I sat, a stunned feeling sweeping over me. Crush had unwillingly accepted a pet and then taken it to another level.
I patted the table in front of Ren, who had also sat back down. “Does everyone know he has a pet?”
“They do now.”
After another minute, Crush sauntered onto the patio and took off his shades. “Everyone, this is Harley. He’s my partner.”
Someone wolf whistled.
Crush snapped his fingers. “I’ll remember that the next time you bring in that piece-of-shit Kawasaki for me to fix again, Leonard.”
“It’s Lenny, you asshole,” the man yelled back over all the laughter.
Harley should have been tempted by the smell of delicious meat, but he looked up to Crush with anticipation and seemed to read his body language. Crush didn’t give him any commands. Instead, he rounded the table and I stood to give him a hug. It seemed like each time we hugged, it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. And I loved it.
“How’s my Cookie?” he rumbled in my hair.
I jerked back. “A sidecar? You couldn’t just leave him at home?”
“Where I go, he goes.”
“The years you’ve spent building a reputation, tarnished in seven seconds. You’ll never live it down. You’ll always be the guy with the doggie sidecar.” I tugged his goatee.
“Don’t give me your sass.” He passed Christian and patted Blue on the shoulder after rounding the table. “Glad to see you.”
She touched his hand before shoveling more beans into her mouth.
Crush couldn’t sit quietly. It was always a symphony of grunts, audible sighs, popping knees, and cursing after striking his elbow on the table. He tugged the tray of meat in front of him and filled his plate. Harley circled behind his chair and lay down.
“That’s a big-ass dog,” Tank remarked. “You better feed it something, or it might eat you up.”
“He prefers eating Shifters,” Crush fired back, his remark receiving laughter. He sized Christian up. “Do I have to stare at his nipples while I eat?”
Christian folded his arms on the table. “Do you have a problem with fit bodies in supreme condition?”
Crush narrowed his eyes, and when I saw that look on his face, I wasn’t sure what would happen next. My father stood up, eyes locked on Christian, and stripped off his Doobie Brothers shirt.
I facepalmed. “Oh Jesus. Make it stop.”
“Nobody wants to see that,” someone heckled him.
I tapped my dad’s plate to get his attention. “At least take the goggles off the dog. People are laughing.”
He pulled out his pants pockets before sitting. “I’m all out of fucks to give. They’ll have a laugh and get over it. Either that or they’ll get a dog bite in the ass.”
Ren straightened his back and belched. “Raven, you wanna take a walk while these two make out?”
“Sure.” I wiped my mouth and then followed Ren to the short chain-link fence. There were roses on the outside, and we rested our elbows on the fence and leaned forward to look at them.
“So what did you call me here for?” he asked.
“I’m closing the case. You can stop payments.”
He cupped a yellow rose in his hand. “What did you find?”
“Nothing. Well, not nothing. Blue and I questioned everyone. We were careful about it.”
“Yeah, I heard you’re paying for dead alphas.”
“It’s not what it looks like.” I turned to face him, one arm resting on the metal. “We thought it would be a good way to show that the higher authority is trying to work things out with the Shifter community.”
He mirrored my position. “Uh-huh. Why just the alphas?”
“We can’t afford to pay everyone. Some of the people we spoke to weren’t that receptive to our questions. You know how that goes. We had to think on our feet. Alphas are valuable, so we limited it to them. It made our job easier. Don’t worry, we have someone paying up.”
Ren took his aviators from the collar of his shirt and slid them over his eyes. “What did the Relic have to say?”
“He agreed with our findings. Said he didn’t see anything suspicious. I mean, a few of the deaths looked questionable. Most were from natural causes or accidents, and only a handful might have been due to foul play. Probably someone in the family, but we can’t pursue those.”
“You spoke to him this morning?”
I scratched my neck. “No.” I could sense he was parsing my words, so I held my tongue.
Ren looked off toward the road. “Funny. I spoke to someone this morning who said Graham Wiggins went missing. Three packs had an appointment with him last night and today—he never showed. He’s not answering. His car’s at home, but nobody’s there. It’s like poof”—Ren snapped his fingers—“he vanished into thin air. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Not a thing.” I tugged my earlobe and looked at the table. Crush and Christian were playing rock, paper, scissors. Others were laying down bills and betting on them. “I have the name of a bear sleuth who likes chaining up women. Are you interested?”
Ren’s jaw clenched. “You sure about that?”
“Yep. They’re not in city limits. We freed one woman, but I don’t think it was the first time they’ve done something like that.”
“Yeah. Give me a name.”
I was relieved he took the offer. Maybe that would distract him enough to stop thinking about the missing Relic. “Franklin. Just do me a favor and leave a man named Ferro alone. He lost a son.”
“If he’s part of that group, he’s part of their dirty crimes.”
“Maybe, but all the same, I don’t want to see a grieving father slain. Turn him over to the Council.”
Ren gave a curt nod. “You got it.”
“Sorry I couldn’t solve your case.”
He fell into stride beside me. “Something tells me you already did, but we’re not gonna talk about that, are we?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“That’s what I thought. But I think it’s worth underscoring that a lot of packs are out a Relic. It’s not easy finding a qualified replacement.”
“I’ll see what I can do to help out with that problem.”
He adjusted his glasses. “A problem you don’t know anything about.”
“Exactly. And Ren? No more side favors. This was a really messy case, and people got hurt. If you ever need help, you’ll have to go straight to Viktor.”
“Understood.”
Harley started barking uncontrollably at the restaurant entryway. Suddenly a few people put their beers down and stood. A tall man lingered in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. This was primarily a Shifter joint, and everyone knew everyone.
No one knew this guy.
But I did.
And so did Blue.
She turned to look. “Matteo? What are you doing here?”
Harley kept barking, drool flinging left and right.
Matteo acknowledged everyone before turning his attention to Blue. “May I speak with you privately?”
“Later,” she said. “Not here.”