"I thought you wanted to talk about Shyanna and Belle, not my apartment," Arty grumbled, spinning around in his chair to look at me. "I had to move back other clients for this," he added.
"I know. And we appreciate it," I assured him.
"You said Booker is working on this too?" he asked, brightening. Arty had a bit of hero-worship when it came to Booker, our local private security expert and friend.
"He is."
That seemed to motivate him.
My morning and afternoon consisted of keeping Arty caffeinated and motivated while I kept in touch with the club, sharing information back and forth.
"So, yeah," Huck said a couple hours later, about half an hour before it was quitting time for Shy. "We don't have shit," he concluded.
Arty had been able to hack into the security system at Lily's only to find that the footage got erased after forty-eight hours without a forced manual save.
We had no picture of the guy. And only a vague description from Shy.
When Seeley put his ear to the ground to ask about organizations that might use civilians to carry out hits, he'd learned that not only did cartels do it, but so did several Eastern European organizations as well.
"Great," I sighed, leaning against the wall on the outside of Arty's apartment. "And we only have about a day to figure out who they are, where they are, and how to get Belle out of there."
"I was talking to the guys," Huck said, sounding tentative. And I'd known him long enough to know it wasn't characteristic for him. "We have a convoluted idea. A Hail Mary, if you will," he said.
"I'm listening," I told him.
Not long after that, I was letting myself into Shy's apartment, knowing this was not the sort of conversation that worked well over the phone.
I don't know what I was expecting since I'd just met the woman, but given the rough neighborhood and the shitty building she lived in, I guess I figured the inside of her apartment would be bare bones and ugly.
I guess I should have figured that someone who made a living trying to put some pretty in the world wouldn't settle for peeling paint and hand-me-down furniture.
But I couldn't have anticipated walking into a place that felt like it belonged in a penthouse at some swanky-ass high-rise.
The walls that would have likely come in an awful cream that had aged to yellow were painted a soft, barely-there pink. It was something like a blush, like a rosé wine. The couch in the small living room was thick and tufted, something that looked like you could sink into it with its pink and white faux fur pillows. If you looked closely at the white fabric, you could see evidence of the cat she'd mentioned before in the form of stray hairs in orange and black.
Her coffee table was glass with a decorative tray on top with a candle, a small vase with a few white roses that were steadily dropping their petals, and what looked like a sketch pad and a set of gel pens.
Directly opposite to the sitting area where you might expect to find a TV was, instead, a double desk in white with brushed gold legs. Each side of the desk had a lower shelf and drawers where you would likely find nail polish and files and all that shit. The one desk had an assortment of small rectangular nail polishes in a rainbow of colors. The other had some sort of foot soaking contraption. Two chairs sat on each side of each desk with a pink velvet heart-shaped back cushion framed in the same brushed gold as the legs of the desks.
On the wall, in big pink and gold curving letters was the name of her side business.
ShyBelle.
I don't know why but I guess I figured Shy and her sister did their little side hustle at an actual nail salon. Like they rented a station or some shit.
But no.
They did it right out of Shy's apartment.
Turning, I moved toward the small square kitchen. The appliances looked like they were older than Shay herself, but the cabinets had clearly been sanded down and re-painted a crisp white. The cabinet handles and pulls had been replaced with the same sort of brushed gold as the desk legs and other little accents throughout the living space. A stack of clean pots and pans sat on the stove burners, and I couldn't help but wonder what kinds of foods Shay cooked up, if she was any good at it.
I'd always appreciated a woman who could cook, never having had that growing up.
Harm and Sass could throw some stuff together, but neither of them had any sort of love for cooking either.
I was more into the idea of watching Shy move around the kitchen than I should have been.
I wasn't going to snoop any more than that, but there was a thumping noise coming from the back of the apartment, a sound that immediately had me reaching for my gun and pinning myself to the wall in the hallway beside the kitchen, wondering if one of the guys had hidden away in Shy's apartment to ambush her when she got home.
Hell, as fucked as it was, a part of me was almost hopeful that was the case. Because it would give us a much better plan to go with than the farfetched one that my brothers had cooked up.
Taking a deep breath, I came to the closed door to what seemed like the bathroom since the bedroom door was thrown open across from it. I reached out with my bad arm, grabbing the knob, and throwing the door open.
I jumped into the doorway, gun raised.
At a fucking rabbit.
"Christ," I hissed, letting out a choked laugh as I tucked my gun away again as I looked down at the twitchy-nosed bunny.
I'd never seen a rabbit so small in my life. It looked like it could fit in my hands, the tiny black thing with petite upright ears and big, dark eyes.
He'd made a mess of the tiled room, scattering hay all over, and having kicked some bedding out of his litter box.
Shy had mentioned a cat. She hadn't said a thing about the rabbit. That, paired with the fact that its extra hay and pellet food were all tossed carelessly onto the sink counter, made me think it likely wasn't hers at all, but her sister's. Belle. Shy must have gone and picked him up to take care of him until she could get her sister back.
"Sorry, man," I said, backing out of the bathroom, closing the door, leaving him to his own devices.
Remy had brought home a shitton of animals over the years, but he'd yet to bring back a rabbit. I had no idea what to do with or for him, so I decided it was best just to leave him alone as I turned back into the apartment.
I should have steered myself back to the living room. Did I do that, though? No. Of course not. I went ahead and crossed the line as I crossed the hall, peeking into Shy's bedroom.
It was similar to the living room in that everything had clearly been redone. The bed had a brushed cold metal frame and all white bedding. The nightstands and dressers were also white. The wall behind the bed managed to break up the mostly stark white space, painted with a pink that matched the living room in big, broad strokes, letting some of the white still peek through.
Feminine.
The whole space was undeniably feminine.
I don't know if it was because I spent so much time around men, surrounded by darker colors, leather, and a lack of all that soft shit women were known for bringing into a home, but I found the unabashed femininity refreshing and comforting.
I moved over toward her dresser where more dying white roses sat in a clear vase. A glass decanter of perfume sat there along with an assortment of hair clips and bobby pins. Without even meaning to, I lifted the perfume bottle. Taking a deep breath, I smelled something soft and flowery.