leading to another universe.

Pretty hard to plan ahead for a trip like that, too.

P.J. bumped shoulders with me as he and Ravi followed me back towards Jo’s desk. I burst out in a laugh, in spite of myself, and Jo glared at all three of us.

“What the fuck is so funny?” she snapped.

Watching her sink into her beat up, vinyl office chair with one of those orthopedic pads at the base, I sighed a little, plopping down in the worn, fake-leather chair across from her.
 

“Nothing,” I said.

When no one spoke but just drank their mochas and stared at me, I sighed again, combing my fingers through my hair.

“So I have a case,” I said again, propping my boot up on the desk.

Jo leaned over, shoving my boot off. “So have I.”

“What’s yours about?” I said, smiling.

“A bomb,” she said promptly, giving me a hard look. “Yours?”

“Missing girls,” I said. “Probably trafficking. Maybe international crime syndicates.”

Jo’s face contorted in another delicate frown. “Christ. Culare hired you.”

Resting my arms on the chair’s armrests, I shrugged. “Blame Gantry.”

“I don’t want to blame Gantry,” Jo snapped, setting her mocha down, hard, on her desk. “I’d rather blame you.”
 

A little bit of the brown, sticky liquid rippled over the rim of her cup, dripping down the sides of the paper cup and on to her metal desk. Jo pretended not to notice.
 

Or maybe she really didn’t.

“Okay,” I said. “Well. What are you doing on the bombing? Isn’t that Home Sec?”

“We’re helping,” she said.

“Any luck?” I said.

“Some.” Her voice sounded openly accusing that time.
 

Muttering under her breath in what sounded like Spanish but may not have been, Jo shoved a pile of loose papers into a manila file folder and slapped the file on top of a stack sitting on the corner of her desk. Pulling out and then flipping through another folder that sat in that same stack, Jo found whatever she wanted and pulled it out with an index finger and a thumb. Turning it around in her hands, she shoved the thick piece of paper in my direction.

“Look familiar, Reyes?” she said.

That accusatory tone sounded more prominent now.

Ironically, in a way, I found myself looking at a police sketch, probably done by Karen, the same person whose work I’d been hoping to see. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of the sketches I’d wanted to look at, coming in here.

“She’s pretty hot,” I said, unable to help myself.

Ravi burst out in a laugh.

Receiving another death glare from Jo, he shut up pretty quick, covering his smile with a hand, but he grinned at me when Jo wasn’t looking, taking a sip of his mocha.
 

“You’re fucking hilarious today, Reyes,” Jo said, turning her glare on me. “Are you seriously going to tell me that’s not you?”

I sighed, sliding down into the chair and holding the armrests in both hands. “I saw it on t.v. already. Of course I noticed it looked like me. But are you seriously asking me if I bombed the Yesler Building?” I said.
 

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then why did someone say you did?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s your evidence? Some jerk-off accuses me of terrorism, so automatically that makes it true?”

“Why would he lie?” she returned angrily.

I let out a real laugh that time. “Pick a reason. How do you know he’s not an ex-client?”

“Was he?” she said.

Realizing they might have a way to check that, too, I shrugged, noncommittal.

“Do you know him?” Jo pressed, still watching me like a hawk.

“The hot politician guy who was on t.v.?” I said. “Is that who gave you the specs for this lame sketch?”

“Of course he is,” Jo snapped. “Why? Is there someone else accusing you of being a terrorist, Reyes? Someone I don’t know about?”

“He might have looked familiar,” I said, still noncommittal.

“Familiar,” Jo grunted. “Where were you last night, Reyes?”

“With Gantry,” I said promptly. “Hey. Do I need a lawyer here?”

She ignored my question.
“Where
were you?”

“At Irene’s.”

Jo frowned, glancing first at P.J., then at Ravi. P.J. frowned at her a little, but when he glanced at me, I saw sympathy in his eyes. Ravi was watching me, too, but I could already tell from their expressions that they didn’t really think I’d blown up the Yesler Building.
 

Which was a relief, I guess. Sort of.
 

I knew Jo would check on my story, because she was a good cop, but I also could tell from her expression that she believed me, too. And that it pissed her off.

“And earlier that day?” she said, looking back at me.

I sighed, folding my fingers across my solar plexus. “At Madam Culare’s,” I said. “Working the missing girls job.”

“Can someone there corroborate that?”

I shook my head, but not in a no. Smiling a little in spite of myself, I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, remembering how many people could do just that. The modeling school was like Grand Central Station, so a lot of people had seen me and Jake there. “They can.”

“You want to give me the names?” Jo said.

I shrugged, rearranging my back in the uncomfortable chair.
 

“Sure,” I said. “But why not just call up and ask them? Culare’s assistant is named Clarice. She can give you a longer list of names than me, and probably spell them right, too.” I paused, then said it anyway. “Also, Michael Evers saw me there.”

P.J. and Ravi both stiffened.

Jo looked up at my words, too, sharply enough that I knew she remembered the name.

“At the modeling school?” she said, her tone betraying her interest.

I nodded again, unfolding my hands. “Well. Downstairs. In the lobby. I saw him walking in, then he was waiting for me outside when I left. Or I think he was waiting for me,” I amended, drumming my fingers on the padded armrest. “...One of my friends got into it with him.”